God’s Kingdom

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator, Christ and Comforter.  Amen

We are talking about the Kingdom of God today.  It’s my supposition that most of us don’t think much about the Kingdom of God at all in our daily lives.  And, we probably don’t give it much thought even as we pray the Lord’s Prayer together each Sunday morning.  The kingdom of God?  It’s just words in a prayer that we hardly know we’re praying. 

Martin Luther made it very clear that we Christians, live in two kingdoms simultaneously.  He says in the Small Catechism, your kingdom come, what does this mean?

In fact, God’s kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us.

How does this come about?

Whenever our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that through the Holy Spirit’s grace we believe God’s holy word and live godly lives here in time and hereafter in eternity.[i]

We live in a duality that is a reality.  We, as Christians, understand that God’s kingdom, God’s realm is cosmic – all of creation comes under the authority and rule of God.  We know that one day we will join this cosmic realm when Jesus returns to earth to claim us as God’s own.  We also understand that God’s kingdom is found right now, here on earth, and was talked about most profoundly by Jesus, God’s son as he lived on this planet 2000 years ago.  What exactly did Jesus say about the Kingdom of God?  Let’s look at some details.

In the Gospels, the term “Kingdom of Heaven” is used 31 times and all of them are in the gospel of Matthew, and all of them are spoken by Jesus.  He was trying to help us understand the Kingdom of Heaven by using comparisons to things we know: the poor in spirit, little children, even John the Baptist.  Then he used parables to tell what the kingdom of heaven is like: a mustard seed, yeast, a treasure found in a field, a pearl, a net full of every kind of fish, a master of a household.  In other words, the Kingdom of God is present, plentiful, and pervasive! 

The term “Kingdom of God” is used 66 times in the New Testament and all but 14 of them are spoken by Jesus himself.  Many of the illustrations recorded from Kingdom of Heaven are the same as Kingdom of God which again tells us that this Kingdom is everywhere and for everyone!   

I think Jesus sums this up best in Luke 17 that says, ²⁰Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; ²¹nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

The kingdom of God is among us!  Wow!  How awesome is that!?!?

And, I would argue that Jesus was not taking on a Pollyanna viewpoint.  Jesus saw every day that terrible things happened.  We certainly experience on our daily news that people die every day from needless and senseless acts of violence.  WE do this horrible stuff to each other and there is no doubt that evil is real and present. 

AND, at the same time, beautiful things happen every day.  We got to watch some this beauty in the Olympics this last week when Abbey D’Agostino and Nikki Hamblin helped each other cross the finish line after colliding with each other in their 5000 meter preliminary race.  It was moving and inspirational to watch these two women help each other finish – and it was a beautiful example of the Kingdom of God among us. 

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask for God’s kingdom to come and so many times it’s just words we say by rote, maybe even mumble under our breath before communion without thinking much about what we’re really saying. 

Your kingdom come, O God.  Come now; come with truth; come with power.  

What does Jesus’ kingdom look like?  When have you experienced God’s kingdom coming?  What did you see and feel?  What did your heart know?

There is a story many years ago of an elementary teacher. Her name was Mrs. Thompson.  And as she stood in front of her 5th grade class on her very first day of school, she told the children a lie.  Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same.  But that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn't play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath.  And Teddy could be unpleasant.  It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers.

At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy's off until last.  However, when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise.  Teddy's first grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh.  He does his work neatly and has good manners... he is a joy to be around."  His second grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is an excellent student, well liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home must be a struggle."  His third grade teacher wrote, "His mother's death has been hard on him.  He tries to do his best but his father doesn't show much interest and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren't taken."  Teddy's fourth grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is withdrawn and doesn't show much interest in school.  He doesn't have many friends and sometimes sleeps in class."

By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy's.  His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper that he got from a grocery bag.  Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents.  Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one quarter full of perfume.  But she stifled the children's laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist.  Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to."  After the children left she cried for at least an hour.

On that very day, she quit teaching reading, and writing, and arithmetic.  Instead, she began to teach children.  Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive.  The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded.  By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one her "teacher's pets."

A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life.  Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy.  He then wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life. Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he'd stayed in school, had stuck with it, and would soon graduate from college with the highest of honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had in his whole life.  Then four more years passed and yet another letter came.  This time he explained that after he got his bachelor's degree, he decided to go a little further.  The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had.  But now his name was a little longer-the letter was signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, M.D.

For you see, The Kingdom of God is when you go to and transform a place into the kind of place that God wants it to be – or help a person become the kind of person God created them to be. 

God, please help us to do this – this week! 

In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

---

[i] Luther’s Small Catechism.

What’s in a Name?

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator, Christ and Comforter.  Amen

Today we begin a four week, more in-depth look at the Lord’s Prayer, from Luke’s Gospel.  I hope you will find it a worthwhile venture into the prayer we pray each Sunday, as we prepare to gather at the Lord’s Table for communion.  Believe it or not, in the back of those hymnals in your pew racks, there is printed for our use, Luther’s Small Catechism – something many of you studied in depth during your own confirmation classes however many years ago.  But, for many of us who did not go through Lutheran Confirmation, or a Confirmation program at all, it’s kind of great to know just what we’re talking about!   (shameless plug for Luther class in October)

This morning we are looking at the first two parts of the Lord’s Prayer:  the Introduction, which is: Our Father in heaven; and the First Petition, which is: Hallowed be your name.   The Small Catechism says: The introduction reminds us that: With these words God wants to attract us, so that we come to believe [God] is truly our Father and we are truly [God’s] children, in order that we may ask [God] boldly and with complete confidence, just as loving children ask their loving father.  And the first petition reminds us: ...God’s name is holy in itself, but we ask in this prayer that it may also become holy in and among us.

Perhaps personally, and certainly as a society, we have strayed far from this idea of God’s holy name.  How many times in a day, a week, have you said (or heard said), “O God!” and the context is clearly not as the start of a prayer where we are seeking to be attracted to the presence of the Divine!  Or perhaps in using Jesus’ name in the same manner?  It’s so easy to get used to hearing/saying God’s name in this way that we forget we are calling on the Creator, Savior, and Comforter every time we do!!! 

I’m pretty sure if we think about it, we probably DO NOT want to have God’s loving attention brought into that specific situation!   We, as a society, have cheapened God’s name to be something that is almost powerless, and pointless.  I knew this was true when my atheist friend said, “Oh God!” in a conversation!  I pointed out that he didn’t believe in God…so what was he saying?   He simply shrugged, sheepishly grinned, and we moved on in conversation.  Yep, that cheap. 

What’s in a name?  I can’t help but think of Shakespeare’s, Romeo and Juliet where Juliet speaks those immortal words: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  

True enough, Juliet.  But…our names carry with them our identities as well as: our past, our present, and our future. 

God’s name.  Since God is eternal, Gods’ name has been around forever…with many derivations…in all the languages of our world. 

God’s name.  It’s holy to us – sacred as we gather here this morning – and as we pray to God using God’s name throughout our worship.  We want God with us in this space.  We want the powerful love of the Holy, Triune, Godhead to penetrate this space, and our hearts, to make us better human beings, to make us more like Jesus who loved everyone, and who welcomed friend, foe, and stranger into the fold.  We want God with us when we leave. 

God’s name.  We were baptized into it.  At baptism, we became a part of the tribe of God’s people who follow Jesus.  And that tribe is HUGE!  2.9 billion people according to the Pew Research Company, or about 31% of the global population.  We are still the majority religion globally.   We come in all ilks with - Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant as the major dividers.  We ELCA Lutherans are working hard to help each of us to work together as we pray to the same Triune God, whose name is holy to all of us.  This last week, our Churchwide Assembly voted to approve an ELCA/Catholic Ecumenical Document.  At the heart of the document are 32 “Statements of Agreement” that state where Lutherans and Roman Catholics do not have church-dividing differences on topics about church, ministry and the Eucharist. More tentatively, the document also explores differences that remain.  We continue move forward in bringing the huge Christian tribe closer, so that all of us can worship together! 

God’s name.  As we sat together last Wednesday morning in Bible study, I asked the question, “What is holy and sacred today in our society?”  I ask you this same question, “What is holy and sacred today in our society?”  I’ll give you a few seconds to think about that. 

[Take answers!] 

In Bible study, we concluded that the two most holy things today are money and power.  These are the things that people see as consecrated, sacred, saintly, and awe-inspiring, for that is what the word holy means!

My questions for us this morning to take on our weekly sojourn are:  Is God’s name holy and sacred to you?  How would people know this about you?  Are you willing to change your language (if you need to) and correct the language of others around you, to make God’s name holy again? 

After all, God is the creator of the universe with unlimited power and even more importantly, unlimited love!  God is the One who sent Jesus to this earth as God’s beloved Son to die for us and this whole world!  And God sends to us God’s Holy Spirit, to live in us, and move among us, to bring us to greater understanding of God.  It’s a powerful name!  God’s name deserves our most sacred respect and honor. 

God has “phenomenal cosmic power”! (to quote Genie in Aladdin), and God chooses to let it “live in an itty-bitty living space” of our hearts!  Let’s make sure, that space is full of the honor and the holiness God’s presence invites! 

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Family Secrets

Family Secrets

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator, Christ and Comforter.  Amen

I’ve been a Christian nearly all my life.  I accepted Jesus into my life when I was six years old – 50 too many years ago!  Coming from a fundamentalist, holiness background, this first act of salvation is pretty much equivalent to baptism in mainline churches. 

I took this promise seriously.  I remember praying a lot as a child and asking for God to do things for me, with me, through me.  I prayed, as every child does, for good things only to happen to our family.  God blessed us – in many ways – until…

Until my mom’s first mental breakdown and she was diagnosed as manic-depressive (now named bi-polar).  This was the early 70’s and people just didn’t talk about mental illness and its horrible effects on both the patient and their families.  We were shamed into silence and we suffered alone.  I did my very best, at the age of 13, to keep my little sisters from the horrors of this disease…and I failed.  I live with that failure every day. 

I prayed and prayed that God would heal my mom – that she would come out of the first…and the second… and all the subsequent episodes…and this one would be her last one.  When I realized that bi-polar isn’t something people are cured from (even after being prayed over, having hands laid on her, and demons exorcised from her), my prayer changed.  I began to ask why…why her?  Why us?  What did we do to deserve this?  What were we to learn?  I prayed and prayed and prayed. 

And, I kept the family secret of mental illness for years.  And finally, I came to acceptance.  This is who we were. 

I understood Job in ways that lots of my friends did not. 

Job was steadfast in his time of testing.  He stayed true to God and God’s goodness…even in times of suffering.  Job had a deep and abiding relationship in God that kept him grounded.  He believed that God was there with him. 

And, I am sure he was thankful that his friends came and stayed with him.  Their questions and probings probably helped Job stay focused and certain that he had done nothing; his children had done nothing to deserve the calamity and death that befell them.  His friends stayed.  They heard God speaking to Job and their faith in the One True God became more deeply founded in the God who answers. 

How could God allow this to happen?  What did he do to deserve all of those horrible things – loss of camels, and donkeys, and oxen, and sheep and most of all his children?!?! 

We have all had measures of grief and events that are beyond our understanding as to WHY?  Why do bad things happen to good people? 

The answer doesn’t seem to be very satisfying:

·        Because we are human.

·        Because we live in a broken world where human choices affect others beyond our own knowing. 

·        Because we are alive and choose to keep on living. 

·        Because God is God and we are not.

What we experienced today, at the end of this study and the end of the Book of Job, is the blessings that were returned to Job because of his steadfast and unwavering faith in God.  He was given double what he had in the beginning of all his livestock.  His family (his sisters and brothers) relationships were restored and he had 10 more children – perfect numbers again – 7 sons and 3 daughters, who are given an inheritance along with their brothers – something very rare in Job’s day. 

And, we know his daughter's names: Jemimah, whose name means either “daylight” or “dove” being very hard to translate into English; and Keziah, whose name means either “fragrance of the flower” or “cinnamon;”  and Keren-happuch, whose name means “horn of antimony” (a black substance women used in the East to enhance their eyes – much like kohl was used in Egypt).  Beautiful women whose names reflect their beauty. 

Job lived a full life – 140 years – and saw his great-grandchildren.  “And Job died, old and full of days.”  Poor Mrs. Job (who is nameless), who had to give birth to 10 more children probably in middle age!!!

Do you wonder if Job ever told the story to his family of the tremendous testing that he went through?  Do you think he remembered his first 10 children and their names and said them often enough that his second 10 children knew their siblings well? Did they come to accept the history of their family as: this is who we are. 

Or was it a family secret that everybody knew? 

Frederick Buechner wrote a book entitled Telling Secrets that was transformative for me and my own family secrets.  His father committed suicide – a great family secret that everybody knew.  As he dealt with this truth, and his other family secrets, he came to his understanding: “When they are sad and hurtful secrets, like my father’s death, we can in a way honor the hurt by letting ourselves feel it as we never let ourselves feel it before, and then, having felt it, by laying it aside; we can start to take care of ourselves the way we take care of people we love. To love our neighbors as we love ourselves means also to love ourselves as we love our neighbors. It means to treat ourselves with as much kindness and understanding as we would the person next door who is in trouble. Little by little then we begin to be able to look at each others faces, and at our own faces in the mirror, without the intervening shadows that unaired secrets cast.”

Isn’t it amazing for us to know that all of our secrets are held in the loving hands of Jesus…who knows their sacredness…and who died for us-and our secrets…so that their stronghold on us can be loosened forever? 

Thanks be to God!!!

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Acceptance

Acceptance

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator, Christ and Comforter.  Amen

We are coming to the end of our series on Job.  I have loved this time digging into the story of this man and his life!  In today’s lesson God continues the conversation with Job, knowing full-well that his “friends” are there listening in.  And, quite frankly, I think those friends need to hear God’s words even more than Job! 

How often, though, in our own life, do we think when tragic things happen to us that God has somehow turned away from us and no longer cares?  How often, if we are honest, does it feel like our prayers go no higher than the ceiling and then bounce right back to us – and we feel for sure that God has not heard?  How many times have we either said out loud, or to ourselves, “What did I ever do to deserve this?” 

It brings to mind the teachings of the first Buddha and the basis of Buddhism yet today: 1) suffering exists; 2) suffering has a cause; 3) suffering has an end; and 4) suffering has a cause to bring about its end. 

For Job, and for us as well, we are keenly aware that suffering exists!  You can’t tune into a news program and not see suffering on a global scale.  It can make us feel helpless and hopeless and victimized.  Until we remember something that God is saying to Job in our texts. 

God is reminding Job, that God is in control!  God knows the things that are happening to us, many times because of our own choices, and many times…seemingly random events that just happen because we are alive!  God knows, God hears, and God answers…

…probably not too often in direct language like Job and his companions heard…but God answers…and often, not without a great deal of both time and pain in the process. 

God mentions Leviathan.  One of the many pictures is hopefully on the screen.  This sea creature is mentioned only 4 times in the Bible.  For people who are contemporaries of this story, Leviathan represents all of the chaos in the world – those deep, dark, unknowns, that can haunt our dreams and invade our realities.  God reminds Job (and us) that God has control even of the chaos! 

And then, at long last, Job came to acceptance.  He realized the truth of God’s hand in this whole process all the while.  God does not stop our suffering, God is with us in our suffering – even when it doesn’t feel like it!  Job acknowledges God with these words, “I know you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” 

For me, in my life, coming to acceptance brings a peace that I didn’t have before.  Acceptance doesn’t negate the horror, the pain, the confusion or the reality of what I had experienced.  Acceptance means those events, those pain-filled realities, no longer have control of my being! 

Acceptance means embracing what is, rather than wishing for what is not. When we accept difficult realities, we are able to discover whatever positive feelings and experiences may be possible in that situation. We find ourselves more at peace and able to experience life more deeply. Even so, acceptance must be guided by discernment – learning how to tell the difference between what we can change and what we cannot.

Job came to this acceptance in the presence of his friends who took many days from their lives to be with him in his pain.  Though their reflections may not have been useful for Job in his life, they were there and not off talking about him behind his back! 

The story goes that in ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?” “Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.” “Triple filter?” “That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”  “No,” the man said, “Actually I just heard about it and ...” “All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?” “No, on the contrary…” “So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?” “No, not really …” “Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”

J R R Tolkein said, “Some believe that it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found.  I found that it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay by small acts of kindness and love.

Acceptance.  God gave the world carte blanche acceptance when God allowed Jesus to die – for you and for me.  Acceptance.  As we move through this week, I pray that I will be more accepting of God’s grace, and of the sisters and brothers I interact with this week. 

Will you join me? 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen