November 16 -- Swords into Plowshares

Grace to you and peace from the one who comes to us in peace, whose vision is peace, and who calls us into the way of peace -- Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

This is a fascinating story today.  It may seem fragmented, jumping around from chapters 36, 37, 2.  And I’m guessing that you’re not entirely familiar with the characters here -- Kings Hezekiah, Sennacherib...

The seasons have changed and the prophecy of Micah is coming to fruition.  Last week the Southern Kingdom of Judah was living large, neglecting the least and poor and the stranger.  Micah warned them that these were not God’s ways, and called them to practice justice, loving kindness and humility.  Now the Assyrians, led by their victorious King have been destroying and conquering every nation and city in their path and now they’re literally knocking at the doors of the mighty Jerusalem.  And this is that scene that we have in so many movies where there is a brief dialogue before the fighting explodes.

King Sennacherib challenges the God of the Israelites, here.  “What has your God done for you?  Look how much I have conquered, and I’m about to take your city, and make you all my slaves!  Stop believing in your imaginary God, and start believing in me: the one driving the armored tank, the one sitting on barrels of money, the one dressed in the finest suits, the one with the sweetest pension, the securest future, the smartest children, the most beautiful homes, the best entertainment, the most exotic landscapes, the most delicious restaurants.  Surrender to your God and come over to our side.”

King Hezekiah is scared but faithful he goes into the temple to pray.  He falls back on the words of the prophets, and the story of his ancestors.  

We’ve been here before too.  Remember the Israelites at the Red Sea?  God makes a way out of no way.  That doesn’t happen as quickly in this case.  The Israelites do indeed get conquered by the Assyrians, eventually the end up in captivity in Babylon.  That would be like a foreign power taking us all away to another country for generations...

It’s amazing the faith Hezekiah had, the vision that Isaiah had has survived, when you think about it!  Isaiah’s words come at the end of this horrific scene, which changes how we hear them -- “In the days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains...all the nations shall stream to it...God shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”  

All evidence is to the contrary.  And yet, this is God’s vision, sisters and brothers in Christ.  That’s true for us today too.  All evidence is to the contrary, and yet this is God’s vision.  AK47, hammered into gardening tools, tanks turned into swing sets.

There’s a fine line here between total disillusionment, pie-in-the-sky dreaming vs. letting a vision that we may never see in our lifetime shape us, mold us, direct us, even confront us because it is the vision of God: the original state of blessedness.  If we don’t have a vision for peace, we can’t walk a way of peace.  

Richard Louv talks about how kids today, studies show -- with all our talk about the destruction of the environment -- don’t have a vision for a green future.  They just expect the world to be brown and grey, at the rate we’re going.  

When God’s vision for peace is not implanted into the imaginations of people of faith, then its awfully difficult to work for peace.  Isaiah plants that vision.  Swords into plowshares.  Spears into pruning hooks.  There is a transformation that has to take place.  Isaiah calls us to transformation from war to peace.  From fear to hope.

I want to shift gears slightly here, but stay on this theme of transformation, and talk about this capital campaign and building here at Shepherd of the Valley:

...because I’ve experienced a transformation.  As some of you know, I haven’t always been on board with this project.  I’m scared about money and talking about it.  I’m scared about you all not agreeing, and so then we split up.  I’m scared about the future and about our vision and mission of “extending God’s welcome to all” being lost.  I’m scared by stories I hear from other churches that get themselves into debt and slowly start to disintegrate.  Am I starting to sound like I’ve been listening to King Sennacherib at the gate of Jerusalem.  “What’s so great about this God you serve?!  It’s not going to work out!” laughs the King. 

There’s a fine line here too, between total pie-in-the-sky dreaming and letting a vision of grace and peace shape us, mold us, direct us, even confront us.  I think we are being called here -- in this season of the life of Shepherd of the Valley -- to steward our resources.  

I’ve said to a few of you before -- at this point I think this project is simply good stewardship.  We know we’ve got some serious plumbing, electrical, and structural issues that we’re going to need to fix anyway.  Why not make some modest changes to our facility while we’re at it, changes that are not pie-in-the-sky, but rather changes that we need.  One or two more classrooms, a larger kitchen, a small fellowship hall, handicap-accessible bathrooms, a sacristy that altar guild doesn’t have to weave through the crowd to prepare the Holy Table...and a little more storage space.  

I don’t think we’re dreaming out of our heads.  I think we’re visioning faithfully.  And we’ve got the energy, and the seed money, and a year of professional consultation, and many, many conversations, and a 90% vote in favor of moving forward with a capital campaign, and we’ve got the leadership.  For me this is not just an issue of stewarding our money, and our facilities, but we’ve got, you’ve got such incredible leadership in this congregation.  Such incredible dedication and love for one another, for this church, for this community and this preschool.  It’s like God has put all these blessings before us, and now we stand at this exciting place, and are invited to take the next step -- the financial commitment.

By now you probably received the letter I sent, sharing what Heather and I plan to give to this campaign and the general fund.  That was a challenging thing for me to put our financial commitments out there for all to see (both proud and ashamed), and I don’t expect everyone to do the same.  But I did it, as pastor of this congregation, as a way to explore, maybe open, the faith conversation and spiritual growth that comes from committing yourself intentionally to a challenge like this.

I talked to Pr. Phil about this...“I want you to feel good about it.”  Whatever you commit next week, say a prayer of thanksgiving as you fill out that figure.

The gift of this campaign for me is that God -- in many ways, through so many of you -- has transformed (hammered) my distrust, any resentments and fears, my doubts into hope and joy, into excitement about where this congregation is headed.  This is God’s doing.  I trust now, that our vision will not be lost, that we will continue to hear our rally cry of “Extending God’s welcome to all we meet along the way”.  That all will continue to be welcomed through these doors.  And that we will continue go out of these doors to extend that welcome... 

We stand at an exciting crossroads, and God is calling us to stay faithful -- maybe scared but faithful, like King Hezekiah -- but always falling back on the words and stories of the prophets and our ancestors in the faith.  And God is calling us, I believe, to take the next steps in our faith journey, both individuals and families, and as a congregation.  

Sisters and brothers in Christ, God promises never to leave us, and always to bless us with grace and peace.  May that peace that passes all human understanding dwell in your hearts, as you live out your call, as we live out our vision this day and always.  AMEN. 

November 9 -- Micah

Grace to you and peace, from a God who “comforts the afflicted, and afflicts the comfortable” -- it’s all in grace and peace.  AMEN.

Micah -- the prophet from the south.  Speaking out in a time when Jerusalem envisioned itself as invincible.  The nation was divided into north and south during Micah’s day.  The Northern Kingdom was actually named Israel.  The Southern, of which Jerusalem was a part, was named Judah.  Micah was a prophet in Judah.  From a small town in the country.  Here, it’d be like a prophet rising up from Dubuque, Iowa or Fresno, California or Seguin, Texas -- and then going to New York, City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, CA.  To speak out and to stand up to the the powers -- the influencers, the trend setters, the legislators, the religious leaders.  

To stand before the proud and the strong and to speak on behalf of the least, the lost and the lowly.  Micah was a prophet and a voice for the landless farmer, the migrant worker, the widow and the orphan.  The poor.

The book of Micah is traditionally only really read in worship during the season of Advent.  This passage from chapter 5.  “From you O Bethlehem...”  It’s where the song “O Little Town of Bethlehem” comes from.  And so there’s a nice way that we usually hear Micah, when we hear him amid the evergreen branches and beautiful, peaceful candlelights of one of my favorite seasons of the church year.  One scholar says that Micah has become almost “ornamental” -- hung up in December and taken down in January.     

Reading him today is a gift and helps us hear God’s voice in our lives a new way. 

Coloring by Carol Mason

Micah was a prophet for the downtrodden and the oppressed.  And Micah was the first of the prophets to foretell the falling of the Southern Kingdom, and of Jerusalem.  Things were so neat and shiny there, the lords of the land were so plump and secure, they were so comfortable, that Micah must have sounded like a madman.  [people ignoring, ridiculing]

But God called Micah to go them, and agitate their comfortable, oppressive ways.  God always “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.”  

When we’re doing well, watch out, Micah would say.  The stock market did really well this week.  Watch out, Micah would say.  Do not forget the least, the last and the lowly.  It’s easy to forget God, or at least make God ornamental, when times are good.  

If times are bad for you then Micah has a comforting word, Micah is on your side.  But if you’re one of those who -- when people ask how you’re doing -- and you can honestly say, “I’m truly blessed.”  Then Micah has a more challenging word for you today.  And for me.  

Nothing wrong with having stuff.  But don’t forget who brought you to this place of blessing, in the first place.  That’s me channelling Micah.  [Study this short book of the Bible this week.]  Once again, God, through this prophet, reminds the people, “I’m the one who created you, who blessed you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, who gave you this land, who sheltered and protected you all these many years.
“I didn’t do that so that you would hog it all for yourselves.  I did that so that you would go and do likewise.  I didn’t bless you in order that blessing stops with you.  I blessed you so that the whole world would be blessed!”
Once again, God through, this prophet, reminds us today in November 2014, “I’m the one who created you, who brought you up out of all the times of trial you’ve endured -- your own personal Egypt’s -- all the hardships, the brokenness, the pain; I’m the one who brought you here.  I’m the one who entrusted you with the blessings that you have today -- with money, with relationships -- family and friends, work, with transportation and communication, with technology and education, with a church, with a beautiful and powerful nation and a stunningly gorgeous landscape, with blue ocean and blue sky and rolling hills and sunshine and crops.    
“I didn’t do that so that you would hog it all for yourselves.  I blessed you so that you would go and do likewise.  I didn’t bless you in order that blessing stops with you.  I blessed you so that the whole world would be blessed!”

God does justice, loves mercy and walks humbly with us.  Micah calls us, even today, to be mirrors of God’s doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly.

What does that look like in our world, in our church family, in our homes day-to-day?  What does it mean to you to do justice?  I think it’s got something to do with how we treat the least, the lost, and the lowly -- the voiceless and the powerless in our world and in our communities.  What does it mean to you to love kindness?  In a world where there is so much meanness, where kindness sometimes seems rare, as followers -- not of Micah but -- of Christ, I think kindness is a radical act.  We can tell people about the God we serve, simply by being kind, loving and thoughtful to those we know and even those who are strangers to us, and to our communities.  In a world where the stranger is suspected and rejected and even villianized...the Christian’s arms are open.  Love kindness.

And I find the real Gospel in the passage in the last of Micah’s commands.  Walk humbly with God.  Embedded in that is the promise that God walks with us.  God will walk with us if we walk arrogantly and ignorantly too.  God will walk with us if we walk blindly, or even if we stumble and fall.  God will walk with us when no else walks with us.  God will walk with us certainly in bad times and also in good times.   But Micah calls us to think about how we walk with God:  humbly, patiently, wisely, compassionately, care-fully, trusting in this proximity that we have with God.  Gladly receiving God’s decision to be with us through it all.  God walks with you this day, God is still nudging you to open your hands and open your eyes and see the world, and those in need.  God continues to send us prophets like Micah, who challenge us and love us at the same time.  And God has sent us Jesus, who holds us no matter what, who forgives us, also challenges us, and finally walks us home.  Amen.

November 2 -- All Saints' Sunday and Elisha&Naaman

Do you ever think you know better than the Holy Spirit?  I mean, when the issue of health care or immigration comes up, and Jesus says,  “Let the children come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”  When Jesus puts children at the center, do you ever question all that, and say, “Well, yes Jesus, but you don’t understand the financial implications and the tax burdens that immigrant children and healthcare for everyone can have on our society.”  That’s very a political example.  But when we look at Jesus’ words, and then we look back at our real world, it’s hard to trust in God.  It’s hard to believe that this God that we celebrate and praise in here, is real, or has anything of substance for our present situations.

How about a more personal example?  We can get pretty angry at times.  I know I can.  We don’t show it all the time, but I think anger can build up inside of us, and we can let that out in all kinds of ways, mostly unhealthy ways...because it’s so hard and scary to face the truth of what really eating at us.  And when we hear all those stories and messages that Christ comes among us, his disciples, and says, “Peace be with you.”  I don’t know about you, but sometimes I’m a little snarky and cynical and say, “Yeah, sure, Jesus.  Easy for you to say.  But we’re living in the real world here.”  It’s hard to trust in God.

Naaman had the same problem.  Naaman was a soldier, actually he was a decorated general in the army.  He had a lot of things, he had quite the resume, he had his king’s ear, he held a privileged position and money.  He was the kind of guy who, when he stepped into a restaurant, everyone would turn an look at him, because he was famous and powerful.  
But he also had this skin disease.  And he was in pain.  

And here’s where the saints get to work.  I said this is a story about God’s subtle saints.  Characters in the background, who don’t even have names.  We celebrate the saints today, on this All Saints Sunday.  Think of how the saints in our lives often work and worked subtly.  [pause]

Naaman had this Hebrew servant, who basically whispered to him about God’s healing acts through this Israelite prophet named Elisha.  She didn’t even have a name.   

But an ongoing theme in our journey through the Old Testament is that Israel, God’s people, are from the beginning and always blessed to be a blessing to the world.  Naaman was a Syrian general.  He was not an Israelite.  He was from the North.  And this Hebrew servant passes him a message of salvation, a message of healing.  God can make you whole.

But like we can be, Naaman is resistant, doubtful, realistic.  He doesn’t really believe it, even while he attempts to make contact with the king of Israel, to try to get Elisha’s number.  See how he works right through the top? 

And now things get even murkier as he finds a way to contact Elisha.  Elisha doesn’t even go out to meet him.  He sends another servant -- another saint -- with a message:  “Go wash in the Jordan River seven times, and you’ll be cured.”  

Do you think Naaman received that well?  

Have you ever had a medical issue that was easily solved, but that almost made you angrier?  You went around and around with doctor’s offices, appointments, medical bills, insurance companies, family members’ referrals for months, and then it turns out you just need to stop eating almonds...or something like that?  Often it’s diet.  What?  I can’t believe that.

I think that’s Naaman.  He’s angry coming into it, he’s arrogant, he’s in pain, and he gets told by a servant -- “No one sends a servant out to me” -- to wash in the Jordan.  Then he insults the Jordan River.  “That muddy trickle of a river?!”    

But then his servants -- what I could call his saints -- calm him down, “Peace be with you, father...just try it.  We’ve come all this way.”  And so he does.  And so he’s healed.  

It’s an odd story on one hand, but on the other hand, it’s our story again.  Who are your saints -- some alive, some gone ahead to heavenly glory -- who calm you down, who breathe peace into your hectic world?  We get blinded and arrogant and entitled and angry, and we lose sight of the saints that God has sent us, those quiet servants of the Gospel.  We too can miss those voices in our lives, because we like Naaman think we know better.  We like Naaman struggle to trust God or the puny little whispers-and-hints-and-suggestions-and-encouragements-and-invitations-to-calm-down that the saints God offer us -- in their earthly life, and in their heavenly life.

Funny story Micah and his friend Jackson.  His mother told me... Micah: “You know, Jackson, you’re always talking about all these things you want to build.  But you never build any of them.  Why don’t you just build one, already?”  [pause]

If that question were directed at us, it would be easy to snap back.  “I’ll tell you why I don’t build, or invest in a relationship, or reach out to an organization or friend in need, or sacrifice my time or money, or my emotional energy...because here are all the things that can go wrong!”    

See how worked up we can get?  How worried or paranoid?  How obsessive and averse to any risk whatsoever?  And sometimes the answer is easy:

Just go wash in the river.  Seven times.  Just go talk to him -- the one who upset you so much.  Maybe he’s hurting too.  Just ask her, you’ll never know if you don’t ask...

Just go wash in the river.  Seven times.  It doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes a while and it takes repetition to untangle our distrust in God.  That’s what I love about liturgy.  We’re untangling our distrust in God.  

We can lose heart, sisters and brothers in Christ, we can lose hope and trust, but God does not.  God is faithful and just, remember?  God does not abandon us in our frustration and anger and doubt.  God washes us.  God makes us new.  

The servant girl in the story who first got the message of healing, of one who could save Naaman from his disease (which needless to say was much more than just a skin disease, right?), that servant-saint was described as a YOUNG girl.  

When Naaman is cured, it says that his skin was restored to that of a YOUNG boy.  I think there’s a connection with sainthood and that word YOUNG, regardless of age.  The young girl is the silent saint at the beginning, and now Naaman  with skin like a young boy becomes sainted too.  This is a medal that tops all others.  

And this is a medal that God pins on you too.  We join the glorious company of saints, upon being washed in the waters, even the trickling waters of our little font.  God makes you whole, names you a saint, and hold you in grace today.  Amen.

October 26 -- Solomon's Wisdom (Guest Preacher, Pastor John Embree)

October 19 -- David & Bathsheba

Let us pray, Create in each of us clean hearts, O God, and renew a right spirit within us.  Cast us not away from thy presence and take not your Holy Spirit from us.  Sustain in us the joy of your salvation.  AMEN.

David & Bathsheba:  a lot has happened since Joshua stood at the verge of the Promised Land last week, and week kicked off our capital campaign with Philip Reitz.  “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  We stopped reading at that quote and reflected on it.  But, do you know what happened next?  All the people respond to Joshua, “Yes, yes!  We will serve the Lord!”  And Joshua tells them back, as a sort of foreshadowing of the next few books of the Bible, “Umm, you can’t serve the Lord, you won’t serve the Lord.”

Old Testament summed up:  God blesses, people mess up, God gets angry, people repent...and on and on.      

Israel evolves into kingship.  That wasn’t the original plan.  Originally the idea was that there would be judges of different provinces.  Leadership was to be shared.  The book of Judges tells the story of those judges, those characters -- Samuel, Deborah (a woman), Gideon.  Heroes to us, perhaps as children; but with adult perspectives, they too are humans -- fallible and broken.  And so a new plan to anoint a king.  First king of Israel was Saul.  That goes horribly wrong.  And then a shepherd king: David.  And the book of first Samuel tells of his rise from very humble beginnings.  Samuel anoints him as a boy.  Slays Goliath... Outdoes Saul time and again.  He’s purer, he’s smarter, he’s more faithful, he’s even handsome.  He’s meant to be king.  God blesses.

And then if you’re wondering what this story about the new prophet Nathan going to David is all about.  Here’s the backstory:  I share this with our confirmation kids...

[story of David, Bathsheba, Uriah]

We pick up today the passages and a related psalm that follow this dramatic, seamy account.  And it’s what-happens-after that we really gather around today.  God sends Nathan to David.  One definition of a prophet is “the one who holds up a mirror”.  All Nathan does is tell David a story.  He gets David to announce judgement and then simply holds up that mirror.  

Who are the prophets in your own life?  We give thanks for the prophets today.  Those who call us on our stuff.  Those who hold up the mirror -- You know when we’re complaining about someone or something, and then you realize that the thing you’re complaining about is often something you yourself do...something that you don’t like about yourself.  Often it takes a close friend, a spouse perhaps, to turn that light on and help you see it...but that’s prophets work.  Give thanks today for the prophets in your life.   

But it’s more than that.  It’s more than just seeing your faults, whether someone helps you see them, or you know them already.  I imagine we can do that for ourselves pretty well.

What’s truly amazing...is that normally if someone who doesn’t have any power approaches someone who does, and points out a significant moral flaw, they’d be dismissed, right?

In that period, that’s putting it gently.  They’d be killed.

But David repents.  

David falls on his knees before this weak, old, long-bearded, scraggly-toothed madman prophet Nathan.  And he says:  “I have sinned.”  

We should have read that part too.  Because “have mercy on me O God," doesn’t mean much without first admitting, “I have sinned.”  

I think we can all put ourselves into this story, even into the great King David’s shoes...because we’ve all sinned.  The challenge is to come to terms with it.  To see our own reflections in the prophet’s mirror.  I almost played Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” for you this morning.  “I’m starting with the man in the mirror.  I’m asking him to change his ways.  And no message could have been any clearer.  If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make that change.”

Sisters and brothers in Christ, God sends us prophets to expose those things about ourselves that that we do a pretty great job of covering up -- I’m not talking about blemishes and imperfections on our bodies.  I mean those blemishes and imperfections on our souls, those corrupt things about ourselves, those secrets that we even lie to ourselves about.  Thank God for the prophets.  They are a gift.  Now it’s our challenge -- like David’s, I’m sure -- not to kill them.  Not to dismiss them, not to laugh them off as some out-of-touch scraggly tooth.  David is punished for his sin, and he accepts it, he grieves, he begs for mercy and finally he receives and accepts that mercy.  

David’s sin is not commendable.  Neither is ours.  But the aftermath of David’s sin is what we’re lift up in church -- his acceptance of Nathan’s prophetic visit, his admission of wrong-doing, and finally his openness to God’s mercy.  At any one of those three points we can get off track.  We could reject the prophet’s visit, we could refuse to repent, and finally and maybe most difficult for us long time church people, we can reject God’s forgiveness, and go on living in guilt and fear, blocking our ears to hearing the prophet’s good word -- the prophet has a good word for us too:  “The Lord has put away your sin.  You shall not die.”  Happened to Adam and Eve in the garden, happened to Sarah the unbeliever, to the Jacob the devious, happened to David.

Today we ask God to create in us clean hearts.  To renew a right spirit within us.  And God answers our plea.  God, through Jesus Christ forgives our sin.  We will not die, but live eternal, and the response to that undeserved gift of forgiveness starts now.  We can lift up our heads and smile, even if we’ve done terrible things in our pasts.  God is good.  And God is faithful, and God does not abandon us, even when we abandon God.  

You are blessed too.  God doesn’t ignore our sin and our brokenness, the error of our ways, just like a good parent doesn’t ignore their children’s misbehaviors.  It’s because God loves us that God sends us Nathans to hold up the mirror.  Grace falls even fresher when that happens.  

That grace is for you.  Yours to receive, yours to revel in, yours to celebrate, yours to share with he world.  AMEN. 

    

October 12 -- Joshua Renews the Covenant

Today we welcomed Pastor Philip Reitz.  He is our Stewardship Key Leader capital campaign consultant, and he helped us kick-off our capital campaign, entitled "Today's Mission, Tomorrow's Vision: Faith Needs Room to Grow".  Thank you, Pastor Philip, for being among us!

Listen to his sermon here:

October 5 -- Covenant & Commandments

Well today is a good day, because there is nothing but good in the Ten Commandments!  On October 5, 2014, thank God for the Ten Commandments!  

These are not rules meant to break us down and take our fun away, they are rules meant to build us up and bind us together, even more in Christ.  They are rules--that is, ways of living--that enrich our lives, not detract.  And in this boundary-less society, these 10 commandments are liberating. 

Heather and I had a friend in college who once told us about her childhood:  how she had parents who never really gave her any rules.  One of my most vivid memories of her recollections is how she talked about playing out in the neighborhood before supper, and about the same time the street lights came on, all the mothers and fathers were calling their kids, her friends, in for “dinnertime!”, but little Suzanne never had that curfew or boundaries.  I imagine a little girl left at dusk in a lonely cul-de-sac with street lights sputtering on and the faint sounds and smells of families in their warm houses around her:  healthy suppers and family conversation around the dinner table.

The 10 Commandments are a warm house, and without them we are left out.  They are not rules meant to break us down, they are rules -- ways of living -- meant to build us up, nurture and sustain us.  They are rules meant to free us even more.  The one left outside is the prisoner, the one who is gathered in and given structure, routine, work, play, community -- that’s where we find freedom in Christ.  The 10 Commandments, God’s covenant with the wandering Israelites then, is still God’s grace and love poured out on us today in 2014!

Rule #1: I am the Lord your God, I’m the one who brought you out of Egypt.  (Remember your story.)  Don’t make anything else your god.  

There is so much freedom in that!  We are tempted and even taught to bow down and worship so many other things: money, fame, power and authority, sex, sports, security and military might, family, technology, entertainment...the list goes on.  What is it for you that draws you away from trusting God, and letting God be God?  So many foreign gods as we wander through the wilderness of this life.  But, sisters and brothers in Christ, we don’t have to let those other things rule us.  There is so much freedom in this first and most important commandment.  All the other commandments, actually, point us back to this one: 

Let God be God.  We don’t have to play that role anymore, or seek it out anywhere else: it’s right here.  Let God be God.  Don’t forget who got us all here in the first place.  Put your faith only in one thing -- not in money, not in fame or power or strength, or even family or friends, not in the the technologies of the future, and not in “the way things were”.   Let’s try again to stop worshiping those false idols and start worshiping God.  Worship comes from the same root as worthy, and if you’re wondering what it is you worship, just look at your credit card bill.  That’s a spiritual document -- it’s where you put your money, it’s what’s worthy of your money (actually its all God’s money).  Where are you spending what God has entrusted to you?    

We don’t have to be slaves to those things anymore.  This commandment is calling us out of self-serving, idol-serving lifestyles, and into lives of service, of worship, of trusting God.  This is grace poured out on us.  We don’t have to seek after and bow down to foreign gods and graven images any more!

Rule #2: Don’t make wrongful use of God’s name.  Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.  Yes, watch your language.  But even more, this is a follow-up on the first and most important commandment.  Almost, a bit of a corrective, a clarification:

“OK, God, if I’m supposed to trust you so much, I guess I’m supposed to just sit here and let you do everything...let you find me a parking spot, let you ace my math test, let you take care of starving children and homeless veterans, and abused seniors.  You’re God, not me, so I’ll let you take care of it...”  

This commandment expounds on the first.  Don’t just throw your hands up and hope God takes care of everything, all our world’s problems.  That’s missing the point.  Live as if it all depended on us -- hunger, housing, health care -- don’t call on God’s name for that.  [Dali Lama refusing to pray for world peace.]  I heard it said once “Live as if it all depended on you, and pray as if it all depends on God.”  Don’t use God’s name in vain, asking for God to fix things, and ducking our own culpability and responsibility.   The trash on the ground, and in the ocean, and in the sky: that’s on us!  All the violence we’ve perpetrated and endured as a human species: that’s on us.  Don’t use God’s name in vain, asking God to just take it all away, and getting angry at God when it doesn’t all just disappear.   Let’s take responsibility with our words and with our actions.  That’s liberating.  We don’t have to live helplessly.  This commandment frees us to live and speak helpfully.

Rule #3.  Take a break...to remember that first commandment.  Practice, live out these commandments, don’t just memorize and recite them.  Make sabbath a part of your weekly life.  

We have no boundaries anymore.  With smart phones and wireless connections, we mix up free time and work time all the time.  We’ve lost the ability to take it easy.  But even God rests on the seventh day.  This commandment calls us to stop, and go to church -- not to see what’s in it for me -- but rather to worship God.  To remember our story, to gather around the gifts of God: Word, Wine, Water, Wheat.  We forget so easily that God is God.  I wonder if we’ll remember it by this afternoon, when all our games are on, our families are beaconing, our cell phones are buzzing with little tasks in preparation for Monday morning...See?  This commandment frees us to stop.  Breathe.  Remember how we got here.  Remember that God will bring us through.  And -- I think this part has been lost too -- the Sabbath is to be joyful.  People get stressed out being told they should take a break, so that’s missing the point too.  The sabbath is meant for joy.  Let me put it like this: the sabbath is for sex, healthy, fun sex.  Morning at church -- remembering and giving thanks that God is God.  And then a little afternoon delight.  [Tell ‘em you heard it here!]  Yes!  You get what I’m saying, though?  The sabbath is for relaxation.  The sabbath is for re-creation.  The sabbath is God’s gift, the way we were intended.  We were made for frolicking.  That’s the original state of things, right?  Adam and Eve in the garden -- what do you think they were doing?  Just sitting there, checking their work email accounts?  They were having fun.  This commandment frees us to have fun.

I’m not going to talk through every single commandment here, but let me just say that when God says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, who freed you,” is an intro for continued and enhanced liberation, and that’s what these commandments are:  Sabbath liberates God’s people from only working.  We have a freer society when people aren’t stealing from each other, when people aren’t killing each other -- how locked up would you feel if you’re always fearing for you life?  Or fearing that your spouse is committing adultery, or fearing that someone wants what you have?  See, each of these commandments point us, continues to lead us out of bondage and into freedom.  Out of fear and into life.   “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.”  AMEN.