Scriptural Sermons

There are any number of reasons for us to bring our children to church. One reason could be labeled socio-religious. This reason is essentially a practical one. It goes to the perpetuation of our religion. If succeeding generations are not churched, the church will, obviously, erode, and erode eventually into non-existence. There is added urgency to this reason at the present time, because in this nation at least, in fact the succeeding generations are not churched. They have actually been dubbed “the unchurched;” and, in fact, the church is eroding. At any rate, the Bible recognizes this reason. We heard it recognized in our Old Testament lesson from the book of Deuteronomy. Moses had led the people of Israel out of Egyptian bondage to the border of the Promised Land. Now on his deathbed, he charged them, their children, and their children’s children to observe the law he had given them. And why? Because the people of Israel were entering the Promised Land to become a religious nation, and to become a religious nation the succeeding generations had to observe the law. Then there is a reason to bring our children to church that could be labeled personal. It goes to the welfare of our children. What better way to promote the welfare of our children then by giving them a set of convictions from which to operate in life? I deal with the so-called “unchurched” on a regular basis. There are exceptions, of course, but my experience is that they are not given, in the absence of a set of religious convictions, a set of secular convictions. They are given very little in the way of convictions at all. What convictions they form are impressionistic and unexamined – usually derived from the pseudo-wisdom of popular culture. And let’s face it: people of all ages need convictions. Convictions give people understanding, purpose, direction, and motivation. Again, the Bible recognizes this reason. We heard it recognized in our Psalter lesson. It is recognized too throughout the Bible’s wisdom tradition. The way the Bible states it is that if you teach a child to follow in God’s way -- right from wrong, left from right – you teach a child the means to sound living. And the set of convictions our children will be given have to do not only with this life, but with eternal life. Our children will hear eternal life proclaimed again and again in church, for indeed it is the very crux of the gospel; it is the meaning and import of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if our children are convicted of eternal life, they will never be lost to fear, despair, and senselessness. They will be given the basis for courage, optimism, and hope. And of course, the Bible recognizes this reason. We heard it recognized in this morning’s epistle lesson from the book of Romans. In Paul’s immortal words, “I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us.” Paul realizes, of course, that a set of convictions from which to operate in this life are not enough, for the sufferings in this life are too great. But too, Paul realizes, the sufferings in this life will be overcome by eternal life. Yes, there are any number of reasons for us to bring our children to church, and indeed, they are all good ones. But they aren’t the best one. The best one has to do with truth. We come to church, we practice this religion, not necessarily because we believe that this church or this religion is in perfect accord with truth. As Paul reminds us in the book of Galatians, “all things are imprisoned under the power of sin,” and they are: even this church and this religion. But we come to church because we believe in the God that stands above this church and this religion is in perfect accord with truth. He is the truth to which the whole cosmos accedes -- to which all history has acceded, and to which the future will accede. He is the truth which is inviolable, try as we might in our pride to violate it. And if we don’t take our children to church they will not be exposed to it this truth. They will not be able to learn it. They will not be able to affirm it. They will not be able to defend it. And they will not be able to live it. And this truth is the highest thing there is. It is higher than the perpetuation of our religion. Our religion should not be perpetuated, in fact, if it does not align with this truth. It is higher than our personal welfare, indeed our welfare may well be sacrificed for it, and sacrificed rightly. And this truth can not be assimilated instantaneously . It can only be assimilated slowly, in time – week by week, year by year. There are no shortcuts. This is one lesson life has taught me. There are no shortcuts. In grief, every tear must be cried. In a journey, every step must be taken. In an accomplishment, every effort must be made. And for children to assimilate this truth, we must bring them to church. In this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus on the heels of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem entered the temple precincts. What he saw there enraged him. It was like some crass and boisterous carnival. Salesmen and money changers were hawking their wares, crowds were bargaining for their offerings. And so he overturned their tables and dispersed them; and crying with all the zeal of the first prophet to utter these words, “My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you are making it a den of robbers.” And what was the upshot of this scene? The chief priests and scribes were indignant, but the children cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Hosanna!” The children, even in these circumstances recognized the truth. For some reason, children have this facility. They can recognize the truth. In can only be the way God made them. And so let us give our children that truth. Amen.

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate……Wretch that I am!” I can imagine these words in the mouths of many people I know. I can imagine them in my own mouth. I’d wager you can imagine them in yours. But in the mouth of the Paul? Paul beating himself up? Paul tearing himself down? Paul taking himself to task? I don’t think so. Paul is probably the second most influential man in human history, Jesus Christ being the first. But Jesus Christ had an unfair advantage. He was the Son of God. And why is Paul’s influence so vast? It is essentially because he was Christianity’s first and greatest theologian. That is to say, he was Christianity’s first and greatest interpreter. What the church down through the centuries believed about Jesus Christ was in large part the result of Paul’s theology. What we believe today about Jesus Christ is the result of Paul’s theology. Some people just seem preveniently to know the truth with crystal clarity. Abraham Lincoln springs to mind. Winston Churchill springs to mind. Amidst a welter of lesser lights who only think that they know they know the truth with crystal clarity, once in a great while, very rarely, a truly penetrating mind comes along. Paul’s was such a mind. He knew the truth about Jesus Christ with crystal clarity. From the moment that his public ministry began, through his crucifixion, through his resurrection, through his giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, through the foundation of the church; through all of that, it was pretty much a free for all. Talk about a welter of lesser lights. By the end of the second century, everyone seemed to have an opinion as to who he was. He was a martyr. He was a criminal. He was an ascetic. He was a miracle worker. He was a prophet. He was a demagogue. He was an angel. He was a law giver. Only Paul knew the truth about Jesus Christ with crystal clarity. He knew that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He knew all that this implied. And to read his letters, this was not something he had to hammer out. He just seemed to have known it. If you asked him, he would have pointed you in the direction of the road along the way to Damascus. And there are other reasons for his influence. Not only did he know the truth about Jesus Christ with crystal clarity, he knew what to do about it. He embarked upon a series of missionary journeys through which he founded the church. And once founded it, he would not allow it to lapse into error. This is the reason for his letters, to correct the errors in the church that he had founded. And parenthetically, his line of work did not exactly win him popularity. As a Pharisee turned Christian he was hated by the Jews. As a Christian in the Roman Empire he was hated by the Romans. And so he suffered persecution. In his own words, “Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned…in perils of robbers, in peril by mine own countrymen, in peril by the heathen, in peril in the city, in peril in the wilderness, in peril in the sea, in peril among false brethren.” Eventually he was martyred under the Emperor Nero. Legend has it he was hung upside down on a cross. So to return to my original point. “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate……Wretch that I am!” I can imagine these words in the mouth of anybody but Paul. At the very least, we could conclude if Paul felt that way, then everyone must feel that way -- feel that there is our ideal self, that uniquely created self that God intends us to be. Then there is our real self that can’t live up to it. And we live within that tension, essentially at war with ourselves. Not the best place to be. Fortunately, we are not simply left to flagellate ourselves. Of course, we will never, in this life at least, fully realize our ideal selves; only in heaven will we do that. But still, we are urged to strive, and it is Paul who does the urging. “Beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” What Paul is saying, is that with Jesus as our model and guide we must strive toward our ideal selves, and here’s a key thing -- one degree at a time. What this means is that we do not span the distance between our real self and our ideal self in one leap. We do it one step at a time. What Paul is offering is practical advice, advice that amounts to a technique for self-mastery – one degree at a time; one step at a time. So say, for example, you are confronted by some aspect of your real self. The church down through the centuries has conveniently enumerated all the things that make our real selves our real selves – Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust. So say you are confronted by some aspect of your real self. Say you are confronted by your anger. And anger houses many other things: frustration, hostility, blaming, brooding, resentment, negativity, and violence. You look to Jesus Christ as your model and guide – he who said, “…but I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who insults a brother or sister is answerable….And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” You tell yourself that your anger is unworthy of your ideal self. And you master it just one time. Then you master it one more. Then you master it one more. You master it until you have it mastered. Because if you don’t master it, it masters you. The real self wins, and the ideal self loses. Or say you are confronted by another aspect of your real self. Say you are confronted by your envy. And envy too houses many other things: the drive to keep up, then the drive to surpass, then even the secret hope for the downfall of the object of your envy. You look to Jesus Christ as your model and guide - he who said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” You tell yourself that your envy is unworthy of your ideal self. And you master it just one time. Then you master it one more. Then you master it one more. You master it until you have it mastered. Because if you don’t master it, it masters you. The real self wins, and the ideal self loses. Degree by degree, step by step, gradually, eventually, you will feel less like a wretch. At least it seemed to work that way for Paul. Just before he was martyred under Emperor Nero, he wrote these words, “ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness.” Those aren’t the words of a wretch. You know Benjamin Franklin could have reduced this sermon to six words. “God helps them that help themselves.” Amen.

When I was fifteen years old, my parents took me to Paris. I remember discovering behind Notre Dame Cathedral a small memorial to the Holocaust. The memorial was simple and understated, but it conveyed something to me very powerfully. I was too young at the time to analyze or articulate my powerful response to the memorial. I only know I was shaken. Looking back at the experience from adulthood, I think the memorial caused me to experience for the first time in my life a sense of God forsakenness. Since that time, World War II has been an absorbing interest of mine. By the time I was in college, I was already an inveterate reader in the field. I read chiefly from the vantage point of secular history, focusing my attention on the question of causation – What caused the war and then the Holocaust? Getting to the bottom of that question turned out to be a monumental undertaking; for the causes, I learned, were extremely various and complex. Predominately, of course, it was Adolph Hitler – but he played upon a number of conditions and factors, like World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, like the world depression of 1929, like Christian Antisemitism that was so quickly and easily transmuted into racial Antisemitism. My early studies of the war were very influential in the shaping of my perspective, and they taught me a great deal. I learned about human nature and human corruptibility. I laid to rest or at least severely delimited any hope of human moral progress. I leaned that collective human privation is a dangerous tinder box, especially when it come into contact with the wrong spark, and Adolph Hitler was the wrong spark. I learned the truth of Jefferson’s words that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. But for all my efforts, I was finally left unsatisfied. I think it’s because, despite all I learned about the war, I never got at the underlying question, the question that made the war so compelling to me in the first place, and the question of God forsakenness. So I turned next to the field of theology. Initially after the Holocaust, when hard evidence of what had happened began to trickle out, there was no theological response, only a sort of horrified gasp. But by the 1970’s the nascent field of Holocaust Studies emerged within theology, and scholars, particularly Jewish scholars, began to ask hard and painful theological questions of the Holocaust. One question they asked had to do with the covenant. Is there in the wake of the Holocaust still a covenant between God and humanity? Was there ever a covenant between God and humanity? In the book of Genesis, God initiates the covenant with Israel. God calls to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred to the land I will show you. I will make of you a great nation.… I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing...” From this moment forward, Israel’s raison d’être, her self-identity, her self-understanding, were bound up in God’s covenantal promises to her. To most theologians, however, in the wake of the Holocaust, talk of God’s promises, God’s covenant, sounded like cruel platitudes. One theologian even insisted that all theology must now begin and end in Auschwitz. This is of course extreme, and carries with it deliberate shock value, but the point I think is sound. Theology now must take stock of the Holocaust. Theologians, both Jewish and Christian, have the right to wonder about the covenant. Is there a covenant? Not surprisingly, many theologians have concluded no, the Holocaust proves to anyone with eyes and ears that there is no covenant. The Holocaust cannot be absorbed into Jewish salvation history, or Christian salvation history which is based upon identical promises. There may be a God, these theologians say, but nothing is as we were given to think or hope. It's time to grow up now. It’s time to face reality. God, if he is there, is not there for us. We must denude ourselves of all illusions and delusions about God. We must rely upon ourselves, protect ourselves, and live as though God does not exist. This posture has always struck me as a posture of sad, bitter resignation borne of profound disillusionment. It, however, at least did not close the door entirely upon God. Other theologians in response to the Holocaust have done just that. They assert that, despite all of our wishful thinking, despite all the stock we’ve place in him, it’s time to face the fact that there is no God - no pattern, no purpose, no meaning. We must now jettison all talk or thought about God. But one of the ironic by-products of this is that it gives Hitler the final word. He did after all annihilate two thirds of European Jewry. Without God, Hitler’s achievement, while it did not succeed as fully as he hoped, is decisive; his cause triumphant. Emile Fachenheim, a great Jewish theologian and philosopher, saw the problem here. He said, “We are forbidden to deny or despair of God, however much we may have to contend with Him or with belief in Him. We are forbidden to despair of our world…lest we help to make it a meaningless place in which God is dead or irrelevant and everything is permitted. To abandon God in response to Hitler’s victory at Auschwitz would be to hand Hitler yet another posthumous victory.” Emile Fachenheim saw the impasse – either you abandon God and Hitler wins, or you cling to a God who allowed it to happen. Fachenheim opted for the latter. But we still must ask ourselves how do we speak of, have faith in, and proclaim a God who loves us and cares for us without making a mockery of the victims of the Holocaust? What about their forsakenness, which is humanity’s forsakenness? My studies got me this far but no further until I discovered in the apostle Paul the closest thing I’ve ever found to an answer. It’s not a complete answer to be sure, because as Paul well knew, we don’t have the complete context. We see in a mirror dimly. We groan inwardly awaiting redemption. Paul said that before Jesus came we lived in the time of the law. The law was good, and represented God’s programmatic will for humanity, but the law was deficient. For one thing, we couldn’t keep it. For another, Paul knew the law had no power to save us, to redeem us, to make us right with God. God’s act in Jesus signaled the end of time of the law, and ushered in a new age in which we are saved by God’s grace bestowed in love for us through the life, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus. This is the time in which we now find ourselves, but the hardship, the tension is that although in Jesus we see God’ triumph, we are yet in an in-between time. He has come, but is yet to come. Our final redemption is still a thing of the future. But it is precisely because of our in-between status that we may keep looking forward, and what we look forward to is based upon what God has revealed to us in Jesus. In Jesus, God reveals his intentions toward humanity. In the Jesus story, like in Nazi German, we see humanity at its worst. Jesus came to teach us, to heal us, to love us, to save us, but we knew him not. We betrayed him; we humiliated him; and we hung him on a cross until shattered and broken we drove him to God forsakenness: “My God, my God, why hast thou foresaken me?” Jesus lived God forsakenness. But God’s act in Jesus screams that forsakenness is not the final word; that Hitler is not the final word, because God responded to human evil and the forsakenness it engenders, by raising Jesus up. God responded by Jesus’ promise from the other side of forsakenness that he would be with us till the end of the age. He responded by sending his spirit to sustain and inspire us to live faithfully, while we look forward in this in-between time to God’s final act of redemption. In this we now have our hope. It is not a naïve hope, untempered by the cruel realities of human existence, nor should it be. We have no right to naivety, but nor do we have a right to denial or despair. God’s act in Jesus beckons us forward in hope. Why is there suffering? Why must it happen? I accept now hat these things I will never know. But do now that the resurrection flouts the worst this world can do, and demands with Paul that we hope against hope, holding out for a better way. Amen. Rebecca Clancy

There is nothing we Americans have come to love more than a scandal. Scandals, it would seem, are the new American past-time. And although we pretty much love all scandals, there are some scandals we love more than others. It is perhaps unconscious; it is perhaps unwritten, but there is a definite popularity ranking among scandals. Ranking lowest are scandals involving businessmen and women. The crash of a corporation due to the greed and corruption of its officers holds for us a certain attraction, but the reason for its low ranking, in spite of the fact that this is the only kind of scandal that may actually affect us, is two-fold. One, this kind of scandal involves money, and there are things more fascinating to us than money – sex for one. And two, this kind of scandal is often hard to wrap your mind around if you have no background in business. To fully appreciate a scandal, you need to be in a position to master the details. Moving up a rank are the scandals involving professional athletes. There are a few scandals involving professional athletes that have to do with drug abuse of one kind or another, or gaming, but the scandals that are more prevalent, and that we prefer, are, as I intimated, the sexual ones. The sexual hi-jinks of professional athletes – the infatuated groupies, the down low behind the All-American image, again, hold for us a certain attraction. Still, these scandals still receive a lowish ranking because we kind of expect it from professional athletes. It’s kind of an extension of locker-room behavior. Moving up another rank, and here we really start to get into it, are the scandals involving the stars. There are a few scandals involving the stars that have to do with imprisonment, but again we prefer the sexual ones. We love to star gaze in any event because we find the stars, or at least their fabricated images, so much larger than life - or perhaps so much larger than our lives. But when there’s a scandal, we really get out the telescope. We are always eager to hear of good loving gone wrong, especially if it is due to infidelity. We ascend to the top of the ranks with scandals, again, particularly sexual scandals, involving politicians and religious leaders. These are the scandals we love the best. This is because politicians and religious leaders are held to higher moral responsibility than professional athletes or stars. I suppose they should all be considered role models, but politicians and religious leaders more so. There is a general rule that we may perhaps apply to scandals: The greater the hypocrisy, the more we love it. This is because scandal requires outrage and indignation to really hit the spot. Yes, we love scandals - the bigger, the better. Sure, we may pretend not to. We may voice sentiments along the lines of, “What’s this world coming to?” but deep down we can’t wait for another idol to topple. And it’s not just the toppling of the idol itself. That’s only when the fun begins. After that, there’s not only the reactions of all the players, but the opportunity it holds for us for analysis, and the expression our impressions and opinions. And because we love scandals so much, scandals have become big business. A few years back, investigative reporting was more for the sake of whistle blowing, but no one cares much about whistle blowing anymore. The Karen Silkwoods have had their day. Investigative reporting is now giving us what we want, and we want scandal. And thanks to the times in which we live, no one stands a chance against them. Their arsenals are loaded -Surveillance cameras, tips, rumors, bank records, hotel records, cell phone records, texts, emails…. And it would appear that there is really no such thing as “delete.” Texts and emails never go away. They have a longer half-life than uranium. The Bible, for its part, knows all about human fault and folly. Most of the biblical heroes, in fact, were involved in what we today call scandals. To illustrate this, we could practically let the Bible fall open to any page, but let’s begin where it all began – with Abraham. I guess Abraham gets a few brownie points for demonstrating, in the near sacrifice of his son Isaac, faith unparalleled in human history until the advent of Jesus Christ; but, as we know, all the brownie points in the world are not sufficient to expunge a scandal from the record. How about Abraham’s conduct in Egypt? When he and his wife were forced to sojourn there during a famine, he became preoccupied that his wife’s good looks would get him into trouble. As her husband, he might be deemed to be standing in the way of an Egyptian’s desire for her. The upshot was that he delivered her up to Pharaoh’s harem; and this to save his own hide. Or how about Abraham’s mesalliance , shall we call it, with Hagar that produced, so to speak, a love child. I can just see the headlines. Actually, it seems like I have just seen like headlines. In the interest of time, let’s then skip over a generation and move down to Jacob. He was a serial cheater and a liar, his chief victim being his brother. Needless to say, his family life was a study in the art of sabotage. A while later he married two sisters, which if you think about it, is kind of sick. It seems one degree away from incest. He might even be incarcerated for that today. But lay the patriarchs aside. There’s just too much material in the Bible to dwell on them. Samuel, you might think, stood a chance to come out of it unscathed. He dominated biblical history for the whole of the eleventh century filling variously the role of prophet, priest, and judge. He had a good, long career, really established himself, but the brownie point rule applies – recall: no amount of brownie points can expunge a scandal from the record. Near the end of his life he developed what could be labeled, “The Crotchety Old Man Syndrome” and shot off his mouth revealing himself to be a cantankerous, querulous, even dangerous old fool. Doubtless, if present day comparisons are any indicator, that’s how many of his contemporaries remembered him. Or what about the Kings? They are really the limit. Take the big three – Saul, David, and Solomon. Saul was, to put it crudely, a nut job – a paranoid and murderous monster, whose deranged obsession for most of his life was to assassinate David. He ended up delivering all his sons up to death and then falling on his sword. Or David? He’s proof that no man is above corruption. Shortly after God made him the father of Messianism, he impregnated the wife of a dutiful and loyal member of his personal guard. He then had a henchman murder him so as to get him out of the way. And then there’s Solomon. Talk about the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Banishing silver, he permitted only gold in his opulent and lavish court. Of course, he had to enslave his own people to raise the funds for it, but be that as it may. I could go on, but we’d be here all day. Perhaps just one more. This one is too rich to pass up. The prophet Hosea married a well-known whore, then spent the rest of his prophetic career crying tears in his beer over it. Yes, the Bible knows all about human fault and folly -- what we today would call scandals. In fact, it puts our tepid attempts at scandal it to shame. But there’s one difference, and it’s a major one. The Bible never, ever calls it scandal or treats it as such. This is because the Bible traffics in realism. It is the greatest study in realism that humankind has ever or will ever produce. The Bible realistically discerns and so states that “we have all fallen short of the glory of God.” Even the cosmos itself, the whole theater of nature, groans in futility. Bible realizes we all share a common condition. We are all up against it. We are all in it together. And so to scandalize, The Bible declares, amounts to nothing more than hypocrisy. Just look at Jesus and the adulteress. There she was. They were all trying to scandalize her. But Jesus wouldn’t have it; he wouldn’t let them, even though she had just been caught in the act. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” And for the sake of hypocrisy, yes, but for a reason greater than that. It’s because he knew that when his ministry was all said and done - when his life, and his death, and his resurrection had been accomplished -- that there would be no basis to scandalize anyone anymore, for he, (who was, parenthetically the most scandalous man who ever lived) would have redeemed us all. And this, he intended, would lead us to humility and mercy, and forgiveness towards one another. Jesus Christ caught us all when we were falling. If we seek to be named by him, we must not scandalize. We must catch one another. Amen.

When I was a girl of about ten, my dog Calvin died. I took it badly. I loved Calvin very dearly. But beyond that, this was my first brush with death -- its utterly uncompromising inexorability and finality. It was a foretaste of a reality I was not yet prepared to bear. My grief and dread were overwhelming. Out of concern for me, my parents sent me to spend a week at my great aunt and uncle’s farm in Iowa. They hoped the trip would distract me and provide me distance from all the homely reminders of Calvin. But the trip only served to increase my misery. My great aunt and uncle were staunch Roman Catholics from the Vatican I era. On Sunday morning, my great aunt pinned a doily on my head and brought me to church. The day was already off to a bad start. If a doily belonged pinned on my head during church, I was certain my father would have pinned one there prior to this. After a worship service strange to my experience, I was led to church school by an authority figure also strange to my experience -- a nun. In the course of class, I mentioned Calvin’s death. The nun gave me a look that revealed, her religious vocation notwithstanding, she had ice water in her veins and a heart of granite. “Animals do not have souls,” she instructed me coldly, in a tone of judgmental admonition, I suppose for what she deemed wrong-headed, self- indulgent moping. Normally disputatious by nature and especially eager to argue what, at that early juncture would have to be described as proto-theological positions, I would have taken her on. I knew what she was trying to tell me -- that Calvin was only an animal, that when animals die they do not go to heaven, that their import is of limited significance, and that their deaths don’t warrant mourning. But she couldn’t have been right. Calvin was a member of my family. The fact that he happened to be a dog seemed a trivial point. In my family he was just like the rest of us. He had his own place and personality. Most important, he loved and was loved. How could he be excluded from God’s plan? And she was not, I knew, only wrong but mean. Children know, as if by instinct, when they are mistreated by adults. Her meanness deserved to have been exposed by acknowledgment of it or resistance to it. But Calvin’s death had left me weak and defenseless. I let her remark go unchallenged, and somehow it made everything all the worse. Now many years have passed, and I am safely over Calvin’s death, if I ever encounter that nun again, I will certainly revisit the matter. The matter raised that morning -- usually, thank heaven, under less emotional circumstances -- is not an uncommon one. Children tend to endow animals with souls, and adults tend to feel compelled to correct them for it, or at least to write it off as childish sentimentality or idealism. To tell the truth, I come down on the side of children. Children’s vantage point from time to time permits them to see things more clearly than adults. Their vantage point in this case is similar to animals’ -- both are vulnerable to and dependent upon adult intention for them. Out of empathy for animals, perhaps, and granted out of childish sentimentality and idealism as well, they see, though rightly I think, in the exclusion of animals from God’s plan, a deviation in what they hope to be God’s nature. And adults, as far as I can tell, take their side out of something less noble -- out of a basic lack of appreciation of and sympathy for animals, sometimes even a dislike of them on some general principle -- dirtiness or messiness or peskiness or lowliness -- this, and vague sense that some religious doctrine supports them. It may come as a surprise that the Bible comes down on the side of children too. The Bible doesn’t speak of animals having souls, nor of human beings having souls for that matter. This is a common misconception about the Bible. But the Bible does bespeak the essential unity between humans and animals, indeed the essential unity of all creation. The same word that went forth from God created us all. And that essential unity of all creation is rendered all the more profound and poignant by the apostle Paul’s recognition in this morning’s epistle lesson that the essential unity of all creation extends too to its subjection to futility. Paul recognizes that all creation -- in its incompleteness, in its imperfection, above all in its mortality, shares a common plight. It was Darwin in the modern era who demonstrated the extreme waste, inefficiency, and suffering in nature. It drove him in fact to atheism. But the apostle Paul also recognizes in this morning’s epistle lesson that the essential unity of all creation extends too to its redemption. All creation, in his words, “will be set free from its bondage to decay.” All creation then shares an essential unity, not only in its creation, but in its subjection to futility and its promised redemption. And this is not singular the view of the Paul. The weight of the biblical witness is squarely behind him. The covenant in the Bible, the covenant made to Noah, is a covenant that promises the redemption of all creation. “As for me, I do hereby establish my covenant with you and your descendants, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and the wild beasts with you . . . I establish my covenant with you…” The prophet Isaiah foresaw the fulfillment of that redemption as a peaceable kingdom where, “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child will lead them.” The book of Revelation foresees it as, “A new heaven and a new earth, where God will wipe the tear from every eye and death will be no more.” Most important, Jesus’ still of storm and walking on water both demonstrate and presage the redemption of creation. We human beings do indeed play a unique role in God’s plan. We alone, the Bible says, are made in God’s image. This means that we alone are fashioned and elect to know that we are not merely creatures of nature, subject to or defined by its laws; but that we are too creatures of God subject to and defined by God who created us and had redeemed us in Jesus Christ. And further, as the apostle Paul recognizes in this morning’s epistle lesson, we alone are fashioned and elect to know that through our redemption in Jesus Christ, we are the “first fruits” of the redemption of all creation. Yes, we play a unique role in God’s plan. It is the role, as the first fruits of the redemption of all creation, of responsible, informed, caring agency to it. And this means we must finally forswear the bogus theologies that had no claim in the first place save the claim of human conceit that creation is nothing more than the set for the drama of redemption in which we play the only role. These theologies are not only unbiblical, but they have been supplied as license for the desecration and violation, the plunder and spoliation of creation for sport or for greed, and have brought creation now to the brink of ecological disaster. But of course, the situation, like all situations of existence, is difficult and complex, because at the same time we must benefit from creation, often at its expense. This, as Darwin also demonstrated, is the law of existence for all creation, as it groans for redemption. But if we want to live in and live out this paradox according to biblical theology, our relationship to creation must be in a larger context of respect, sympathy, and harmony. And this means finally that if children ask us if animals are included in God’s plan, we can with honesty and confidence tell them that our God is a God whose eye is on the sparrow, and that indeed they are. Amen.

Growing up, each summer my sister and I spent two weeks visiting Grandma Dorothy and Grandpa Jake in small town Ohio. We were young enough so that everything about the countryside seemed charmed -- from the drug store soda fountain where we ordered banana splits, to the trips to a nearby farm when a litter of baby pigs was born, to our visits with Aunt Wilma. Aunt Wilma was Grandma Dorothy’s sister. She’d lived in the house where she was born for almost eighty years. It was the house that time had forgotten -- complete with a butter churn, a well, and a horse and buggy. One summer as we were leaving to visit Aunt Wilma, Grandma Dorothy asked Grandpa Jake if he’d like to join us. “I’ll leave you to deal with Mary.” he said. “Mary?” I asked. “Is that Aunt Wilma’s real name?” Grandma Dorothy shot Grandpa Jake a look of reprimand, but Grandpa Jake continued undeterred. “Have you heard of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary?” Grandpa Jake asked. “Well that’s Aunt Wilma -- Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.” I found his disclosure to be highly stimulating. Grown ups didn’t usually dish about other grown ups to children. When we arrived at Aunt Wilma’s, I was en guarde to see if Aunt Wilma was indeed Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. “What a lovely day,” Grandma Dorothy remarked as we took our places for tea. “A lovely day!” Aunt Wilma expostulated. “The breeze must be out of the east, because every bone in my body aches!” Grandma Dorothy changed the subject. “Jake and I are taking the girls to the State Fair tomorrow.” She ventured. “The State Fair!!” Wilma again expostulated. “Are you going there to get your pockets picked? Had my own pocket picked at the State Fair.” “Now Wilma, Dorothy said gently, "that was way back in 1932.” “Grandpa Jake was right,” I thought to myself. Aunt Wilma was indeed Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. Grandma Dorothy changed the subject again. “Girls, go out to the car and get the pecan pie that we made for Aunt Wilma.” We did as we were asked and set the pie on the table before Aunt Wilma. Aunt Wilma suddenly grew stiff as a ramrod. Her face donned a mask of impassivity. I could sense though that, as the prophet Amos put it, there were “mighty tumults” within her. She was struggling with self-mastery. Aunt Wilma wanted that pie. I could tell by the way she eyed it. But Aunt Wilma could only be contrary. If she was contrary, however; if she said something like -- “You know that pecans always get stuck between my teeth,” she risked losing the pie. She picked up the pie and secured it in the icebox. Only then did she say, “It beats me why anyone would want to spend the whole day baking!” When we got back home, I rushed to Grandpa Jake. “You were right! Aunt Wilma is Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.” Grandpa Jake replied, “Those are the lenses through which she sees life.” Those are the lenses through which she sees life. It turned out to be a formative moment, because going forward, I noticed the lenses through which people see life. No doubt you’ve noticed the same thing I have. There are the lenses of those we could call scapegoaters. Scapegoaters blame some marginalized group for all that is wrong with the world. Something’s not right? It can only be the fault of those blacks, or those Jews, or those refugees, or those Muslims, or those homosexuals, or those immigrants. Then there are the lenses of those who have been wronged -- whether they have been betrayed, cheated, fired, snubbed, abandoned, what have you. They have been victimized, and this becomes their identity, their explanation, their excuse. Then there are the lenses of those out for themselves. They measure themselves and others according to their money and possessions, their status and connections. Those who don’t measure up do not exist for them. The lenses through which people see life. They’ve always been around. They go way back to the biblical period, though the lenses they wore back then can seem a bit strange to us. Take Bathsheba from our Old Testament lesson. Her lenses were, “What will advance the cause of my son?” As I said, a bit strange to us, but less strange if you think about it. Women in the biblical period didn’t have much power in their own right. What power they had they had they acquired through the men in their lives. Initially they acquired power through their husbands, but after their sons were born, their husbands soon became yesterday’s news. They were of the past, after all, and their sons were of the future. The bottom line is that what advanced the cause of their sons, advanced their cause as well. So Bathsheba’s lenses were, “What will advance the cause of my son?” And Bathsheba’s husband was the most powerful man of his day. Bathsheba’s husband was King David. Even so, once her son Solomon was born Bathsheba had but one focus: that someday Solomon would occupy King David’s throne. Not that he had any claim upon that throne. He had none whatsoever. That throne was by right his elder brother Adonijah’s. That didn’t stop Bathsheba. Her lenses firmly in place, at the end of the day Adonijah was dead, and Solomon occupied King David’s throne. Now the stakes with regard to the lenses through which we see life may not be, as they were with regard to Bathsheba and Solomon, a matter of life and death, but there are still stakes involved. Because for one thing, the lenses through which we see life, ironically, distort our vision. We can’t see reality rightly, and therefore we can’t act rightly toward it. We can’t contribute to reality in any intentional or productive or truthful way. Just the opposite: We “contribute” to reality in an unintentional, unproductive, and untruthful way. And this is particularly pronounced when it comes to relationships. Relationships, real relationships anyway, are only possible between those who see reality rightly and in that light establish bonds of mutual understanding and concern. When we have lenses through which we see life, this is not possible. All we can do is grind an axe. And no one desires to be the sounding board of another grinding an axe. At family reunions with Grandma Dorothy and Grandpa Jake, everyone knew to steer a wide berth around Aunt Wilma. No one wanted to be the sounding board of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. Through the years I would look across the room to some fresh meat she got her teeth into. In the eyes of Aunt Wilma’s prey I could see a desperate look, as if to say “Someone save me!” But of course there was never a rescue. With Aunt Wilma it was every man for himself. The lenses through which we see life. It couldn’t possibly make any sense for them to be the lenses of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, or a scapegoater, or those who have been wronged, or those out for themselves. It only makes sense for them to be the lenses of Jesus Christ, who as the Son of God saw life through God’s eyes. He saw reality perfectly, acted perfectly toward it, and perfected all of his relationships. Not that this resulted in harmonious relationships. Reality encompasses much evil. His relationships reflected this -- with rejection and repudiation towards those who co opted religion for their own ends, those who exploited the vulnerable, those who cast their lot with the powerful; those who practiced hypocrisy or hardness of heart; but with caring and affection towards those who sought him, those who practiced justice and mercy, and those who bound up the broken hearted, those who practiced integrity and love. These are the lenses we should strive to put on. The apostle Paul had his own way of saying it. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” he commended. And so I commend you. Amen.