We believe in God, the giver of life and grace, whose wondrous deeds bring hope and healing to people of all nations
We believe that God’s decision to be with us, in the person of Jesus, manifested God’s immeasurable love for humankind.
We abide in Jesus, the Beloved One, whose name is written upon our hearts.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, who is at work whispering words of hope, peace, joy and love to ALL people.
We believe in the church, the living body of Christ in the world, to which we belong.
As members of the body, we are called to minister to all people in Jesus’ name
seeking transformation for ourselves, the church, and the world.
And so it begins. Amen.
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER
Our most gracious Creator and Sovereign of the Universe, we thank you for being true to your covenants with humankind even when we were not. Oh, how many times we have wandered from the trail you are blazing for us, forgetting that it will lead to your kingdom come upon the earth. When we get lost, determined to find our own way in the dark, help us to look for and see the light you are shining in our direction. It is your light that promises to guide us in the way of peace, your peace; the peace that surpasses all understanding. May the smiling eyes and image of your beloved Son, linger in our minds eye, leading us ever onward to your light. In the name of our redeeming Lord, Jesus we pray. Amen.
OFFERING INVITATION
The idiom “putting on one’s game face” has come to mean a lot of different things to all sorts of people. I think of the game face as something akin to a poker face, a face that reveals nothing of our inner thoughts and feelings —nervous or confident. Others believe that your game face is your fearless, determined, fighting face signaling that you are ready to tackle any challenge. Some people’s game face is a perpetual smile, others show no expression. Because, “Tis the season to be jolly,” I think people feel pressured to put on a holiday game face, so as not to put a damper on everyone else’s joy. Let’s do ourselves a favor and tap into God’s excitement over what is coming. I have it on good authority that God is dancing gleefully just waiting to see our faces on the day we receive God’s most precious gift to us.
UNISON OFFERTORY PRAYER
Glorious God, grateful for all of your blessings, these gifts assert our longing to be effective as Christ’s body at work in the world. Together we are transforming ourselves and the church as the world around us longs for healing. Guide our vision, our hearts and our efforts, in service to you, we pray in the name of the Christ. Amen.
SERMON VIDEO
SERMON SCRIPTURE
Ecclesiastes 2:15-3:8
Then I said to myself, ‘What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?’ And I said to myself that this also is vanity. For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How can the wise die just like fools? So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me —and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.
There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
SERMON TEXT (Remembering those who suffered loss in San Bernardino)
Qoheleth (ko-hel-leth) is the wisdom writer of Ecclesiastes. There a three categories into which Hebrew writings are placed: Torah, The Prophets and Wisdom Literature, which is sort of a catchall for a variety of writings. Ecclesiastes qualifies as wisdom literature. Many scholars, both ancient and modern, have argued against the inclusion of Ecclesiastes in final versions of the Bible, because of its perceived fatalistic and cynical tenor. As Dick Z. wrote in an email the other day, when he read the scriptural passages for today, “Ecclesiastes sounds like it could have been written by Friedrich Nietzsche, the nihilist philosopher.”
The Hebrew word Koheleth means: a collector of sentences, a public speaker, one who speaks to the assembled congregation. Koheleth has, therefore, been translated into English by scholars as the Preacher or the Teacher.
In his first verses the Preacher warns the reader of the contents of his writings, perhaps in order not to mislead. In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible the treatise begins with these words: Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. The same verses in the New International Version are translated this way: “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is Meaningless!”
From the get go the Preacher gives the reader permission not to read on, or perhaps he is challenging us to do just that. He is a former day philosopher, perhaps the very first among Jewish scholars, following the Babylonian Exile, around the time when Alexander the Great conquered the world and took over the Persian Empire. The Preacher’s philosophy has a pragmatic flavor and is based on what he has learned through experience.
The word “Hebel” translated from the Hebrew as vanity or meaningless predominates these verses and must be understood in order to understand the Preacher. Koheleth gives us insight into his intended meaning in chapter 2 verse 17 as he qualifies the word, writing: “all is hebel and a chasing after wind.” Hebel, then to the Preacher means vapor or breath. Koheleth concludes from his experience that there is nothing new under the sun and all the meaning of life is nothing more that vapor or breath. We humans gain nothing from our toil, since everything we gain and accumulate will be left behind to be enjoyed by others when we are dead and gone. Therefore Koheleth concludes that everything he and the rest of humankind have worked for in this life is as nothing, for all is vapor and chasing after wind – it cannot be grasped or caught or kept—when our life is finished, it all vanishes.
His writing seems to be such a downer, almost dirge-like, that some scholars have suggested he was drafting his own obituary. This may be why this work doesn’t enjoy much use or recognition in sermons and worship services. Only snippets are remembered and repeated by society as a whole and most don’t know the origin of cliché’s like: “There is nothing new under the sun.” And of course there is chapter 3 verses 1-8 for which Pete Seeger composed a ballad in the 1950’s and the Byrds made into a hit song in 1965. Most people recognize the poetry, but few could tell you that it comes from the Hebrew Bible’s wisdom literature entitled Ecclesiastes.
Popular philosophy of the 60s and 70s that proclaimed “live and enjoy life today” cannot be credited to the free love movement and hippies. It is Ecclesiastic philosophy: “There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from God who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”
We might call Koheleth a fatalist, because he believed that there is nothing for humankind to look forward to after death. To his way of thinking Dead is dead. I guess I would have to say that Jesus Christ was God’s cure to prevent human beings from adopting and dwelling in the fatalism of Ecclesiastes. For it was Jesus who taught us that eternal life is a promise of God; it is impossible for mortals to accomplish, because it is the stuff of God. Thankfully, all things are possible with God.
I want to speak to those cynics and naysayers who lambasted those who were in prayer last Wednesday and through the week asking God to comfort the families and friends of those who were murdered and wounded in San Bernardino. The cynics seem to be those who continually ask where God was in the midst of that tragedy and want to know why God didn’t reach out a hand to stop Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik before they murdered 14 people and wounded 21 others. What those cynics fail to see, I think, and forgive me if I am naïve, but they fail to see God’s hand in helping others survive.
If people were so inured to the sound of gunfire and gang warfare in San Bernardino that they didn’t bother to call the police, then many more people would have been injured and killed. If people felt it wasn’t their responsibility to report out-of-the-ordinary-sounds and circumstances to the police, then many more people would have been injured and killed. If the police had been spread far and wide, out on multiple calls -- if they had been one second later in their response, more people would have been injured and killed. But they weren’t, and they came, and they stopped the killers.
I guess there are people out there who expect God to prevent our enemies from seeking to do us harm. So I guess that means we are hoping that God will spray all the bad people in the face with some kind of soul-tranquilizing agent to subdue them and stop them from picking on the good people.
It is evident that the most powerful government in the world has not succeeded in controlling the behavior of our enemies even with the placement of all sorts of sophisticated monitoring equipment, video surveillance cameras on every street corner, and metal detectors in schools and just about every public building. Having the NSA and the FBI and probably a myriad of covert agencies tapping our phones and our emails, watching all that we say and do, has not prevented our enemies from doing us harm. So shall we conclude then, that God should just wipe the slate clean, kick start the world all over again, give it a fresh start, and then maybe human beings would get it right this time?
My dearest ones, we are sentient beings, we feel the vibes from the people around us. From early childhood most of us have been able to tell if someone liked us or didn’t. If they were bullies we avoided them, if they were loners, and indeed seemed to be afraid of us, and if we weren’t the bullies, maybe we thought to befriend them. When you are out walking the dog and he or she encounters another dog or the mailman, the fur on its back raises instinctively and you know the dog is in fight or flight mode, trying to determine if the four legged creature or two legged creature in their path is a friend or an enemy.
We have similar instinctive responses. I know you have said stuff like, “that person gives me the creeps.” Look at the way she is looking at us, that gives me the heebie-jeebies; then you shiver, just to shake off the feeling. I think heebie-jeebies is short for, “the hair on the back of my neck is standing on end.”
I believe fear breeds more fear. Maybe love can breed more love. If we want peace in this world, we must be partners with God and become peace makers. If our hearts are full of hate and resentment, I believe that energy goes out into the cosmos. If our hearts are full of fear, I think that energy goes out into the cosmos as well. If our hearts are full of faith, trust and hope in God, clinging to the spirit of all things being possible with God, I think that goes out into the cosmos too.
Ecclesiastes was a Hebrew philosopher, who believed that God was always present and at work in our lives. He found his own way of saying we aren’t really in control of much of anything when he wrote:
Ecclesiastes 3:9-15
What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. God has made everything suitable for its time; putting a sense of past and future into our minds, yet none of us can find out what God has done from the beginning of time to the end. I know that there is nothing better for humanity than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all our toil. I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before God. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.
Do not be afraid to turn your eyes upon God. Let no one discount your prayers or diminish your sense of the presence of the Holy. God is always working for good, humankind is its only opponent.
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Amanda J. Burr
December 6, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment