For the Living of These Days
The Rev. Mark Henderson
September 16, 2001

15^th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19 ? Year C
Jeremiah 4:11-28 / 1 Timothy 1:12-17 / Luke 15:1-32

A rhetorical question was posed to me this week, "Where do you get those sermons every week?" (I assumed the question was about creativity and reflection, not shopping!)

It was an interesting question and one that I think touches each one of us, because I believe, as I once heard The Rev. Jim Forbes say, that what I do in the office and have on paper are only parts of the sermon. There is also that which you receive and take with you that is as much a part of the sermon is as anything else. Your openness, your receptivity, your willingness to hear and reflect, are essential to the task of the "morning mediation."

Of course, isn?t that the way it is with our entire experience when we come for "worship?" Despite the best attempts of many to make it so, worship is not entertainment, an exercise in sentimentality, nor is it group therapy. It?s not even a classroom in the strictest sense of the word. Worship is an opening of ourselves to a greater reality. Worship is our intentional presence before the altar of God in which we acknowledge our dependence upon that which is beyond us to challenge us, guide us, and sustain us. Worship is not provided "for us" in the sense that it is another consumer experience. Worship is what we do in response to and for the sake of God and the reality of God?s presence in the world.

So the question, "where do I get these sermons" is a good one because it asks how and where I find myself grounded in the task of preaching. Am I here to tell you what you want to hear? Perhaps I?m here to live out my own political and philosophical agenda, wrapped in religious language. Do I intend to change you and shape you (as if a few words on Sunday morning could!) or do I want to dazzle you with my creativity and insight? And what will you do? Will you only come to hear that which affirms your status quo? Will you come with a checklist of what makes a good and bad sermon, whether it?s theology or style? Will you come just itching to find something with which you can disagree so you can be confirmed in your own righteousness and superiority?

I realize that those are all pretty cynical choices but I list them because, at one time or another, I?ve felt them all, from both sides of the pulpit, and have met so many people who could say the same. From where does the sermon come? From where does our sense of a worshipful spirit come? These are not incidental questions, but questions that push us all to consider who we are in this community of faith, what it means to us, and what we mean to it. We want to come with open and receptive hearts, we want to listen and reflect and grow, we want to be grounded in an authentic experience of openness and vulnerability, but it can be so, so hard.

It?s been hard this week, hasn?t it? There has been so much noise, so many sounds, so much interpretation, so many feelings, that it can be hard to open ourselves. I firmly believe that in the midst of such a tragedy we need each other, but we don?t necessarily need each others words. We may want to gush about our feelings, to hear someone else give us words of comfort, but I truly believe that sometimes, when we are faced with our most vulnerable emotions, it can be critical to our spiritual health not to overwhelm ourselves with a smorgasbord of "meanings," but to sit and listen to them, endure the difficult feelings we may have and trust that we will survive. How many times have you heard someone, when reflecting on their reactions to the loss of a loved one, tell a friend that what meant most was simply that they sat with them in silence?

I ask this by way of taking the rhetorical question off the table and posing an answer to it, for myself and our being here together this morning. How do we open ourselves in worship today? How do we prepare for and participate in the proclamation of the gospel of Christ with all the noise echoing through our heads? In one sense, I?ve already given you my answer. In those times when the noise is the greatest I have come to rely on the movement and power of our weekly scripture as the grounding for my preaching and for my spirit. This series of lessons, the common lectionary, is not perfect, but it does remind us that despite the vicissitudes of life the story that unfolds in our scriptural heritage contains to power to challenge us, guide us, and sustain us. For if it does not, why are we here?

I don?t know how those words of Jeremiah struck you when I read them, just a few moments ago but when I went back to re-read them after Tuesday, I literally shivered at their import. "The whole land shall be a desolation...the earth shall mourn...for I have spoken...I have not relented nor will I turn back."

Fortunately those who most fervently preach a pathological theology of intolerance are least likely to use the lectionary, so I hope they won?t come upon those words to further their proof-texted condemnation of those who do not hold to their political ideology! For the rest of us, these words provide an astonishing look at how a people can come to see themselves in the wake of their own devastation. What I?m talking about here is not just the message Jeremiah, but the fact that we still have his message!

The time-frame spanned by Jeremiah?s presence extends from the radical religious reforms of Josiah, who banished and destroyed all worship directed at other than YHWH, to the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah with the subsequent exile of much of the population to Babylon, a defeat and exile which were instigated by an attempt to respond militarily against the Babylonian threat. Yet, in the generations following this humiliation, the sacred tradition of Israel found words of wisdom, and perhaps words of warning, in the prophecy of Jeremiah. Though he was ridiculed and even prosecuted during his own time, the sacred tradition of Israel saw in Jeremiah?s prophecy a word of caution for the future.

It is so easy to look out and condemn the evil which resides in "the other," I have no doubt that the court prophets told Jehoiachin just what he wanted to hear - that the threats which surrounded the people had nothing to do with him or his rule, but were brought upon them exclusively by the evil of others. And yet Jeremiah preached that evil exists not only "out there" but "in here" too.

Please hear this folks, this does not directly address any particular attribution of "blame" for the evil and horrific events that where thrust upon us this past Tuesday. It is to lift before you the fact that faced with apparent "evil" all around, the prophet Jeremiah saw more deeply than those of his day and proclaimed that that which others might project upon "the enemy" was actually reflection of the self. And not only that, but that 2600 years in the future, our sacred tradition has preserved his words as a testament from which we might learn.

There?s been a lot of talk this week about something beyond retribution for Tuesday?s attack, there?s been talk of revenge. Poll after poll shows that a majority of people in our society are united...in anger. So I wonder whether we here have the ability to quiet our anger, to turn from the bloodlust of revenge, at least for a few minutes on a Sunday morning when we come to be intentionally present before the altar of God, hearing Jeremiah?s prophecy to Israel that has been preserved in our sacred scripture. Is God speaking to us through those words? Is there something there that we will miss if we do not allow ourselves the quietness to listen?

I know this, that over and over again, we have learned that the guidance provided to the Hebrews through the Law and the Prophets has proven to be more than just religious dogma. We know, for instance, that the dietary laws make eminent sense from a modern medical view of their world. The prohibitions against shellfish and pork, for instance, provided safeguards to health by closing off common avenues for infection and disease. The efficacy of ancient law, borne out by modern truth.

In yesterday?s New York Times, columnist Anthony Lewis wrote of the potential backlash of a revenge-driven response by our government in the days to come saying,

The danger is that such military action would trigger the Law of Unintended Consequences. That law...provides that for every action, there is an excellent chance of producing an opposite and totally disproportionate reaction.

Afghanistan is a prime example. When the Soviet Union invaded there in 1979, the U.S. armed Islamic forces to resist. The country has ended in the hands of anti-Western Islamic extremists.

I wonder whether the truth of Mr. Lewis? observation isn?t exclusively a modern, military and political truth, but also a truth offered in a far-off place to a desperate King by some crazy prophet. I wonder there is something there for us to hear. I wonder if this modern, political truth bears out ancient, Hebrew prophecy?

The appointed reading from the "pastoral" letter to Timothy is quite a bit easier to take. In fact, at first blush it may seem to be purely "pietistic" in its tone. Yet, I am struck by this opening selection and the way it relates to the rest of the message. Paul, or the author of the letter writing within the Pauline school of thought, seeks to instruct the community on the way in which they should treat the most vulnerable among them. The letter also takes on those leaders whose teaching is not grounded in a clear and meaningful relationship with God. In the verse which immediately follows those read this morning, the letter goes ahead to say, "I am giving you these instructions...so that by following them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience." (vs. 18) This letter intended to offer guidance for difficult times. Maybe there is something here for us.

The way Paul is positioned in these verses is as a model for those who are faithful ? even though he was formerly a man of violence. Christ has strengthened him to be an example by which others might know God?s grace! Well! For those who want to dismiss Paul as a bit over the egotistical edge, they need look no further, eh?! Yet look at what he?s doing. Paul keeps his relationship with Christ in the foreground of his teaching and his sense of himself. In fact, when he proceeds to talk about those who offer "false teaching" the problem is that they have substituted other goals, other agendas for that which grows out of their relationship with Christ.

Surely you?ve heard that wonderful story about the boy in the cafeteria line who reached for an extra and forbidden carton of chocolate milk, only to be scolded by the nun with the words that, "God is watching." Upon reaching the end of the line, he saw a friend obviously trying to decide whether she should take an extra cookie and encouraged her saying, "Go ahead, God?s watching the milk!" We do live like that sometimes, don?t we? We compartmentalize and divide up our consciences to such an extent that we have our "work" self and our "family" self or even our "church" self. ("Here?s the part of my life where I?ll think about my faith, but over here - anything goes!")

What I hear echoed in this pastoral letter is that our primary identity is meant to be our identity as people of faith, so that nothing, nothing, can separate us from that grounding. Our faith is meant to make us different people, top to bottom, in public and in private, in the way we deal with our emotions and the way we deal with our intellect.

In his sermon on "Loving Your Enemies," Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

far from being an impractical idealist, Jesus has become the practical realist. The words of this text glitter in our eyes with a new urgency. Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.

we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. Because Jesus wasn?t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command. Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Montgomery, Alabama, 17 November 1957

"I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me." How many people could echo that sentiment over these past few days. How many people have been pulled from the brink of despair and depression by the strength of their faith?s hope? How many people have written out checks or volunteered their time this week, because their faith has been stronger than their fear? And now, when the days before us call us to the most difficult choices, the most difficult issues in response to this terror, will we be strengthened by Christ? I wonder whether even in this ancient pastoral epistle there is something here that God wants us to consider.

And how painfully poignant are the words of our morning gospel lesson when you juxtapose them with the images of workers, sifting through the rubble of the twin towers, bucketful by bucketful, taking every precaution to search for the thousands who are lost in the midst of the devastation. Jesus throws back in the faces of those who criticized him, their own lack of compassion, their own self-imposed limitations as compassionate people.

"Which one of you," he asked, "does not leave the 99...and go after the one?" No one! That?s the answer! Not one of them there would be as foolish as risk sacrificing the flock for one lost sheep. But this is what God does! God is at work as the foolish shepherd, seeking relationship with any who are lost in despair and brokenness. God is at work as the earnestly searching woman who is seeking that which seems insignificant, until it is found.

How many times, did Jesus talk about the value of what which is lost, unperceived, of no account, hidden? It wasn?t for the sake of increasing a congregation or building his following, it was so those who were seeking direction, were unnoticed, seemed to themselves of little value, were covering something up, could be rediscovered and renewed within themselves as well as within the community.

How absurd Jesus? stories must have sounded! A shepherd leaves the herd vulnerable and risks his own neck for the sake of one sheep? It?s crazy! A woman, stops everything she?s doing, halting the regular routine of her household, just to find a lost coin. Oh, perhaps she could use the cash, but life must go on, how ridiculous to stop everything just for that! And yet very heavens rejoice when that which was separated, hidden, cut off from God, is restored to wholeness.

Friends, I believe that God does have something here for us to consider. I believe that we still need to hear that God is searching and calls us to engage in the search as well. I don?t only mean a search for someone else, I believe our primary search is for our own hearts, our own consciences. It is a search by which, in the spirit of Christ, we engage in the vulnerable task of recovering everything that we are and make it available to the will and use of God.

The 14^th century Indian poet, Kabir, once wrote, "Do what you do to another person, but never put them out of your heart." Even though his life was spent bridging Muslim and Hindu thought, I believe that his sentiment echoes this truth of Christ.

We are, as we sit here today, conflicted people. I know I am and I suspect that each of you is as well. We are conflicted in the ways in which we think about ourselves, we are conflicted in the ways in which we think about our neighbors, we are conflicted in the ways we think about our world and we are particularly conflicted in the ways we think about our enemies. Intellectually we know that violence only perpetuates violence. Scientifically we know that when we hold on to anger, hatred, and vengeance that we are literally destroying ourselves by placing our internal systems into a constant state of heightened tension and stress, thereby damaging our very bodies. We?ve heard, over and over again this week, from most religious leaders, words of compassionate restraint. Yet, we feel so helpless, so violated, so vulnerable and often so angry.

I believe, though, that the wisdom in Kabir?s words is clearly seen when matched with those of our scriptures from this morning. If we participate in the vulnerability that seeks to return everything we are to God, then we bring God close to our hearts. If we bring God close to our hearts, then that relationship cannot help but define our selves as well as our interactions with others. If God defines and grounds us, then we are better able to hear the warnings about the limitations of vengeance and violence, no matter from what intentions the violence emanates. We will do what we do to one another and we will relate as we relate to the world around us, even in the most devastating and terrifying circumstances. But we will keep those to whom we relate, even those who are our enemies, close to hearts that have searched for and found the strength and power of God. That will be our first and foremost grounding, our first and foremost identity, and that will make all the difference.

God of grace and God of glory, On thy people pour thy power;
Crown thine ancient church?s story; Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, Grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour, For the facing of this hour.

Lo! the hosts of evil round us Scorn thy Christ, assail his ways!
From the fears that long have bound us, Free our hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, Grant us courage,
For the living of these days, For the living of these days.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick

For the Living of These Days
The Rev. Mark Henderson
September 16, 2001

15^th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19 ? Year C
Jeremiah 4:11-28 / 1 Timothy 1:12-17 / Luke 15:1-32

A rhetorical question was posed to me this week, "Where do you get those sermons every week?" (I assumed the question was about creativity and reflection, not shopping!)

It was an interesting question and one that I think touches each one of us, because I believe, as I once heard The Rev. Jim Forbes say, that what I do in the office and have on paper are only parts of the sermon. There is also that which you receive and take with you that is as much a part of the sermon is as anything else. Your openness, your receptivity, your willingness to hear and reflect, are essential to the task of the "morning mediation."

Of course, isn?t that the way it is with our entire experience when we come for "worship?" Despite the best attempts of many to make it so, worship is not entertainment, an exercise in sentimentality, nor is it group therapy. It?s not even a classroom in the strictest sense of the word. Worship is an opening of ourselves to a greater reality. Worship is our intentional presence before the altar of God in which we acknowledge our dependence upon that which is beyond us to challenge us, guide us, and sustain us. Worship is not provided "for us" in the sense that it is another consumer experience. Worship is what we do in response to and for the sake of God and the reality of God?s presence in the world.

So the question, "where do I get these sermons" is a good one because it asks how and where I find myself grounded in the task of preaching. Am I here to tell you what you want to hear? Perhaps I?m here to live out my own political and philosophical agenda, wrapped in religious language. Do I intend to change you and shape you (as if a few words on Sunday morning could!) or do I want to dazzle you with my creativity and insight? And what will you do? Will you only come to hear that which affirms your status quo? Will you come with a checklist of what makes a good and bad sermon, whether it?s theology or style? Will you come just itching to find something with which you can disagree so you can be confirmed in your own righteousness and superiority?

I realize that those are all pretty cynical choices but I list them because, at one time or another, I?ve felt them all, from both sides of the pulpit, and have met so many people who could say the same. From where does the sermon come? From where does our sense of a worshipful spirit come? These are not incidental questions, but questions that push us all to consider who we are in this community of faith, what it means to us, and what we mean to it. We want to come with open and receptive hearts, we want to listen and reflect and grow, we want to be grounded in an authentic experience of openness and vulnerability, but it can be so, so hard.

It?s been hard this week, hasn?t it? There has been so much noise, so many sounds, so much interpretation, so many feelings, that it can be hard to open ourselves. I firmly believe that in the midst of such a tragedy we need each other, but we don?t necessarily need each others words. We may want to gush about our feelings, to hear someone else give us words of comfort, but I truly believe that sometimes, when we are faced with our most vulnerable emotions, it can be critical to our spiritual health not to overwhelm ourselves with a smorgasbord of "meanings," but to sit and listen to them, endure the difficult feelings we may have and trust that we will survive. How many times have you heard someone, when reflecting on their reactions to the loss of a loved one, tell a friend that what meant most was simply that they sat with them in silence?

I ask this by way of taking the rhetorical question off the table and posing an answer to it, for myself and our being here together this morning. How do we open ourselves in worship today? How do we prepare for and participate in the proclamation of the gospel of Christ with all the noise echoing through our heads? In one sense, I?ve already given you my answer. In those times when the noise is the greatest I have come to rely on the movement and power of our weekly scripture as the grounding for my preaching and for my spirit. This series of lessons, the common lectionary, is not perfect, but it does remind us that despite the vicissitudes of life the story that unfolds in our scriptural heritage contains to power to challenge us, guide us, and sustain us. For if it does not, why are we here?

I don?t know how those words of Jeremiah struck you when I read them, just a few moments ago but when I went back to re-read them after Tuesday, I literally shivered at their import. "The whole land shall be a desolation...the earth shall mourn...for I have spoken...I have not relented nor will I turn back."

Fortunately those who most fervently preach a pathological theology of intolerance are least likely to use the lectionary, so I hope they won?t come upon those words to further their proof-texted condemnation of those who do not hold to their political ideology! For the rest of us, these words provide an astonishing look at how a people can come to see themselves in the wake of their own devastation. What I?m talking about here is not just the message Jeremiah, but the fact that we still have his message!

The time-frame spanned by Jeremiah?s presence extends from the radical religious reforms of Josiah, who banished and destroyed all worship directed at other than YHWH, to the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah with the subsequent exile of much of the population to Babylon, a defeat and exile which were instigated by an attempt to respond militarily against the Babylonian threat. Yet, in the generations following this humiliation, the sacred tradition of Israel found words of wisdom, and perhaps words of warning, in the prophecy of Jeremiah. Though he was ridiculed and even prosecuted during his own time, the sacred tradition of Israel saw in Jeremiah?s prophecy a word of caution for the future.

It is so easy to look out and condemn the evil which resides in "the other," I have no doubt that the court prophets told Jehoiachin just what he wanted to hear - that the threats which surrounded the people had nothing to do with him or his rule, but were brought upon them exclusively by the evil of others. And yet Jeremiah preached that evil exists not only "out there" but "in here" too.

Please hear this folks, this does not directly address any particular attribution of "blame" for the evil and horrific events that where thrust upon us this past Tuesday. It is to lift before you the fact that faced with apparent "evil" all around, the prophet Jeremiah saw more deeply than those of his day and proclaimed that that which others might project upon "the enemy" was actually reflection of the self. And not only that, but that 2600 years in the future, our sacred tradition has preserved his words as a testament from which we might learn.

There?s been a lot of talk this week about something beyond retribution for Tuesday?s attack, there?s been talk of revenge. Poll after poll shows that a majority of people in our society are united...in anger. So I wonder whether we here have the ability to quiet our anger, to turn from the bloodlust of revenge, at least for a few minutes on a Sunday morning when we come to be intentionally present before the altar of God, hearing Jeremiah?s prophecy to Israel that has been preserved in our sacred scripture. Is God speaking to us through those words? Is there something there that we will miss if we do not allow ourselves the quietness to listen?

I know this, that over and over again, we have learned that the guidance provided to the Hebrews through the Law and the Prophets has proven to be more than just religious dogma. We know, for instance, that the dietary laws make eminent sense from a modern medical view of their world. The prohibitions against shellfish and pork, for instance, provided safeguards to health by closing off common avenues for infection and disease. The efficacy of ancient law, borne out by modern truth.

In yesterday?s New York Times, columnist Anthony Lewis wrote of the potential backlash of a revenge-driven response by our government in the days to come saying,

The danger is that such military action would trigger the Law of Unintended Consequences. That law...provides that for every action, there is an excellent chance of producing an opposite and totally disproportionate reaction.

Afghanistan is a prime example. When the Soviet Union invaded there in 1979, the U.S. armed Islamic forces to resist. The country has ended in the hands of anti-Western Islamic extremists.

I wonder whether the truth of Mr. Lewis? observation isn?t exclusively a modern, military and political truth, but also a truth offered in a far-off place to a desperate King by some crazy prophet. I wonder there is something there for us to hear. I wonder if this modern, political truth bears out ancient, Hebrew prophecy?

The appointed reading from the "pastoral" letter to Timothy is quite a bit easier to take. In fact, at first blush it may seem to be purely "pietistic" in its tone. Yet, I am struck by this opening selection and the way it relates to the rest of the message. Paul, or the author of the letter writing within the Pauline school of thought, seeks to instruct the community on the way in which they should treat the most vulnerable among them. The letter also takes on those leaders whose teaching is not grounded in a clear and meaningful relationship with God. In the verse which immediately follows those read this morning, the letter goes ahead to say, "I am giving you these instructions...so that by following them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience." (vs. 18) This letter intended to offer guidance for difficult times. Maybe there is something here for us.

The way Paul is positioned in these verses is as a model for those who are faithful ? even though he was formerly a man of violence. Christ has strengthened him to be an example by which others might know God?s grace! Well! For those who want to dismiss Paul as a bit over the egotistical edge, they need look no further, eh?! Yet look at what he?s doing. Paul keeps his relationship with Christ in the foreground of his teaching and his sense of himself. In fact, when he proceeds to talk about those who offer "false teaching" the problem is that they have substituted other goals, other agendas for that which grows out of their relationship with Christ.

Surely you?ve heard that wonderful story about the boy in the cafeteria line who reached for an extra and forbidden carton of chocolate milk, only to be scolded by the nun with the words that, "God is watching." Upon reaching the end of the line, he saw a friend obviously trying to decide whether she should take an extra cookie and encouraged her saying, "Go ahead, God?s watching the milk!" We do live like that sometimes, don?t we? We compartmentalize and divide up our consciences to such an extent that we have our "work" self and our "family" self or even our "church" self. ("Here?s the part of my life where I?ll think about my faith, but over here - anything goes!")

What I hear echoed in this pastoral letter is that our primary identity is meant to be our identity as people of faith, so that nothing, nothing, can separate us from that grounding. Our faith is meant to make us different people, top to bottom, in public and in private, in the way we deal with our emotions and the way we deal with our intellect.

In his sermon on "Loving Your Enemies," Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

far from being an impractical idealist, Jesus has become the practical realist. The words of this text glitter in our eyes with a new urgency. Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.

we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. Because Jesus wasn?t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command. Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Montgomery, Alabama, 17 November 1957

"I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me." How many people could echo that sentiment over these past few days. How many people have been pulled from the brink of despair and depression by the strength of their faith?s hope? How many people have written out checks or volunteered their time this week, because their faith has been stronger than their fear? And now, when the days before us call us to the most difficult choices, the most difficult issues in response to this terror, will we be strengthened by Christ? I wonder whether even in this ancient pastoral epistle there is something here that God wants us to consider.

And how painfully poignant are the words of our morning gospel lesson when you juxtapose them with the images of workers, sifting through the rubble of the twin towers, bucketful by bucketful, taking every precaution to search for the thousands who are lost in the midst of the devastation. Jesus throws back in the faces of those who criticized him, their own lack of compassion, their own self-imposed limitations as compassionate people.

"Which one of you," he asked, "does not leave the 99...and go after the one?" No one! That?s the answer! Not one of them there would be as foolish as risk sacrificing the flock for one lost sheep. But this is what God does! God is at work as the foolish shepherd, seeking relationship with any who are lost in despair and brokenness. God is at work as the earnestly searching woman who is seeking that which seems insignificant, until it is found.

How many times, did Jesus talk about the value of what which is lost, unperceived, of no account, hidden? It wasn?t for the sake of increasing a congregation or building his following, it was so those who were seeking direction, were unnoticed, seemed to themselves of little value, were covering something up, could be rediscovered and renewed within themselves as well as within the community.

How absurd Jesus? stories must have sounded! A shepherd leaves the herd vulnerable and risks his own neck for the sake of one sheep? It?s crazy! A woman, stops everything she?s doing, halting the regular routine of her household, just to find a lost coin. Oh, perhaps she could use the cash, but life must go on, how ridiculous to stop everything just for that! And yet very heavens rejoice when that which was separated, hidden, cut off from God, is restored to wholeness.

Friends, I believe that God does have something here for us to consider. I believe that we still need to hear that God is searching and calls us to engage in the search as well. I don?t only mean a search for someone else, I believe our primary search is for our own hearts, our own consciences. It is a search by which, in the spirit of Christ, we engage in the vulnerable task of recovering everything that we are and make it available to the will and use of God.

The 14^th century Indian poet, Kabir, once wrote, "Do what you do to another person, but never put them out of your heart." Even though his life was spent bridging Muslim and Hindu thought, I believe that his sentiment echoes this truth of Christ.

We are, as we sit here today, conflicted people. I know I am and I suspect that each of you is as well. We are conflicted in the ways in which we think about ourselves, we are conflicted in the ways in which we think about our neighbors, we are conflicted in the ways we think about our world and we are particularly conflicted in the ways we think about our enemies. Intellectually we know that violence only perpetuates violence. Scientifically we know that when we hold on to anger, hatred, and vengeance that we are literally destroying ourselves by placing our internal systems into a constant state of heightened tension and stress, thereby damaging our very bodies. We?ve heard, over and over again this week, from most religious leaders, words of compassionate restraint. Yet, we feel so helpless, so violated, so vulnerable and often so angry.

I believe, though, that the wisdom in Kabir?s words is clearly seen when matched with those of our scriptures from this morning. If we participate in the vulnerability that seeks to return everything we are to God, then we bring God close to our hearts. If we bring God close to our hearts, then that relationship cannot help but define our selves as well as our interactions with others. If God defines and grounds us, then we are better able to hear the warnings about the limitations of vengeance and violence, no matter from what intentions the violence emanates. We will do what we do to one another and we will relate as we relate to the world around us, even in the most devastating and terrifying circumstances. But we will keep those to whom we relate, even those who are our enemies, close to hearts that have searched for and found the strength and power of God. That will be our first and foremost grounding, our first and foremost identity, and that will make all the difference.

God of grace and God of glory, On thy people pour thy power;
Crown thine ancient church?s story; Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, Grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour, For the facing of this hour.

Lo! the hosts of evil round us Scorn thy Christ, assail his ways!
From the fears that long have bound us, Free our hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, Grant us courage,
For the living of these days, For the living of these days.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick