Pastor's Notes

Over the years the question has been posed, “Is the book of Jonah a tale of a whale or a whale of a tale?” Something tells me if it was simply one of the above, it would have been forgotten a couple millennia ago and not in either Jewish or Christian scripture.

There is another tale of a great whale: Moby Dick. This story has been read and re-read, told and re-told countless times since its publication in 1851. It seems fans of the novel are in disagreement as to the meaning of “Moby Dick”, but are in solid agreement that it means something and that the something is very important.

Jonah actually does not mention a whale, instead it simply calls Jonah’s temporary home under the sea a big fish. The locale of Jonah is in the Mediterranean, a sea in which there are no whales. Regardless, the book of Jonah is neither tale of a whale nor whale of a tale.

Jonah is a story of humanity that knows what God wants, it has a pretty good idea of what God wills and what God does not will, but for very self-centered reasons humanity fails to do what God wills. Too often it lives out its own personal desires instead.

How many times have you said or heard someone say, “What’s wrong with the world today…..” Never do we or other say what is wrong with the world today is us or something about us. What could be said is what is wrong with the world today (and yesterday and tomorrow) is we too often follow our own will, not God’s. You and I have a very limited perspective of life and the world that cannot see far beyond our own personal world and personal world view. God, the creator, has a much grander view that can see how even small infractions of God’s desire for all the world can harm that world. God sees clearly how what happens in Tempe Arizona can affect people in Africa, and those living in Uruguay can make decisions that somehow can effect people in Tempe.

There is more to Jonah’s story then simple, human narcissism, that seemingly innate drive for self-preservation that too often shifts into overdrive. There is also a story here that says when we overcome our self-indulgent ways, God’s will works! The wicked Ninevites repented right down to their dogs, cats, hamsters and cattle.

True to the Biblical record, the story of Jonah also has a very persistent God. Jonah was, it seems, rather creative in his methods to escape God and God’s will for him. God did not give up. God’s creativity far exceeded that of Jonah. I mean, C’mon…a fish??
I wonder what creative idea God might have in store to bring you or me back to the fold when we go our own way. In Moby Dick, the narrator was called Ishmael. In Jonah, the reluctant prophet may be called us. Certainly the God in Jonah is called ours.

Like both college and high school, after four years, seminary grants a diploma. With all the talk about sheep in the Bible, I still suspect the diploma was written on good old paper, not sheepskin. The diploma was signed by both the seminary president and chair of the seminary board. Wearing the same silly mortarboard hat, a master’s hood was placed over our shoulders, diploma firmly handed off as deftly as any NFL quarterback to his running back, and away we went back to our pews in the Chapel of the Abiding Presence.

At last! Now we could take all those wonderful theological truths and concepts to the pulpit, the classroom, and to counseling sessions in an office! Oh, they teach things we had never heard about prior to seminary classes and assigned books. Things like justification by faith, sola scriptura, Sjmul justus et piccatar, sola fide, sola gratia, and law and gospel. Now we could look brilliant by tossing in a little Latin or seasoning the sermon with some Greek to let everyone know we learned something during our four seminary years.

Filled with all this knowledge, I, for one, was ready for the Church! Yet life soon taught me that even if the church was ready for me, life was even more ready. Initially I thought ministry would be great were it not for all the interruptions. Then I learned the interruptions were the ministry. Church members became suddenly ill and rushed off to hospitals. Many died without warning. It might be Holy Week, but confirmation classes still must be taught, the sick visited, and phone calls returned.

Seminary taught me well to think theologically and infused into my very being the concepts of theology, the Lutheran understanding of Jesus, God, the Church, God’s people, and faith. Actually most was infused outside the classroom by discussions in the dorm, on a bench, or in the dining hall, pub or coffee shop. These things had to be processed somehow ….why not with peers struggling with the same questions and teachings?

Quickly in my first parish I learned all of this was passed on to me and my classmates not for our intellectual pleasure or torment, but for a purpose. The purpose was to apply this learning in life with actual and very human people. For whom was all this learning to be directed? To all I encountered within and without the church. To all who were Christian and all who were not among the faithful. Both the congregation and the world outside of it served as the laboratory in which theological formulations were to be tested. Funny how sometimes those outside the church and any faith often were the best teachers of the truth of much of which I was taught. Not in a negative way as doomed, negative people, but in a positive way teaching me
God’s words, grace, and truth is not held back by one’s disbelief or incorrect understanding. God can and does use all types of people and all have the possibility of being someone who reveals a new and surprising part of God.

This is good news for us. It means learning never ends when classrooms, teachers, and books are in our past. As long as there are people, as long as there is life, we can continue to learn. God prevents no one from being able to be a teacher to us. Belief, biblical and theological truths are not simply for intellectual assent. Faith is much more than a head trip. What God has taught us from scripture, worship, Sunday School, confirmation, and community is to be applied. It is to be lived out. And we don’t have to wear one of those silly hats!

Before I received news of my father’s death and had to fly off to Pennsylvania, I had just organized my thoughts for the upcoming Sunday sermon. I also had this problem of how to do a writing for next week while not being here. Knowing neither the world, the church, nor our congregation would wither without such a piece, I settled on writing out my sermon for the weekly writing.

This sermon will not be as good as the those gathered in worship or gathering around the live feed heard on Sunday, 9/26, from Pastor Terry . I say this not out of humility, but from theological understanding and pastoral experience. Sermons are not meant to be read, but to be heard. Heard, they are more relational. They have a better way of touching our mind and our heart. Watching people listen to sermons, I am aware that though they may be silent, even fidgety at times, there is a certain dialog in play. Listeners of sermons are not mere passive vessels being filled. They are active participants in what is God’s proclaimed Word.

Mark 9:38-50

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Christianity is not a low sodium enterprise. At least it is not according to Jesus. “Have salt in yourselves, “ Jesus tells his followers. “ Be at peace with one another”.

This seems hard to do as right before Jesus says, “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off” The same goes for your foot.. It sounds like the Sharia Law we accuse all Muslims of wanting. Were this true, none of us would be walking, reaching, or seeing.

This seems to be just shock treatment talk by Jesus to gain attention from a group of disciples who seem to insist they and only they are very special….elite in fact….in terms of their relationship with Jesus, and therefore with God. It sounds a lot like those scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees to me. You know, the ones whose attitudes more than their laws, Jesus seemed to want to change.

We Christians may be special to God in terms of God thinking all God’s creatures are special. However, we have no special status, no elite club membership with God. We need to remember; God is not a Christian. God is a creator, redeemer, sustainer, revealer, actively breaking into human lives and the world as God…as working through but also above Christianity and the Christian faith. God neither ignores nor despises others. God can even, in God’s own good way, work through and use those outside the church, outside the faith.

If they are not against us, they are for us. Have you seen this in your life? Have you seen people outside the church yet having some respect if not for the church and its mission, at least having respect for Jesus?

When our son was born, we took him to a pediatrician. The doctor was Hindu, from India. Interestingly both in India and Chicago he was taught in Lutheran schools. He could quote the Bible better and more accurately than most Christians. He continued to study it and often had questions for me in addition to parenting tips on raising an infant and, later, toddler son. He was not at all “against” us.

Likewise, a Jewish psychiatrist in the state hospital in which I received my certification. Constantly he would quote the New Testament as well as the Old. We had a discussion on the text about getting a camel through the eye of a needle, and so on. He would ask us, his mental health disciples, if you will, what we thought was going on with a patient. As clergy in waiting, he would ask how we might engage our faith or the tools of faith in reaching out to a particular patient.

I have experienced the same with many rabbis. At our monthly campus ministry meetings at Arizona State, I frequently find myself agreeing with the rabbi more often than some of my Christian colleagues. Neither the psychiatrist nor the rabbi seemed at all against us.

Have salt in yourselves. Don’t be easily threatened by that or those that may be different. A willingness to talks and question might surprise us in how much we may have in common despite many times, obvious differences.

Gandhi also comes to mind…influenced by many including Tolstoy and his writing about the Kingdom of God, he was also influenced by Thoreau, not an atheist, but not exactly an orthodox Christian, either. There was also Martin Luther King, Jr., in turn, greatly influenced by Gandhi. Many have recognized those not against us, are, in many ways, for us.

Have salt in yourselves. St. Thomas Aquinas, whom we Lutherans seem to think of as “their saint”; that is a saint for Romans, while we identify with St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa as, “Our saint” that is for Lutherans and Protestants….after all Luther was an Augustinian friar in the tradition and learning of St. Augustine.
Aquinas talked about salt. Aquinas said, “Salt seasons and preserves beef, not because it is like beef, but because it is very unlike it.” Christ did not tell his followers that they were only the excellent people or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people. That is, we are called to do exceptional things….we are called to do deeds that are the exception and go against much of the grain of the world and of what is often considered successful and will make one stand out and be elite.

Christians are not to be elite. To be elite is to have no peers. As such they work to convert all to be exactly like them. Those not with them are against them and in need of being pushed down and shoved out.

Nazis and communist groups are excellent examples of so-called superiority. Those who are superior do not serve; they are served. That is not the call of Jesus; that is not the call to have salt in ourselves.

Until recently we Americans understood our system of government as being intentionally adversarial; that is a type of loyal opposition of give and take, insuring no one group dominating would be dangerous. All groups have something to bring. They may be against somethings, but not against people having such different positions.

Now such opposition is seen as being disloyal, un-American, even traitorous. All not with us are against us. We see how that has gotten us.

We Christians are not the only ones who can identify demons and work to cast them out. Isn’t the world a better place with more exorcists working for the kind of healing
God desires?

Have salt in yourselves. Be at peace with one another. God doesn’t want us to lose limbs, God wants us to use them. Amen.

Arizona State University, like all universities, is a great factory of knowledge. Some knowledge is manufactured in the classroom, some in the labs, and much is produced even in the dorms and around the tables in various eateries and Starbucks on campus. The library is a storehouse of great knowledge as are professors, staff, and students themselves.

I am a big believer in education and the gaining of more knowledge. This is an excellent vocation in itself for followers of Jesus. Yet, we cannot confuse knowledge with wisdom. The Bible, for example, while containing much in the way of knowledge is better suited for wisdom.

An entire section of the Old Testament contains what many label “Wisdom Literature”. These would be the books of Job, Proverbs, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (aka Song of Songs), and, for our Roman siblings, Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus. Books like Proverbs simply have wise sayings for living. A book like Job, on the other hand, shows a wisdom that must be lived out though concrete experience and genuine relationships with others.

Jesus uses wisdom in teaching. Many would say the Beatitudes are biblical wisdom for living. Parables are a form of wisdom using images of every day first century life. Note Jesus doesn’t say something like, “Thus says the Lord” in such words and passing along of wisdom, but instead appeals to reason, logic, experience, and nature.

Who is the wisest person you have known? Quite possibly it is not the most educated person you know. For me it was my paternal grandfather. I am not sure he even graduated from high school. However he was very well read and tested his reading in life. He knew education was not wisdom. Conversely he knew lack of education was not wisdom, either.

My grandfather knew wisdom is a relational category that has knowledge and learning as well as the love to know what to do with these things. I am guessing those whom you see as those who are wise have a similar understanding and expression of wisdom. I am guessing they were someone who exhibited much of the wisdom through caring and love.

I am not sure I am a wise person. What gives me hope is that I have begun to understand that the more I learn, the more I realize how much I do not know. Such an awareness, hopefully, is the beginning of true wisdom.

God wants us to learn. God values and supports education. Jesus, after all, was often called “Rabbi” or “Teacher”. Education, however, is not restricted to the classroom, school, or laboratory. It can come in conversation, listening, dialog, walking down a city street or through a quiet forest or meadow. Wisdom can be found in sunsets, experiences, and suffering. Wisdom is found in relationships. It is discovered in how we use our knowledge and improve our knowledge as we engage with one another. Wisdom comes best when knowledge is tested and put to use in our lives.

One of the best examples of this I have seen is during the Jr. High years. Yes, you read me correctly, I said Junior High, as in 12-14 years old or so. When we think of these years often we think of being lost and of being rebellious. Yet it seems what adolescents tend to do most is take what they have been taught at home and test it. They both go against those childhood teachings and with them. Eventually they come out on the other side that is called high school. They are different now. They are a blend of what they had always been taught, spiced with a bit of their own person and own thoughts. Wisdom, hopefully, had begun to come to them.

In some ways we are all adolescents. We are a bit confused, somewhat rebellious, yet hang on to some old ways and teachings. Somehow for us wisdom continues to break through over a life time. Perhaps true human wisdom is hanging in there with a willingness to grow in both knowledge and wisdom. Perhaps wisdom’s chief partner in the process is humility. …we are not nearly as smart or knowledgeable as we too often think we are. This is why I frequently share this quote. I do not know where I first heard it, but am sure it does not originate with me: “People do not care what you know, until you care.” That, it seems to me is wisdom at its core and at its finest!