Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Paula and Paul -- Conversations About Food



Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Read: 1Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28
Grace and peace to you from the Creator, Redeemer, the one who sustains us.

Paula Deen is really taking a beating in the media right now. The queen of butter as some have referred to her just announced, after living three years with the disease, that she has type 2 diabetes. Many who have watched her use tons of butter and fattening ingredients in her foods for years say, "What else is new?”
Paula Deen is known for her strong Southern twang and her success as a chef that cooks southern dishes and extreme comfort food. But her life wasn’t always successful. As a divorced mother of two teenaged sons, with only two hundred dollars in her pocket, she started a business making bagged lunches. Paula’s sons delivered the meals because she had a fear of going out in public places. She believed she suffered from agoraphobia because she was robbed at gunpoint when she worked as a bank teller.

Deen’s catering business called “The Bag Lady" became successful and she was hired to be the cook at a Best Western in Savanhha. Soon she would open a resturant of her own called, “The Lady and Sons.” The rest as they say is history.
Paula has made a name for herself on the Food Network with her incredible rich recipes like a fried macroni and cheese. The recipe calls for macroni and chesse to be prepared, chilled overnight, wrapped in bacon and fried. As a matter of fact if you want something absolutely ridiculously fattening and decadent you can find her recipe for "The Lady’s Brunch Burger" which is literally a burger encased in two glaze donuts. A small snippet of her cooking show from the Food Network featuring this recipe on youtube is aptly entitled "Paula Deen’s heart attack."

Along with the current media storm Deen has caught grief continually from fellow chef Anthony Bourdain for what he calls her irresponsible way of cooking. Last August he called her
“the most destructive person on the Food Network.” He is particularly put out because not only does she cook irresponsibly but now she is going to make money on promoting a drug that helps control diabetes....But she’s not the only one who used copious amounts of butter; Julia Childs and the Barefoot Contessa weren’t exactly known for their restraint in using rich, calorie laden ingredients.
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Isn’t it an individual’s responsibility to manage what and how they eat?
That seems to be the question Paul is answering in the eighth chapter of 1 Corinthians with his conversation about food offered to idols. The problem as Paul seems to see it, is that some in the church have very strong opinions, convictions, ideas about how things should be done.

In the church at Corinth, as in many churches, those members with the loudest voices are the ones who are used to being heard, used to getting their way, used to dictating the behavior of others. As one commentator writes: “They seem ready to prescribe moral comportment for others.” (NIB, 893) The rest just go along.

While Paul is responding to a rather specific and detailed question about a popular practice
he tries to teach them not only how to handle the matter in this instance, but how to look at other issues that threaten to cause fiction or division in their community. Paul’s challenge is to give an answer that takes a balanced view.
I can imagine him sitting pondering just how to nuance his letter. Well, if I say this then... they may be offended; if I say that then.... some might leave the church; if I offer that suggestion then .....that group will be unhappy. Paul has the challenge of trying to deal with the entire membership of the church in Corinth: no matter new or old, no matter young in the faith or seasoned believer, no matter where they stand on this particular issue.
Now here’s the problem…..let’s put it in a Paula Deen kind of scenario:


Suppose you are invited to dinner at someone’s house who you know cooks with extreme amounts of sugar, butter and ridiculously fattening ingredients and you are trying to avoid those things.They have been asking you to dinner for weeks, and months. They are your friends, your very best friends. What do you do? You know that one meal won’t kill you but others in your family might fall off the diet and good health wagon if you accept the invitation to go.
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No matter how they tried to avoid it many of those in the Corinth church could not help but be confronted with meat that was offered to idols. Not only was this meat served at festive social gatherings but the temple priest often sold the left over meat in the local meat markets? One section of the community knows that meat sacrificed to idols could not harm anyone, would not threaten their salvation. They would still be justified by God's grace through faith. Others thought if they ate such meat, well --- they were jeopardizing their relationship with God.
So what do they do?The question in essence is being a Christian coming in contact with things of the world, how does one live? Paul knows for certain if they keep arguing over this issue
“If it becomes everything, some people end up as know-it-alls who treat others as know-nothings. He wants them to know. Real knowledge isn’t that insensitive.” *
I don’t think this message is simply about food, but about how we are in community. Paul wants the people of Corinth to consider how they treat each other and he reminds them: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
In the case of Paul’s pronouncement we know that he is not talking about love as a simply sentimental notion. Paul is talking about love that is active, love that works in and for community, love that cares not simply about self but others ……...love that is exemplified in the one who gives his life on a cross.
It is as though Paul is saying that insisting on one’s freedom to eat the food sacrificed to idols
not only harms others, but is an affront to the one in whose name we pray.
Yet, I don’t believe this text is telling us to put aside our convictions. No, Paul is stressing that any freedom and authority be used to consider the views and feelings of all, creating space for the discernment of the community and the working toward a consensus. Yes, decisions get made. But they are made best when steps are taken to listen and hear and when care is shown.
Martin Luther learned from Paul and wrote in the Freedom of a Christian, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all subject to all.”
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We understand Paula Deen’s drive to be as successful as she can, especially since she has known hard-times. Of course Paula Deen is free to do whatever she wants, cook however she pleases and promote whatever diabetis drug that she chooses. But some, think she should consider the example she is setting.
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Amazingly, Paul won’t tell the leaders of the church in Corinth what they should, ought or must do. What he does, particularly in the New Revised Standard Version of the bible
that we heard read earlier, is offer himself as an example and says what he will not do:
"Therefore if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I will not cause one of them to fall."
But Eugene Peterson offers an alternative translation that would seem to say that those who know there is no such thing as an idol and know that it is ridiculous to think that eating anything sacrificed to an imaginery god would hurt, translate Paul’s ending remark as:
“So never go to these idol-tainted meals if there’s a chance it will trip up one of your brothers or sisters.”  
Either translation makes the point. Paul wants us not to simply consider what we know;
not simply to consider how things have always been; not simply to consider what we like, 
but to take into consideration the entire community. He wants us to consider who we are as the people who follow the one who has the power and authority to cast out demons.
We can only hope, that those facing divisive issues might hear the command of Jesus to be silent spoken in Mark; a moment of silence helps us see what is outside of ourselves, not simply what is at stake for us but what is at stake for the other.
Yet we must be careful. Paul’s example of not eating meat seems to put the onus on those who appear to have the knowledge of what is correct. Paul’s wish for consideration and consensus is not just so those in the church at Corinth can be nice, but because he knows that there is something about a divided community that hinders the ability to focus on God, the ability to hear God’s word. 
Fighting over issues keeps the church from seeing the goodness and grace of God and from being able to share the love of Christ that builds up, in the community and in the world.
Through all this talk of food, Paul wants us to consider as we eat, as we walk and talk, as we live,the example we show. After all, we have the finest example of love -- the finest example of undeserved, unconditional, never-ending love in Jesus the Christ. Will you follow that example?


Rambling again!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Jesus Sees You


Read:
2 Kings 5:1-19; Luke 17:11-19
I wish you grace and peace from God the Creator, Redeemer and the One who sustains us.
The above lessons are replete with lepers. Naaman who is in the beginning stages of his leprosy is advised of a cure, when told what he must do to be healed, he becomes indignant, insulted because the prophet Elisha did not come out to see him but simply sent words and commands to go wash. He didn’t understand that the prophet had seen this before, Naaman position, his status, his command of the king’s army had no relevance, he needed a cure and Elisha knew exactly what he should do.
Naaman doesn't see how the polluted waters of the Jordon were any different, any better than the waters that he was able to wash in at home. So he cannot see why he should do anything that the prophet Elisha says. He simply cannot see the benefit in it. Naaman’s servants seem to see and know the benefits of their master doing exactly what the prophet Elisha tells him to do and so they convince Naaman to go wash himself in the waters and following the prophets command Naaman is indeed made clean.
He comes back seeing and knowing: “that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.”
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I didn't see much of South Korea, last week. I went briefly to the National Museum of Korea, to a buddist monastery; I had sushi in the airport in Japan. Unfortunately the day I was traveling my sister Dawn had to take her 20 year old daughter Vanessa to the hospital. She has since been diagnosed with type one diabetes and remains in the hospital. Because of this my trip wasn’t quite what I expected. I was disappointed and was attempted to be a little indignant. I was indignant, until I remembered the main focus of my trip was seeing my sister Dawn who I hadn't seen in 5 years, and her husband John.
I went to Korea to see my sister and to get to know my neice Vanessa. While I had to visit her in a hospital, we did get to have a least one meaningful conversation. The real treat of the trip was to see and get to know Vanessa’s  beautiful six month old baby boy, Ramel.
Ramel and I instantly formed an attachment and developed our own little game. He was a good baby, but as all six month olds can he would sometimes get a little fussy. Every time I saw him going down the rode to fussiness, I would pull out my best playing with a baby voice and say: "I see you." Those words would bring a big grin to Ramel's face.

Whether he was fussy because he needed changing, missed his mommy, was fighting sleep, or just being fussy for fussy sake an "I see you," would cause his face to expand into a big smile and sometimes he would explode with giggles. It was a joy to behold; who knew being seen could cause such a reaction? For Ramel, it certainly did.
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In the lesson from Luke's gospel, seeing and being seen does indeed have power. As Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem, as he makes his way to his death and eventual resurrection, he is seen by ten lepers. These ten men have been isolated, outcast, set apart from their communities by a dreaded disease, that many in the 1st century thought was extremely contagious. As you hear in the text they kept their distance because it was the law that they warn others when they were near.
But on this day, they see Jesus--not getting too close. They at first yell out “unclean, unclean because a close encounter with lepers would defile and pollute, would render the one previously clean, unclean. Yet they see Jesus and call out to him from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 
Perhaps they had seen Jesus some other place doing some other thing, or someone they knew had seen him and told them about this man who could heal. Perhaps someone had told them about this man who told the most amazing stories and proclaimed that the kingdom of God was near----perhaps.
But what we know from the text is that Jesus saw them. It was as if he said to them in his best talking to lepers voice, “I See You!” He saw them and he knew them:
their hurt,
their pain,
their isolation from community,
their estrangement from family, friends and loved ones,
their desperate hope that he---Jesus could do something.
Jesus acknowledged them and they probably had not been acknowledged for a very long time. “When he saw them,”without any explanation from them, or any additional request.“He said to them, Go show yourself to the priests.”
And that is exactly what nine of them did. Now these nine usually get a bad rap. The nine saw Jesus, asked him for help and did what he told them to do. “And as they went, they were made clean.” I am sure their hearts expanded with joy at having been seen, having been known and healed by Jesus!
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Yet, in many sermons they are called ungrateful, forgetful. Were they really? They were told to go to the priest because they needed to prove that they were indeed healed from their previous infirmity; they needed this proof...before they could go back to their family and friends, before they could re-enter the community. So the nine did exactly what they were supposed to do.
Nine cured lepers run to the Temple of Jerusalem, the place they believed God dwelled. One turns back to Jesus. One commentary puts it like this: "he, saw, noticed, let what happened sink in . . . And it made all the difference. Because he sees what has happened, the leper recognizes Jesus---[who he is ]his reign and his power. Because he sees what has happened, the leper has something for which to be thankful, praising good with a loud voice. Because he sees what has happened, the leper changes direction, veering from his course toward a priest to first return to Jesus.’
What has happened is that this one leper has heard in Jesus’ “I see you,” something more and understands that he has been seen by God. This leper is able to see something beyond all the others. He sees that Jesus is the very presence, the very embodiment, the very incarnation of God. Thus this leper knows that he has been seen and known by God and for this he turns and falls on his face to worship and praise.
To be seen and known by God, isn’t this what we all want?  Isn’t what we all long for--- to be seen, known and loved? Not simply the outside of us--not simply our nice clothes and well put together selves, but we want to be seen spots and all. We want to be seen in all our slefishnes, sinfulness and need. We want our hurts, our pains, our joys, our sorrows, our truimphs, our disappointments and even our failures to be seen and acknowledged. We want them to be seen by someone who can speak a word, who can perhaps give us a direction and who we desperately hope can facilitate our wellness. 
Jesus does indeed facilitate the wellness of all ten of the lepers, but only the one realizes it. He returns to Jesus and Jesus seeing him chuckles and says: “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?” Perhaps Jesus is not upset as we assume in our reading. Perhaps he is simply amazed that someone finally gets that there is no need to show yourself to the priest because they have already been see by God.
Jesus chuckles: “Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Perhaps he chuckles because this foreigner who may not have understood the Torah law, this law that would have him go to the priests--this one who may not have been accepted by the Jewish priests anyway--returns to the one who heals in the first place.
Yes, Jesus chuckles because of the response his “I See You!” has garnered. This one leper sees Jesus, knows who he is and responds to the gift he has been given---heart expanding with gratitude. And Jesus declares: “Your faith has made you well!”
We long to hear the voice of Jesus call out to us, “I see you.” So our hearts may also expand with joy and gratefulness and we may return with worship and praise!
So, people of God, listen to the voice of Jesus made known to us in water and word --at the table in body and blood,  as voice that even through the community of faith, calls out in the best I love you voice ------- “I SEE YOU!”


Just Rambling

Sunday, January 8, 2012


Baptism of Our Lord 2012
Inferiority Complex
Mark 1:4-11
January 8, 2012
Grace and peace to you in this New Year from God--Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer
It is the second Sunday of the New Year and it seems we are going backwards.
Back to the story of John the Baptist that we heard, in Advent, back to the weird man in camel hair eating 
locust and wild honey, back to the man that many thought was the reincarnation of Elijah.....
We again find him at the water, baptizing welcoming Jesus into the water.
But before we see Jesus baptized we hear John’s speech....
I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandal. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 
Sounds a little to me as though John has an inferiority complex...and no wonder! We know that Jesus is more powerful though Jesus will say that, “those born of women no one is greater than John.”
We know that Jesus will indeed baptize with the Holy Spirit. Yet John has done exactly what he was sent to do---prepare the way. Somehow John is still hesitate, he still feels inferior. We understand John,
 because we are all subject to suffer from an inferiority complex.
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No matter who we are or what we do, no matter our station in life there is a moment, maybe when we are young and just starting out, perhaps when we are trying something for the first time or being pushed outside of our comfort zone when we look around us and feel like the next guy has done and is doing it better.
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Or if we don’t come to that moment on our own, there is often someone who will point it out for us.
Yes your team is good but that team is better. Yes your product is okay, but that companies product is better. Yes you are smart, but that fifth grader is smarter. There is always someone who has a newer or bigger car, or house, or someone who we went to school with or our brother who is doing more and better than we are.. Pastor we like you and all but can’t you be more like pastors we had in the past.
It’s all enough to give you an inferiority complex!
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Tell me is there someone in your life right now who wants you to be something other than who you are? Is there something about you that someone believes that isn’t quite right? Do you ever feel as if you are so caught up in others expectation, perhaps you are trying to be like an uncle or cousin or you are so concerned with not being able to live up to others tthat you suffer from an inferiority complex


Jesus has been there too. Remember he was born in a manger around the sheep and the cows. His mother was a young girl who got pregnant before she was married. All that is enough to cause you to feel inferior. And now he is all grown up ready to walk into this role, this ministry that he has been given.
Today John the Baptist meets Jesus by the river. They are cousins, yet John has always known that he is to come ahead of the chosen one of God, but coming first would mean that he was always second to hi cousin Jesus. 


John baptizes people at the river Jordan to call them to repent of their sins…literally to turn away from their sins and back to God.  Jesus comes over the crest of the hill and walks into the mucky waters of the Jordan to be baptized by John and John looks at him and says…I am the one who needs to be baptized, not you Jesus!  
Even John has an expectation that he wants Jesus to live up to. Jesus has to fight public opinion and this from his own family.  And Jesus tells John…do it.  God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.  So John does it. 
And just as Jesus comes out of the water, the skies open and the Spirit of God descends like a dove, lands on Jesus and a voice is heard…God’s own voice…this is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life. 
Can you imagine? Does it get any better for Jesus?  How is that for a confidence builder?  This is my son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.  
Do you believe in that moment that Jesus thought about living up to John’s expectations? Or his mother’s or anyone’s  No way!  Too many people were witness to God’s blessing.  Too many stories would travel out of the river valley and into the streets of Jerusalem, Galilee, Nazareth, perhaps all the way to Bethlehem.
In the rising from the waters Jesus had been identified as the Son of God.  Jesus had been claimed and named by his father in heaven and there was no going back.  
His course is set. 
Jesus now has the confidence to go about the work he is given to do in the world.
He is ready to preach good news, to proclaim the kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus is empowered to heal and raise.
He is confidant in who he is and whose he is. So confident he can walk all the way to the cross and give himself for the forgiveness of our sins.
This confidence came as he rose from the waters of baptism, as he is named beloved by God.
It is no different for you and me.  Church, children of God, you have been risen from the waters of baptism, you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. 
 Okay..now everyone…state your name, _____, you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.  
This is the beginning of your ministry, your work in the world.  Today we ask the question, Where is your confidence?  God has come as the gift of Jesus Christ to remind you that you are loved…that you have value…that you are worthy of God’s great love…that you are marked by God’s love, and the delight of God’s life.  
Today God speaks your name.  But what’s in a NAME?
A name is so very important. A name gives you the ability to  N to Notice…to be mindful…to pay attention to God’s claim on your life and what that means as you carry your identity into the world.
To Affirm…to be confident in who you are as a Child of God gifted with grace and forgiveness and promised eternal life in the Kingdom of God.
To mean something…to live with intention in the world.  To live honestly and to speak and know the truth that you may be set free and in so living, may free others to come to know the truth.
To Engage…to  walk into the moments that make us uncomfortable and to live out our identity in the world with courage and confidence that we might engage the world as servants of God and be fearless.
I believe that if we take the time to notice and affirm God’s claim on our lives we can follow our call and be fearless.  I believe that if you leave here today and seek out greater meaning—live with more intentionality as God’s servants in the world we can shake off that inferiority complex and begin to proclaim.  
Each of us can proclaim --- I am a child of God and I am fearless.
I believe that if we ask God to give us the strength to engage the world wherever we go…God will bless us and into the world we will go sharing Christ’s love 
Yes despite our inferiotity complexed we too are named and blessed in the waters of baptism, God calls our name, blesses us and sends us out into the world with confidence.
In this New Year may you remember your baptism, hear your name shouted, whispered called  you might hear God say 
You are my Son, my daughter, the Beloved, with you I am welll pleased and be blessed!




Just Rambling!

**Illustration by Dave Hammond of Aspen Artistry (check out his work on Facebook page by that name)
***Thanks to Pastor Chris Marien, Ascension Lutheran Church in Waukesha Wisconsin, who gave me permission to use parts of a sermon he preached. I give him thanks especially for The Acrostic for "name".