NEW RULE

November 22, 2015

Reign of Christ - Pentecost Last

2^nd Samuel 23:1-7

John 18:33-27

Revelation 1:4b-8

(prayer)

A couple of years ago, I was in the Los Angeles area for a church conference.  On a free evening, Patti and I were able to get tickets to go to the CBS television studio and be in the audience for Real Time with Bill Maher.

The format is to combine social and political topics with thought-provoking humour.

Bill Maher is well-known for his sarcasm, an atheistic worldview and his in-your-face commentary on the world.

Back in 2002, his show ("Politically Incorrect") was cancelled following Mather's comments that the 9/11 terrorists weren't cowards in that they were willing to die for their cause.  He contrasted that to launching cruise missiles from a warship 2000 miles away from its target.

He also has been a scathing critic of organized religion - as you can discover if you watch his hard-to-pronounce 2008 documentary movie: "Religulous".

As clergy person, you may wonder what I get out of Bill Maher.

Well, I am able to laugh at some the absurdities of my faith and religion in general.  But I also really like sarcasm as a form of humour and few do it as well as Bill Maher.

I was thrilled to be able to see him live.

One of the recurring segments on Real Time is what Maher calls, "New Rules".  He will often make short comments on current issues by saying that because of something, there should be a new rule someone should follow.

Here's a bit of what it's like.

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I had a bit of trouble finding an appropriate clip suitable for church because the show airs on HBO, so the language and subject matter is often crude.  I'll put the unedited clip on my sermon website - if you want the full effect.

Language and Content Warning

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All kidding aside, there is some real truth behind Real Time's New Rules.  That is...

When we learn to appreciate the impact of what is going on within our midst, we are wise to consider how our lives might be changed because of these experiences - to make conscious choices about the path we will travel.

The standards by which we design our life are always built up by whatever new learnings and insights we pick up along the way.

It is not always a smooth process.  Sometimes, we might be stubbornly reluctant to incorporate the new approaches into our life, because we are afraid of change or... we just can't imagine that the change (if we make it) will make any real difference and that may be too disappoint a prospect.

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It has been true in every age and it is certainly true in our day:  there are aspects of modern life and prominent assumptions that are in need of a serious attitude adjustment.

·         Yes - the mean global temperature is on the rise and 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human choices are making things worse, but I can't imagine being able to change enough that it will make a difference to the big picture.  What can you do?

·          Yes - war, and terror, and poverty, and incredible human suffering is not ideal, but can't imagine a way out of it that will not overly challenge my place in the world.  What can you do?

·         Yes - loving your neighbour makes a good sermon - a decent theory to ponder in the mind and soul - but have you seen how unlovable some people are?  What can you do?

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"Who am I?", Jesus asked his disciples.

"You are a great teacher.  You are a mighty healer.  You are deeply caring and compassionate.  You truly show us the heart of God.  You are a prophet.  You are the God-Anointed-King (messiah, christ)."

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"Are you your people's king?", governor Pilate asked Jesus.

"No kingdom that you can imagine.  I focus on what is true."

“Truth?  That’s a matter of opinion.”

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I appreciate that it might seem odd for us to be reading a Holy Week passage, just a few weeks before Christmas, but I love the fact that our lectionary cycle of bible readings invites us to explore the leadership and authority of Jesus at this time of the year.

As I said earlier, today is the last Sunday of the church liturgical year.  A new year starts next Sunday as Advent begins.  This final Sunday is called Christ the King Sunday or Reign of Christ Sunday.

But as Jesus told Pilate, my kingdom is like nothing in this world.

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But Pilate did not know how to respond to this idea.  Pilate could only view leadership and authority from his own experience.  The pax romanus: there could only be peace and order through 'might' - a superior force was the ultimate source of authority - when the threat of force is known, there will be peace.  The masses will be too afraid to challenge the leaders and there will be peace.  

This approach was effective and efficient.  It had brought the world that Pilate knew to its present state.  Anyone wanting to gain the authority must play that game by those rules.

If Jesus was a threat worth worrying about, he could be overpowered by violent force.

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The Roman leaders were used to two types of revolutionaries:

1     Violent revolutionaries: those willing to take up arms to defend their cause; and

2     Non-violent idealogues: who hoped to inspire change on the strength of their ideas.

If Pilate (or another leader) was dealing with someone in the first category, he would need to take out not only the leader, but also any followers who were also violently inclined in order to quash the movement's authority.

If the problem was of a non-violent nature, experience taught Pilate that he only needed to cut off the head.  Violently and publically eliminate the leader, and the passive, peace-loving followers will scatter discouraged.  The problem will go away on its own.

We can tell by the way our bibles describe what Pilate did, that the governor of Judea was not very concerned about any real violence coming from Jesus or his followers.

Jesus proclaimed as much in the conversation we read from John today:  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.

Jesus was no real physical threat to his power.  The ideological threat was easy to deal with.

Jesus' pax christos (which we can describe as a 'peace through compassion') was no match for the pax romanus (peace through might).

These were the rules that Pilate knew. 

And he couldn't imagine authority  and leadership working... any... other... way.

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But Jesus didn’t see Pilate's rules as definitive.

Jesus had a New Rule.

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Pilate represents an empire whose foundation is might, whose reality is power, whose Caesar is god.

Jesus’ vision is of a different realm: one which is grounded in seeming powerlessness, whose leader is a servant.

With a word, Pilate can send soldiers to show the power the empire wheeled.

With gentle and powerful words, parables, about lost children, tiny seeds and surprising generosity, Jesus changes hearts and minds and souls.

This upsets the presumed notions of what power and authority are all about.

In the Realm of God about which Jesus preaches and teaches, selfless love and compassion rule.

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Pilate hopes to silence Jesus’ message with an humiliating act of capital violence intended to terrorize those who might be tempted to not feel total loyalty to Caesar in Rome.

But the pax christos is beyond intimidation.

The truth which Jesus says that inspires him is grounded deep within a relationship with the God of All.

As the early church would later share: the connection with God is unending.  Revelation 1:8 = The Lord God is... Alpha and Omega (Alef and Tav, A and Z, the first and last, beginning and end); the one who was, is and is to come - eternal. 

This was Jesus’ new rule about the true rule of God:

The compassion of God is... eternal, unending, un-intimidatable (if that’s a word).  Violence-fueled power does not separate us from the love of God (cf. Romans 8)

One of my favorite puns is to claim that God is a god of justice - just loves us.

Jesus knew this truth, so he was not afraid of Pilate and Pilate’s rules of empire.

If that was the way Pilate insisted that the world was supposed to work, then Jesus kingdom was not of this world.

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 Our scriptures today invite us to reflect on the nature of power and authority in our lives.

What is important to us?

What motivates us when we are given power to exercise? 

Do we (like King David) seek to be like the warming light of the sun on a new day - to bring comfort and growth into the world we share? 

David’s dying wish was that he would be remembered as a just and faithful ruler.  History may judge the totality of his actions differently, but he does point us to the best of our hope in God - the source of unconditional love and justice.

On this eve of advent - as we prepare to remember the birth of our servant king, we are grateful for the unending care and compassion of God.

And because of that, we should also accept a New Rule:  Whenever we claim to speak for our God, it had better meet the ‘love of neighbour’ test.  Even - especially - when the neighbour seems unlovable.

Let us pray:

God of our lives, reign over us and through us, so that your creation will know all beauty and wonder and hope.  Amen.

#106MV “I Am the Dream”

LOOK BEYOND

November 15, 2015

Pentecost 25

1^st Samuel 1:10-11,20

Mark 13:1-8

(prayer)

I want to begin talking about Context.

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Understanding "the context" of our biblical texts is always essential when we are looking back on the legacy of our tradition and faith.

'Context' includes social, religious, cultural and political influences that affect any given situation.

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I think that context will be very helpful as we take some time with the readings from First Samuel and from Mark we heard today.

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We begin by accepting that Hannah (living in the 11th century BCE) and Jesus' disciples (1000+ years later, in the 1st century CE) made very different assumptions about the world they lived in compared to us today.

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I know that some of us have experience with fairly complicated family trees.  Hannah certainly had some relationships that are less common in our modern contexts.

In fact, you might find it easier to empathize with Hannah, if you are a fan of The Learning Channel's reality series "Sister Wives" that follows the family of Kody Brown - who are members of an offshoot of the Latter Day Saints church that still practices polygamy or plural marriage.  Kody Brown and his four wives (who live in four separate houses in a Las Vegas suburb cul-de-sac) most recent storyline involves the fact that his fourth wife (whose children from a previous marriage have recently been legally adopted by Kody) is now pregnant again.  The new episodes promise to explore the impact of wife number one's pseudo-online 'affair' with another man.

Ooooooooo.

This TLC reality show certainly shows the complexities of complex family relationships.

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Hannah lived in a plural marriage - which does not appear to be unique or controversial in her context.  It wouldn't have warranted a reality TV show.  Hannah shares her husband, Elkanah with Peninnah.

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The precise context of the start of Hannah' story is her family's annual participation in the harvest offerings at their regional place of worship (in Shiloh).

The practice was that Elkanah would bring the fruits of his labour to the local priests as an offering to God.  After the ceremony, some of the food would stay with the preists for their sustenance and for distribution to those in need.  But a portion of the food would go back to Elkanah and was split up amongst his family for a feast.

In Elkanah's case, he had two wife's and an untold number of children among whom to divide the feast.  Naturally, the wife with the most children was given more.  The truth is that Hannah had no children.  The bible implies that this was not for lack of trying on Elkanah and Hannah's part.  Hannah's barrenness was a source of scorn heaped on her by her sister wife.

Sadly, part of the context in the ancient world is that a significant part of a woman's value in her family and in society was in her ability to rear children for her husband.  The societal need to propagate future generations was likely the context to the acceptance of the practice of polygamy.

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But practicality aside, Elkanah chose to give Hannah extra because (as the text says) "he loved her [even] though the LORD has closed her womb."

Sadly, this husbandly love was not enough to accept that she was worthy of Elkanah's affections.

Peninnah's taunts affected her more than Elkanah's double portion.

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My modern sensibility weeps for Hannah in her despair.  She should not be defined by the productivity of her uterus.

And my modern theology is not quick to put the blame of her fertility issues on God - as if God is typing the unique code for her life into creation' master plan; that Hannah's barrenness is different from other women of her day who (for whatever reason) were not able to have children.  I see her barrenness as sad, but not necessarily divine.

But that is my context, not hers.

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Hannah desires a greater value for her life.  She wants to influence a greater good in the world.  And, she needs the bullying taunts of Peninnah to stop.

She sees giving life to a child as the means to that end.

So, she offers a deal to God in prayer.  Allow me to have a son and I promise that I will see that he is raised to be the finest example of a selfless, faith-focused man.

When - as it turns out - Hannah did have a son, she named him "God-Has-Heard" (Sh'mu-el... Samuel).  And she was faithful to her promise: when he no longer needed the sustenance of her breast milk, she sent him to live with the high priest, Eli,  to serve God in the Tabernacle.

As you read on in the history of Israel, Hannah' son, Samuel, ended up having a very large influence on the future direction of the people.

In a way, we can say that Hannah set the context for how the story of faith unfolded after her time - including the progression of Israel from a judicial form of governance to a kingdom (Samuel would eventually anoint the first kings of Israel).

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Another context conversation.

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Last week, as I was preaching on the new testament letter to the Hebrews, I spoke about the diverse make up of the early Christian Church.

Last week, I invited us to think about how the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the year 70CE affected the language people used and how rituals were practised in segments of the Jesus movement.

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Even though, our reading from the Gospel of Mark, chapter thirteen, describes an event from the life of Jesus and his disciples (around the year 30CE), it was written for readers who lived in the early 70s.

Do you see the double context we must pay attention to?

1.      Jesus and his followers are gawking at the big stone buildings of Jerusalem.  Remember that most of them were rural folk from Galilee.  They were tourist-pilgrims who couldn't help but marvel at the sights and imagine the engineering and time it must have taken to build the Temple.

2.      It is also wise for us to realize that Mark's audience knows that the Temple no longer stands.  For them, the rubble at the temple mount is a fresh reminder of the power and might of the Roman occupiers.

It is hard to know how much of what Jesus is quoted as saying in Mark 13 actually dates back to the 30s and how much is Mark's editorial influence of a post-Temple context.  So, I don't like to view this passage as Jesus as a fortune teller, predicting the destruction of the Temple, but rather I focus on the larger object lesson: that the disciples would be wise to look beyond the surface of what they see. 

To me, the heart of the teaching in Mark 13 today is a challenge to not limit one's thoughts to the details of the moment, but to be open to a wider context - a deeper meaning that might become clearer as time and knowledge progresses.

Jesus seems to be preaching patience in times of turbulence.

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And I think that the words of Jesus in this passage were particularly powerful for that mid-70s audience reading the gospel for the first time.  In their context, the turbulence Jesus was speaking about (wars and rumours of wars; conflicting messages coming from different people offering sure paths to salvation) was their reality.

No doubt, there would have still been calls for revolution in Judea - even after the Temple's destruction. 

By including this teaching in the Gospel,  the author of Mark is inviting his church to think and pray and reflect before jumping impatiently into action.

There is a call (here in Mark, as there was in Hebrews last week) to consider that the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple did not severe the connection between the people and their God.

Hear the hope that this passage must have engendered in the context of Mark's readers: even after the bricks and stones have fallen, even in times of conflict and fear, God's dwelling-place is still with us.  We do not need to leave and find God in a specific place, The Holy exist now... among us.  We don't need to rebuild what already exists.

Like those early disciples - like Mark's readers - we are called to look beyond appearances, to look beyond fear, so that we might see the glimpses of the Realm of God already alive in our context right now.

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It is natural, and easy, to let hope be consumed by the overwhelming worry of the world today.

It is not hard for us to see our own contexts in the words of Mark 13: wars, rumours of wars, earthquakes, famines.  Actually, sadly, I suspect that every era of human history can claim that as part of its context.
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We all have seen the images and heard the the miserable news out of Beirut and Paris is recent days; and the continued fighting in Syria and Iraq.  The violence and threat of further violence - centered on an incomprehensible belief (to me) that it is God-Sanctioned - is part of our world context and forefront in the minds of many since that clear Tuesday morning in September 2001.

Wars and Rumours of war.

Nation against nation.

Kingdom against kingdom.

People against people.

Children of God against children of God.

Yes, I refuse to demonize the violent ideologues - whether they be the terrorists or the Hawks who insist that the only right response is to react in-kind.

We are all daughters and sons of our creator.

Terrorists create terror.  It is their stated goal.  They want people to be so afraid that we see human life as expendable.

If our focus is solely on the fear, we will naturally be drawn to shorter and shorter-term thinking.

We will be attracted to the promises of the quick fixes.

I think quick-fix promises that can explain the astounding continued popularity of Donald Trump's presidential bid:

·         I'll bomb the [crap] out of ISIS.

·         I'll keep the oil.

·         I'll build a cost-free border wall.

·         I will deport 11 million people... very humanely.

·         Don't worry about how; just sit back and enjoy the winning.

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How often do quick fixes actually work in the long run?

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When worry and fear are our motivators, we might be tempted to jump on the bandwagon of otherwise hard to believe promises of pain-free, easy fixes.

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Jesus invites us to consider hope and patience as our motivation.

This is a deeply difficult challenge to accept - to commit to.

Hope... that our lack of understanding is not shared by God;  that our God is relentlessly compassionate and hopeful for all people, for the world we share; that God is our guide as we navigate mystery - even the in comprehensive events of human on human violence

Patience... that as we move forward in time and knowledge and discovery, our context changes - the edge of our reality changes.  We will find solace for our old worry even as we will face new challenges.

To embrace faith in each new context is to accept that mystery exists beyond our full understanding, but that God is our guide. 

To embrace faith is to trust that we will not be alone in the unknown.

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Like Hannah, we are invited to accept the graciously offered love - even when our context tells us we should need something more.

Like the disciples, we are invited to focus our hope on the marvel of God's ever-present rather than the symbols of that which might not survive the changes of context.

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I believe that it is the nature of God to be gracious and generous in whatever situation we are in.

Even in the context of the worst of human behaviour.

Placing our trust in seemingly easy, quick fixes can be disheartening and (ironically) can blind us from the subtle but real activities of the Spirit in our midst.

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In two short weeks, we will enter the season of Advent - four weeks when will ready ourselves for the mysterious intertwining of the human and the divine in the birth of Jesus.

We will practice 'waiting' as the season of Advent emerges.

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Faithful waiting can bear fruit, the scripture writers believed. 

Despair can be transformed into hope. 

New life can emerge.

We are not alone.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray:

All-seeing God, you gift us with hope when we are desperate.  You gift us with faith when we are uncertain.  You are with us always.  Amen.

#899VU "My Soul Gives Glory to God"

SACRIFICE

November 8, 2015

Pentecost 24

Hebrews 9:24-28

Mark 12:38-44

(prayer)

I have mentioned before that my teen and young adult years were highlighted by the years I spent working at a church camp on Pigeon Lake.

Even thirty years later, I credit that time as the genesis of who I have become today.

I developed practical compassion and leadership skills that continue to assist the life I live in 2015.  As I look back and reflect back on that time, I see that I was afforded opportunities to learn as I went - to grow skills and knowledge through experience.  I was not expected to be an expert, but I was invited to learn from others and (more often than I sometimes admit) make it up as I went along.

It was a liberating time.

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I remember the time (1983, 84?) when I was asked to be part of the staff team for a canoe camp.  This week long,  off-site adventure for junior high aged campers involved a couple of days of orientation and practice on the lake before we bussed to Red Deer and embarked on a five day trip down the Red Deer River to Drumheller.

My role on the trip was to be the group's lifeguard.  I had the minimal required qualifications: basic first aid and the Bronze Medallion lifesaving course.  What I didn't have was any experience being a lifeguard.  And - by the way - I had never canoed on a river before.  In fact, my canoeing experience was limited to the few hours once a week on Pigeon Lake over the years I had been a camper and counselllor at the main camp.

I was so nervous when we first arrived at the river.  Now, as far as rivers go,  the Red Deer River in August is pretty tame - flowing maybe 3-5 mph.  It was probably the perfect kind of tributary for me to wet my feet in.

Even so, when I first pushed my canoe off the shore, it took off on me.  My first realization of the difference between lake and river canoeing was that the boat wasn't going to just sit still waiting for me to get in.  I learned right away, that even a calm, tame river needed to be respected. 

My role on that trip was to be the harbinger of safety and - here I was - struggling not to fall on the slippery river rocks as I attempted not to lose my ride down stream.

The questions flowing through my mind were:

"What am I doing here? "

"Do I belong here? "

Quite literally, I was swept up into a situation in which I felt that I was not prepared.  The experience was unfamiliar and I was going to have to adjust to the realities of a situation that was beyond my control.  I would have to adjust to the river - it was not going to change for me.

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In the years that followed Jesus' life, the early Christian movement grew quickly in dozens of communities.  If we read through the Book of Acts, we hear how the Apostles' message of God's compassion, personal redemption, and social responsibility and support was popular. 

Relatively quickly, the group grew beyond it's Aramaic-speaking roots in Galilee and Judea to include Greek-speaking believers from the Jewish diaspora.  In Acts 6, we can read that the original disciples had to appoint seven new leaders from among the Hellenistic believers to ensure that everyone was able to benefit from the the community's support.

The early church was evolving so quickly that the people were forced to react to changing circumstances around them.

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By the time the Sermon-Letter to the Hebrews was written (probably mid to late 60s CE) the Christian movement had further evolved to include people who had no Jewish background at all.

The practices of this new religious expression varied from community to community.  It is understandable that there were disputes and conflicts between believers whose backgrounds differed.

In some of the letters of the Apostles Paul, attention is paid to trying to bring harmony to the whole body of the church.

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It can make perfect sense to us to understand that the transition to a more broad-based Christian church was a challenge for those Hebrew believers who did not seek out to turn their back on Judaism to follow Jesus; it was - for them - a natural expansion of the faith they grew up with.

But, the quick flow of the wider Christian experience and practice was making the melding of the old and the new harder as time moved on.

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In our reading from Hebrews chapter nine today, we see some of this struggle.

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In the Hebrew tradition, the redemptive work of God was symbolized in the rituals of offering and sacrifice at the Hebrew Temple in Jerusalem.

In the Hebrew religious practice of the first century, people expressed their faithful commitment to God by adhering to centuries old rules for faithful living.

This included ancient ritualistic codes about making regular Temple offerings from the day-to-day activities of life as a reminder that all of that which a person enjoys in life comes from God and that a right relationship with God was central to life.

In some cases, according to the Torah, people were expected to bring animals as offerings to the Temple - and in some of those cases, the animals were ritualistically killed as part of the action of offering.  There were times when such offerings involving the slaughtering of the animals was a prelude to a feast for the giver (like with lambs at the passover) - these might have been called 'blood offerings'; at other times, the meat and grains supported the diet of the temple workers and enabled the community's call to support those in need within the society.  Seldom was item offered in the rituals of the temple simply destroyed gratuitously.  In most cases, what was offered served a community need in some way beyond the symbolism of the act itself.

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When we give something that is ours to another, we are sacrificing part of who we are in the service of something wider than ourselves.

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In the Hebrews passage, there are references to sacrifice.  I want us to understand something significant about that language that has implications about how Christians speak about Jesus: particularly his death at the hands of his executioners.

Sometimes, people speak as if the act of ritualistically killing the livestock is 'the sacrifice'.  We might say that the passover lamb was sacrificed.

That kind of language distracts us from where the real sacrifice is in the ritual.

The sacrifice is in the action of the giver.

The giver (by offering part of their living for a greater purpose) is the one making a sacrifice... compared to a more self-serving potential the item (that was offered) could have had if the gift had been hoarded.

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It seems to me that this is perhaps the greatest purpose of the Temple offering rituals: it was a recognition that being in right-relationship with God involves more than a focus on selfish achievements. 

Regularly participation meant that the well-being of the whole community was an on-going responsibility of the faithful.

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I think it is an over-simplication and misinterpretation of these ancient rites to say that God required blood as payment in order for sins to be forgiven.

The ancient Hebrews held to the covenant promise that Yahweh was their God and that they were Yahweh's people.

God was committed to this relationship.  God's compassion - in fact, this history of the bible attests - endured even in times of the people's unfaithfulness.

The blood sacrifices did not induce God to suddenly forgive the people's wrongs.  The acts of faithfulness that people chose to follow were a response to their desire to express a forgiving relationship with their God that already existed.

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Now, let's consider this within the context of the Hebrew Christians caught in rapidly moving current of the evolving Christian movement.

In some gentile-dominated early Christian communities, the opportunities for those with Hebrew to experience the ritual satisfaction of their traditional practices was limited.

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It is a matter of debate among biblical scholars where the book of Hebrews was written before or after the year 70CE.

That date is significant, because, in the late 60s, there was a rebellion in Jerusalem against the occupation of Roman forces in Judea.

As the a demoralizing act, the empire quashed this attempt at revolution by destroying the Hebrew Temple - where Jesus and his disciples had visited 40 years earlier.

Some scholars assume that the Letter of Hebrews must be pre-70 because the author never mentions the destruction of the temple.  Others argue that the whole thesis of not fretting over the lack of sacrificial offerings would have deeper meaning to a post-70 audience.

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To me, it is not a big concern whether the letter pre-dates the temple destruction by a few years or not.  By the time the text was being widely shared among the early churches (a decade or so later), the possibility of following (to the letter) the prescriptions of the Torah was no longer possible.

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Into this evolving context, language was shared to assure Jesus followers of Jewish descent that the lack of old rituals did not impede a person's ability to be in right-relationship with their God.

The author of the book of Hebrews chose the metaphoric language of the Temple to describe what was widely believed within the diverse Christian communities: that even in death, Christ Jesus was alive within the hearts of the people and created an everlasting faithful connection to God that people might have once felt at the Temple.

It bears mentioning here that - in the decades before the Temple's destruction, that leaders like the Apostles Paul clearly argued that this expanding group of followers of Jesus would not be required to adhere to many of the Levitical rituals of Jesus' own faith tradition.  Paul also argued that Hebrew Christians were free to continue to practice their faith in these ways as long as - in doing so - they did not inhibit the faith of others who had different spiritual backgrounds.

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As I said early, it was never understood by the Hebrews that blood was required by God in order for sins to be forgiven.  And even if it was (which it wasn't), the Hebrew rituals were not expected to be followed by the gentile Christians.

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In spite of the language used in some modern Christian circles, God never has required blood as a payment to buy forgiveness. 

The literalizing of this metaphoric language - intended to bring comfort to part of the early church in the context of rapid change - is one of the worst distractions to the truth of Jesus' message and mission.

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Again, as we read Acts, we see that mutual social responsibility was a hallmark of the Christian movement: that sacrificial giving for the common good (at the practical heart of the Temple rituals) was encouraged (and even expected).

This was not lost in the post-Temple era and it applied to all of the followers of Jesus: gentile and jew alike.

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Sacrificial language as the purpose of Jesus' death only serves to distract us from the example of his life-leadership and the inspiration Jesus continued to offer his followers (old and new) even after he breathed his last in this world.

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When we think of the pre-70 practices of offerings at the temple, our focus should be directed on the sacrifices of the giver to share from  their lives to enhance the life of their community.

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It would be hard to think of a better example than the story we heard from Mark, chapter twelve today.

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God's compassion for creation is best born out in our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for a greater good; to see beyond the self-focus that is only satisfied through the maximizing of our own pleasure and happiness.

We are not called to miserable.  That's not what sacrifice means.  But we are challenged to tie our happiness to the well-being of our communities.

If the depth of Jesus' mission of radical welcome and unconditional holy love is lived out, our happiness and connection to the compassion of our God will be shared with us by others - as their compassionate contentment will be enable by us, as well.

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Thanks be to God for this challenge and opportunity.

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Let us pray:

God, we will serve you in big and small ways.  You compassion for all of the world will be our guide and purpose.  Amen.

#506VU  "Take My Life and Let It Be"