The Stone Shout Out! | Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr | Palm Sunday | 03.28.10

At last Jesus makes his promised move on Jerusalem. Most of his ministry has been out in the hinterland, out in Galilee. Now he enters the capital city. Jesus is welcomed, not by the city dignitaries but rather by children waving palm branches. Those who welcome Jesus work themselves into a frenzy. Their exuberance is evident a they shout, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Did they say “king?” They have turned a procession with a Galilean rabbi bouncing in on the back of a donkey into a royal victory parade. It is more than religious leaders can take. They are outraged at the blasphemy, the impudence. “Tell your fanatical followers to shut up!” they say, or words to that effect. Jesus responds, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

On one hand it is just an expression “The stones would shout out!” But, on the other hand, when I started thinking about it, the stones do have a story to tell and something to shout about. Let’s follow the story of the stones.

First right after Jesus was baptized the spirit led him into the wilderness . There he ate nothing for forty days. The devil comes along, and offers this starving man his first powerful temptation. “If you are the son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus feeling the gnawing in his stomach, remembering how God delivered manna in the desert to Moses and the people who followed him from Egypt to the promised land… why not turn just one stone into bread. Why not just one stone in a desert full of stones. One little stone, the one little stone right by his foot, he just had to reach down pick it up, make it turn to bread. Do it now, no one is looking…

But, Jesus let the stone lay where it was. The stone remained a stone among stones. Jesus would not be filled by stones. But he would be filled by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Then there was the time Jesus was teaching in Jerusalem at the Temple. They brought a woman who was caught in the act of adultery, the law of Moses said that she should be stoned to death. What do you say? It was a trick question. If he said not to stone her, he would be violating the law of Moses. If he said to stone her, he would be violating the Roman law and carrying out an execution without going through the proper authorities.

You can imagine people picking up stones, ready to go. Relishing the moment.. Flipping the stones around in their hands they could feel the stone’s hard surface, its dense weight, and hot radiating the heat of the sun that had beat down on it. . Jesus was slow in answering. “Come on Jesus, let’s hear it. Quit doodling in the sand. Tell us the answer!” Finally Jesus looked up, thinking how there were stones everywhere, and said “Whoever is without sin can cast the first stone.”

One at a time the stones drop back to the ground. Thud, thud, thud, thud… each thud reminding people of their own sins.

Then there was the time that Jesus decided to preach about stones. That is, he spoke about the stone the builders rejected. That stone would become God’s cornerstone. Looking at all the stones lying around Israel, Galilee and Jerusalem it takes a special eye to pick out a cornerstone. It is the odd shaped one is in fact the perfect one . It would be the perfect stone that would hold the whole building together. Most people miss the cornerstone, they are looking someplace else, and they miss it is there entirely and trip on it and stumble on the cornerstone.

On the day Jesus entered Jerusalem the people were waving palms. When he was told to quiet them Jesus said, “I tell you if these were silent, the stones would shout out!” And they do. The stone in the wilderness, the stones that were dropped instead of thrown at the woman, the cornerstone. But what is the stone the shouts the loudest? It is the several tons of a stone, the dead, impenetrable, cold stone, in front of Jesus tomb That is the stone that was rolled away at the resurrection.

There is one more thing I would like to say about stones. Have you ever noticed that our church is made of stones. Bricks are stones of a sort. These old stones were brought up here by wheel barrow, and mortared together by the community. Our sanctuary is austere but it was built for the acoustics. These stones pick up the sound and move the sound in amazing ways. Sometimes I wonder whether on Sunday mornings when we have our doors open, and cars drive by with their windows down do they hear these old stones singing? When we sing our hymns and the organ peals forth I like to think that these stones shout out.

In 1Peter 2:4 it says “You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple….for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. You can show others the goodness of god, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. “

Us stones are going to do some of that right now. We are going to build ourselves up into a spiritual house and do some singing. We have collecting many stones here for this huge combined choir. So as we sing the Gloria Patri, everyone come up front……

“Imitating Jesus” | Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr | February 28, 2010

We are creatures of conformity. We are inherently imitators of people around us. Imitation is how we learn at every level. We learn to speak by imitating. I remember when Gavin was no more than 2 years old. He was sitting in the car seat and I was pulling up to the bank window, and holding a check in my hand. “Deposit!” he called out. When we are teenagers we insist that we are absolutely unique. At least I did in the late 60’s when I had long hair and wore tie died t-shirts and blue jeans. Which my mother didn’t hesitate to point out that everyone who was a “non-conformist hippie” all looked alike! We imitate whether we know it or not. Gavin who is in Vancouver is picking up those subtle Canadian intonations “Eh?” And of course, whether we want to admit it or not, we will imitate our spouse. I wear L. L. Bean slippers, Dave wears L.L. Bean slippers.

Some things we imitate are innocent enough. But, some things are not. I remember one mother shouting at her child on the side walk “Goddam it! Don’t swear at me!” Or the alcoholic parents who wink when their underage child has a beer pong contest. The bully on the play ground in the morning was hit by his father at dinner.

For better or for worse, we are what we imitate. Although we like to pretend to be unique individuals and nonconformists, the reality is about 99% of what we do is imitating someone. Monkey see, monkey do. Each of us is a mosaic of influences resembling many people in our past and present. The question is not whether you will imitate someone but who you will imitate

Who do you copy? Who do you aspire to be like and to imitate? Most people at some time in their lives aspire to be rich, like a John D. Rockefeller. He was an industrial tycoon who made his wealth on Standard Oil and the petroleum industry. He is considered possibly the wealthiest man that ever lived. His income adjusted for inflation would be about $600 billion dollars today. He owned 1.53 percent of the U.S. economy. On the outside, being rich like him seems good to imitate. But, the truth is that wealth will only get you so far, if anywhere at all. When he was asked what would make him happy, despite all he wealth he responded “One dollar more.” 600 billion didn’t make him happy, but I guess 600 billion and one dollar would!

Some people will imitate their favorite sports hero. Tiger Woods seemed like a clean cut, hard worker… we all know the problem with that scenario.

Women like to imitate beautiful Hollywood stars. There is a new line of lipstick in the store whose colors are named after the stars that wore them. Indian model turned actress Aishwarya Rai wears L’Oreal “Tickled Pink” lipstick. But, women will go further. Not only do they want to wear the same lipstick but want to look as young as they do. So Botox injections enter into the picture. Get rid of those wrinkles between the eyes that make you look angry and annoyed. Or those little lines around your mouth that make you look sad. I just read an article that found that women who have these Botox injections actually loose some of their ability to read other people’s sad and mad feelings, as well and their own. Something with the body mind connection. If you don’t express it in your face, you are less likely to understand it.

So if rich people and sports hero’s and movies stars don’t’ work out well, who can we imitate? It seems the ones that we tend to pick are filled with flaws and as lost if not more so than we are. This is where the apostle Paul comes in with his letter to the Philippians. Paul writes in chapter 3:17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. Let me paraphrase what Paul is trying to say here: You’re going to copy. You’re going to mimic someone’s steps and mirror someone’s movements. That’s how we roll as human beings. So if you’re going to imitate somebody, go ahead and imitate me. Follow me as I follow Jesus.

We are here this morning because we are looking for someone to imitate and the best one we can think of is Jesus. Professor Alice Camille says that “stakes are high” but following Jesus will free us like nothing else will. She writes:

If Christ is our king, the stakes are high. The usual controlling bodies – media, public opinion, the quest for security, the lifestyle of acquisitions – have o sovereignty over us. The authority of Christ is not just another voice; it is the only voice to which we need to respond. And Christianity is not just more homework, a dungeon-like oppression to suffer; it is the only authority that liberates those who subject themselves to it. Not to embrace Christ the King is to continue to bow before the countless sovereigns of the world and to light the sacrifices at too many altars. Not to listen to Christ is to face the schizophrenia of voices beckoning, demanding, cajoling our obedience, all the while spinning their web of half-truths.

But, how do you imitate the son of God? We all have seen the bumper sticker “WWJD?” Which stands for “What would Jesus do?” How do you answer that question for yourself and in your particular situation. Do what Jesus would do, but what would Jesus do? Do you wear a toga and sandals? Do you grow a beard? Do you observe the Jewish holidays such as Passover, and worship in a Jewish temple as Jesus did? Some people have actually tried these very things. But, they seem to be missing the point.

Most people would say, imitating Jesus is is living according to the moral standard that he lives by. But, if you spend any time checking out what Jesus is asking us to do, doing this is harder than it looks. For instance, telling the truth no matter how badly it hurts to hear it. In the Comedy “Crazy People” Dudley Moor plays Emory Leeson, an advertising man who comes up with an outrageous idea: telling the truth. “Let’s face it,” Emory tells a coworker, “you and I lie for a living.”

Emory launches out on a different path by composing ruthlessly honest ads. Instead of a thousand subtle deceptions about how some product will make people happier, sexier, or richer, he says things like “Volvos: they’re boxy, but they’re safe” or “United Airlines: most our passengers get there alive.”

Of course Emory’s new commitment to truth lands him in trouble. He is sent off to a psychiatric hospital to restore his “sanity.” But while he is locked up, his agency accidentally releases his ads to the public and the results are astounding. The public is surprised and delighted by hearing the unvarnished truth for once.

Even though the movie had a happy ending, it also underlines the fact that living a life like Jesus is tough in a world that is riddled with half-truths and operates on many deceptions.

Another example, the rich man asks Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life. Jesus tells him to sell everything and give it to the poor. Raise your hands, who here is really willing to do that? Really go out and sell you house, your car, pawn your rings and jewelry, sell your business, drop off you clothes at the Goodwill, unload your furniture at the consignment shop, cash in your IRA and 401K and give it all away? John D. Rockefeller said that what would make him happy is one more dollar – that might have been extreme, but on the other hand we need to keep at least one dollar to our name.

Actually the moral bar that Jesus set is impossibly high. Take some of his suggestions he has on the Sermon on the Mount…. Don’t lust after women in your heart, Never be angry with your brother or say “You fool!” Pluck out your right eye if it causes you to sin. Never divorce you wife. Never swear, ever. Here is an all time favorite, “if someone hits you on the right turn to him the other cheek also.”

How do you imitate Jesus. WWJD? What would Jesus do? Even if we are ready and willing, it seems the bar is set impossibly high. We might as well go back to celebrities with pink lipstick.

Let me tell you a story, from “the Wisdom of the Desert.” These are stories from early Christians in aroud the fourth century who fled to the deserts of Egypt in order to get closer to God and be more like Jesus.

It seems a young man – John the Dwarf – prayed for God to remove all his passions. He believed that he were unmoved by difficulties, without feeling toward those who attacked him, and unable to be swayed by the devils he would be alive to God. So, John the Dwarf asked God to take away ll his feelings. He wanted to live without emotions.

Being gracious, God answered John’s prayer and made him “impassible.” By an act of God, John the Dwarf ceased to feel – anything. He became passionless. Then, in his new condition, John the Dwarf went to see some older men in the desert community. Standing before them he boasted of being without any struggle, any anxiety, or temptation. “I am completely at peace,” he said. “God has removed from me all temptations. Nothing moves me.”

“Well,” said these old wise companions, “You had better hurry back to your cell. Go and pray to God to command some struggle to be stirred up in you, for the soul is matured only in battle.” Now, this was not what John the Dwarf had expected from these trusted companions. Still, he respected these men and so he obeyed. He returned to his desert hut and asked God for something to struggle against, something to test him.

God heard his prayer and set many temptations before John. However, though the temptations came hard and fast, John the Dwarf never again asked for these strange companions to be removed. Though evil surround him and constantly tried him, he had been enlightened by the counsel of wiser companions. Now John the Dwarf simply prayed, “Give me strength to get through.”

One of the most famous Christian devotional books of all time is by Thomas a Kempis and is called, The Imitation of Christ. His central theme is that to imitate Christ is not about being perfect but it is about the struggle to be better people. It is only through this struggle that, as John the Dwarf learned, our souls become wiser and purer. Jesus came down to earth and took on the suffering of the world in order to free us through the outreach of grace and love and so to strengthen us. Through the struggle we gain humility and through humility we set aside our egos and realize how we must rely on God and God alone.

What would Jesus do? With the wolves of sin nipping near, Jesus would live from God, live on God, and live for God. That is the path we should follow. That is the model we should imiate.

Chosen, Blessed, Broken and Given | Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr | March 7, 2010

The passage which we read this morning from the prophet Isaiah is one in a series of 4 poems that introduce for the first time in the Bible the idea of the suffering servant.

The suffering servant is the servant of God whose unique ministry is the salvation of the people of Israel and through them the salvation of the whole world. The way he is to provide this salvation is through suffering. The people who scorn him are the people he in fact saves. An ironic, sad, and deeply loving gesture of God’s and of the servant’s.

500 years before it happened, Isaiah here foretells the very heart of Jesus’ ministry. We are particularly mindful of this in the season of Lent. As we ponder Jesus walk to the cross.

We can only stand in awe as we turn to the passionate and mournful love of God that the suffering servant lives out. Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

The great mystery is that all of this suffering is not just accidental, but the central part of Jesus’ ministry. It is that which saves us. Isaiah says, Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; …. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.

When we share the Lord’s supper we remember the words of Jesus that night. He took the bread and said, This is my body broken for you. Then he gave thanks and blessed the bread. When ever you eat of this do so remembering me. Then he breaks the bread and gives it away. He is the bread of life.

As Christians Henri Nowen says that our lives are also about being taken, blessed broken and given.

At first we are taken as the bread in communion is taken. The bread is picked off of the table as special. In one passage of the suffering servant it says, The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother the Lord named my name. The suffering servant was chosen by God as special. We are chosen by God. As we were knit together in the darkness of our mother’s wombs, even before our mother’s knew we were there, God knew. As our mother’s blood pulsed intor our veins, God called us his beloved.

This is the starting point, to be chosen. Ironically, most Christians have the hardest time with this starting point. They don’t truly believe that they are chosen by God as the beloved. Many people feel fundamentally rejected. It could be rejected by their parents, or their loved ones, or their work, or themselves. Most people are like Charlie Brown who once said in a cartoon, I was born onto the stage of life and they took one look at me and said, ‘Not right for the part!’

God has named you and that name of yours is “the beloved one.” Henri Nowen makes the point, that we are called to refract God’s love through our unique histories and lives as no one every has and no one every will. We are chosen like the bread off the communion table.

After the bread is chosen, then it is blessed. We too are blessed. The word blessing in Latin is benediction. Benediction means saying good things. In one of the suffering servant passages of Isaiah the servant was blessed by God, You are my servant Israel, in whom I will be glorified. What better benediction, blessing, could there be than for God to say in effect: Good things will happen to me as God because you are around! And that is God’s blessing to each of us as Christians.

After the bread is taken and blessed, it is broken. This is what happens with the suffering servant and with us. We all know what it is like to be broken. We all have been through it. A person’s father is dying but the son can’t seem to say to him “I love you.” A mother is shocked by how uncontrollably angry she got with her child. We may steal, we may lie. Yes, we are all broken.

There is a litany that I ran across once it says, “Go tell the strong that they shall become weak, and the weak that they shall become strong.” At first I thought that this is crazy! No one will want to come to church if we go and tell them the strong will become weak. Our society hates to talk about being broken. We hate to admit we are broken. Yet, it is true that we are broken countless times in our lives. Desperately we insist that we are happy instead. Happy, happy, happy al the time. Happy go lucky! Happy hour! We and the society rejects suffering. WE don’t like to talk about it because it is weak, it is painful and it is ….. intimate.

So when suffering comes upon each one of us, which it does inevitably, we then think that we too are rejected. We think that something is wrong with us because no one else seems to be suffering. What did we do wrong that we got cancer, or lost our wife died, or have gone bankrupt, or divorced.

The mystery of suffering is this: If you embrace the suffering and put it under the blessing of God instead of under the curse, then the suffering will become holy, it will become whole and heal.

At the Center for Grieving Children before the children leave the center after they finished their grief work, the are given a little bag of stones. Three of them are made smooth and round. The fourth stone is left rough, pointed and jagged. For children who have lost their brother or sister, mothr or father, or both, it is this rough stone that they always hold on to and cherish the most. This is the stone that they carry around with them in their pocket. They don’t’ have to be told what it represents. They know automatically. It is their suffering and they cherish it, hold it in the little fists. As such they are able to put it under the blessing.

The fact that Jesus suffered for us is God putting our pain, our sinfulness, and our brokenness under the blessing instead of the curse. Jesus holds each one of our lives, not the smooth gems, but the rough rocks. He grasps the jagged edges in his hand so hard that it hurts and he feels the pain too. Thus, Jesus puts the pain under the blessing for us.

The bread is taken, blessed, broken and finally, the bread is given. “I will give you as a light ot the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” God says to the suffering servant in Isaiah. Once we are able to put our suffering under the blessing instead of the curse we will then be able to give ourselves to the world.

Jesus says, “be fruitful” he doesn’t say, “be successful.” To be fruitful one must ripen then let go and die to seed the earth. We must lose our lives in order to save our lives.

This is the Christian journey that we are reminded of in this season of Lent, as we contemplate Jesus’ journey to the cross. Evil is overcome by good when we are chosen, blessed, broken and given. Just as Jesus the suffering servant is. Because of Jesus we are put under the blessing instead of the curse. The one who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.

This is what we remember every time we come to the communion table. After Jesus takes the bread, gives thanks, blesses it, he breaks it and says, “This is my body broken for you. Whenever you eat of it, do so remembering me.”

What Happened to the Wine – Dr. Rev Carol Kerr – 02.07.2010

Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding in Cana | John 2

The wedding in Cana is the first miracle the Jesus performs in the gospel of John. Jesus performed many miracles, the gospel of Luke and Mark and Matthew pick different ones to be the first, but John picks turning water into wine as the first . Why not healing? Why not walking on water? Why not turning five loves and five fishes to feed thousands. Surely these are more sublime miracles. But, John, the most sublime of the gospels picks Jesus turning water into wine at a big party, a wedding bash, the first century equivalent of a kegger.

But when you think about it, the wedding at Cana marks two things. The beginning of a life together. It also marks the love between the couple. This sermon is going to be on these 2 things the story life of the couple that got married and what happened to them and my thoughts about love.

To do this I am going to recap a wonderful story Rev. Thomas Troeger wrote about the couple. It is a narrative imagining what would happen to the couple over the years that they were together. Along side of this story I am going to share some thoughts about love. The nature of love, the love we have for each other, and the love of God.

To start with, though, you have to think that after the wedding there was some wine left over. John tells us “There were six stone water jars…each holding twenty or thirty gallons.” If three jars held twenty gallons, three time twenty is sixty (3 x 20 = 60). And if three jars held thirty, three times thirty is ninety (3 x 30 = 90). And sixty gallons plus ninety gallons equals one hundred fifty gallons (60 + 90 = 150). 150 gallons of wine! That is a lot of wine to drink. Especially since they had already polished off the initial supply. Surely one twenty gallon jar would have sufficed. But no. Jesus is extravagant, wildly extravagant. It is not unreasonable to believe some wine was left.

This is where the story about the couple begins. Troeger imagines that when the celebration was over and the couple had left for their honeymoon and the guests had departed, that some friend or family member of the couple, poured the wine that remained into smaller containers and corked them, and the couple returned, presented them with several crates of the splendid wine. “Here, this is the wine that rabbi from Nazareth supplied. I thought you might like to have it for special occasions”

Leaving the story at this point, I would like to mention that so far I have done three sermons on the keys to happiness series, one on positive faith, one on gratitude, one on using your gifts for God. But, many people would say the greatest way to be happy is to love. Certainly we all long to love and to be loved. Our popular culture capitalizes on this in songs and poems and greeting cards. The Beatles summarize the idea in Srgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, by saying “Love is all you need….”

The Saints would agree with the Beetles, but take it further. Love is more than the gratification of our hearts desire. If you follow out the path of love it expands in ever widening rings until you love the your neighbor, the town, the state, the nation, the whole world, and the splendor of the universe. We become conformed to the love that made the universe. We cannot separate from this love. Rather we become love and leave our limited selves behind. Then somewhere along the line we become aware that our task on earth is to communicate and carry the rays of this love. As long as we do that no matter our lives are long or short, we shall have realized the purpose of our existence.

Back to the story of the couple who got married at the wedding in Cana and were given the left over wine from the rabbi of Nazareth. Troeger pictures the couple delighted, smiling to think that on the meager budget of newlyweds they can enjoy such a heavenly vintage with their low cost suppers. In the way of eager young couples they do not plan very well at first so that at the end of two or three years, they realize, extravagant as Jesus was, they will some day run out. So they begin to save the wine for special occasions, bringing it out on their anniversary, on the birth and dedication of a child, at family reunions, on high holy days that feature feasting and drinking. And every time they taste the wine, they relive their wedding day, and they recall how at the first sip of Jesus’ wine they had looked at each other with eyes that shone with a love whose intensity caught even them by surprise.

More thoughts on love, St Augustine one of the very first and certainly the most influential Christian theologians of all time says that the way to God is through the path of love. Sin is what gets in the way of love. But, if a person is sinless but yet is not in love with the world and loving to the world, he is no closer to God than a common murderer and cheat. Augustine writes love poetry, only not to any woman, but to God. He writes; Too late I have loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new. Too late have I lovd you! You have called to me and have cried out, and have shattered my deafness. You have blazed forth with light, and have shone upon me, and you have put my blindness to flight! You have sent forth fragrance, and I have drawn in my breath, and I pant after you . I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst after you. You have touched me and I have burned for you peace.

Let’s return to the story: And so the years pass until they are an old couple, keenly aware that “all flesh is grass,” springing up in youth, then quickly fading. I picture the old couple on a chilly night. She is in front of the fire, trying to warm her feet and hands for they are always cold now. He pauses coming into the room where she sits on a bench pulled right up to the grate. He studies her in the light of the fire: the shape of her forehead, the deep creases in her face….

Let me stop here and comment on all those wrinkles. There is an art to loving. St. Therese of Lisiex wrote in her journals that she had one very simple goal. Her one goal was to learn to love everything that came her way. Learn to love everything? Yes. Love the guy who is slow starting up at the stop light. Love, your neighbor whose trash bag broke and stuff blew onto your lawn, love your children who don’t seem to love each other, love your coworker who plays a bad radio station all day. I told you some think it naïve, and overly sentimental. But, the truth of the matter is, that the great love of the Saints is built up of all these small loves. It is one great continuum. As Robert Ellsberg writes: “Each moment accepted and lived in the spirit of love is an occasion for heroism and a step along the path to happiness and holiness”. That is the kind of love exemplified by the couple in our story, elderly now, but in love with every little wrinkle on each other’s faces. – in love with all the flaws.

The story continues: All of a sudden, with a prompting he cannot explain, he blurts out: “Honey?” At first she does not hear him so he calls again, “Honey?” She slowly looks up, and he says, “Honey, what if we finish the wine tonight. The rabbi’s wine. There’s just one little bottle left. It might warm you up some.” “Sure, sure,” she says, “that would be good.” So he goes and gets the wine and brings it back to the fire with the only clean chalice he can find. He sets it down and uncorks the wine speculating: “I wonder if it will still be good, after all these years.” “Always has been,” she says. “the rabbi’s wine has never gone bad, it’s as amazing as the way he provided it.” The husband pours the first serving and hands his wife the chalice. She sips and hands ti to him. They look at each other and not their agreement: the wine is as rich as the day they were married.

Speaking about love, family life can be tough sometimes. Certainly, sometimes the family is a place of natural love and support, the one place where we are valued and find unconditional acceptance. At other times it can be suffocating. It can be a vipers nest. Even the “happiest” families can erupt into disputes and simmering resentments and rivalries. Sometimes it is a challenge to love within a family. But, many of do, we forgive and forget, over and over again. Why? Well because we love each other.

Living in a family is our fist experience of living with other people, as we Chrisitians like to say, living in community. For Christianity living in community is very important. The community of a biological family to start with, but then the community of the church, the church family.

Often you hear people say, I am spiritual, but I don’t like institutionalized religion. I think to myself, well o.k. but where are you going to learn to love in community? Can we love God unless we love each other? Can we love each other, if we never get together? So, I always wonder how do people who do not go to the institutionalized church get together with other God lovers? At a soccer match, at work, Hannaford’s? I just don’t see it happening. Dorothy Day concludes at the end of her book, the Long Loneliness, “We cannot love God unless we love each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore.”

To continue the story: They drank very slowly, and as they drink they start to tell stories. She says: “I remember when Sarah was born. You would have thought nobody had ever been a father before, the way you carried on, calling in the whole neighborhood, they consumed an entire crate of this wine, as if it were our wedding all over again.” “Well, you did just about the same, when Benjamin and Rebecca brought home our first grandchild.” The wife laughs a hearty laugh, “Yeah, I did didn’t I? Oh, those were such good times, good enough to want them never to stop.”

He pours some more wine, and they each take a sip. And he stirs the fire, and they sit absorbed in the flame. She sees him out of the corner of her eye and notices he is trying to hold back tears. She knows what he is thinking: He is remembering when the third child died. Been terribly sick. Tried everything. But he died anyway. All she could pray for weeks on end was “My God, my God why have you forsaken us?” They were both so distraught, and God didn’t seem to answer, they didn’t know what to do but blame the other one.

One evening he came home and she had supper ready, and they set things out on the table without saying a single word, going through motions that had become rituals of habit, the only thing holding them together day by day now. When they sat down they realized she had not gotten water from the well and he had not brought home any wine from market. So he got up and found one of the bottles of wine from their wedding. Might as well open it now. No sense saving it for special occasions anymore. So he opened it and poured some wine for each of them. And when the wine touched their lips they tasted grace in their hearts, and they broke down and sobbed together. The grief of their loss never went away – how could it- but the strength to carry the grief together that was what the wine of Jesus gave them.

We know that we are surrounded at all times by forces that remain invisible to our unassisted eyes: Ultraviolet rays from the sun, electromagnetic waves, radio signals or television images, the conversations that bounce between cellular phones. If there was some method that we could make these invisible rays visible, we would find ourselves swimming ins a sea of light, color, sound. A dimension of reality that we are usually totally unaware of would be dancing all around us. Love is like that. We are immersed in a sea of love. We are connected to everything by the invisible beams of love. An ocean of love, living in love, loving Love itself, love with a capital “L.” That is happiness. The Beatles were right, “All you need is love…” Only I dare say, Srgt Peppers Lonely Hearts club band was not the way to find the love. Rather, drinking the wine of Rabbi Jesus will do.

The story ends: And now sitting in front of the fire, he turns to look at her, and hearing him move she turns toward him and they look at each other, and she takes his hand saying, ‘yes, Honey, I know, I know.” He is silent, then holds the bottle upside down over the chalice. There are a few last drops. He hands the chalice to her: “Here you finish it.” She takes the smallest sip and hands it back to him pointing out there is still the tiniest bit at the bottom. He puts the brim to his lips and throws back his head holding the chalice straight over him, then slowly brings it down and holds it between them. “That’s it,” he says with a voice that sounds both satisfied and sad. “All gone. None to pass on to the children or the grandchildren now. Just the story of our wedding at Cana, and the rabbi who blessed us with wine. Just the story. But no wine.”

“Not to worry” responds his wife. “Not to worry. As long as people come to his table, there will be more.”

This is the end of the story of the couple whose wedding it was that Jesus performed his first miracle in the gospel of John. It is also the end of my thoughts about love. But it is not the end of the wine. Jesus is extravagant with that wine. He made something like 150 gallons for that wedding. But, he didn’t stop there. He makes wine for the whole world, as we share together at the Lord’s Supper. Now it is our turn to eat the bread and drink the wine that Jesus made for us.

Rummaging Around for God | Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr | 01/31/2010

Jeremiah 1:4-8

The Jesuit priest, Dennis Hamm, was living in New Haven CT with five other Jesuits. He was sitting in the kitchen one morning, reading the New York Times, when another priest came in and said, “I had the weirdest dream just before I woke up. It was a liturgical dream. The lector had just read the first reading and proceeded to announce that the ‘The refrain for today is, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’ Whereupon the congregation soberly repeated, ‘If first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’” They both thought this was enormously funny. As do I. Maybe you do too, it might be a minister/priest kind of joke….

But there is a point to it. A few days later Father Hamm stumbled on another phrase from Psalm 95, which we read in our call to worship. The phrase is the last sentence we read, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Both these sentences sound the same in a way. Both start with an if clause and end in an imperative. Both have seven beats. The try-try-again statement sounds like the harden-not-your-hearts refrain, yet it is so different. The first statement might sound like it comes from tbe Bible but it does not. It is true enough, as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. There is nothing of faith in it, no sense of God. The sentiment of the line from Psalm 95, however, expresses a conviction central to our Christian faith. We live in a constant dialog with God. We are to listen to the voice of God and keep our hearts open to what we hear.

But, how do we do that? Well, traditionally there are four ways 1.) Listen for the voice of God in nature. 2.) Listen to the voice of God in Scriptures. 3.) Listen to the voice of God by coming to church. Finally, 4.) We listen to the voice of God by paying attention to our life experiences and searching through them for the divine light.

It is this last way of listening to God that I want to talk about today. One of the ancient practices of prayer that the church has is called the examen. Now, the best kind of prayer are the simplest kinds of prayers. The examen is really very simple. I like to think of it as rummaging through the stuff of your life and lifting up to God whatever you find.

How does it work? This week I decided to do some early spring cleaning. So I decided to clean our, Dave’s and mine, bedroom. We live in a very long old farmhouse. Our bedroom is a small gabled room that is at the end of the hall at the end of the very long old house. We especially like it because the kids have to walk a long way to get to it. All the action happens at the complete opposite end of the house. However, we also have to walk a long way to get to it, and so we tend to let things pile up in it., instead of putting things away. There are three or four stacks of books by each side of our bed. Magazines carpet the carpet.. Dust builds up under the bed because it is a hassle getting our big vacuum cleaner up there. Then there is the old funky closet where we store things. Or, should I say stuff things and forget about them.

Monday was a cold stormy winter day. There was nothing better to do so I decided to clean our room. I had tried cleaning it a couple weeks ago, but ended up grocery shopping instead. I said to myself, “At first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” As soon as I said that to myself, I got really tired. I didn’t want to try, try again. I just wanted to take a nap. I wondered maybe I need more sleep. I had gotten up earlier than usual, I had gone to be later than usual. I thought I am getting older, after all….. Then I said No! You’ll feel better if you do it. “At first if you don’t succeed try try again.”

So I lugged the vacuum cleaner up our 18th century skinny and tall stairways. You know the kind that are small horizontally and very tall vertically. They might be quaint to look at but there are back breakers for lugging up vacuums. By try trying and bang banging into a couple of walls, I got it to the bedroom. Then the vacuum cleaner bag needed to be changed, and so I had to go all the way down back to the kitchen on the other side of the house and get it. After I changed it, I couldn’t vacuum because I had to pick up all the magazines under the bed. I looked under the bed at these magazines and noticed that they had served the purpose of catching black dog hair like fences on the prairie catch snow drifts . I hate reaching under the bed and picking up dusty old magazines. I imagine a web of spiders crawling up my arm. But I mustered up my “Try, try again” refrain and picked up all the old magazines from under the bed. Then I had to lug them all, several arm loads, to the recycle bin down past the kitchen and into our barn.

“No wonder I don’t clean this room often!” I thought to myself. But, the refrained “At first you don’t succeed try, try again.” I decided I needed to stop and have a cup of tea.

The prophet Jeremiah tells us, “Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you….” That sounds poetic. I am O.K. with God knowing me in the womb. I find the thought comforting. But the real question I had that morning was, does God know the stuff in my room? More to the point, does God know the book of mind that slid down behind my bookcase? Does God remember the book I had forgotten all about?

Well, after my cup of tea, I resumed my trying and found the book that in fact had slid behind my bookcase. It was The Life and Death of Crazy Horse, about the American Indian Chief, Crazy Horse. I sat on my bed, brushed off the dust and read the inside cover:

Born on the great plains during the mid 1800s, Crazy Horse was a shy, sensitive youth who rose to fame as the greatest of all Teton Sioux warriors. He grew up at a time of fierce struggle, when the Sioux, pressed on all sides by growing numbers of invading whites, fought desperately so save their hunting grounds and their way of life. Called “Our Strange One” by his own people he was different from other warriors. He wore no war paint, took no scalps, and refused to boast about his brave deeds. He was the leading warrior in the battle against General Custer in the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.

I was glad I found the book. I don’t think God forgot Crazy Horse at all. I don’t think God forgot the trip out west that we took as a family and read the book out loud either.

Something shifted in me after I found a place on the top shelf for the Crazy Horse book. Cleaning my room wasn’t about try trying again, but more like a journey into my life. Things that had not been important to me and I had forgotten about came alive again. Things that I thought were important earlier suddenly weren’t. The refrain, “If at first you don’t succeed try, try again.” Began to fade away. Another thought began to take its place. Something akin to the words of Psalm 95, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

I blew off the dust from a birds nest I had found one spring. I found a corner for it and placed a little ceramic chickadee perched on a shelf above it looking down.

I have to admit that on Monday I never got the least bit nostalgic about the dust under my bed. But, I did find a good joke about dust under a bed on Tuesday.

A little boy came home from Sunday school and went into his room to change his clothes. When he emerged, he asked his mother, “Is it true we come from dust?”

“Yes dear,” she replied.

“Is it true that when we die, we go back to the dust?” the boy asked.

“Yes, dear, that’s right.” The little boy ran into his room and came out all excited, “Mom, I just looked under my bed, and there’s someone either coming or going!”

Did God have anything to do with the fact that I found this joke about dust under the bed right after I vacuumed the dust under my bed? Did God know I was going to even write my sermon for Sunday about cleaning my room on Monday when I had no clue I was going to write about this until Thursday?

The point I am trying to make is that cleaning my room really became a kind of prayer, the kind that has been traditionally called the examin, but is really just rummaging around for God. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Rummaging for God and finding God speaking to you through the things you pick up and bother to take a look at.

It was no longer about just getting the job done, but about listening to my life. I noticed feelings that came up with the things that I happened to pick up. I paid attention to any and all those feelings as the surfaced. It could be a whole range of feelings: delight, boredom, fear, anticipation, resentment, anger, peace, hope, regret…. God knows us in the womb. God is also knows the junk in our bedrooms.

O.K. But what about the junk in the closet? Do you know what I found in the closet? I found yellow and white quilt, a blue and white quilt, and a flower print quilt. We acquired them for different seasons and different decorating and paint schemes. Together they made a kind of quilt garden, and I washed them and hung them over out banister going up the bedroom. Then I found an old down pillow which someone must have used for a sleep over and stuffed back into the closet with one of the quilts. I washed that and it fluffed right up and I am using it now. Then I found a garbage bag full of Gavin’s clothes. I have no idea how they got there but there were some t-shirts and jackets that I know he likes. I will have to tell him.

Then at the bottom I found and old poca-dot, green, yellow, red, purple, blue flannel sheet that the kids use to have on their beds when they were little.

The last step in the practice of examine is to choose one of the many feelings and events that happened in your day and which for some reason, somehow caught your attention, the feeling is sign that something important is going on. Then after you choose that one thing, you simply express spontaneously the prayer that surfaces as you attend to the source of the feeling – praise, petition, cry for help, healing, whatever. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

It was this poka-dot sheet at the bottom of my closet that I chose. God knew that sheet was lying there all along, even though I had completely forgotten about it. I lifted it up, and remembered all the times I sat in bed with Ian and Gavin and read children’s stories with them. The Blue Balloon, a magic balloon that did wonderful things like turn the color or rainbow and make a the shape of a square. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrob” where children encounter Aslan the Lion who made winter turn to spring Good Night Moo” that got us saying good night to the stars, our feet, the desk, table lamp, the dogs, and cat (who use to hide under the bed pretty much all day). The Very Hungry Caterpillar which turned into a wonderful monarch butterfly.

The poka-dot sheet was stained and ripped, and way to babyish for the boys to ever want to use. But, after holding it, and thinking about the stories, I was able to throw it out to make room for the crisp 200 count cotton L.L. bean blue and green ticking sheets that the boys now use.

God said to Jeremiah, “…before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nation.” Then Jeremiah said,

“Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord said to him,

“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy for you shall go to all to whom I send you, … do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you,…”

I do not think my boys are sent as a prophet to the nations, but I like the part “do not be afraid for I am with you to deliver you…”

This is how the prayer of examin workds. Often we go through the day throwing one thing after another into the closet, slamming the door shut and forgetting about most of the day. That is, at least until the closet bursts open. The prayer of examin is like rummaging around the closet, finding one or two things that seem to speak to you, lifting them in prayer to God. Take time each day, sort through the events of the day, one after another, and listen for your feelings and where you feel God has been with you through these events. I suggest rummaging around your life once a day, or once a week, or once a month. I am not going to tell you how long it had been since I picked up our room. I’ll just say, it was before Christmas.

You never know what is going to turn up and there is always something. For a person who does this kind of prayer there is never a question: What should I talk to God about? Rummage around, see what catches your attention and go with it.

There is no other way to be present to God, of course, but we often fool ourselves into thinking we have “to put on our best face” before we address our God. It is like waiting to clean up the whole house before you let God through the door. But, the point is, God is already in our house. God is in every nook and cranny of our house. God is in the dust under the bed and the stuff in the closet, whatever feel behind the bookcase.

We learn to respect our feelings and our day because we bother to leistn to them. We also become liberated from our feelings and our day. Praying about things we gain strength and perspective. We no longer are slaves to our emotions. God is with us, and helps carry the load out to the barn, or wherever we need it to go.

Our room is pretty much clean now, although I haven’t taken the vacuum cleaner down the stairs yet. My room is much more welcoming than it was when I began. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” It is a good place to lay down my head.

Using Your Gifts for God’s Plan | Keys to Happiness Series #3 | Dr. Rev Carol Kerr | 01.24.2010

1 Corinthians 12

This is the third sermon in the series “Keys to Happiness.” The first I gave on positive thinking, faith being believing in that which is not yet seen. The second sermon was on gratitude. I suggested you write five things for which you are grateful each day. This third sermon is on finding your calling and gifts. It is to discover our work, our condition of life, we may find a way to praise God . This is the path to happiness. You can see how the sermons are beginning how in to build on each other – living by faith, being grateful, using your gifts for God. These are the way to happiness.

Harry Potter is the hero of the wildly popular children’s books by J.K. Rowling. The books have broken world wide record sales in numbers of copies published and languages translated. Harry Potter is fiction. But there is something in the story that captures the imagination of millions and millions of people, young and old. Harry Potter is an ordinary boy by all outward appearances. Yet, there is something hidden in him that is truly extraordinary which he doesn’t really understand. The seven books of the series revolves around the unfolding of this mysterious something embedded in the boy. Up to his 12th birthday Harry is raised by his aunt and uncle, the Dursley’s, because both his parents are dead. They live at four Privet Drive. They are the last people in the world who would have anything to do with strange and mysterious. “They didn’t hold to such nonsense, thank you very much.”

Then on his 12th birthday amazing things start happening. He finds out that he is a wizard and his parents were wizards. Furthermore, there is something exceptional about him even for wizards. When Harry was one year old his parents were killed by the evil Voldemort. Voldemort turned to kill Harry too. He zapped him with his most evil and powerful death spell. Yet, it didn’t kill him. It should have killed him but it didn’t. In fact it backfired onto Voldemort. No one knows why it didn’t kill Harry. The only thing that remained of the encounter was a zig-zag scar on his forehead. Ordinary Harry turns out to be extraordinary. This specialness is hidden and slowly becomes revealed through the series of books. It is this basic plot that captures the hearts of millions. It is because there is something in every human being that resonates with it. The ugly duckling turns into a swan. The orphan finds his true inheritance.

Christianity gets this. Christianity affirms that there is something special inside of each one of us. We are all Harry Potters trying to discover just exactly what it means. By that I mean, what is it for Carol Kerr to be Carol Kerr? Or for Amy Kaplan to be Amy Kaplan. Or Bill Daley to be Bill Daley? We don’t have Hogwarts, the school of Wizardry to educate us. However, we do have the church. Christianity believes that even though we are all ordinary there is something extraordinary about us. These are the gifts God has given to us to use to build up the church. Harry Potter had a zig-zag scar on his head where Voldemort tried to kill him but failed. We too have a place like that. It is the place of giftedness where God has secretly anointed each one of us.

Let me stop here and clarify something. In the Falmouth school system they have a class for the “gifted” students. These are students who have an IQ over 130 and are “specially” talented. There is a special testing process that each child undergoes in the 3rd grade. Then a select few are accepted or not. You can imagine how competitive it can be in Falmouth schools. In the church in Corinth that Paul was writing to, it was equally competitive. Only, they weren’t interested in people’s IQ’s rather they were interested in who had the special spiritual gifts. Things like speaking in tongues and prophecy. One could say Voldemort/evil was insinuating its way into the heart of the church at Corinth. The weapon was not a wand but a phrase, “I’m more important than you!” People in the church were saying that to each other and the church was breaking apart. Speaking in tongues is better than praying lot. Praying a lot is better than wisdom. Etc. But, Paul insisted in his letter to the church that God gave everyone gifts and everyone was important not because of the uniqueness of these gifts but only when these gifts are used to build up the body of the church.

The question of God’s calling us, and how to use our gifts for God, is a question of vocation for us all. In everyday language the word usually just means our “job” or what we do to make a money. But, the word “vocation” comes from Latin word for summons or call. In religious life it still has the meaning of hearing an inner calling to do something with your life and your gifts that is important. . What does that zig-zag scar on Harry Potter’s forehead mean about who he truly is? Harry is restless and unsatisfied until he encounters that truth. Likewise, we must ask ourselves in what kind of place in life, may I find my true self, the person I am meant to be? If we find that place we will be happy. If we do not find that place we will never be truly happy.

Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), who began his life as a decadent French cavalry officer, later found his own way living as a hermit in Algeria. As Foucauld put it, “God calls all the souls he has created to love him with their whole being, here and thereafter, which means that he calls all of them to holiness, to perfection, to a close following of him and obedience to his will. But he does not ask all souls to show their love by the same works, to climb to heaven by the same ladder, to achieve goodness in the same way. What sort of work, then, must I do? Which is my road to heaven? What kind of life am I to sanctify myself?”

Dorothy Day’s life was marked by loneliness and a kind of moral confusion until she found the church and her mission within the church. She founded the Catholic Worker newspaper and a movement throughout the nation of working with the inner city poor. By her own account there was always a yearning for transcendence that distinguished her from her companions. One of them later remarked that she was “too religious’ to make a good Communist. She herself remarked, “All my life I have been haunted by God.”

The signs of vocation are usually “hidden in plain sight.” Usually a good way to get on the trail of what our true calling is, is through the simple equation, Values + Talents = Calling. I am preaching this particular sermon on this particular Sunday because today is our Annual meeting. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our ministry was driving by the working of the Spirit in and through our different callings and gifts? It would be fulfilling because we will feel we are doing exactly what we are meant to be doing. It will spill over not into just our church work, but into everything we do because we will be aware of who we are. We will be fired up. We will tap into the place of our anointing. Instead of “What’s in it for me?” We will be asking “Lord, what would You have me do at this time? God how could my life best honor You? Lord in what way can I make a difference today?”

Here is a quick way of getting you to think about your calling. In the bulletin I have put an insert with two columns. On one column is possible issues you may feel strongly about (this is not a complete list…) HAVE PEOPLE CALL OUT A FEW THINGS. On the other side is a list of talents and gifts you might have (this is not a complete list either…) HAVE PEOPLE CALL OUT A FEW THINGS.

You can see what is going on here. This is a simplification, but you can start to connect the dots and draw lines from the left side to the right. So, if a person feels strongly about child care and they are gifted in teaching…. Or if their passion is hunger and they are good at leadership then they could work in a non-profit organization Bread for the world. Or put a newsletter together on hunger if their talent is writing….. Your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet….

Matching up our values and our gifts is one way to find what our calling is. But, there is another way. That is is to make our work, whatever that work may be, prayer. There is a book called the Practice of the Presence of God. It was drawn form letters and conversations with a French Carmelite lay brother in the seventeenth century. This man known as Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, entered a monastery in Paris in midlife, after retiring from the army. Because of his lack of education he was assigned to kitchen work. There he spent 40 years among the pots and pans until he died at the age of 80. In his life he accomplished no great deeds. But, what he did do was that at all times he cultivated a consciousness of the presence of God. As such, no matter what we were doing, even washing dishes, the work would be holy work. He wrote: The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and tin the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Sacrament.

The point here is that finding our calling is not just about matching up talents with issues, but also with our own interior disposition and the way we go about doing our work. He says changing what we do is not the important thing rather “doing for the sake of God that which we commonly do for our own.” Doing it for love.

What made Harry Potter special and able to thwart the curse of death that Voldemort projected upon him? It was that his mother sacrificed her life for him. She threw herself between Voldemort and the baby Harry and so she was killed. It was this self sacrifice that protected Harry from the strongest curse. Likewise, Paul in chapter 12 of his letter to the Corinthians lists out the various gifts that each member of the church has that will contribute to the building up the body of the church. But in chapter 13 he tells us what the greatest gift of all is.: Love.

But let me show you a way of life that is best of all….prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless. … all that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever, faith, hope and live and the greatest of these is love.

Love is the gift within our gifts. Love actualizes whatever our calling may be. When Harry Potter discovered that what made him special was love, in this case the love of his mother, he was able to find his strength and use his gift. What made Harry Potter special? He was an ordinary boy who was loved in extraordinary ways. The plot of Christianity is this: we are all loved by God who sacrificed his life for us.

What are the keys to happiness? Live life filled with faith. Be grateful always. Find your special calling by matching your values with your gifts. Then do whatever you do, do it with love.

Faith Stuck Between Two Slabs of Cement | Questions of Suffering and Haiti | Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr | 01.17.2010

John 9:1-8

Of all the reports flooding out of tragic earthquake, 7.0 on the Richter scale, in Port au Prince Haiti there is one that sticks out in my mind. A 21 year old man had been stuck under a huge slab of cement for over 48 hours. He was lying on his side, with the slab laying over him, just like a sandwich. If the slab had fallen 2 inches more his bones would have been crushed. Yet, incredibly his only problem was that he was stuck, nothing was crushed, no terrible wounds. Some local people found him and were trying to rescue him with a blow torch, and a car jack. A news reporter stumbled upon the situation, and of all things, handed the microphone to the man lying on his side, stuck under a half of ton cement slab. “What are you saying to yourself?” the reporter asked him. He heard the question, and with a calm and tranquil voice he replied, “As I am a Christian, I say Jesus you know my life in your hand.”

Atheists world wide watching this man’s testimony must be boggled by his denial to see the apparent contradiction and bitter irony of the situation he was in. For many atheists in the world suffering is the great killer of faith. Barbara Brown Taylor knew of a nurse who lost her faith working in the emergency room of a hospital where she laid her hand on every kind of tragedy – the two nineteen-year-old girls killed in a car wreck, the little boy who mother has broken his arm, the young man with AIDS whose parents say they are not taking him back home with them. The nurse says that she is tired of cleaning up God’s messes. Certainly the earthquake in Haiti killing over 40,000 people, injuring and rendering homeless another 2,000,000 people in a country already the poorest in the western hemisphere, makes a person wonder where is God? It’s a hell of a mess we have to clean up. And, if anyone can find God, let’s fire God for failure to act, and/or for acting capriciously and cruelly.

So, do we believe the man stuck between a slab of cement? “As I am a Christian, I say Jesus you know my life in your hand.” Or do we side with the atheists and say, “God does not exist.”

Of course there is Pat Robinson’s approach. Pat Robinson claims on national TV that the reason this cataclysmic tragedy happened to Haiti was that a couple centuries ago Haitians made a pact with the devil in order to gain their independence from imperialist rule of France. He claims that ever since then this is the reason God has rained down so many calamities on the people such as category 5 hurricanes, famine, AIDS, etc. After all, God needs a site for apocalyptic research and development and it might as well be on Haiti because of that pact they made with the devil.

Frankly, I would rather not believe in God at all than believe in Pat Robinson’s God. Pat Robinson seems OK with a God that would punish and a two-year old girl by killing her centuries after the alleged guilty pact was perpetrated by past generations. I am not OK with that kind of God.

But, before I completely kick out Pat Robinson, I have to admit that we all try in our own various ways a slight of hand similar to his. That is, we all try to find some reason for suffering by blaming the victim. In the United States our vast wealth and resources have allowed us to relieve much suffering (lets put hurricane Katrina to the side) and we begin to believe that suffering shouldn’t exist at all. Where it does we believe that if we just work harder and try harder we can get rid of it. And so, we begin to sweep all suffering into the category it of “somebody’s own damned fault.” We are relieved to say that in fact. Because it makes us feel deep down like we have control over tragedy. Bad things can’t happen to us if we conform to an unwritten code something like – eat the right food, live in the right places, get the right job, mind your business, exercise.

Then Haiti happens.

However, let’s look at what Jesus said about suffering. Jesus was walking along and saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents sins?” Now, we know what Pat Robinson’s answer would be, “It was his parent’s sins.” Pat seems to go for sins of previous generations. Pat would not be alone at the time. In the Old Testament they struggled with the question, if there is only one God, and God is all powerful, and God is a good God, then why is there suffering? They determined that the only answer is, it must be the fault of the victim, and if not that person’s fault then it was the fault of his parents, or his parents parents, on down the line.

But, Pat Robinson is not Jesus and Jesus said something different. Jesus said, “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins. This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. “ After this Jesus spit on the ground, made mud, spread it on his eyes, and told him to wash his eyes. He went and did it and could see! Jesus’ point was this: We do not know why this man was born blind, but God does not want him to be blind, God wants him to be healed. God is not a God of punishment but a God of healing.

There is suffering all over the world. In parts of Africa, women expect to bury half their children before they are two years old. In Rural China, people with cataracts go blind. In Nepal, lepers live on the steps of temples, begging alms from the faithful who pass by. Through our One Great Our of Sharing offering which we take each spring, some of our money goes to support an orphanage in Haiti called “House of Hope.” The orphanage has a school to which children will walk three hours a day in order to attend. Two missionaries walked up into the mountain villages from where the children come. There the families are so poor they have nothing. Their families were subsistence farmers with no hope for the future. In these communities if the parents cannot take care of their children, which they often cannot do, they abandon them or sell them as “servants” in Port-au-Prince, where they often face abuse and neglect.

Despite suffering around the world faith persists. Despite all their suffering the Haitians are not a nation of atheists. They are deeply religious. In the news reports if you noticed, there are people camped out in tents by night with absolutely nothing, singing hymns. The Bishop of Haiti is dead, crushed as his cathedral collapsed on him, still Haitians are marching through the streets by day singing hymns. Why do Haitians still believe in God despite all their suffering? Perhaps the words of one Haitian who now lives in Montreal Quebec will shed light on this questions: “When you feel you are somebody, a child of God, that you are important, that your voice matters, then you can do something about your situation. We come together to pray, reflect and work together to build the kingdom of god on earth… Often, one has the impression that the poor ask incessantly, but suddenly someone asks you to contribute, because you have something to give too. Things change when suddenly I see I have something to give.”

Prayer breaks our isolation from one another. Prayer leads to social action. Suffering threatens all meaning if we suffer alone. But if we reach out to each other, and bind together, together we will transcend even the worse.

This answer this Haitian woman gives is much more like the answer Jesus gave his disciples than the answer Pat Robinson gave the nation, or the answer atheists give to each other

Let me explain it in this way, as a minister, I have heard many stories of loss and grief. Stories that would break your heart. I wondered, why, I always felt that at the same time when I heard these stories that I was walking on holy ground? Then one day I realized it was because of love. Whenever there is loss and death, love will come forcefully and surely. It comes from mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. As we see in Haiti and the donations and services that are flooding in from around the world, love comes from strangers and people profoundly moved as fellow human beings. Love is a force in the universe. Love is as real as electricity, or microwaves, or the speed of light, or megaton reactions at the center of supernovas. For Christianity, love is not a subcategory of anything. It is not just an emotion among other emotions. Rather, love is God’s self communication to the universe.

When Jesus was healing the blind man he also said, “We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work. But while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world.”

It is true for Jesus, and it is also true for us. We are the light of the world and we must carry out the tasks assigned to us before the night comes.

The 21 year old man stuck under the cement slab reminds me of another story of Jesus. There was a man named Lazarus who was the brother of Martha and Mary. When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. … Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die….” After meeting Mary, people showed him the tomb of Lazarus and he wept. The people standing near Jesus said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed the blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”

Jesus told them to roll the stone aside. Martha protested because of the smell. But Jesus said, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of al these pope standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” Then Jesus shouted “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his ands and feet bound in grave clothes.

In Haiti the CNN reporter handed the 21 year old man pinned under the slab of cement “What are you saying to yourself?” And he calmly replies, “As I am a Christian, I say Jesus you know my life in your hand.”

The report cut to about an hour later where you heard the screams of the man when his friends and jacked up the cement some and took the blow torch to free one last section which was burning his skin as they did it. These reports are hard to watch. But, they poured water on him as they proceeded. Shortly after he was freed. And his rescuers carried him off whole and in tact.

We might never be caught in an earthquake, but our turn will come where we have to submit ourselves to the unknown and to step into the darkness without understanding what it is all about. When that happens I think we should remember not what the atheists conclude, and not what Pat Robinson asserts. Rather we should remember, burn the image of this man and what he said into our minds, remember how this man made it through. I think it is the best advice we will ever get. We should remember what told the reporter and the world, “As I am a Christian, I say Jesus you know my life in your hand.”

Telling Time – Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr – December 24, 2009

What time is it? Can anyone really answer that question? The problem is every time you answer that question, by the time you have answered it, more time has passed. CHECK WATCH AND CHECK TIME. For example, my watch reads…. 7:21 and 4 seconds, no now 7:21 and 5 seconds, 6 seconds, no now its’ 7 seconds…. What time is it? Is there a right answer to that question? I can’t tell you exactly what time it is. But, I can tell you time is ticking like this metronome.

Of all times of year during the Christmas season, we are made most aware that time is ticking. Advertisements say “Avoid the Christmas rush and shop now!” So we rush to the mall after Thanksgiving, along with 2,000,000 other people. “Only 13 more shopping days until Christmas!” has morphed into “Only 13 more days until Christmas!” because now every single day is a shopping day – 24/7.

After the major weekend blizzard that those south of us from Washington to Boston received on Monday on the Today show the reporter said that although the cities were paralyzed people stayed home and shopped on line. She said that 240,000 were buying on line every minute. It’s been 3 minutes since I last checked the time (it’s now 7:24…)that would have been 720,000 purchases on line. What time is it? Time is ticking. Time is money.

One thing I do know is that we think we don’t have enough time, so we are always trying to maximize our time. One obsessive compulsive newspaper writer once suggested we note all our seasonal goals on a super organized Christmas checklist. We are suppose to systematize gift preparation in a “home wrapping center,” and implement production line techniques in order to maximize efficiency.

There are other time saving things we do at Christmas in our frenzied rush for time and more time. One man announced, “We yanked the tree out of the box and then plugged it right into the wall! That sucker was pre-decorated with colored lights and a bunch of ornaments. It took three minutes tops. None of this three hours and listening to Christmas music nonsense!”

Not to be out done, his friend bragged about how he avoided the pain of thoughtful shopping. “Fifteen gift cards from the web sit. Three clicks of the mouse and a credit card number. In and out, five minutes and I’m done

O.K., who here has things unfinished at home that they ran out of time to do before they came to church.
- Who has presents unwrapped?
- Cooking to do?
- House to clean?
- Decorations to put up?
In fact, some of you are probably calculating right now as I am preaching this sermon how to get everything done fast when you get home…

What time is it? Is not a friendly question. It is accompanies with anxiety with demands, with a list of things that need to get done and are never done in time.

What time is it? More time is passing now. Time is ticking. Time is money Even if you are good with time, like money, you never seem to get entirely on top of it. I myself try to ignore it, I have a clock in my kitchen with all the numbers in a pile on the bottom left hand corner. The big and and little hand point to nothing. On the face of the clock it says, “Whatever.” But, that doesn’t work either because I make sure that clock is set five minutes fast so that Ian and I get out to school on time.

No matter how many ways we try to save time we suffer from a deeply rooted dread of time. Time to us is sarcasm. When compelled to look into its face it opens its jaws and devours everything in its path.

But there is one thing that seems to stand outside of time during the Christmas season that is the crèche. The tableaux of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus in a stable with some animals. I love crèches because it doesn’t seem to care what time it is.

We have a small one here. Have you seen our crèche in the front of the church? It was bought way back when Rev. George Phinny was with the church. It has been stored in Helen MacDermaid’s barn for years, and then in the Coupe’s barn. Then we stored it in the sanctuary at the back for a while. Now we store it in the parking lot.

Past Christmas’s we use display it in the front of the sanctuary. But, this year one of our members cut some Plexiglas and lit it from inside and we have finally put it where it is best, out front. Cars rush by our church, a child turns his head “Mommy I saw baby Jesus!” No time to stop. But, it doesn’t matter cars pass, time passes but Mary, Joseph and Jesus never move, never change.

Who here has a crèche at home? I recommend you getting one.

Certainly things happen to Mary and Joseph and Jesus when the crèche is put on display. Once someone stole the figurines out of our church’s crèche and then the following year the reappeared. Our family has a few footless shepherds at home, the dog wagged his tail one Christmas and brushed them off the table.

Some families have a complete minidrama setting out the manger scene. Here is an actual dispute that one family with three small kids had.
“He had baby Jesus last year.”
“Her camels are all bigger than mine.”
“I can’t believe you put a plastic army guy in with the shepherds.”
The parents thought of solving the problem by giving turns to rearrange the crèche on alternating days. Yet there is still sabotage:
“One of my shepherds is hanging upside down from the ceiling fan. He is going to puke!”
“If Mary ever wants to see Joseph again, she needs to stand back behind the manger where I put her yesterday and promise not to ride the camel.”

But, when all is said and done, no matter the trials and tribulations of storing it, of setting up the display, the crèche will not change year after year and forever: Jesus lays in the manger with his hands outstretched as if to welcome the angels. Mary sits next to him staring in adoration. Joseph stands by and holds a lamp.

There is a very ancient legend about Joseph that at the moment of the birth of Jesus he looked up and saw heaven standing still
- the birds were suspended in flight.
- He looked down and saw workers with their hands in a bucket lying there.
- He saw the animals chewing but they did not chew
- The shepherd had raised his hand to move the sheep along but his hand remained up.
- He saw children dipping into a streaming river to drink but they were not drinking.
- He saw all the facing looking upward

What time is it?

For one moment in time, something new entered time and stopped the ticking of the clock. Eternity moved in and after this time didn’t have to be seconds ticking like empty shells, reminding you of your limited life and futility of getting it all done.

The moment God entered into our time as Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, time was saved and we were saved.

At the top of your bulletins you will see a quote from Thomas Merton:
Christ is born. He is born to us. And, he is born today ….It is not merely another day in the weary round of time. Today, eternity enters into time, and time is caught up into eternity. Today, Christ… enters the world. to reclaim souls who had forgotten their identity… St. Leo says: “Today is a day restoring that which was long lost, a day of bliss unending.”

What time is it? CHECK WATCH AND COUNT SECONDS….Can that question ever be answered without it being immediately wrong as seconds tick by? It cannot be answered in chronological time, in digital watch time, but it can be answered in the fullness of time.

What time it as we light the candles and pass the light of Christ from one to the other. What time is it? It is a moment when eternity kisses our fleeting lives. What time is it? ? It is holy time. It is sacred time. Joseph holds the lamp and looks around and the world stands still. The time is now.

Water Tables at a 10k – Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr

Many of you know that I go jogging regularly. I have done so since I was a teenager and would go with my father. It became a life long habit and I jog about 3 miles about 3 times a week. Once, however, I decided to run in a race. It was a 10k in Cape Elizabeth around Thanksgiving called “The Turkey Trot.” Even though I never ran in a race before, I did it because I was feeling fat. That January I had given birth to Ian and had put on many pounds in the process. So, I thought signing up for a race would motivate me to run a little further and so loose some weight.

However, a couple days before the race I had come down with the 24 hour stomach flu which I was still feeling slightly weird from. I showed up for the race wearing what I always wear jogging, big ripped, faded, mismatched baggy sweats. I went to the registration table and paid my money. I got this little vest with my big yellow numbers, 132. I was feeling pretty spiffy until I went to gather where all the other runners were. There were these really tall men who were wearing matching Spandex tights and tops in neon colors that looked like they were painted on. They were warming up, with in place sprinting, and vigorous stretching. You could see their huge thigh muscles bulging out from behind the Spandex. One stranger came up to me and whispered in a low voice as if I was about to divulge a state secret “What is your race strategy?” However, that was the first time it ever occurred to me to have a strategy. My strategy was to show up, sign in, and start jogging.

I was wondering maybe I shouldn’t be here. I was wondering if I had gotten in over my head. It was like I had found myself in the middle of a bull fight. These people around me were the bulls snorting and pounding the ground. Their strategies were like the red capes the matador’s flinging to and fro in front of the bulls. If this was a bull fight, I was Ferdinand the bull. I am the most uncompetitive runner ever. I never time myself. I never do intervals, I don’t take my heart rate or keep charts, or pack carbs. When I go jogging, I trot along, enjoy the weather, and stop to pet as many dogs as I can.

The race started and I immediately fell behind everyone. There was one other nice woman who was slow too. She could see this was my first race. Out of mercy she jogged along next to me to keep me company. The only problem was that my shoe laces kept untying. So, I had to keep stopping and tie them. Finally, she wondered if I would mind if she went on ahead.

Then I was all alone. Right when I was sure I was on the wrong road, I turned a corner and there was a water table. On the ground around the table there was a kind of mayhem of Dixie cups left behind by the runners. But there were a few remaining cups on the table. There were three people standing behind the table. When they saw me they started cheering, “Good job, you can do it! Keep going!” Since I never had been in a race before I was totally surprised, not only by the water, but by the cheers. They held out a dixie cup just for me. I wasn’t at all thirsty, it was about 45 degrees and overcast. But, I stop and drank it anyway because they were just so nice. I thanked them and went on my way with “You can do it” and applause trailing behind me.

There were two more water tables. I loved them. Each one waited until I came before they packed up. When they saw me they started cheering as if I was the first and not the last.. I would wave, smile, and stop and drink some water not because I was particularly thirsty, but because they were so nice. They would encourage me, “Not far to go now! You are only about 10 minutes behind the last guy. He was limping so I think you might catch up. “

Between the second and the third water table, Dave drove by with Gavin and Ian in the car. They rolled down the window and cheered me on too! What a pleasant surprise. Finally I passed the finish line, more hydrated with water than I had been in years, and only 5 minutes behind the guy limping. I was dead last. But, I didn’t care. I loved the race because I loved people cheering me on.

Life is like running a race with no experience. We are born at the starting line with no strategy, no instructions, and little coaching. In life we face challenges and situations that have never encountered and often never expected. The world often doesn’t run like the world we grew up in and we are unprepared. There are strange twists and turns that unnerve us. For instance, any one going through a divorce never expected to find themselves in that situation. They wonder how did my marriage turn out this way? What happened? Anyone who ever had a serious illness never expected that to happen. They come home one day and pick up the messages on their answering machine with a message from the nurse saying the doctor want to talk to you about the results of your test. Or, who here expected to be in a recession as deep as the Depression of 1930’s? There are middle class citizens living in tents down in Florida. They didn’t expect they would be unemployed and bankrupt when they graduated from college 20 years ago. Parent’s never expect to get a call from the police telling them that there daughter is caught with drugs on her.

The writer of Hebrews knew about this race we of life that we are in. They also were running it. They also had encountered strange and unexpected twists and turns. The letter is addressed to Christians who are facing an uncertain future. It is sometime around the year AD 100 so these people represented the third and fourth generation of Christians. They can recall the faith of their grandparents who had eagerly expected the return of Jesus. And, as the writer of Hebrews reminds them, there was a time when their own faith was strong. And they had stood up to threats and public torment. But now that strong, clear faith was slipping away. Christ had not returned. Persecution was increasing. The future looked grim. The initial enthusiasm of faith was waning and the community was unraveling. What in the world would give those Christians the courage to move boldly into the future?

The writer of Hebrews tells them: Christ has gone first. Christ is already leading the way, he knows the route and has already made it past the finish line. It says, “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfector of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross.”

As if that were not enough that Christ has gone first, the writer of Hebrews reminds us of generation after generation of faithful heroes and heroines in the Hebrew scripture who preceded Christ. Chapter 11, is the prelude to the verses we have read. It is a litany of woman and men who “by faith” endured every form of suffering and pain and disillusionment. The author gathers them all together in dramatic image calling them a cloud of witnesses. By faith Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain did, and still speaks even through he is death. By faith Enoch was taken from this life and was commended as one who pleased God. By faith Noah was warned by God and built his ark. By faith Abraham was called to go to a place he did not know to receive his inheritance. By faith Abraham, and Sarah even though they were passed age were enabled to become parents. It continues a long list of people who lived by faith and then says that all these people were still living by faith and saw the things promised and welcomed them from a distance. It says that by faith they were aliens and strangers in this world and were looking for a better country a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for God has prepared a city for them. And so it says, faith is being sure of what we hope for, proof of what we do not see. This cloud of faithful witnesses surround us now and are cheering us on as we run the long-distance race they too ran.

We run the race. But, at times our hearts grow faint. We think we don’t have what it takes, aren’t prepared, had no idea what we got ourselves into. Perhaps you are feeling that now? But then we have come to church to day and it is “All Saints Day.” This Sunday we pause and listen to the great chant of the saints, that cloud of witnesses that have run the race before us cheering us on, no matter how slow we are. “Run the race, run the race! Look to Jesus, look to Jesus!”

Like the race I was in, at church these saints gather around a table waiting for us to refresh us. It isn’t the water table, it is the communion table. It quenches our thirst with many little cups, the blood of Christ, and satisfies our hunger with little broken pieces of bread, the body of Christ. There will be a time during todays’ sacrament where we can name the names of those saints that mean a lot to us. People we have known. They may be people who are still alive. They may be people who have passed on. But they have been people who have been our teachers, and mentors in the faith. Maybe it is a friend who died in High school of cancer, but you still hear his voice saying “I just want to see Jesus.” Maybe, it is a Sunday School teacher who had done mission in Honduras, and you can still hear her voice asking, “How are you doing

There are times when we have been in church and come to the communion table bearing burdens and worry and we receive the sacrament and listen to the choir and once again hear the chant, “Run the race, run the race, look to Jesus, look to Jesus!” Perhaps there is a surge of hope in your heart when things look hopeless. Perhaps it reminds you of a friends encouragements. Perhaps it is the patience to pick up on foot and put it in front of the other and get through another day. Perhaps it is the silent prayer that was filled with a mysterious presence as you feel the communion wine trickle down your throat. Perhaps it was when you stood up against injustice and your knees were shaking and your voice quivering but you heard inside a voice crying out for what is right and good and just. “Run the race, run the race, look to Jesus look to Jesus.”

Listen for their voices. For when you hear them, you will see that Christ ahs gone before you and first. You will drink and eat and receive the grace and strength to go on and finish the race.

The Shipwrecked – Rev. Dr. Carol Kerr

This is the “Fable of the Deserted Island:” You are on a voyage of discovery. There is a storm. Your ship is wrecked; all are lost except for you. You wash up on an utterly deserted island. Though no other humans live on the island, there is plenty of food and water. But you are stuck alone on the island. Question: What would you do for the rest of your life?

Which would you pick?

1. Who would work on building a boat?
2. Try to adapt to their circumstances such as taking up shell collecting and classification, write poetry on the back of a palm leaf, sit quietly and watch the sun set?
3. Kill yourself. (Now if you think I am being negative here, when the Fable of the Deserted Island is posed to a college lecture class there are always some who come up with this option. These people think the prospect of living alone for the rest of their lives with nowhere to go and nothing to do as a fate worse than death.)
4. Shoot off some flares to catch the attention of passing ships.
5. Grab on to a plank that is floating by and hold on for your life.

The Fable of the Deserted Island is really a primer on life. It is a “get real” sort of question. After all, the planet earth is an island, spinning blue and white, alone in the universe. Some people look at that picture of the planet earth and think it is beautiful. Others look at it and exclaim, “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Not only are we alone in the universe (or at least there is millions of light years between us and whatever other life form there might be in some distant star or galaxy). There are many of us who feel utterly alone on this planet even though it is inhabited by 4 billion people. Here is a grim statistic, did you know that many more Americans are victims of suicide than homicide? Here is another grim statistic, every two weeks, on average, someone jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge, thee world’s leading suicide location.

Even though some of us do not feel alone all of the time, all of us feel alone some of the time. Most of us would pick “a” or “b” than “c.” That is most of us are the shell collectors, boat builders, sunset gazers than the bridge jumpers. There are times in all of our lives when we lift our heads and notice the circumference of the island we are on and are astonished how small it really is. These are times when we realize that “Life is short.” or wonder “What’s the point?”, or feel, “I’m stuck.” – Maybe I am shipwrecked after all.

Then there is option “d” which would be to shoot flares hoping that passing ships would notice. Our hope is not on the island. Rather our hope is in the possibility of catching the attention of something passing by.

It’s the Christmas season, why am I preaching this sermon about deserted islands and being shipwrecked? Well, Christmas season seems to be like a grand ocean liner with parties, and friends, and so many lights that it looks like a wedding cake floating on the ocean. These people have their own security systems, their credit cards, their nice homes,

In contrast, for some people Christmas is more lonely than any other time. For instance, some people come from dysfunctional homes. Getting together with the family means witnessing Dad getting drunk and more and more verbally abusive throughout the day. For others hanging the stockings means wondering where to hang, what to do with the stocking of their child who died last year. There are families divorced for the first time, who have had to split up the Christmas ornaments into two households. The husband has the star, the wife has the angel, and the kids have a tree with bare spots all over it.

Then there are people who just don’t feel very good about themselves. People who try to be “Good” but just can’t seem to do it. People where the issue has gone beyond whether they’ve been “naughty or nice” but have wandered into evil this year.

I went to a lecture by Steven Callahan who wrote the book Adrift. His boat sank off of Europe and was lost at sea floating in a life raft for 76 days. He said that ocean liners would pass within sight. But no matter how he shot off his flares they never saw him. It is hard to catch the attention of someone who is preoccupied with their own thing. These ships that passed by were on automatic pilot, steering for their destination, and not looking around. Calahan recalls the anguish he felt when he saw the ships sail off, his hope for rescue and for life, a shrinking dot on the horizon.

“a,b,c, and d” don’t seem to work that well. Which leaves that last crazy option of “e” – Grab onto a plank that is floating by and hold on for your life.

The shipwrecked have not other choice. I have discovered a wonderful show on line which is called TED. TED has experts from around the world to come and speak on their subject and pass on ideas worth spreading. Famous, accomplishes, and brilliant people come and speak on TED. One person they invited was Dr. Sunitha Krishanan who has dedicated her life to rescuing women and children from sex slavery which is a multimillion dollar global market. She described her own gang rape as a young teenager. She says that she was not so much traumatized by the event as terribly angry by the fact that no one was doing anything about it. She continued to tell gut wrenching stories about young girls even ages 3 and 4, who are raped repeatedly and sold into slavery. She is speaking in an opulent auditorium with oriental carpets on the stage and gilded statues with lavaish drapery. However, the slides she shows are of women with their throats slashes, faces beaten, and half dead from AIDS. Somewhere in the lecture she happen to mention that she herself has saved over 3,500 women and girls at which point the auditorium broke out in applause. But, looking at her facial expression I had the uneasy feeling that the applause was inappropriate. “Doesn’t it make you feel good?” the audience was saying. But, she did not smile, she simply stopped her pacing and stared back at them, saying nothing. Her expression at that moment is the expression I imagine most shipwrecked people would have on their faces who have clinged to their solitary planks and are washed ashore and have made their way to the stable in Bethlehem and kneel before the baby Jesus. It is not an expression that says, “I feel good going to church at Christmas!” For the shipwrecked are weaned from themselves and all they thought was important. The ship wrecked come to the stable seeking not to posses, not to have their self esteem built up, not for applause, or for a feel good moment. Dr. Sunitha Krishanan, did not save women who are sold into slavery, so as to gather trophies and put them on her mantel piece. The shipwreck make their way to the stable not to posses, but to be possessed by love and to serve justice. The Christian tradition has a spiritual word for these people, “the pure in heart.”

The Spanish author Jose Ortega y Gasset puts it this way:

The man with the clear head is the man who frees himself from fantasy ad looks life in the face, realized that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. And this is the simple truth – that to live is to feel oneself lost. Whoever accepts this has already begun to find himself to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere because it is a question of his salvation, weill cause him to bring order to the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas: the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not feel himself lost is without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, ver comes up against his own reality.

When the shipwrecked arrive at the staple they will see that Mary and Joseph and Jesus are ship wrecked too. After all, there was “no room in the inn.” And they were left to fend for themselves in a stable

God came down to this island of a planet not to be on an ocean cruser but to dwell with the shipwrecked. God became a shipwrecked on himself, as a babe utterly vulnerable, under millions of light years of darkness.

When the shipwrecked come to the stable they discover that it is not the deserted island that made them so alone, rather it was a deserted place inside themselves. In front of Jesus God finds this empty place and it becomes an opening for God to create something new. That is how Christ is born in us. The broken ones gaze onto the whole one, Emmanuel, who trusts them enough to let their planks become the very crèche upon which he lies. “I am so glad you came!” He seems to say.

I just thought of a final option if you found yourself on a deserted island. Option a, build a boat. Option b, make the best of it. Option c, kill yourself. Option d, send off flairs. Option e, grab onto a plank floating by. Option “f.” Make every desire is transformed into a pure and simple desire for Jesus.

The people on the ocean liner with all the lights and noise can miss it. But the one floating alone will witness….what? The northern lights washing even the vast starless spaces with color.

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