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Week of September 27 - October 3, 2015

9/27/2015

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“Naked I came from my mother's womb, 
and naked shall I return there; 
   the LORD gave, 
and the LORD has taken away; 
   blessed be the name of the LORD.”
                             - Job
Well, if we have nothing else, at least we have our birthday suits— thank God.
You can’t go down the highway or open a magazine or watch video or do much of anything at all without seeing humans showing off at least limited portions of their birthday suits.
And somehow, that’s different from seeing a dog or horse or fish wearing only what God gave it to wear.  That’s just “natural”— right ?
Let’s not even get started with the way some people put human-type clothing on their dogs, cats, chimpanzees, and so forth.
Nor must we get started, discussing all of the incredible variety of ways that humans clothe themselves.
This week, our lessons from the Bible invite us to consider what it means, that God created humans in God’s own image, male and female.
Some of you who read this will immediately think of the controversial matters relating to sexuality and gender which have filled the news in recent years.  I did.
But then I sat back and meditated on these things a little more.  It occurred to me that God already sees all of the possibilities and all of the realities that we may call “human.”  You and me and everybody else: God knows us from the tips of our toes to the tips of our hair (let’s not get started on what humans do with their hair, either— OK?). 
God knows us so naked we wouldn’t even recognize ourselves.  You know that place on the back side of you that is hard for you to see, even if you stand in a certain way using mirrors ?  Yep— God totally knows that spot.  If you saw a photo of that spot, you probably wouldn’t recognize it as a part of you: you never see it !  But God knows exactly how it is a part of you.
When two humans are intimate with each other, each may allow the other to experience their hidden selves.  That may include the parts of their bodies which are normally hidden from other humans.  It also includes their naked personalities— stripped of at least some of the facades that we humans normally put on for public viewing. 
Intimacy with another human is dangerous.  The other person might take advantage of my vulnerability!  The other person might take more than I want to give.  My partner might react badly to experiencing who I am underneath it all.  Or I might not like what I see of my partner !  You are probably all too aware, these matters can get people so wound up, they lose whatever civilized veneer they ordinarily maintain; they lose their cool.  Things can get too hot in a hurry.  Dangerous.

Yes, and intimacy with God is dangerous, too.
As Peter Green put it,                (in the song, "Oh Well")
Now, when I talked to God I knew He'd understand.
He said, “Stick by my side ‘n’ I'll be your guiding hand.
Don't ask Me what I think of you--
I might not give the answer that you want Me to.”

In our prayer life, we have the heavenly opportunity to know God through the Holy Spirit.  One thing we learn when we get serious about it: we learn some of what God sees in us….
Do you find that scary ?  I do.  Also, wonderful….
Spiritual people down through the centuries have described union with God in terms that could make us blush; terms more commonly used for intimate human relations. 
Jesus is not ashamed to call [us] his siblings, saying,
“I will proclaim Your name to my brothers and sisters,
     in the midst of the congregation I will praise You.” 
                                   - 
Hebrews 2:11-12


(You might find this song entertaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZVQmJVXDkk )

SCRIPTURE READINGS for SUNDAY, September 27th
Psalm 19:7-14
Numbers 11
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50
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Week of September 20-26, 2015

9/20/2015

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What’s your latest favorite scandal ?

This morning I awoke to the news that a major car manufacturer has admitted that, since 2009, they have been programming their cars’ computers to cheat on pollution emissions tests.  Out on the open road, the engine merrily burns its fuel rich and dirty.  But on the test-stand, when an official hooks up an emissions-testing rig, it’s a different story: the same engine is then controlled by its computer to “clean up its act” – to pretend that it runs lean and clean.

All around us are various types of scandals.  The scandals of celebrities, politicians, and rich people often make the news and gossip media— unless they shovel enough money around in the right places to shut the mouths of the witnesses and victims.  Maybe you remember the recently exposed scandal of a formerly high-powered member of Congress who was paying “hush money” to someone whom he had abused, years ago. 

In our neighborhoods and in our own families, we also have scandals. 

The word “scandal” comes directly to us from the Greek language.  However, outside of the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament (with which Jesus and the apostles were familiar) and the New Testament, the word “scandal” meant basically one thing:  a trap.

The Jews started to use the word “scandal” to mean “something that ruins a person.”  Maybe you can picture falling into a trap or tripping over something, and if it doesn’t kill you, it leaves injuries or scars that may haunt you for the rest of your life.  Maybe it’s a physical trap, such as getting mugged while taking a shortcut through a dark alley.  But the ancient Jews also used the word “scandal” for spiritual traps: yielding to the temptation to worship false gods; yielding to temptations to sin.

That’s what Jesus was talking about when he said, 
If your hand “scandalizes” you, cut it off; 
   it is better for you to enter life maimed 
     than to have two hands and to go to hell, 
       to the unquenchable fire. 
 (Mark 9:43)

I am sure that Jesus said it that way NOT so his followers would chop off their hands, feet, or eyeballs, but rather so they would notice that it’s not my hand’s fault when I put it in the cookie jar.  It’s not my eyeball’s fault when I covet my neighbor’s possessions.  It’s not my foot’s fault when I go where I know God doesn’t want me to go. 

Our hearts, our minds— that’s where the scandal-trap springs.

It wasn’t a fault in the cars’ computers that cheated on the emissions tests: it was the greedy corporate leaders who wanted to sell the cars as both powerful and clean-running.  They fell into the traps of cutting corners and telling lies.

How can we avoid scandals that ruin us ?

Jesus tells us to keep our “saltiness” – that is, our spiritual flavor that identifies us as his disciples.

The Letter of James tells us that we have the capacity to go to each other’s aid when someone trips and falls.  We can rescue each other, we can bring our brothers and sisters back from wandering in sin (James 5:19-20).

The surest way to stay out of scandal is to embody the Spirit which was in Jesus, which will guide us and empower us to defeat all the devil’s traps.

“I wish that all the LORD's people were prophets,
     and that the LORD would put His spirit on them!”
                                    - Moses, in Numbers 11:29

If we see you in the news, let it be good news !

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Week of September 13-19, 2015

9/13/2015

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It was the LORD Who made it known to me,
     and I knew; then You showed me their evil deeds. 
But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. 
And I did not know it was against me that they devised schemes, saying, 
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
     let us cut him off from the land of the living,
         so that his name will no longer be remembered!”
But You, O LORD of hosts, 

     Who judge righteously,
          Who try the heart and the mind,
               let me see Your retribution upon them,
    for to You I have committed my cause.

               - Jeremiah 11:18-20

In the years leading up to Judah’s exile to Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah accepted God’s call to preach an unpopular message: Jeremiah’s own neighbors were profiting from injustice toward and oppression of innocent people, and God demanded their repentance.  For his trouble, Jeremiah received many death threats: his neighbors, including the leaders of the land, would rather see him dead than face up to their sins and the sins of their fathers before them.

Coming up on the first Sunday of October is our annual Neighbors In Need offering.  As always, we receive this offering on World Communion Sunday.   Proceeds of the Neighbors In Need offering always get divided: two-thirds go to the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries to support a variety of justice initiatives, advocacy efforts, and direct service projects;  one third of the offering goes to support the Council for American Indian Ministries of the United Church of Christ.  This year, the UCC’s materials promoting the Neighbors In Need offering are focused squarely on the root of racism that leads to the injustice under which Native American people now live.

The words of Jeremiah quoted above remind me of a  devotional  talk  that  my  friend  Robert  Frye  of
Mt. Jackson gave at a meeting of our Shenandoah Association Council.  Robert lives by the Civil War
hospital site in Mt. Jackson, and he is a long-time student of local history.  In his presentation to us, he detailed how the European settlers arrived in the area we call Mt. Jackson and methodically destroyed all markers of the native civilization that they found there: villages, burial mounds, and monuments were torn down and plowed under, to erase all traces of the highly-developed peoples who the Europeans had driven out.

Yesterday at Trinity UCC near Basye, Virginia, I had a conversation with a lifelong Woodstock-area resident who told of his ancestors’ fights with the original natives there in the 1600s and 1700s:  the Europeans wrote of Indian “massacres” and “outrages.”  The original natives attacked as the Europeans attempted to lay claim to the land.

So, who outraged whom ?  Who massacred whom ?

To a terrible degree, the incoming settlers succeeded in driving away or killing off the native people of this part of Virginia. 

Elsewhere in this Commonwealth, these eleven tribes are now officially recognized: Mattaponi, Pamunkey, and Upper Mattaponi in King William County;  Chickahominy in Charles City County;  Eastern Chickahominy in New Kent County;  Rappahannock in King & Queen County;  Nansemond in the Cities of Suffolk and Chesapeake;  Monacan Indian Nation in Amherst County;  Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) and Nottoway of Virginia in Southampton County;  and Patawomeck in Stafford County.  But beyond these relatively small remnants with names are many generations of people whose heritage has been trampled under by migrants from Europe.

Most of us who came through the regular school history courses in this country were taught that our ancestors followed their “Manifest Destiny” to conquer the heathen savages and claim America for Christians.  I hope that we as followers of Jesus Christ can make the effort to get beyond that fairy tale, to recognize extremely un-Christ-like behavior for what it is, and to repent of it.

Please take some time to consider how things came to be the way they are, between the descendants of the First Americans and the descendants of European immigrants… and repent.
http://www.ucc.org/justice_racism_doctrine-of-discovery
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Week of September 6-12, 2015

9/6/2015

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    Contact info

    Rev. Dan Bassett
    Bethel United Church of Christ
    2451 Bethel Church Rd
    Elkton, Virginia 22827
    540-298-1197

    betheluccelktonva@outlook.com

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