Scriptures for Sunday, October 22, 2017:
Psalm 96
Isaiah 45:1-7
1 Thessalonians 1: 1- 10
Matthew 22: 15 – 22

[Jesus said to the crowds in the Temple and the religious leaders, ]
“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God's.”
                                          - Matthew 22:21
​
Five hundred years sounds like a special anniversary.  Five hundred years ago this Halloween, a Roman Catholic priest named Martin Luther posted a document, 95 theses (statements) he had written, on the door of the church in Wittenburg (in what is now Germany).  Posting theses was the proper way to lodge a complaint with the church leadership, to open up a discussion.  But the vast changes that followed Luther’s calls for the reformation of the Roman Catholic Church went far beyond anything Luther or any of his peers could have imagined. 
As Martin Luther preached and taught and wrote, the “Protestant” doctrine essentially boiled down to three fundamental beliefs about how the gospel of Jesus Christ works:
†  Salvation is by the Grace of God alone.
†  Salvation comes through Faith alone.
†  We come to saving faith according to Scripture alone.
In practical terms, Protestant faith led many Christians away from the Roman Catholic Church, its leader the Pope, and traditional hierarchies of religious authorities.  Faithfully seeking the Grace of God, Protestant Christians learned to read, they read the Bible for themselves, and they listened for God’s call to each individual person to serve God in their own special way.
Many historians in these last five hundred years have claimed that the Protestant Reformation deserves much of the credit for the United States’ emergence as a democratic republic on the world stage, for capitalism, and for many other elements of the “modern” world— for better or worse.
Our Bethel is one among very many churches which identify as “Protestant.”  Article IV of our Bethel church Constitution, “FAITH,” states: “This church acknowledges as its sole Head, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Savior of man.  It acknowledges as brothers in Christ all who share in this confession.  It looks to the Word of God in the Scriptures, and to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, to prosper its creative and redemptive work in the world.  It claims as its own the faith of the historic church expressed in the ancient creeds and reclaimed in the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers.  It affirms the responsibility of the Church in each generation, to make this faith its own.”
Because of the Protestant emphasis on the Good News we find in the Bible, in a strange way, Protestant Christians seem to feel as if we were closer to Jesus and the Apostles than we are to the church Reformers and other faith leaders who lived and labored and gave their lives in the twenty centuries between Christ’s resurrection and now.  It is as if we could mentally or spiritually “jump over” two thousand years of faith history, as if all those doings and learnings didn’t matter much.
Now, five hundred years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door, it would be a shame if we failed to thank God for what God did through our forebears in the Reformation period.  Just as we, today, do our best to “make this faith our own,” so did the Reformers— in a big way !.
We can learn a lot from Luther, and also from the other Reformers: Huldrych Zwingli, Philipp Melancthon, John Calvin, John Knox, Arminius, Menno Simon, and thousands of other Christians who struggled and gave their lives for the Good News of God’s amazing Grace during these past five hundred years.
At the same time, we also owe a great debt to thousands of years of work by other servants of our God, including Coptic Christians, Greek and other Eastern Orthodox Christians, African Christians, and, yes, Roman Catholic Christians.  Without them, we would not have the Bible.  Huge swaths of the world would not have heard the gospel message.  They gave us a rich fabric of traditions which have developed throughout these centuries to help us live our faith in this world— and unless we look them up and give them some credit, we won’t appreciate what we have, now.

... we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.                
                                    - 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5

​Grapes of Palestine – by Frank S. DeHass, DD
from Buried Cities Rediscovered, or Explorations in Bible Lands, 1884.   (Thanks to Joann Schlesinger for the book !)

If you are able to go sightseeing around our beautiful region in Virginia, you have seen the growing number of vineyards sprouting up on south-facing hillsides all around.  Perhaps you have sampled the wine they produced, so you might understand why people take so much trouble to build and maintain a vineyard. 
The desire for a vineyard and its vintage goes back to some of humanity’s earliest memories of working the soil.  We read in Genesis 9 that Noah was a “man of the soil” – so it must have been particularly galling to him, to be stuck in a boat on the endless waters for such a long spell.  Noah jumped off his ark as soon as it landed and immediately planted a vineyard.  Presumably, the supply of wine on the ark had run out during the many months afloat, and he was in a big hurry to make more.
In the awful days of the Assyrian invasions of Israel and Judah, the prophet Isaiah compared the promised land to a vineyard which belongs to God, from which God expects to receive good fruit (Isaiah 5).  But when God comes to His vineyard looking for the fruit of “justice” (Hebrew: mishpat), instead He finds “oppression” (Hebrew: mishah).  When God comes to His vineyard looking for righteousness (Hebrew: tsedeqah), instead He hears “a cry” (of someone being mistreated: Hebrew: tse’aqah).  As we read elsewhere in the Bible, God wants His people to bear good fruit: justice and righteousness.  God is very angry with his vineyard for producing such wild, sour grapes.  God’s disappointment has severe consequences: 
 
God says to Judah and Israel,
And now I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
     and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
     and it shall be trampled down. 
I will make it a waste;
     it shall not be pruned or hoed,
          and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
                                                     Isaiah 5: 5 – 7
But it was always God’s desire to reconcile with His people.  In Isaiah 27, God through the prophet tells His people what He really wants to say to them:
A pleasant vineyard, sing about it ! 
I, the LORD, am its keeper;
     every moment I water it.
I guard it night and day
     so that no one can harm it;
I have no wrath.
If it gives Me thorns and briers,
     I will march to battle against it.
I will burn it up. 
Or else let it cling to me for protection,
     let it make peace with Me,
     let it make peace with Me.        (Isaiah 27: 2 – 5)

In the very first chapter of Isaiah, God says to His people,
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
     remove the evil of your doings from before My eyes;
     cease to do evil, learn to do good;
     seek justice, rescue the oppressed,
     defend the orphan, plead for the widow.                 (Isaiah 1:16 – 17)
​
Our gospel lesson this week features a parable that Jesus told to the religious leaders, when he came into Jerusalem and they challenged his ministry.  Jesus told them another story about a vineyard, with many similarities to the story the prophet Isaiah had told, hundreds of years before.  That same story has a serious message for us today.  I hope you will tune into it with me.
“When the harvest time had come,
​     he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce.”
                                               Matthew 21:34

SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR
Sunday, October 1
Psalm 25:1-9
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32

I don’t chew gum.
One reason I don’t is that I might want to walk, and I’m not sure I could do both at the same time.
 
I know you know that there is a great need for disaster relief right now, in dollars and materials and volunteer hours.  You couldn’t miss the news of the hurricanes with their flooding and shredding, and the soggy, ruined aftermath.  And in your heart and conscience, as one of God’s faithful people, you want to do something to help.
As I shared before in this space, you DID help already, back in March, through our annual freewill offering for One Great Hour of Sharing.  We as a church sent in $360, part of which went to disaster relief ministries. 
In case you are interested in giving more to help through United Church of Christ Disaster Relief ministries, you can do that at any time, online at http://www.ucc.org/disaster
You can also make donations through Bethel’s offering plate, if you use an envelope or mark your check specifically for disaster relief.
A more hands-on response to hurricane and flood relief is to assemble a flood cleanup bucket.  These buckets contain a specific set of items that are a big help for people who are trying to muck out their homes after a storm or flood.  Each bucket with its contents is valued at $60.  One of our church members, Vivian Michael, along with her co-workers at Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative, assembled nine of these buckets already, and they are on their way to disaster zones— also, boxes full of “personal hygiene kits,”

​Culpeper United Methodist Church has a well-established relationship with Church World Service (which also channels a lot of the United Church of Christ disaster response, too), so we shipped those nine buckets and hygiene kits through Culpeper.  Darryl Lam, a child of our Bethel, is active with Culpeper UMC’s disaster response efforts.

                      bound from Culpeper to a “mission hub” in PA
 
This past week, I learned that UCC Disaster Ministries is offering grants of matching funds.  This ministry will fund participating and qualifying congregations up to $250 per congregation on a first-come, first-served basis to the first 200 congregations that raise $250 in cash and in-kind gifts for kits (buckets).  If you are interested in putting together buckets or donating money or items for them, please contact me or a member of our Church Council.

But disaster relief is not the only important need we can address.  Disasters come and disasters go, but we always have neighbors in need.

This coming Sunday, we will begin to receive our annual freewill offering for Neighbors in Need.  This special offering in the United Church of Christ is divided, with one-third going for the Council for American Indian Ministries and two-thirds going to support Justice and Witness Ministries of the UCC. The theme for Neighbors in Need this year is “Protect the Sacred: In a Just World, Clean Water Is Life.”  You can imagine, Justice & Witness Ministries will be advocating to keep water supplies pure and available to all.
Justice & Witness Ministries’ funds go to many different programs.  Here is one example:
Taking a stand against poverty and injustice, the San Francisco Night Ministry (SFNM) strives to be living crucibles of Christ’s care, compassion, and concern for those who find themselves on the streets, or in bars or coffee shops, alone, afraid, and hopeless.  As a Neighbors in Need 2010 grant recipient, the SFNM mission states that they will provide middle-of-the-night compassionate non-judgmental pastoral care, counseling, referral and crisis intervention to anyone in any kind of distress every night of the year.  The San Francisco Night Ministry staff endeavor to witness and example the teachings of Christ Jesus.    http://sfnightministry.org/

Let the same mind be in you
that was in Christ Jesus....   -Philippians 1:5