Immediate Word

For June 30, 2019:

• The Demands of Freedom by Chris Keating — Freedom has a price. For Christians that price is loving thy neighbor.
• Second Thoughts: If We Live by the Spirit by Mary Austin — The “if” makes clear that this life is uncertain — and living it is up to us, with God’s sustaining care and power.
• Sermon illustrations by Ron Love and Tom Willadsen.
• Worship resources by George Reed that focus on fruits of the Spirit; freedom = loving one another.
• Children’s sermon: Let Your Anger Go by Bethany Peerbolte — Sometimes when we are angry we want bad things to happen to the people who brought anger to our lives. Jesus’ way to deal with being slighted is to move on.

The Demands of Freedom
by Chris Keating
Galatians 5:1, 13-25

Paul’s words ring out like the Liberty Bell on July 4th, boldly declaring “For freedom Christ has set us free.”

As the bell continues to clang, Paul quickly adds a caveat: just don’t let freedom become a gateway for self-indulgence. Instead, he urges, become each other’s servants. As Carl R. Holloday once wrote, Paul’s idea of freedom is a lot more than a lifelong afternoon in a hammock (“Preaching the New Common Lectionary,” Abingdon, 1986, p. 63.) He admonishes them to lives defined by the constraints of self-giving, other-affirming love.

Freedom has a price. For Christians that price is loving thy neighbor.

Some have always viewed that as too costly. Servanthood is expensive and always involves surrendering our own desires. Recently, a pastor in Tennessee preached a sermon railing against members of the LGBT community. He wasn’t asking the church to love their gay or lesbian neighbors; he was calling the government to execute them. Pastor Grayson Fritts of the All Scripture Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, called for the arrest and execution of gay and lesbian persons, calling them “freaks” and “animals.”

“Instead of running radar on the interstate” Fritts said, “why don’t you go and arrest some queers?” Fritts knows a bit about police work — he was a detective for the Knox County Police Department until the department fired him because of the sermon. Regardless of his right to free speech, Pastor Fritts would have failed Paul’s citizenship exam.

But Fritts is not an outlier. Assaults against Jewish persons more than doubled in 2018. Hate crimes against Muslims have also escalated in recent years, and a March report by Pro Publica documented no fewer than five murders in the United States in 2019 in which the victims’ race, ethnicity, or national origin were a factor.

Hatred endures, and many seem to think the price of loving their neighbor is too steep. The symbols of supremacy and hatred hang from our cultural props like drapes of Spanish moss. In Birmingham, Alabama this week, Southern Baptists convened their national meeting with a gavel created in 1872 in honor of a prominent Baptist slave holder. When confronted by the irony addressing racism in their denomination at a meeting moderated with a slave-owner’s gavel, leaders agreed it posed “an interesting point.”

Paul’s response would likely have been less equivocal. “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.”

In the News
If you’re planning a vacation to New York City this summer, you’ll be glad to know the number of murders, rapes, and robberies in the Big Apple are down from last year, continuing a trend that dates back to the 1990s.

That is, unless you’re Jewish, gay, or otherwise targeted by white supremacist groups. Hate crimes in New York City have seen a 64% increase over last year, with attacks against Jews accounting for nearly 90% of the events. Signs of vandalism and “bias incidents” have been noted across the city, including pro-Nazi messages scrawled across a Jewish children’s museum, as well as attacks against gay persons and African Americans.

Last week, for example, a teenager riding a bicycle through the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn slapped an Orthodox Jewish man in the head. In Staten Island, “Synagogue of Satan” was spray painted outside a Jewish school. Mayor Bill de Blasio has said the attacks mirror a national problem.

“I think what we’re seeing, unquestionably, is an unleashing of the forces of hate all over this country,” de Blasio said, according to the New York Times. De Blasio noted New York has “a different reality in some ways” but the national backdrop has “put everyone on edge and it’s created a lot of division.”

De Blasio’s claims are backed by widespread reports of hate crimes throughout the United States. In Washington, D.C., for example, a gay couple was attacked by more than 10 people after leaving a bar early Sunday morning. In Louisville, Kentucky, leaders of a Muslim advocacy group called the police to investigate the defacing of Muhammed Ali’s mural as a hate crime. A Boston rabbi is urging his congregation to arm themselves with guns before attending Shabbat services.

“I know it sounds horrible, but I think it's a very logical approach for the situation we're in,” said Rabbi Dan Rodkin. “I don't want people to have guns. But I think to protect our families, it's a necessity now.“

So, what does the freedom to worship cost? An efficient 9 mm handgun can be purchased for about $400 — bringing the cost of “freedom” to a bit less than what it costs to take a family of four to an NFL football game. A previous generation may have thought the Rabbi’s advice to be extreme — and for many it still is. While we are enjoined to love thy neighbor, some faith groups are paying attention to what the FBI is telling them as well.

 “Do not have an ‘it will never happen here’ mindset,” FBI Special Agent John P. Skillestad told a Seventh Day Adventist group in Washington D.C. this year, “because it could happen.”

Violent acts of hatred embody a particularly virulent aspect of the life Paul describes as “the works of the flesh.” Paul’s ethical imperative is also a reminder of what it means to show care and compassion for the most vulnerable in the society — those Jesus called “the little ones.” Unfortunately, the record for caring for little ones is also an illustration of how our culture continues to bite and devour one another.

Overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at a Clint, Texas, Customs and Border Patrol detention center were reported by the Associated Press last week. A lawyer who toured the facility remarked about the overwhelming stench and called the conditions “inhumane.” The report: “Basically, what we saw are dirty children who are malnourished, who are being severely neglected,” said Warren Binford, a law professor from Willamette University in Oregon. “They are being kept in inhumane conditions. They are essentially being warehoused, as many as 300 children in a cell, with almost no adult supervision.”

Late on Monday, U.S. Representative Veronica Escobar from Texas announced that most of the children had been moved to another facility. She tweeted that last week more than 255 children had been observed to be living in conditions human rights advocates called “beyond alarming.”

Binford noted that the center lacks proper sanitation, food, and medical resources. She indicated that the Clint facility is experiencing outbreaks of flu and lice. Children are being held without access to showers and beds, toothbrushes, or even soap. Toddlers are not given diapers, and are often in the care of older children. The reports confirm what had previously been highlighted by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General, who warned of dangerous overcrowding in May.

“Border Patrol agents told us some of the detainees had been held in standing-room-only conditions for days or weeks,” the inspector general’s report noted, adding that in some cases, detainees were observed standing on toilets in the cells “to make room and gain breathing space, thus limiting access to the toilets.”

The stench of these conditions stands in contrast to the fragrance of the fruits of the Spirit, the aim of which Paul summarizes in a single sentence: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the Scripture
Paul’s words to the Galatians mix strong rebuke and utter amazement. Distressed by reports that false missionaries have led the church astray, Paul strikes back with a fierce recounting of both his credentials and the Gospel. Paul rails against those who do not understand the meaning of Christian freedom, decrying the attempts of others to lead the Galatians astray.

Chapter five opens with the clear assertion of Christian freedom. He reminds them that the work of Christ’s justification has set them free from their enslavement “to being that by nature are not gods,” (4:8). Standing against those who urged the Galatians to seek circumcision as a sign of their adoption into God. Paul reminds the Galatians that they have been clothed with Christ (3:28), that they belong to Christ (3:29), and are therefore children of the promise (4:28).

They are to stay in that freedom, demonstrating their justification in Christ through “faith working through love.” (5:6). He opines that they were doing so well but have now strayed from the pathways of Christian faith. Confident that all is not lost (5:10), Paul urges them to use their gift of freedom as an opportunity to become slaves of one another.

The paradox is striking. The freedom God has given them is not the freedom to do anything they please. Have the Galatians been set free or not? Do they need to adhere to the law, or are they free to do as they please? In response, Paul does not equivocate, but instead puts them further down the path of responsible Christian discipleship. The law, he reminds them, is easily summarized: love your neighbor as yourself.

Freedom is not an opportunity for self-indulgence. The Galatians are not to act like indulgent adolescents who have managed to find the keys to the BMW, the condo in Florida and their parents’ liquor cabinet! Instead, the law instructs them to become servants of one another.

Such servants discover the richness of the abundance promised by Christ, living lives marked by the rich fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. “There is no law against such things,” he adds in 5:23. The harvest of these fruits is not an opportunity for individual conceit, but rather the mutual upbuilding of Christian community. Within that community, grace abounds and each works for the good of all.

In the Sermon
In places where they are still legal, firework stands are popping open. Families are making plans for their Fourth of July celebrations, and thoughts turn — at least briefly — to the grand celebration of American freedom. Pop a tab on a cold beverage, grab a bratwurst, and wave Old Glory in tribute to what we hold most dear: freedom.

With the Fourth of July not far away, these are the typical expressions of freedom many in our congregations may be looking for in a sermon from Galatians 5. Many pastors get hives at the thought of combining civic holidays with worship. We have waged decades-long battles over whether (or where) to place a flag in church. Some of us keep the peace by singing patriotic songs. Maybe we ordered donuts with red, white, and blue sprinkles for the fellowship time.

There’s no need to pull out a powdered wig in order to preach a sermon on the theology of freedom, particularly as articulated by this text. Paul reminds us that the aim of our freedom is not to do as we want. Rather, the aim of our freedom in Christ is to bear the yoke of service for each other. One does not need to tread into the smelly pasture of partisan politics to decry our current inability to love as Jesus loved; we just need to follow Paul’s lead.

Paul’s over-arching ethic is one of serving the needs of the neighbor. He’s less interested in personal salvation and more concerned with the upbuilding of the entire community and bearing of each other’s burdens (6:2, 10).

Likewise, just as Franklin D. Roosevelt called upon Americans of another generation to consider the four freedoms — speech, religion, want, and fear — how is Paul calling the American church today to pursue the freedom to love? Where are we overcoming the barriers that keep us from loving our neighbors? Where have we cultivated poisonous fruit of envy, dissension, strife, and other practices antithetical to God’s intents instead of the fruits of the Spirit?

One may be hard-pressed to associate the word “humble” with the Apostle Paul. But it seems as though humility is indeed the underlying foundation of his theology of freedom. To be free is to be free to love others, humbly, openly, consistently.

In her recent book Holy Envy, Barbara Brown Taylor recounts the lessons she learned from 20 years of teaching world religion to college students. As she unravels stereotypes of religions and recounts stories of Jesus encountering religious strangers, Taylor suggests this critical practice for our time: “Anytime you hear yourself thinking of saying something about ‘those people,’ you know that your stranger Geiger counter has just gone off. Without saying a word, simply by being there, the stranger reminds you that you may not know the world as well as you think you do — a world that is full of different people with different claims on its resources, different notions of right and wrong, and different understandings of God.” (Holy Envy, p. 197.)

We have been set free in Jesus Christ. But that freedom has a holy purpose summarized so well by Paul: love your neighbor as yourself.


SECOND THOUGHTS
If We Live By the Spirit...
by Mary Austin
Galatians 5:1, 13-25

“For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul argues, and then goes on to call us to attend not just to our own individual freedom, but also to the work of community with one another. The Netflix series When They See Us, about the five teenagers (aka the Central Park Five) convicted and then exonerated after serving time in custody, has again raised questions of how we treat each other, particular when crime, young people of color and our fears are involved. Five young men, all teenagers, all African-American or Hispanic, were convicted of assaulting a white jogger in Central Park, and then later exonerated when another man confessed, and DNA evidence matched that man’s story. “Their convictions were vacated in 2002, and the city [of New York]  paid $41 million in 2014 to settle their civil rights lawsuit. Hated by one generation as brutalizers, they were hailed by the next as the brutalized.” The victim of the attack, who spent 12 days in a coma, later identified herself as Trisha Meili. She was always referred to in early news reports as an investment banker, or as the “Central Park jogger.”

The narrative fit an unquestioned willingness to accept notions of innocence and guilt, of danger to white women from men of color, until a different truth emerged later. “The attack had not been a gang rape, but almost certainly an assault carried out by a serial criminal acting on his own while the five boys were elsewhere in the park, an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office concluded in 2002. It is a profound distinction. Bungling by the authorities had left the real author of the crime against Ms. Meili, a truly dangerous predator, on the street for months as he carried out a binge of raping, maiming and murdering across the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Ms. Meili was the second woman he raped and beat in the park that week.”

In those days, New York City was a different and more dangerous place. “This story — of pitiless teenagers taking turns with a woman, then caving in her skull — was big enough, terrible enough, to electrify a city grown numb to its own badness. In those years, the daily pulse of New York life included a murder, on average, every five hours, every day; rapes nearly twice as often; and robberies just five or six minutes apart.”

The narrative of the five teenagers and their guilt quickly took hold, and then-real estate developer Donald Trump took out full page ads in four publications denouncing the five. Trump has continued to say that he believes the five men are guilty, as has former prosecutor Linda Fairstein. “Just days after the attack, the billionaire entrepreneur took out full-page ads in four major New York City newspapers that said, “bring back the death penalty, bring back our police!” The ad went on to make a case for the reinstatement of the death penalty so that the Central Park Five could be executed for their alleged crimes.” Fairstein also holds onto a scenario where the men are guilty. “Linda Fairstein, the prosecutor who led the district attorney's sex crimes office during the case, suggested a similar theory in 2002, insisting that Reyes’ DNA evidence “does not exonerate the other five, who by their own admissions participated in her attack by holding her down and striking her to the ground,” Time magazine reported.

The Netflix series, by filmmaker Ava DuVernay, has made the five men household names again. After “they were found guilty in 1990. McCray, Richardson, Salaam and Santana served between 6 and 7 years, but Wise, the only one tried as an adult, served 12 years in prison.” They have said they don’t like to be called “The Central Park Five,” which is understandable. Who among us would like to be labeled by the worst episode of our lives?

Some have found issues with the miniseries, and the questions of violent crime in New York during that time period. Conservative publication The Bulwark contends, “By contrast, When They See Us takes the unequivocal view that the boys were innocent bystanders. There is enough ambiguity on this point to grant DuVernay the license to tell their story as she chooses to tell it, especially since their faults hardly erase the injustice that was done. But minimizing the April 19 crime spree is an indisputable distortion, and it skews the story: Fear of crime in 1980s New York is seen almost entirely through the prism of racism rather than actual fear of crime.”

The Netflix series, and a chance to reexamine what went wrong with the original case, give us a way to examine how we treat people, particular poor and minority people, who are accused of a crime. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty works better for some of us than others. If we can afford a lawyer, if we have money, if we understand the justice system and our rights, then the system works better for us than for people who are presumed guilty right away, people without attorneys and people unfamiliar with the system. The five teenagers confessed to the crime, and then recanted their confessions. “This, their lawyers argued, made the statements inadmissible. Prosecutors replied that parents of three of them had been present as their sons admitted to the crime on videotape. How could that be coercive? Not so well understood was that the parents were only sporadically present for interrogations that spread over a day before the camera was turned on. It was during those unrecorded sessions, unseen by anyone outside the room, that the damning statements were first extracted.”

Paul writes to the churches in Galatia that “the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” It’s safe to assume that this miscarriage of justice in New York is not an isolated incident, but a higher profile version of something that happens in other places, too. I’ve written elsewhere about a young man in my church, a student at a private school, who spent a weekend in jail after a traffic stop, while his white friends were free to go home. They had the presence of mind to drive his car home, but not to know what to say to help him. A colleague’s son was arrested, with a friend, for a robbery because they fit the description. (Hispanic man.) The friend had a public defender, who urged him to plead guilty. Our colleague got his son a lawyer, who quickly found an ATM receipt that proved both men were miles away from the crime.

The revival of this story calls us to consider how we treat one another as part of our collective way of seeking justice. Paul’s letter highlights the way people who follow Jesus are to act, and no part of our lives is excluded from that call.  As citizens, we can be more skeptical about narratives that are presented to us. We can teach ourselves to be wary of stories that are full of absolutes about guilt and innocence. This story is one example of the way “jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions” appear in our shared life as citizens, always ready to shatter the bonds between us.
Paul recalls us to the work of living by the Spirit’s guidance, where, in contrast to the ways of the world around us, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” He adds, “There is no law against such things.” There is also no law that can compel these things. They run counter to our first impulses, to judge and simplify and seek our own gain. These qualities require practice. We have to work at cultivating them, and demand of ourselves that we approach the world with less certainty, and more open minds. Paul writes, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” This is a big “if” but he seems to believe that we can do it, if we want to. The “if” makes clear that this life is uncertain — and living it is up to us, with God’s sustaining care and power.


ILLUSTRATIONS

From team member Ron Love:

Luke 9:62
Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman was the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. He wrote a six-month devotional titled Daily Meditations that was published in 1868. The meditations focused on the role of being a Roman Catholic priest. Since Protestants hold the doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers,” Archbishop Wiseman words can be directed to all who confess to be representatives of Jesus. Wiseman opened his meditation, written for Tuesday of the third week of the sixth month, with this challenge, “If it be a great dignity to stand in the place of God, to represent the person of Jesus Christ, it must be a heavy charge to act up to the character…” He then went on to discuss the seriousness of being a priest. In one line he wrote, “A false step on our parts may compromise the claims of God, or risk the loss of a soul redeemed by the precious blood of his Son.” The Archbishop reinforced the seriousness of being a representative of Jesus when he wrote in closing, “A guilty failure in any of these points may cost a soul; and that soul cost Jesus Christ his blood!”

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Luke 9:62
Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Alexander Duff was a pastor in the Church of Scotland and the denomination’s first overseas missionary and educator to India. In Calcutta, in May of 1830, he established his first school that met under a banyan tree. During the next two years the school expanded to having over a thousand students. Duff saw only a few conversions with his work as a missionary, but he was able to promote reforms in the country. His educational methods inspired reform in Hinduism, he freed Indians to engage in modern medicine, and he produced men able to staff India’s civil service, an important prerequisite for the nation’s eventual independence as a colony of Great Britain. After years of service Duff had to return to Scotland with malaria fever. Back in Scotland, his new mission became raising support for the work being done in India. As his health prevented him from returning to India, Duff reluctantly accepted his new calling. In a letter written to a friend on June 22, 1836, he acknowledged the importance of remaining in Scotland with these words: “The only thing that reconciles me to the detention in my native land, is the assured fact that God has been pleased to employ me as an humble instrument in stirring up the slumbering zeal of our Church, and that the instrumentality has been crowned with a success which I never, never, never anticipated!”

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Luke 9:51
“he set his face to go to Jerusalem”
King Henry VIII appointed John Fisher as the Bishop of Rochester, as the King admired his learning and Christian devotion. Fisher went on to become the Chancellor of Cambridge College. When Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534, placing the king as the spiritual leader of the church in England, the Roman Catholic John Fisher refused to acknowledge the king’s authority. The head of the church would be the pope, not the king. For this Henry had Fisher tried for treason. With his conviction on June 17, 1535, Fisher would suffer the death of a traitor which was to be Drawn and Quartered. The condemned man would be hanged and cut down alive, to have his intestines drawn out of his body and burned before him, to have his head cut off and his body divided into four parts to be set in such places as the king should choose. At his trial the presiding judge asked Fisher if he had any last words, to which the bishop replied, “If that which I have before spoken be not sufficient, I have no more to say, but only to desire God to forgive them that have thus condemned me, for I think they know not what they have done.” King Henry pardoned the bishop of the cruelest details of his sentence, instead he would be beheaded. On June 22, standing before the executioner’s block, Fisher gave a short sermon to those who were gathered, saying in part, “that at the very point and instant of death’s stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast, without fainting in any one point of the catholic faith, free from any fear.” After Fisher had recited two psalms, the executioner covered his eyes. The condemned man uttered a few short, fervent prayers, then stretched his neck on the block. The executioner struck off his head with one blow. Fisher’s body was dumped unceremoniously into a grave near the Tower of London. His head was shown to Anne Boleyn at her request, before being parboiled and mounted on a spike on London Bridge. 

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Luke 9:51-62
(lack of understanding of the meaning of discipleship)
Sir Francis Drake was an English admiral who circumnavigated the globe from 1577 to 1580. The voyage was to discover trading routes and opportunities for trade; but, Drake devoted the voyage to piracy. He set sail in December with five small ships, manned by fewer than 200 men. His flagship was the Pelican. The ship weighed about 100 tons, yet it was big enough for his selfish desires. When he reached the Spanish coast of what is now California, his sailors plundered their way up along the shoreline. The admiral had a chaplain on board his vessel, Francis Fletcher. On the first Sunday after Trinity, somewhere in California, Fletcher read for the first time from the English prayer book The Book of Common Prayer. This is the first time it was read in the new world. A number of Indians gathered to watch the religious service, only to hear and see the rough and thieving sailors lift their hands to heaven and pray to God to open the eyes of the Indian idolaters “to the knowledge of him and of Jesus Christ the salvation of the Gentiles.”

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Luke 9:51
“he set his face to go to Jerusalem”
Angelina Grimke was born in Charleston, South Carolina, to a slaveholding family. Angelina, along with her sister Sarah, became outspoken abolitionists. They wrote and published in 1839 the book American Slavery As It Is: Testimony From a Thousand Witnesses, which became a very influential abolitionist text. The book was later used as a source by Harriet Beecher Stowe for her 1852 book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The two sisters also became active advocates for women’s rights. What prompted the two sisters to abandon the legality of slavery was an incident they both witnessed. Angelina fainted one day at school when she saw a slave boy her own age opening a window and noticing that he could barely walk and was covered on his legs and back with bleeding wounds from a whipping. At age 13, Angelina refused confirmation in the Anglican church of her family because of the church's support for slavery. After her father died, Angelina tried to persuade her mother to set at least the household slaves free, but her mother refused. In 1827, Angelina decided she would become a Quaker, remaining in Charleston in order to persuade her fellow southerners to oppose slavery. Unable to do so she traveled north and joined the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, which was associated with the American Anti-Slavery Society, which was founded in 1833. Until her death in 1879, she travelled the country and wrote numerous books and tracts on reasons to disband slavery and to promote women's suffrage. American Slavery As It Is opens with this sentence: “I feel that it is my duty to tell some things that I know about slavery, in order, if possible, to awaken more feeling at the North in behalf of the slave.”

* * *

Luke 9:62
Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Augustine Tolton was born a slave in Missouri in 1854. His parents, Peter Paul Tolton and his wife Martha Jane Chisley, were allowed by their owner to practice their Roman Catholic faith. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Peter Paul joined the Union army and was killed in battle. In 1862, with the assistance of Union soldiers, Martha and her three children were able to cross the Mississippi River into Illinois. There the family settled in Quincy, a river city about 110 miles northwest of St. Louis. Augustine, a baptized Roman Catholic, decided to study for the priesthood. But, because he was black, he was unable to study in the States, so he was sent to Rome to receive his education. When he was ordained at the age of 31, Tolton assumed he would be sent to Africa. Instead, he was sent back to be a parish priest in Quincy. As a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago, he ministered to the poor until his death at the age of 43 in 1897. Augustine Tolton was the first Roman Catholic African American to be ordained a priest in the United States. When asked how he felt about going back to Illinois he replied, “If America has not yet seen a black priest, it must see one now.” On June 12, 2019, Pope Francis pronounced Rev. Augustine Tolton to be “venerable,” which means he is now eligible for sainthood.

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Luke 9:51
“he set his face to go to Jerusalem”
In San Diego, in Ellen Browning Scripps Park, on June 17, 2019, a Monterey cypress tree toppled to the ground. But this was not just any ordinary tree, it was the tree that inspired Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to us as simply Dr. Seuss, to write the book The Lorax. In short, the story is about the entrepreneur Once-ler who cuts down the endangered Truffula Trees because their tufts are much softer than silk. His enterprise grows to a massive proportion, until he actually builds a factory. This not only makes the tree extinct, but the animals who depended upon it for their habitat are displaced. A little boy wants to learn about the story of the Lorax, but must go to the Once-ler home and pay him to learn the story of the Loarx. The Lorax has vanished, but he once said “I speak for the trees.” The Lorax tried to stop the Once-ler and his destruction of the environment, but was unable to do so. The Lorax disappeared, leaving only “a small piece of rocks, with the one word...’UNLESS.’” For years, the Once-ler wondered and worried about what that meant. Now he tells the young boy he understands. “UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” The Once-ler then throws the very last Truffula tree seed down to the boy and tells him he's in charge. He needs to plant the seed and protect it. Then, maybe the Lorax and the other animals will return. The significance of the fallen Monterey cypress is that Seuss could look at it from his office window. Over the years Seuss became angry as he watched homes and condominiums being carved into the hillside below him. The book was Seuss’s statement about protecting the environment. Theodor Seuss Geisel said the book is “one of the few things I ever set out to do that was straight propaganda.” Of the 48 books that he wrote, he always considered The Lorax to be his favorite.

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Galatians 5:16
“Live by the spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
Johnny Depp is an actor who can assure his producers that a movie in which he is the leading character will be a box office success. He is known for his many films, such Edward Scissorhands and Pirates of the Caribbean. He is also known for many failed relationships, domestic violence, physical assault on others, tax evasion and deliberately disobeying regulations of foreign governments. And the actor, whose net worth is $200 million, struggles with drug and alcohol abuse. When a reporter asked him about his spending $30,000 a month on wine, Depp told the reporter that he was “insulted” for he spent “far more than that amount.” Regarding his problem with drug and alcohol addiction Depp said, “I investigated wine and spirits thoroughly, and they certainly investigated me as well, and we found out that we got along beautifully, but maybe too well.”

* * *

Galatians 5:16
“Live by the spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
This summer’s fashion breakthrough are skin-colored bathing suits. The suits are designed to match a woman’s skin tone, so it appears, according to columnist Aemilla Madden, it is “a suit that manages to convey nothing and something at the same time.” She tilted her essay Naked Swimsuits: The Trend I'm Terrified That I Like. She went on to write, “There isn't anything gimmicky or overtly eye-catching about a flesh-tone suit. But at a time where we're championing the fact that our bodies aren't objects of the male gaze, I can choose to wear a suit that exemplifies the fact that I'm comfortable in my own skin.” Madden may be politically correct, but, unfortunately for women, flesh corresponds with “eye-catching” and “gaze.” One can only hope that male etiquette will prevail.

* * *

Galatians 5:16
“Live by the spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
Las Vegas embraced its original ties to organize crime by having a $42 million museum called the “Mob Experience.” The museum is located in a courthouse that was built in 1933. The museum opened on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2012. The opening coincided with the anniversary of the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago where several members of Bugs Moran’s gang were lined up along the brick wall of a warehouse, shot and killed by Al Capone’s gang. In the museum, among the many exhibits, one can view: Bugsy Siegel’s pistol; a part of the wall from the St. Valentine’s massacre; as well as the barber chair where Albert Anastasia’s life came to an end in 1957. During the opening ceremony the mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, said of the museum, “This is the story of America.”


* * * * * *

From team member Tom Willadsen:

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
About that double share…
Elisha is not being greedy or ambitious, especially, when he requests a double share of Elijah’s spirit. The eldest son in Jewish families was granted a double share of inheritance. (Deuteronomy 21:17) That Elijah makes the “gift” conditional indicates that, perhaps is Elijah’s eyes, Elisha was his successor, but not his son. 

* * *

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21
Background and context
The saga of Elijah’s fleeing Jezebel’s death sentence (last week’s Hebrew scriptures reading) needs to be kept in mind if you preach on this week’s alternate reading. Elijah is instructed to anoint two kings and one prophet.

The call of Elisha is a little unusual — while Elijah’s throwing his mantle over Elisha is an unmistakable — the Lord generally calls prophets directly, rather than having them anointed. (Scripture does not record Elisha’s anointing.) In a parallel to today’s gospel lesson, Elisha asks to kiss his parents farewell as he embarks on a new career. Elijah seems not to realize the significance of his putting mantle over Elisha. Then Elisha unmistakably shows he’s giving up farming as the tools of his former trade are being consumed, he ministers to Elijah. How many people would a barbecue of 12 yoke of oxen feed?

* * *

Separation of church and state — Elijah style
The Supreme Court just ruled that a cross that has been part of a public memorial to soldiers who fought in World War I can remain on a median in Maryland. The cross stands 40 feet high and has been in place for nearly a century. Originally mothers of soldiers from Blandesburg, Maryland, underwrote the cross. “When they ran out of money, the American Legion took over the project. But by the 1930s, a local parks commission had taken over the memorial and the responsibility for its maintenance.”

The cross has been maintained at public expense since at least the 1930s. A lower court ruled that the cross was a symbol that favored Christianity over other faiths and ruled it should be removed.

“The cross has become a prominent community landmark, and its removal or radical alteration at this date would be seen by many not as a neutral act but as the manifestation of a hostility toward religion that has no place in our Establishment Clause traditions,” the court wrote. Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion for the court.

“And contrary to respondents' intimations, there is no evidence of discriminatory intent in the selection of the design of the memorial or the decision of a Maryland commission to maintain it. The Religion Clause of the Constitution aim to foster a society in which people of all beliefs can live together harmoniously, and the presence of the Bladensburg Cross on the land where it has stood for so many years is fully consistent with that aim.” (Ibid.)

Americans may have a unique understanding of the role religion plays in society. The lines we draw between church and state — and redraw as the First Amendment is reinterpreted as society changes are not like the distinction that Elijah made in this morning’s alternate reading.

In the case of the cross in Maryland, it’s as though the lower court, whose ruling was overturned, had found that the ground under the cross had shifted. What had been a war memorial in the 1920s had become a symbol that favored one faith over another. The Supreme Court’s ruling said, in effect, “It’s been there so long that removing it would be disruptive.”

Elijah, like prophets in general, was deeply involved in politics. His tenacity led him into rebellion against Jezebel. But his call for bloodshed may have gone too far as Hosea 1:4-5 seems to indicate.

* * *

Galatians 5:1, 13-15
Freedom
Two chapters earlier, in last week’s lesson from Galatians, Paul informed the church that being “in Christ” erased all the distinctions among people. One’s identity in Christ trumped one’s status as a citizen or slave, one’s gender identity and one’s national origin. In today’s lesson he informs that Galatians that freedom can be hazardous.

Janis Joplin famously sang “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” (“Me and Bobby McGee” written by Kris Kristofferson.)

Remember that several times during the Exodus the Hebrews grumbled against Moses (and sometimes the Lord) and recalled the good food they had enjoyed back in Egypt. They were afraid they would die of thirst; they were afraid of starving; and they got tired of manna. In their fear, freedom from slavery looked pretty scary. Slavery was awful, but at least they were fed and knew something like security.

Paul reminds the Galatians that their freedom in Christ does not mean “anything goes.” They will know they are using their freedom responsibly and well when they see its fruits.

* * *

A little more on freedom
“License” and “licentious” come from the same root word. Think about the 16 year old who has just earned her license to drive. Back when I was in high school, before graduated drivers’ licenses, teens got behind the wheel and reveled in their new-found freedom. Many used this freedom to drive anywhere at any time — especially those who received cars for their birthdays — recklessly. Which meant in many case their driving was not “wreckless.”

Perhaps a modern way to understand Paul’s point is an analogy to driving. Call it the fruits of responsible driving means driving safely, maintaining one’s vehicle, not returning one’s parents’ car with an empty gas tank, paying for one’s insurance…the list could be longer. The point is that with freedom comes responsibility. Bob Dylan sang:

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody

Freedom for Christians is serving the Lord and living in harmony and with respect for other people. Anything does not go just because we’re free.

* * *

Luke 9:51-62
A hinge
Today’s gospel lesson is something of a hinge in Luke’s gospel. Jesus attempts to address the Samaritans and is rejected. He sets his face toward Jerusalem. It’s a turning point and the mention of his to be taken up is a clear parallel with the lesson from 2 Kings. This is the dramatic start of Jesus’ travel narrative up to Jerusalem and the cross.

Luke is the source of the gospel reading up until Christ the King Sunday in November. Much of this material comes from Mark, some is common to Matthew and some in uniquely Lukan. From now until Christ the King Sunday, Luke is the source of the gospel lesson each Sunday. When it gets to chapter 15 it skips the parable of the prodigal son and his brother — one of the most provocative parts of Luke’s gospel.

It may be that the travelogue starts — or not — in Samaria as another instance of hostility between the Samarians and the Jews, or it may indicate that the Samaritans are like most other people who encounter Christ, that is, they are unwilling to follow him to the point that they also are “taken up” — that is killed.

Luke gives three examples of individuals who are called, invited to follow, who refuse. Jesus is resolute, determined to meet his fate in Jerusalem. A lot is demanded of those who commit to following him. A commitment that ultimately calls us to “Come and die,” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said.

There is an obvious parallel to the 2 Kings reading. Elisha literally turns from his plow, burns it even with the oxen, and returns to say farewell to his family before following Elijah. Elisha’s break from his first vocation is every bit as sudden and dramatic as those whom Jesus called to be “fishers of men,” yet it looks like Elijah is less determined than Jesus at this stage of the story. Elijah cuts a little more slack for Elisha than Jesus offers any of those who dare to follow him.

The beautiful variety of spoken and written languages continues. The wonder of seeking to understand and translate between languages, the hard work of bringing meaning and understanding in a variety of sights and sounds is preserved.

* * * * * *




WORSHIP
by George Reed

Call to Worship:
Leader: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so our souls long for you, O God.
People: Our souls thirst for God, for the living God.
Leader: By day God commands steadfast love.
People: At night God’s song is with us.
Leader: O send out your light and your truth; let them lead us.
People: Hope in God; for we shall again praise our help and our God.

OR

Leader: God our Creator calls us to worship and praise.
People: We come together as God’s children to worship.
Leader: God created us in love to love God and one another.
People: We share our love with God and all God’s people.
Leader: Work in your life so that all God’s people are winners.
People: We will work for justice and mercy for all.         

Hymns and Songs:
All Creatures of Our God and King
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELW: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47

All People That on Earth Do Dwell
UMH: 75
H82: 377/378
PH: 220/221
NNBH: 36
NCH: 7
CH: 18
LBW: 245
ELW: 883
W&P: 661
AMEC: 73
STLT: 370

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
UMH: 89
H82: 376
PH: 464
AAHH: 120
NNBH: 40
NCH: 4
CH: 2
LBW: 551
ELW: 836
W&P: 59
AMEC: 75
STLT: 29

Help Us Accept Each Other
UMH: 560
PH: 358
NCH: 388
CH: 487
W&P: 596
AMEC: 558

Forward Through the Ages
UMH: 555
NCH: 377
STLT: 114

In Christ There Is No East or West
UMH: 548
H82: 529
PH: 439/440
AAHH: 398/99
NNBH: 299
NCH: 394/395
CH: 687
LBW: 259
ELW: 650
W&P: 600/603
AMEC: 557  

When We All Get to Heaven
UMH: 701
AAHH: 594
NNBH: 468
W&P: 525
AMEC: 511  

God Be with You till We Meet Again
UMH: 672/673             
PH: 540
AAHH: 634
NNBH: 560
NCH: 81
CH: 434           
ELW: 536
W&P: 716
AMEC: 45

I Am Loved
CCB: 80

Holy Ground
CCB: 5

Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship

Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is the great Three in One:
Grant us the wisdom to celebrate our uniqueness
while cherishing all that we hold in common as your children;
through Jesus Christ our Savior.  Amen.

OR

We praise you, O God, because you are the one true God who yet is in three persons.  Give us wisdom this day to see the wonder of our unique gifts while celebrating our underlying unity as your children.  Amen. 

Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our putting people in boxes not so we can understand them but so we can ignore them.  

People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned.  You have made us to be one family united in you with Christ as our elder brother.  You have breathed into all of us the breath of your Spirit.  Yet we look at our diversity as something that divides us rather than as something that enhances our beauty.  Rather than embrace the unique within the family we would rather expel those who are not just like us.  Forgive our foolish ways and open our eyes to see the beauty of our union with all your children.  Amen.  

Leader: God created us as family to celebrate our unity and diversity.  Embrace your God and your sisters and brothers as you share God’s Spirit and grace. 

Prayers of the People
Praise and glory are yours, O Triune God, who created us to be your colorful, diverse family. 

(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)

We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned.  You have made us to be one family united in you with Christ as our elder brother.  You have breathed into all of us the breath of your Spirit.  Yet we look at our diversity as something that divides us rather than as something that enhances our beauty.  Rather than embrace the unique within the family we would rather expel those who are not just like us.  Forgive our foolish ways and open our eyes to see the beauty of our union with all your children.

We give you thanks for all the blessings of this life.  We thank you for those you have sent into our lives to make it richer and fuller.  We thank you for the diversity of gifts we see in our sisters and brothers.  We thank you for making us all members of your holy family. 

(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)

We pray for one another in our need.  We pray for those who feel excluded because they are seen as being different.  We pray for those working to restore community and harmony among persons, groups and nations.

(Other intercessions may be offered.)

All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:

Our Father....Amen.

(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service)

All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity.  Amen.

Children’s Sermon Starter
Make a page of pictures arranged like a photo directory.  Use only one photo and make it of yourself.  Show the children and tell them it is a photo page of your family.  Have a good laugh with the children.  Then show them a page you made of pictures of a lot of different people.  These do not have to even be people you know.  You can include famous people if you wish.  Tell them this is really a page of some of your family.  They are all part of your family because they are all God’s children. 


CHILDREN'S SERMON
Let Your Anger Go
by Bethany Peerbolte
Luke 9:51-62

This week’s lesson from Luke shows that we all get angry. Sometimes when we are angry we want bad things to happen to the people who brought anger to our lives. We see this a lot online. Punches get thrown and people try to retaliate threefold. Jesus’ way to deal with being slighted is to move on. When we do we give ourselves the gift of potential. Potential happiness.  

Say something like:
We sometimes forget that not everyone was happy to see Jesus when he came to town. We think it is obvious that they will be excited to see him because we know how great Jesus is. In our story today Jesus sends some friends ahead of him up the road to tell new people that Jesus is coming. Those new people they aren’t very happy about seeing him. In fact, they won’t let the friends even come into town. Not being welcomed hurt their feelings. They expected to be greeted with happy faces, instead they got angry ones. 

Their hurt feelings make Jesus’ friends think of an angry thing they can do to the unwelcoming town. They remember a Bible story where it rained fire and they ask Jesus if they could do the same to this town. Jesus’ friends think because the town has been mean to them the town deserves a bad thing to happen to them. 

Jesus doesn’t agree. Jesus tells them to let their anger go and move on to the next town. Jesus knows revenge, or returning anger with anger, doesn’t help anything. 

Instead Jesus tells them to find another town that will welcome them. To find a good thing and stay focused on that.

That can be a really hard thing to do. Especially if someone is mean to us on the internet where all our friends and family can see and where we can’t delete their words. When someone is mean on the internet Jesus wants us to take a break. Go for a walk, play outside, anything to get away from what is causing us to be angry. Then we can refocus on the good things around us. 

Guess what happened when the friends moved on? They found people who did want to follow Jesus. They found good things! 

Let’s pray for help finding food things. 

Hey God, there are times we get angry. We know you always put good things around us. When we are angry help us see good things. Amen.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Immediate Word, June 30, 2019 issue.

Copyright 2019 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.

All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.