ExtraChristy - Podcast: Recent Episodes
J. Christy Ramsey
A cup of cold water isn’t much. It isn’t a cathedral, a career, or a rescue. It’s just making room. From World Cup fans with trash bags to a lunch invitation that came out of nowhere, this sermon on Matthew 10:40-42 asks who we make room for, and who we’ve decided doesn’t get any.
Wondering and Wonder
Wondering and Wondera Trinity Sunday sermon by Rev. J. Christy RamseyDOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 10:00 AM Worship Service May 31, 2026at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevadaedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.Scripture read on Audio: Matthew 28:16-20 Sermons also available free on iTunesStained Glass Symbol of the Trinity at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevada.
photo by J. Christy Ramsey
Hey, it’s Trinity Sunday. Thanks for coming out of your family events and gatherings and celebrations. I’m glad you’re all in your Trinity finest gear. That’s wonderful. Great, great. It’s a really bad Sunday to preach, on Trinity Sunday. There’s nothing. There’s nothing there. I don’t blame Donna for leaving the state. I mean, I’d get far away from the pulpit, too, if I could. Trinity Sunday is about as exciting as looking at your phone and say, “Spam likely.” That guy again. They’re always calling. Or, you know, worse is, “This is your insurance company. We’d like to talk to you about some explanation of your benefits.” Oh. That’s right up there with Trinity Sunday preacher, I’ll tell you.
Hey, I bet you didn’t know something. Trinity Sunday is with us every Sunday. I bet you didn’t know this. I bet up here, you know, way before we had these screens – whoo, nifty neat-o, we had screens in church for centuries. We just called it “stained glass.” So I just wanted people saying, oh, I don’t like this new stuff, hey, stained glass has been around for centuries. I don’t know what you’re talking about. So up here – I don’t know if I’m allowed up here, I’m destroying things – I don’t know if you can see it. This is actually a symbol of the Trinity. Everything’s clear now; isn’t it. No, it’s not. But here they’ve got God in the middle. Come up later, if you’re allowed. I don’t know if you’re allowed. But come up later.
Árni Dagur, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
They’ve got a dais in the middle, God. And then they’ve got Holy Spirit here, Father up there, Son up there, Father over there on the three. And then they’ve got little connection things. Spirit is not the Father, Father is not the Son, Son is not the Spirit. And then they all go to the middle, they’re all “Is God, Is God, Is God.” Okay. We can pack it up. We’re done. Everybody understands the Trinity now. That’s great. Super. Don’t be telling people you’ve got a fidget spinner in stained glass at your church. I mean, well, unless you want to. People think, oh, that’s pretty cool. I think I’m coming, yeah. Not a fidget spinner. All right.
Way back in the 5th Century, there was a guy, his name was Augustine of Hippo. I don’t know. I don’t know, you know, if he was a portly man. But they called him Hippo. I think that’s where he lived. Unfortunate if he was portly. That would have been bad. He said this: “Si comprehendis, non est Deus.” And what that is translated from the Latin is,
If you think you understand God, what you understand is not God. - Augustine of Hippo
Well, that’s helpful, Augustine. He’s saying if you understand something, then you don’t understand it. The parts you understand about God is not something you understand.
The difference between stupid and intelligent people — and this is true whether or not they are well-educated — is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations — in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward. - Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer (1995).
And we have a quote up here from a more recent philosopher. Good old Neal Stephenson, author of “Snow Crash,” any classic science fiction – no, nothing. Oh. No, you’re just scratching. Okay. The difference between stupid and intelligent people, and this is true whether or not they are well educated, is that intelligent people can handle subtle – Bill, what’s that word?
BILL: Subtlety.
PASTOR RAMSEY: Subtlety. Thank you, Bill. That’s why I brought him in here, roped him up to give me that word. Thank you. Subtlety. And they are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations. Whoo. In fact, they expect them. And they’re apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward. Yeah. Intelligent people are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations. In fact, they expect them. And they’re suspicious if things are too simple. You’re all intelligent people now; right? Okay. Because you all heard Trinity stuff, oh, the shamrock thing. Who’s heard of the sham – don’t put your hands up. Who’s heard this? Because that’s a heresy. I don’t want you to put your hands up, then let it go, ooh.
Not TrinityShamrock, you know, the three in the Trinity, one plant, three things. Sometimes even I said this, and I was wrong, that’s modality, that’s a heresy. This is, like, should be called Heresy Sunday because it’s so easy to slip in heresy when you’re trying to talk about the Trinity. When you’re talking about, you know, oh, it’s like steam and liquid water and ice, you know. No, it’s not. It’s modality. And it’s not even Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you know. As much as Presbyterians love committees, love them, God is not a committee. It’s not like they vote and come together, two out of three goes, you know, none of that.
It’s not like, you know, like loving, loved, and beloved, or all these other things that people try to make into some kind of social community rolling around kind of thing inside a God, and that’s Trinity. Just about anything – just like our friend Augustine found out. You know, every time you try to describe a Trinity, you’re probably not describing the Trinity. You’re not describing God. If you think you understand it, you got it wrong. What are we to do? What are we to do? Well, we’re intelligent people. We can handle things that are contradictory or complex or not clear or not simply explained. We can handle that. I mean, you know, they just don’t let anybody in the Episcopal Church; right? There is a little test you’ve got to do before you get in; right? I’m sure there is. They haven’t caught me yet. Ha.
It’s like when I go to Trader Joe’s. Does anybody go to Trader Joe’s? I go in there. I am not good-looking enough to be at Trader Joe’s up there in [totsy?] land. They’re going to kick me out because I go, wow, what are these people? Wow. Everybody comes down from Tahoe, and they’re nice? But we can handle it. And we’ve got stories here. We’ve got scriptures here that tell us about complexity. And you can come to these scriptures and be confused. You can come to the Trinity and be confused. And what confused? Well, I don’t understand it, and I should. It’s not good for me. I’m upset. Well, then you’re not intelligent. Here’s a thought. Instead of being confused, be in awe. Instead of being upset you don’t understand something, be in wonder of the glory of God.
Because you look at the creation story, and was that a big creation story? You know, I was talking to – that’s a lot of scripture. You know, that’s a big hunk there. And, well, you know, he created the entire universe, you know, give him a chapter. You know, come on. So you look at that, and we’re so familiar with it that we just blow it on by; you know? The first creation story, you know, there’s a – every now and then, God created the Heavens and the Earth, and it was so. You know, that “and” is doing a heck of a lot of work. You look all the way through it, he says something, and it was so. Says something, and God said it was good. Said something, and God said it was good.
You know, that “and” is like a billion years of time and space in that “and.” I mean, we’re just skipping over a whole lot of stuff that we would like to understand in that “and.” I’m telling you, all of our scientific endeavor is trying to figure out that “and” bit, between God says it’s going to happen and then he said it was good. We want to know between the “and.” We don’t have to. We don’t have to be confused by complications. And that’s why we had the whole big, you know, some people say, well, you have the Trinity in there because, you know, in the story of Genesis, God is referred to as “we,” in the plural. So that’s the Trinity there.
Okay, that’s kind of a reach. I mean, you know, when the King of England or Queen of England says “We are not amused,” they’re not talking that they’re the Trinity, you know, there’s a “royal we” kind of thing. But I like to think they picked that out, the little lectionary elves picked that up because here’s another thing we don’t understand. You’ve got the Trinity. Everybody’s confused. Let’s throw in the creation story, too, just so long as we’re doing a confusion Sunday. But it doesn’t have to be confusion. It could be wonder. Saying, look at all those wonderful things God’s done.
You know, God just didn’t do it. I think it’s very important in our times. God said it was good. So when people tell you other people are bad or these people aren’t good enough or these people are below us or beneath us or don’t have the right to be here, or don’t have the right to exist, or should pull themselves up by their own – remember what God said. God said it was good. It was good. People are good. God doesn’t make trash is what they used to say. But not only that, God makes people good. That’s complex. That’s wondering. That’s confusing. We want to understand it, want to dissect it, want to have the PowerPoints. But nope. Just got to go with God is good. God made the world good. God made people good.
So if something’s bad in the world, guess what? Guess whose that is? That’s us. Enough of that. Let’s go on to the psalm. Psalm’s great; isn’t it? Psalms? Psalm is great for wonder. Because, you know, you go out there, and you don’t hear the quantum mechanics and the astrophysics of how all the stars are made and move and go and come and red shift and dopplers and all this other stuff. Psalm just goes out there and says, why is God caring about me? In all this, God cares about us. In its infinite vastness of the universe, God cares about us.
That’s wonder. Not confusion. It’s living in the joy and in the wonder. It’s a wonderful time. Not a confusing time. I’m angry because God didn’t check it out with me before God went on and did God things. God did explain everything to God. And that goes right on. We’re running now. Keep up with me. That goes right on to the epistle where Paul says – gives it grace, and says, “Grace of the father,” and “Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” the love and fellowship. And you say, how do we get together on that? Does one come, and then they do like a costume change or put on a different mask or get on a collar? Instead of an open-collar shift they put on a collar with a thing. And then they come out and do the other thing, but it’s the same person.
You know, Christy’s sitting in the pew saying Christy up in the collar. No, that’s all heresy. You’ve got to approach that with wonder and say, wow. Look at all that. The love, the grace, the fellowship. It’s all there. I don’t know how it all works, but I’m sure glad it does. Kind of like the way I treat my car. I don’t know how it works. I’m sure glad it moves and goes places.
And then the last one, the gospel. In the gospel, don’t you love the disciples? You’ve got to really look at the disciples because they’re a bunch of bumbling fools; you know? And I feel better about myself the more I read about the disciples because I said, if those guys can make it, I’ve got a shot; you know. I’ve got at least a shot. Because they’re in there, you know, here they are, they’re in the end of the ministry, been hanging out with Jesus. I mean, you and me think, oh, if we had met Jesus, we would be onboard. We would be 100% Jesus; you know? But, you know, the disciples, they were there the whole time. And they said, hey, we’re worshiping him. But some doubted. I go, what’s with these guys? You know?
And I said, “I feel better about myself because sometimes, you know, maybe I have a doubt or two; you know? Things happen.” But it wasn’t like, okay, Jesus didn’t say, oh, let me explain it all to you and answer all your doubts. We’ll have a town hall. You can all yell at me about how you’re upset about the way I’m running the church, and I’ll explain it to you. We’ll all come into a wonderful happy agreement, and I’ll tell you all the things.
No, he said, he knows he had doubt. He says, “Go therefore and go out and do good things. Go out there and make disciples of all the nations. Tell everybody to love one another. Tell them to love their enemies. Tell them to love the stranger.” Oh, no, you’re getting political. “Tell them to love the stranger. Tell them to love the soldier in your land. Tell them that God loves everyone. Tell them that God made everything good. Even countries that aren’t ours are still good.” [Gasp] Political again.
He didn’t wait. He didn’t explain it. He didn’t give them the why. He didn’t answer their doubts. He just took them. He just expected them. Show up, doubts and all. Come on in. Come as you are. And these people were disciples. I mean, you know, they’ve got logos and stained glass and people praying to them and stuff. Still doubts. There’s hope for us. We don’t have to be sure and understand everything and remember our good old friend, Fat Man Augustine, that says, “If you think you understand, you don’t understand.” Huh. Huh. I feel better about that.
And remember about our favorite science fiction with Neal there, Stephenson, said, “We like to think of ourselves as intelligent people. We don’t expect to understand stuff. We’re okay if things are contradictory.” You know a contradictory thing is, it’s when a teenager – anyone had experience with teenagers? Been a teenager? I was talking to someone, there’s a church that’s misbehaving. They called me in. Ah, there’s a wonder. I’ve got to tell you. Saying come in. And he said, “What are we going to do about this person?” And I go, well, you know, they’re doing everything we asked. Everything we told them to do, they’re doing. They’re just yelling and screaming about it and writing letters about how horrible it is.
And that’s kind of like the teenager that you tell them to go up to their room, and they’re going up to their room yelling and screaming at you the whole way. You know? “Why is it so unfair?” They’re going to their room, you know, so you they’re kind of sort of getting it. You know, moving toward obedience, even though they’re yelling about it. And we can handle that as intelligent people. As adult people we can say, “Yeah, that’s kind of messed up, mixed up, crazy there. But, yeah, pretty good mostly. We’re all right. We can handle the creation story.” How did all that happen in one day? That “and” thing is just really blowing my mind between the I’m going to do this, now it’s done.
Wait a minute. What’s the middle? We’re okay with that. Mostly. We’re okay with I have some doubts and don’t know everything. Well, that’s okay, go out and tell everybody to love everybody, and that God loves them. Even with the doubts? Yeah, even with the doubts. Do ahead and do that. We so much want to understand stuff. It’s why we keep making heresies out of the Trinity because we try to understand it, we can’t understand it because it’s the basis of God, and we get all upset and try to make it simple. Try to make it into a shamrock, or try to make it into a, you know, the ice cube tray in the refrigerator, you know, the automatic ice cube stuff. How does that work? It’s not what we should do. We’re not supposed to understand it, and that is kind of a little scary for people that aren’t intelligent.
I’m complimenting you here now. I’m believing you’re all intelligent people, and you expect to not know everything and be okay with that and be in wonder. Well, how does that work out in a romcom from the 1990s, Christy? I know that is a question everybody asks. Everybody asks. Sure, he’s a good preacher, but what about a romcom from the ‘90s? I need that romcom. I want you to take a look at “Groundhog Day.” This is Rita. Rita is going somewhere between confusion and wonder here. She has questions of she thought she knew this guy, Bill Murray, who’s playing Phil Connors. Thought she knew this guy. And then things happen. And then she has a choice about whether she’s going to get the long or short version of what everything is. Or whether she’s going to commit herself and all that she has to the wonder that is Phil Connors.
Rita didn’t need all her questions answered, either the short or the long version, to commit $339.88, her total net worth, I imagine, to be into the wonder of Phil Connors. We do not need the long or short version of the Trinity to know when something good has been created, and that we are invited into relationship with. Take that as your Trinity Sunday sermon. Amen.
What if doubt isn’t the opposite of faith — it’s the doorway to it? This week’s sermon takes a fresh look at Doubting Thomas, and asks a harder question: not why Thomas doubted, but where he was when everyone else was hiding. From mass incarceration to immigration fear, from social media echo chambers to the rooms we personally refuse to enter, we’re challenged to stop “doing research” and start doing a real search — one that puts us face to face with people whose scars we’d rather not see. Because if you’re 41 years old and you’re not covered in scars, maybe you haven’t been loving people hard enough. Come find out what it means to go make some more.
God Moves Into the Neighborhood
God Moves Intothe Neighborhooda sermon by Rev. J. Christy RamseyDOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 10:00 AM Worship Service December 28, 2025at St Peter’s Episcopal Church, Carson City, Nevadaedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. John 1:1-18 Sermons also available free on iTunes
When Bette Lynn and I moved, I don’t want anyone to think that we’re breaking up or anything, people go crazy when I talk like this. When Betty Lynn and I moved over to our house at Hanson Drive, across the street was a forlorn vacant sad house. We were 2600; they were 2601. But what a difference. It was vacant. There were some very stubborn tufts of grass among the dirt in the front yard. There were actual tumbleweeds on the porch. There was an eviction notice in Times New Roman font, so you know it’s official, on the door, telling everyone get out, no one belongs here. And of course it was dark all the time. Dark through the nights, dark at Halloween, dark at Christmas, dark for long, empty, vacant, sad.
I saw it every time I left the house and every time I came back. And I saw it through our kitchen window. It was like centered, front and centered. And I confess that it did bother God. And I said, “God, could you do something about that? Could a nice family move in?” It’s so sad to see the house just falling apart, dark, abandoned. It’s not good for the neighborhood, either. And it’s certainly not good for my soul.
Well, watch what you pray for. But boy, did they move in. Oh, my gosh. The landscaping. The new roof. The painted garage door. The lights for Halloween? Oh, my gosh, you were so scared to come home. And then Christmas, there were airplanes that go, oh, no, that wasn’t the airport, and they move on. So many lights. And they were so active. I can’t count the number of cars, four, five cars coming out, going in, going around. There was even – every weekend there’s a table saw in the driveway, he’s doing some project. You know, activity everywhere. And every weekend and holiday an RV the size of a Supreme Court Justice Land Cruiser shows up in front of the house, blocking everything. And I said, okay, God, you can dial it back a bit.
And they would call me at night about 11:00 o’clock, being good neighbors; you know? And they would say, “Hi, Christy. This is your neighbor across the street. Did you know your garage door was open?” I’d go, “No, I didn’t. Thank you very much.” It got so when it rang I picked it up, I said, “Is my garage door open?” They go, “Yes, you did it again.” Okay. Thank you.
Eugene Peterson has a paraphrase with John 1. In the 14th verse, where it says in a reading that God came and dwelled among us, he says: “God moved into the neighborhood.” How different that is. God moved into our neighborhood. Because this, John 1, is the Christmas story in the Gospel of John. It talks about God coming to Earth.
Now, in Matthew and Luke, we have shepherds and kings that come to see the Baby Jesus. Say come, come, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that we have been told. Let us go and follow the star and go see it is God. But in John we don’t go to God. God comes to us. And that is the message to take. We don’t go to God. God comes to us. It is the most epic, the most momentous, the most beautiful border crossing you’ve ever seen. The greatest wall hopped over. The wall between Heaven and Earth.
Imagine, if you will, like Philippians, where the Philippians too, where the great Christ hymns talked about how God, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be taken to seize, to grab, to say that is mine, mine, mine, but instead throughout all the stuff of his heavenly home, all the privileges, all the power, all the glory, threw it all away and came, jumped the border wall, and came to be an immigrant among us.
And not just an immigrant king. There are no kings. But a servant, a doulos in Greek, which is slave. An immigrant that gave up everything in their homeland, all their status, their friends, their money, their heritage, their language, and came to live among us to serve us, to get to know us, that came and stayed, even though he was rejected, even though he was thought a stranger, know that Jesus, he hangs out with those lepers. You know, they’re probably vaccined. He hangs out with loose women. They’re probably piggies. But Jesus hangs out with them. He gave them, gave it all up.
He gave up his home country to come and to live, to move into our neighborhood, to be with us as a servant. And we treated him horribly. But still he was here to stay. That story of John is that God came, and God stayed. Not to conquer. Not to take over. Not to be at something sightseeing, oh, well, there’s no politics today. We can go to church. As long as there’s nothing important to talk about, we can go see Jesus, and then we can leave. And leave everything behind. No God came to live with us across the street. And that humongous Land Cruiser comes in, and there’s no missing that he’s here.
God. With us. Emanuel. That pesky immigrant that tells us to live a different way. That challenges our assumptions. That is there wherever, when we go out of the house or come in the house, when we look out the window, God is there. He moved in. God is with us. Maybe now and then we get out away. We get a little call that said, “Christy?” “Yeah?” “You forgot to open your heart.” “Oh, sorry. I’ll get that done.” “Christy? Christy? You’re closed up. You’re not welcoming. You’re not loving.” “Well, thanks. Thanks for reminding me. I’m so glad you’re in the neighborhood. Who knows where I would be if that place was still vacant, and tumbleweeds were blowing through where care and concern shine out now.”
A Presbyterian minister – I always like to drop that – Mr. Rogers says – have you noticed he says “Will you be my neighbor?” He doesn’t say will you be my friend, will you be my brother, will you be my sister, will you be my companion. He says “neighbor.” And a neighbor is not a friend. Friend is someone that you’re on the same journey with. You’ve got something in common. You’re moving toward a certain place, and sometimes, you know, it could be college, it could children, it could be church, whatever. And as long as you’re on that same journey, you’re with a friend, and you go do things together. But that’s a whole ‘nother sermon. We’re almost there. Let’s quit doing that.
But neighbor is someone that’s with you. That’s near you. That’s come to be with you, to abide with you. And you may not like them. You may not have anything in common with them. But you’re going to get along with them because they’re your neighbor. At tech camp we have a lot of kids that come, and I tell them that they’re neighbors now this week. They may be friends, and that’s great. They may make a friend. Every now and then that happens. Sometimes they hang out together. That’s fine.
But I said, you know, that’s not an expectation. Expectation you’re a neighbor. You’re a neighbor, and you put up with one another. You help one another. You watch out for one another. You certainly don’t hurt one another. And you are all in this together for each other’s success and to have a good tech camp. You’re neighbors. Someone needs something, you lend it to them. Someone needs help, you give it to them. Someone needs encouragement, you give it to them. Because we’re all in this room together. We’re neighbors. Won’t you be my neighbors.
What would this radical hospitality, this neighborliness, this acceptance as Joan Osborne said of one of us, she goes, what if God was just one of us? What if God was just a slob like one of us? What if God was just someone on the bus? A neighbor that came to town with strange ways, and different ways. But we’re all in this together. We’re all going to get through this together. We’re all going to help each other. We’re all going to make sure we’re not going to run away. Christianity is not something you go and see. Christianity is not something you put in your back pocket and bring out when there’s nothing important going on. Oh, my gosh, that’s important. That’s politics. Shut up about religion.
When did that start? Religion used to be important. Faith used to be important. People used to say things about how we should live as a people, as a country, treating one another. And people, oh, you, now you’re talking politics. No, I’m talking my faith, and don’t you dare put your politics above my faith. Don’t you dare tell me that because of this vote or that election, that I cannot follow my faith. My faith says that God came to the neighborhood. God immigrated here. And God lives among us. And I’m not kicking him out because he’s different. Because he teaches love and care and compassion instead of profit and self-interest. Don’t tell me that’s politics. That’s faith. That’s mine. It was given to me by Jesus Christ at tremendous cost. And I’m not throwing that away.
God is one of us. God is here to stay. We’re not kicking God out. We’re not deporting God. God gave up everything to be here. God traveled the furthest of the furthest ways to immigrate to human kind land. And we struggle. But it’s too good if we welcome, we pick up that phone when they call and say, “You’re not really living up to what you’re supposed to be doing, Christy. You’ve really got to do better.” Thank you, neighbor. Thanks for watching out for me.
And when other people come and say, those people aren’t your neighbors, those people aren’t one, how can we do that? How can we divide up when we are the benefit of the greatest leap over the border that has ever happened in the history of the universe of God becoming one of us? How can we say somebody is not good enough to be one of us? God has become one of us. What are we talking about when we talk about, oh, you’re different. Oh, you’re strange. Oh, you’re not here. Oh, you’re not supposed to be here. God’s not supposed to be here. Yet God came. God with us. Ramana Maharshi asks the question: “How do we treat others?” And he answers the question: “There are no others.”
Amen.
Clip from To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995),
dir. Beeban Kidron. © Universal Pictures.
Disobeying Jesus
Disobeying Jesusa sermon by Rev. J. Christy RamseyDOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 10:30 AM Worship Service October 12, 2025at St John’s Presbyterian Church, Reno NevadaComplete Service on YouTubeedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Luke 17-11-19 Sermons also available free on iTunes
Let’s take a look at Luke. Luke. This is not the story about gratitude. But it’s okay. I understand if some of you, if you want to, pick an off-ramp. We’ve going on the express route to the Kingdom of God. Some of you may not be up for the trip. I’m okay with that. If you want to take an exit route right here, take an exit, go over, you know hang out at the truck stop for a while, whatever you want to do. Look at your phone. No problem. Just say what the sermon’s about. Sermon’s about gratitude. You’re fine. No worries.
For the rest of you, the sermon is not about the one that came back in gratitude. The sermon’s about the nine, the nine who did what they were told. The nine who followed the great leader Jesus. The nine who followed the law. Yes, the law, Leviticus 14. Now my favorite Leviticus is 19, if you want to know. But 14’s okay. You know. But if you go, if you get Leviticus out, you know, go over into 19. Read that, too, because that’s the best.
But Leviticus 14 talks about, if you are a leper, how to be clean. It is very entertaining reading. It involves two birds, one of which you kill. It involves shaving your entire body, head to toe, not once, but twice. It involves standing outside in the cold as sort of enforce home – it’s like a little light torture in the Bible to get clean. It takes about a week, a little over a week to eight days. It is the law. That is what the law says you do. Nine did it. Nine complied. Nine did what they were told to do.
Jesus told them, “Go show yourself to the priest.” And that’s not just, “Hi, Priest. How you doing?” It’s that whole thing, Leviticus 14, light torture, standing outside getting shaved, killing a bird, other sacrifices. Bleah, the whole thing. Nine of them did it. Nine of them complied. Even though they didn’t have to. What a mind-blowing thing. You don’t have to follow the law and obey Jesus. What a mind-blowing thing. Because I submit to you this time in America is not the time where we need more sermons about gratitude. Gratitude’s fine. Gratitude’s a nice thing. Attitude of gratitude. I like the rhyme.
But what Americans need now is consideration, reflection, and faith that might, just might lead you to disobey. Now all you that are upset, I told you, you could get off earlier. We have here a time where it says Jesus is okay with disobeying. He’s okay with breaking the law. He’s okay with not following scripture. And that wasn’t the Old Testament back then, that was The Testament. That was Bible. And Jesus is okay with that. In fact, not only is he okay, He asked where the other nine were. How come only one disobeyed me? How come only one broke the law? Where are the other nine? Wonder if Jesus is saying that now? Where is everybody?
Faith makes you well. Not following the law, not even doing what the leader said. Faith makes you well. He doesn’t condemn the nine that followed the law and did what they were told. I mean, come on. I mean, they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. Come on. He seems to be okay with being inclusive, with being okay with diversity, among responses. And he seems to be okay with that half-breed immigrant that shouldn’t be there, not following the law, but still having faith and still doing the right thing.
Now, when we as Samaritans, we just think about, oh, Good Samaritan, teddy bears and rainbows and unicorns. We like the Samaritan. No, no, no. That was the cursed. That was a putdown. That was telling them they were half-breed unfaithful heretics that should not – good people do not talk to, that you do not even walk through their territory. Did you see it was in between the places that a good Jew did not go. He was illegal. Wasn’t supposed to be there. And Jesus praises him. Yow.
Christy, did you come this week so that we’d be happy when Pat comes next week? I told Pat, “Don’t worry, buddy, they’ll be happy to see you.” He goes, “Thanks, Christy.” But let’s go back, back into time, to a simpler, lovelier time, back to the time of the ‘80s with Reagan in the White House. Oh, what a wonderful time. I want to tell you about not that people, but remember back then, back then the Russians shot down a Korean airliner. Boom, out of the sky, killing everybody. Remember, you can look it up, the families brought on the boat, the children crying for the father. Waves.
It was a tense time. It was a worrisome time. What are the Russians going to do next? What are we going to do in response? There’s a film, a documentary, it’s on YouTube, “The Man Who Saved the World.” And no, it is not about Jesus. “The Man Who Saved the World” is about Stanislav Petrov and his visit to the United States 40 years after the ‘80s. On September 26th, 1983, the computers in Serpukhov-15 bunker outside of Moscow, which housed the command center for the Soviet Early Warning Satellite System, reported U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles were heading toward the Soviet Union. One, then another, then another, then another, then another. Five nuclear missiles were detected coming toward the Soviet Union.
Stanislav Petrov was the duty officer. It was the protocol. It was the law. It was a duty. It was a patriotic thing to carry that on up to the command center, to call headquarters and say, “We are being attacked by the United States. They have launched nuclear missiles. Our satellites have reported. We checked the computer. The computers are right. They did not have visual confirmation because of the weather conditions. But the computer is saying yes. There’s nuclear warheads headed to you.”
According to the book, according to what’s called “The War Diary,” he is to call the headquarters. He is to call the headquarters and tell them what has happened so that they can respond in kind. There are 11,000 nuclear warheads ready to go, to blow up the United States. Make Hiroshima and Nagasaki a birthday candle. This is what Stanislav said 40 years later. “In the general headquarters all they have left to do is press a button. I fully understood that I would not be corrected if I reported it. No one would dare correct me. They would agree with me, and that would be it. It’s always easier to agree.”
We’re here today because Stanislav did not report the attack. He broke the law. He ruined his career. He lost his family. But he has no regrets. It was a fluke. It was a computer failure. It was weather, a weird weather thing. There are satellite orbits. There’s a whole Wikipedia page about it. But Stanislav didn’t know that. He disobeyed. He had faith that the United States wouldn’t do that. And he also knew that someone had to stop the chain of events into violence and into destruction and into ruin and into chaos.
And he knew that he was the one to stand up and say no. No, we’re not going to destroy the world. I’m breaking the law. I’m ruining my career. My family is not going to support me. I’m going to be estranged from all our friends. But I will not obey. I will not destroy. I will not harm innocents. I will not attack the enemies like I’m told. It’s always easier to agree. Thank god Stanislav Petrov decided not to take the easy way, but the hard and faithful way. His faith has made us well.
Amen.
Testify
Testifya sermon by Rev. J. Christy RamseyDOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service February 16, 2025at St Peter’s Episcopal Churchedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. John 8:12-19 Sermons also available free on iTunes
My pastor growing up, Dr. Paul Bauer, said “Sermonettes are for Christianettes.” That was probably his only joke in 20 years, but it was a good one. Good morning, Episcopalians. They’ve got me tied to this mic today, so you’re welcome.
So today I’ve got scriptures, I love the scriptures you give me there. Define the relationship of Jesus Christ and God the Father without straying from Episcopalian beliefs or violating your Presbyterian doctrine, and do it in 10 minutes. Thanks. We’ll pass on that. I mean, there have been wars fought over this, and over a single Greek letter. We’ll pass on that. What we won’t pass on is the opportunity the scripture gives us to talk about testimony.
Testimony. We need more testimony in this world. We don’t need more arguing. We don’t need more fact-checking. We don’t need more gotcha. We don’t need any snarky answers to people’s sincerely held beliefs. What we could use is testimony. Did you hear it in Jesus’s saying, “You don’t know where I came from or where I’m going?” If you know where you came from, if you know where you are going, you have a testimony. You have something to say.
And I don’t know if any of you have been preachers, weekly preachers for 40 years. But I’ll tell you a secret. When you’re preaching every Sunday, everything that happens is sermon-fodder. You know, everything goes in the old chipper and comes out, I tell you. And so I was thinking about testimony and what does it mean to – and where is the good testimony and where things are. And would you believe it, in my inbox comes testimony from the Episcopalians. Woo-hah. And about 20 other denominations, including Presbyterian, about sanctuary.
Now, you all know how hard it is to keep quiet in a sanctuary. You know how hard it is to keep me quiet in the sanctuary before service. Well, I’ll tell you, you Episcopalians work even harder on sanctuary. For over a quarter of the century, sanctuary has been kept in churches, synagogues, religious gathering places around the country, saying, hey, arrest people somewhere else than in church, at services, on a Sunday. But no longer. No longer. And that’s what the Episcopalians testified.
Listen to this. Sean Rowe, presiding bishop. In the Kingdom of God as we understand it, immigrants and refugees are not at the edges, fearful and alone. Their struggles reveal the heart of God. We cannot worship freely if some of us live in fear. Sean Rowe, Episcopal bishop, presiding bishop. Even Jesus himself identifies as “stranger.” We must proclaim, particularly in this time, that we are all welcome in the places of worship, that all have – that all are welcome in places of worship. This seems a basic human right, one that we are called by God to serve.
In the first week of the current administration I see he arrested over 4,500 people, including 1,000 people in a Sunday immigration enforcement blitz. At least one of these – this is from the court case that your church joined with the church I serve, and 21 other churches in testimony. And at least one of these enforcement actions occurred at a church in Georgia during the worship service. According to news coverage, an usher standing at the church entrance saw a group of ICE agents outside, locked the door. The agent said that they were there to arrest Wilson Velasquez, who had traveled to the United States from Honduras with his wife and three children in 2022. Immediately after crossing the border, they turned themselves in to U.S. authorities, requested asylum. They were given a court date, released after federal agents put a GPS tracking monitor on Velasquez’s ankle.
After settling in suburban life, the family joined the Pentecostal Church, where they worshipped several times a week and helped with the music. They were listening to the pastor’s sermon when ICE agents arrived to arrest Velasquez. Although Velasquez had attended all his required check-ins at the Atlanta ICE office and had a court date scheduled to present his asylum case to a judge, ICE agents arrested him, explaining that they were simply looking for people with ankle bracelets. The pastor, Luis Ortiz, tried to reassure his congregation. But he said he could see the fear and tears in their faces.
And if you’re upset that people are talking in sanctuary, imagine how upset you’d be if someone came in and arrested someone during the sermon. That should be an announcement every Sunday morning. But we’re not saying you’re bad, or you’re awful, or you vote for this person, or it’s all your fault or blame. We’re saying where we have been, where we came from, and where we are going, we know that, so we have a testimony. And here’s the Episcopal Church’s testimony. And God bless you all. This is in the filing of the United States court system. Because you all know where you’ve been, and you all know where you’re going, and you have a testimony.
Plaintiff, the Episcopal Church. Recognizing the Bible’s repeated calls for God’s people to embrace the foreigner as a way of extending the work that is the heart of God in every time and place, the Episcopal Church, champions and advocates for humane policies toward migrants. And many dioceses, parish, and Episcopal networks provide resources, support, and care for asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants, refugees, and other migrant communities. Testimony. Testimony.
If you don’t know where you’ve been and don’t know where you’re going, you don’t have a testimony. But Christians know where we’ve been. We read the scriptures every Sunday. Hopefully more than every Sunday. We live by them. And we know where we’re going. We’re going to the Kingdom of God, and we’re living in the Kingdom of God right here. We are not living in Empire. We do not serve the Empire. We serve the Kingdom of God. We know where we’ve been. We know where we’re going. We know what our passport says. Our passport says “Kingdom of God.” Not Empire.
And so we have a testimony. You don’t have to argue with someone because they’re just not listening. They’re just waiting for their turn to argue with you and go back and forth. We need to have conversations. We need to find common ground. We need to go forward. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But that’s not going to come from arguing. It’s going to come from testimony based on where we come from and where we want to go.
Brian, you got that slide up there for me? Here’s a testimony. Here’s a sign that doesn’t say “Vote for this” or “I voted that” or “Don’t blame me, I voted for the other one.” This is what I believe. In this house we believe love is love. Testimony. Black Lives Matter. And if you’re racist, Black Lives Matter Too, because I have to say that or otherwise you’d think that we do a Breast Cancer Awareness or Fundraiser, we’re saying no other cancer matters.
Black Lives Matter Too. Science is real. Women’s rights are fundamental. Women’s rights are human rights. No person is illegal. Disability rights are human rights. Healthcare for all. Kindness is everything. That just says what you believe. That’s a testimony based on where you’ve come from and where you’re going. It attacks no one. It should upset no one. It goes, oh, thanks for sharing what you believe. Now, I know you a little better. Some of those things I believe. Maybe we could figure out how to make that a little more true in the greater world. It’s testimony.
I brought a prop. My wife made this for me. And I think I’m going to be wearing it more and more. This might be a daily driver. Some people are against rainbows. But this shows where I believe. And I think I’m going to be wearing this shirt.
I almost wore it to preach in. You’re welcome. This should threaten no one. This just gives a testimony to what I believe. It’s perfectly okay if you pee next to me. Now, if you want to bring a gun in, I might have an issue with that. But you all can pee next to me. So if you’re upset, you can say, well, at least he didn’t wear the T-shirt the whole time.
So I come to thank you. Presbyterian Church is in the pleading, too. Eighty pages, great reading, along with Episcopalians, the spot on the Mennonites. We can almost – we’ve got a couple atheists in there. All testifying. In 1993, America decided that sanctuary was a place not just to keep quiet for a few minutes before worship, but a place where humans that are fearful could come and worship God, and hear the good eternal truth in the gospel without fear of being arrested and hauled off because it’s easy to get them there. Over a quarter of a century ago. I don’t remember changing, that we thought as long as you’re quiet you can arrest people in our services.
Testimony. I believe sanctuary is a place where everyone can come and worship without fear of persecution, without fear of that. And you know, folks, I have some privileged folks in my life. And when I start talking about that, they go, oh, you’re talking politics. Oh, you’re just talking – we don’t talk politics.
Wilson is now not with his family. He’s taken away from his children and his wife. And I would challenge that person to go and explain to their children that their father is not with them anymore, that he’s in prison, it’s just politics, and they shouldn’t really care that much. Our faith is a lot more than what is comfortable for us and for the people that we can see. Our faith is a faith of the entire world. We believe that Jesus Christ came, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. It’s not a scripture, but that world means cosmos, means everything, all the relationships, and all the people in it, and the plants and the animals, and the people that come and go. That’s what God came for, not just to make my life comfortable. And those I can see not suffering because that’s upsetting. It’s for everyone.
So I come here as a wandering Presbyterian to thank the leadership of the Episcopal Church in saying where they come from and where they’re going, and testifying to all that would hear, and many that don’t want to, that this is who we are. This is who we love. And this is where we’re going. And we’re telling everyone. Testify. Amen.
Not My Job
Not My Joba sermon by Rev. J. Christy RamseyDOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service January 26, 2025for ZOOM with Lee Vining Presbyterian Churchedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. John 2:1-11 Sermons also available free on iTunes
Should the church be run like a business? People tell me that, throughout my career in the ministry in 40 years, and they come in, you know, church has to be run like a business. And they usually don’t know that I have a business administration degree from Grove City College with cum laude. So they think this is news to me, God bless ‘em.And I was wondering, you know, when I’m in a more festive mood, with is almost always, I admit it is a problem, I ask them, well, if church is run like a business, what’s its product? I mean, what is it selling? I mean, that’s basic business that you know your product. What’s a product? You know, it gives them pause because, I mean, you all think of that, I ain’t going to put you on the spot because, you know, it’s like being in the front row at a comedy club, you know. You know you’re going to get picked on if there’s only, like, six of you. So don’t answer out. I’m not putting you on the spot.But what would you say is the church’s business? What’s the product? What are we making? Oh, you’re going to – you’re going to – you’re, yeah, are we making Christians. That’s one of the A-plus answers. I would go A-plus on Christians, disciples, yeah. You know, others would say, you know, Laurie, others would say, well, you’re making worship services. You know, some people say that. Or, well, you’ve got to maintain the building, you know. Or some people would say, you know, you’re feeding the hungry, and Matthew 25, and the thirsty, and you’re doing that stuff. And I don’t know if you’d get agreement from everyone in a room about what the product is for the church, if it was run like a business.And then it gets even more complicated because then you’ve got to say, okay, we’ve got a product, maybe. You would say, well, who’s our customer? What’s our target audience? Who are we working for? And I’m sure Laurie knows the answer. It’s always God. God’s always the correct answer in any children’s message or sermon.Well, some people say God’s the customer. Okay. Other people would say, well, the people who pay the bills. You’ve got to keep them happy. You’ve got to keep the people happy who’re paying the bills or you don’t have a church. They’re the customer. Well, sure, God, but you know, oh, I’ve got to keep the money folks happy. Some people would say that. Some people say, well, it’s the church board. I mean, I don’t know if anybody would say that. Maybe one or two would say you’ve got to go with the – or maybe a couple would say the pastor has to be happy. That’s rare, but that could happen. I’m sure that’s happened. You know, who are you trying to please? Who are you working for? Who’s the customer? That’s a difficult one.What if they went beyond that and said, okay, well, now, who owns the business? You know? Who? Is it a nonprofit? That’s problematic in a church, if you don’t have profits. If you do, well, what’s the business? What is that customer? Who owns it? Who is in charge of it? I mean, the Presbyterians have gone all the way up to the Supreme Court about who owns the church. And the Supreme Court, way back, oh, ‘70s, said, well, that PCUSA owns the church, but please make it more clear in your constitution. So we’ve been – we struggle with that in reality of who owns the business of the business? That’s important, too.Well, you know, we shouldn’t be surprised that we have these questions and answers, and that we can’t get consensus and move around because even Jesus Christ had trouble, as we saw here, skipping over the dynamic of why you’re calling your mother “women,” that doesn’t sound good to us English-speaking ears that you go “woman.” But maybe it’s better in the Aramaic, I’m hoping. But Jesus had some troubles about his jobs and where he was doing and what he was doing it for. And, you know, a mother, the mother, you know, you don’t want your mother coming up to where you work and saying you’re not good at your job. I mean, that’s not good. That’s a bad day right there.And, you know, and I don’t know, you know, can you imagine, I don’t know if we can be Jesus, but you’ve got these world-changing powers. You want to change the world for good. You want to help people, you want to get love all around, forgiveness and all that, and your mom wants you to solve the lack of wine at a three-day blowout party for people you don’t know. You know, Jesus Christ is fully human. I can see him being a little upset about that one. And not just, you know, hey, bring a bottle of wine. I mean, come on, it’s a party, bring the wine, what are you? You know, we’re talking multiple gallons of water turning to wine. We’re talking 20 to 30, what is it, six times 20, help me out. It’s over 100 gallons of wine. That’s a lot of wine. Of course, you know, Mary didn’t say, hey, go get 100 gallons.Is that Jesus’ job? I don’t know. We struggle with that in the church. We’re struggling right now about what is the church’s job. I mean, folks will say let’s get politics out of the church, doo to doo to doo, you know, they want to say that. And you know what, I’ve noticed over the years, I mean, I’ve been around a little bit, politics just kept getting wider and wider and wider. You know? It used to be you could go buy craft supplies and not worry about politics. Now you’ve got to say, well, that one’s Republican and that one’s Democrat. Politics are just freaking everywhere. You know, and people wear them, you know, as part of their clothing, their politics. It is politics, politics, politics, politics everywhere. And it affects – and it’s not just politics.Politics affects our lives, affects our health, affects our neighbors, affects ourselves, affects our family. You know, we say, well, it’s just politics. Well, no, man, it’s morality. It’s reality. It’s how we live. It’s how we structure society. It’s how we help one another. And even now we saw right now that a bishop, you know, we don’t have bishops. I don’t know. Sometimes that’s good; sometimes it’s bad. I don’t know. But we don’t have bishops. But that’s like, you know, up there, you know, big hat, in charge of church and stuff. And the bishop in the church, okay, that’s kind of a big thing, bishop in the church there actually makes it a cathedral when the bishop’s in the church. So the bishop in the cathedral saying a sermon, you know, the bishop in the cathedral in a sermon, you think that’s religious.But some people say, oh, no, that’s politics. They can’t say this. They can’t say that. They’ve got this to do. They’ve got this to do. They’ve got to be in this box. They can’t be this. And oh, my gosh, I want to tell you about how the bishop in the cathedral preaching a sermon should be. I say get the politics out of the church. I say get the politics out of my life. My life belongs to Jesus Christ. Don’t be telling me I can’t follow Jesus Christ because you don’t like the politics. And don’t be coming into a cathedral and telling the bishop what he can say in their own pulpit. No.We have trouble with jobs, with what is a job. I mean, even today we have trouble. You know, we say we might get upset about oh, my gosh, he should have said into this. Oh, my gosh, that’s not her job. Oh, she shouldn’t have made the wine. I mean, I’m sure that there were some people, well, Jesus, you know, you shouldn’t be making that much wine for drunk people. I mean, that is a reasonable criticism. I mean, Laurie can help me out here, but I’m thinking that’s enabling. I mean, that’s like master-class enabling right there. These drunk people need more wine. I mean, the steward flat-out said they were already drunk; you know? And why do drunk people need more wine, I don’t know. And people could criticize that, and I don’t even think that would be political.But what is the job of the church? It’s something we’re going to be struggling with, I’ll tell you. We’re going to be struggling with that. And, you know, between ministers, and it’s especially a struggle because, you know, when you get in a ministry you can sort of say, good, the ministry will figure that out; you know. But when it’s just y’all, you know, you’ve got to figure out what is the church. Does the church do this? Does the church do that? Is that our job? Should we have services even though none of us lives in Lee Vining and we’ve got a lot of weather? Should we do that? I mean, it’d be really nice to have a minister decide that. But you don’t, so you’ve got to decide that, oh, you know. So what do you do?Now, let me change gears a little bit. Palisades Fire. Have you heard of it? Palisades Fire. Now, I don’t know it you know about Palisades. Kind of a rich people place. But, you know, they have a severe homeless problem. They’ve got a lot of folks there that are hungry, don’t have housing, don’t have food. But the disaster is a disaster. I can’t imagine losing everything you own. I can’t imagine that. There’s been loss of life in the double digits, I think it’s up to 23 or so. Whole neighborhoods washed out. I mean, one of the Presbyterian execs lost her home down there, one of my friends, Wendy. I can’t imagine that. Everything, you look around, everything gone.Another one of the ministers at the Palisades church, he had time to run down – you’ve got to read it. It’s on the PCUSA website, that Palisades fire, and was in the Presbyterian newsletter last week. But the pastor had enough time to run from the church down to the elementary school, grab his kids, because there was just cars everywhere, nothing was moving. There’s parents trying to get their kids. Had enough time to go down, get his kids, take them back out to the car, and flee the church. He didn’t take anything out of his office, and the church burned to the ground. I can’t imagine, what a tragedy. I want to say that, that it’s awful, it’s a tragedy, it’s a horrible thing. Suffering is real. And that’s one of the things the Church knows.But I do want to tell you about jobs. When we’re talking about jobs, for at least a little while, for at least a couple weeks, there’s no hungry person in the Palisades. There’s no one hungry. There is no hunger because World Food Kitchen rolled in there with the food trucks. They rolled in, and they said anyone that’s hungry, come and eat. And we’re not checking your ID. We’re not seeing where you’re living. If you’re hungry, come and eat. We’ve got food. Come on down. And good food, too. And they got stores there that are open, and they’ve got brand new stuff for babies, and clothes, and if you lost something, come on in and don’t pay. There’s no charge. The donations are there, and they’re here for you to pick up, and God bless.So we can do that. It takes a fire. It takes a disaster. It takes a horrible thing. Now, in Mary’s case the disaster was we ran out of wine at a social event. Okay, a little bit of a disaster. But the disaster that we have here that wiped out entire communities was enough to say, oh, yeah, we can feed every person and not charge them. We can clothe the naked and not charge them. We can do that. So when you say to me, oh, well, we can’t do it, you know, we’ve got to run like a business, and we’ve got to have profit and loss, so we’ve got to have [indiscernible] and negative, yeah, I’d say, well, yeah, I understand that, I mean, I did get an A in accounting. But for at least a couple weeks we did it. We could do it.We could stop making billionaires and now trillionaires. We’ve got a couple people on the way to trillionaire, hoo-hoo. We could quit making them. And we can start making people that are fed and housed. We can do it. I don’t want a fire to wipe out a whole community to figure out how we can be Christians and make sure everyone’s got fed, clothing, and housing. I’d rather not. I’d rather we just decided, yeah, this is something we could do. And you know, it’s not just the church’s job. I mean, we say, well, the church ought to do that. They should have a lot of money and social things and all this. You know, Matthew 25, where it talks about the naked, clothing the naked and feeding the hungry and visiting the imprisoned and all the things that folks say, oh, I don’t know if we can afford all that.It doesn’t say the church is going to be judged by that. It doesn’t say that individuals are going to be judged by that. We would like it to, oh, my gosh, that’d be so much easier. You know, oh, I’ve done good. I’m okay. I give things. I’m helpful. No. It says the nations will be judged. The nations of the world line up and are judged. Our Bible says, our Savior says, our gospel good news says right there in black-and-white, that the nations will be judged by how they take care of one another. So if you take comfort like I do, well, I’m a good person, I don’t hurt anybody, I’m nice, uh-oh. The nations are judged by that. Well, that’s pretty heavy, Christy. My gosh. No wonder they only let you in once a month. Hey, let’s talk about the servants. Did you notice the servants? It’s hard. They don’t have any speaking parts. I mean, that is just plain unfair right there. Because you look at the Scripture, the servants are doing all the work. They’re going, they get ordered over here, I mean, there’s this Mary person. Who’s she? She’s not part of the household. Mary has to go over here, and he goes, talk to the stranger; you know?And here’s the thing, you know, if I’m a servant, you know, and I’m thinking this, I’m not saying it out loud because servant, you know. But I’m thinking, you know, we’d have the wine if this guy didn’t bring all his big burly Galilean fishermen to drink all the wine. You know, I’m thinking that was an issue. I don’t think they planned for that. You know, his whole entourage comes, I mean, I’m thinking, those are some wine drinkers there, buddy. You know? And so makes sense to talk to this guy, do what this guy says. And they’re saying, oh, okay, I guess we’re servants. I guess we do that.And he goes, go fill up those big old honkin’ jars. I mean, you know, it’s like 55-gallon drums, if you can imagine. Not quite that big, but, you know, roll them around and fill them up with water. I mean, who knows where that water is? Could have been, you know, a couple blocks away; you know? Lot of work there. They do all that. And they’re thinking, this guy’s nuts. Why is he giving water? We’re out of wine. We should be going around and getting some wine, and now he’s having us do this busywork and then go do that. And then they go, they bring that. And then Jesus says, “Go take the water to the chief steward to inspect for wine.” They go, what craziness is this? They’re going to yell at us. This is ridiculous. Why are we bothering the stewards? I don’t want to get involved.And the guy, the steward said, you know, this is really good wine. And, you know, the servants are going, “Crazy white people,” you know. What? What? We put that in there. It’s water. We know. And they go, oh, yes, it’s great wine. And they tell one another, you know, should we say something? Should we tell them? No, we shouldn’t say anything. I don’t want to say anything. We’ll get along just fine. And then says the disciples believe. I think the servants just thought he was crazy, crazy folks. But, you know, where are the servants? You know? You know, he says, go do whatever Christ told you to do. Even though it’s crazy. Even though it can’t possibly work. Even though we know better. Even though we know it’s going to fail terribly. Go ahead and do it anyway. Go ahead and do it anyway.What if Jesus says go over to Palisades and feed all the hungry over there? Oh, that’s not going to work. I can’t possibly do that. That’s ridiculous. Go do it anyway. That’s where we’re at. You know, we’re not around, sitting around saying, oh, let me think about what Jesus should be doing, what the job of the church is, and where are we going, and what’s our profit and loss, and what’s our five-year plan? What’s our objectives, you know, specific measurable attainable and time-related. What should we do? It’s to follow Jesus and do whatever he tells you. That’s our job. That’s our job. If we do that, Jesus will be revealed, and people will believe. Amen.
This Little Light of Mine
This Little Light of Minea sermon by Rev. J. Christy RamseyDOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service December 29, 2024at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Carson Cityedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. John 1:1-18 Sermons also available free on iTunes
Akron, Ohio, my hometown, has a Main Street that follows the river. It was a river, and then it was a canal, and then it was road. Then came a flood, and then became a river again because you’ll have that. Goes through – Main Street goes through the lowest part of town because that’s where the river was. That’s where commerce was. That’s where the canal was. And so Main Street goes right like this all the way through town, and it’s the lowest part of town. Over here we have Goodyear Heights. And it’s high. It goes right up. It’s like in the middle of the valley. Goodyear Heights is over here. That’s where the factories are. That’s where the rubber was made, the smokestacks, the work crews, all are up here. And it’s high. It is high up. And in the space of about a mile or two, 10 blocks, you can see it. It goes down to Main Street, and then it goes up to the outside.The outside is West Hill. West Hill’s on the other side of Main Street. Market connects the two. You could, up at West Hill, you can see, and see the whole town. West Hill was where all the rich people lived, the factory owners, the management, because, you know, smoke was all over there, and in the valley it didn’t get up to West Hill. So that’s where West Hill was.Now, my family, my grandma, grandpa, and my brother, my uncle, good people, they were the factory people. They lived over here on the East Side, on Goodyear Heights. And over here is where we moved on up, you know, like that song, “Movin’ On Up” to the West Side. So we moved over here. So we were constantly going from the West Hill down the valley on Market. [Indiscernible] to go visit the family and connect up in church and all that. And so we did that a lot. At one time, I don’t know, late ‘60s probably, we were just at the crest of West Hill where we could see the entire traffic of Akron. We could see Main Street going along the canal. We could see Market Street. And Market, busy, busy throughfare.And I remember one day we were at the crest of the hill, looking down, and we stopped. We pulled over to the side of the road. And I looked, and all through Market Street, 10, 20 blocks, down to Main Street and back up, traffic was frozen. Everything was moved up to the side of the road and stopped. I thought, well, that’s odd. But then I looked, and I saw the flashing lights of a fire engine coming down Market Street. And everybody had stopped and got out of the way and made way for those flashing lights.Fast-forward 30 years, and some of you here know what that’s like. You know, you turn around, suddenly it’s 30 years later? Thirty years later I’m driving those flashing lights on the fire engine, faking it till I make it because no one else would get in the seat, so I did. I’m driving. And I’m learning about flashing lights and about fire department. They tell me, you know, you’re not allowed to go through red lights in a fire truck in Ohio. It’s against the law. You know you don’t have the right of way in Ohio with the flashing lights and sirens. All that is, is a request for the right of way. All that light and shining big red truck is just saying, please, please let us go by. It’s just please, it’s just a request. And we are responsible as firefighters to be driving with due regard as opposed to the rest of the people that have reasonable care. They just have to be reasonable. We’ve got to have due regard.And so they don’t have to get out of the way. They can just go on with their life. They can ignore the light. You know, that light says someone’s in trouble. Someone needs help now. Could you move out of the way? Could you stop just a moment thinking of yourself and of where you’re going and what you need to do? Can you stop, give way, so somebody else could get the help they need? It’s just an ask.And I was new guy there, even though I was older than most of those guys. Oh, that was not – they were very kind to me, you know. But, yeah, on the training events, you know, where they did training, they assigned me the role of “guy who died.” And so they would put me out in a field, and they’d come rescue me so I could just, you know, relax, kind of chillin’.So, but, you know, I try to measure my questions. You’ve been in a new job, you don’t ask every question the first day. I mean, that’s just annoying. You know, you just try to get what you need to get through the day. But there was this one thing, right here in the firehouse garage, right back here, you know, seven feet up, or eight, I don’t know, right here. There was, you know, one of those old metal box light switches like you’ve got in a garage. It was rusty. You remember those things? The conduit came down, it wasn’t pretty. And it was a switch, and there was this old, yellow, brown, moldy paper curled up over it, and you could just make out it said this, in big block letters: “DO NOT USE.” Don’t you want to? Don’t you want to?So I asked one of the old guys, I said, “Hey, what is that? Roger, Roger, what’s with that switch?” He goes, “Oh, that switch. That switch turns every traffic light in town red.” I go, oh. “But we don’t use that anymore.” Yeah, yeah, I saw the sign, yeah. He goes, “Yeah, the right turn on red, nobody stops anymore.” No one follows the lights. They just keep moving. Christ the light of the world came into the world. And what does light do? Light shows you there’s other people beside yourself. Light can show you, reveal that there’s more people than just you here. And sometimes, yes, sometimes those people need help that you don’t need, but they need.You know, when I think back at that time in Akron, that really impressed me, to see all the traffic in the city stopped because some stranger somewhere was in trouble, and everyone agreed that that traffic mattered. Not all traffic mattered. That traffic mattered because they needed help. And because they were in trouble, and because they were hurting, we could step by and allow them to get the help they need.I had a hard time with the sermon today because you know I’m going to be political. You know what the difference between political is for – political is other people. When it affects me, that’s morality. That’s important. When it affects other people, well, that’s politics. I don’t have to worry about that. Don’t talk or bother me about it. I only want to talk about me, me, me. That’s morality. That’s right and wrong. Did you know that fire trucks and fire engines and fire departments used to be politics? Fire insurance the politics in that.Because you see, back in the day, I know it’s hard to imagine, but see if you can wrap your heads around this concept, that lifesaving care of the fire department was dependent on insurance companies. I know, who would have thought such a thing? If you did not have insurance, your house burned down. You could die. Your possessions were gone. If you didn’t have any a fire insurance mark. Such a thing shouldn’t exist. If you go to some old fire departments, maybe even here in Carson, you can see what they called fire insurance marks, a metal plaque. What they were, they were these big metal plates, usually some kind of star shape, was fastened on the front of the house displaying which insurance company the fire department covered for this house. And if you didn’t pay your money, you didn’t get signed up during open enrollment, had a pre-existing conditions, you can’t pay the fire department at the fire. They’ll come for the fire, would put out your neighbor’s fire that had insurance, but you just burned down. You could be out there crying, offering to pay. No. No, you didn’t buy the insurance. You just burned down. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it is. That’s fair. That’s law. That’s the rules. That’s the way it is. Back then there’s no other way to imagine.Luckily, we thought that was silly. We thought that was immoral. We thought people that were in trouble, people that were going to go bankrupt, people that were facing financial ruin from fire’s destruction, we think, no, that will not be dependent on whether or not they paid their insurance premium. They’re our neighbors everybody here needs to be safe, regardless, so their house doesn’t burning down from a neighbors fire, or if they’re not safe, at least there’s help on the way. And we’re not going to check the insurance rolls and get preauthorized approval before we put wet stuff on the red stuff. No matter who you were, no matter what your morals were, no matter where you were in the country.When I was on the fire department, if you were in trouble, we came, and we did all we could to save your life and your property. We came with those lights that showed that there’s other people in the world that need help, that there’s other traffic that mattered. Those lights that showed that there are some people hurting. Can you please just get out of the way and let us help them?I don’t know what’s coming up. No one knows what’s coming up. But I’m going to say there’s going to be a lot of fights over light. Over light. We’re not the light. We’re not Jesus Christ. We’re not the light of the world. We bear witness to the light. We say Lord Jesus Christ comes to bring light to the world. Everyone. We’re not going to keep things in the dark because that’s not what our Christ says. Our Christ is the light of the world, not the dark of the world.So when people said, we’re not going to report maternity deaths anymore, we’re not going to report them, we’re going to put them under the dark, we’re going to [indiscernible] light of the world. We want to know about those people. We want to know if they need help. We want to turn on the light and go to them if they need it with sirens blazing, no matter who they are, [indiscernible] been, what the color of their skin is, what their nationality is, how much their income is, what their employment status. Turn on the lights. Christ is the light of the world, and we don’t abide by keeping people in the dark.I’ve only been in the ministry for 40 years. I can remember, I remember when there was a school shooting, everything stopped. We had special church services, and we had special prayers, and we knew the names, and we said the names, and we prayed for the people. We even wrote, in one church I had, to the people that were there. And I also remember that a church I was in, when someone stood up a couple years later to pray for the latest school shooting, and the leader says we can’t pray for that. That happens all the time. It’s not special. The number one killer of children in America, our country, is gun violence. Number one. If anyone from a foreign country or any other force came and killed our children like guns are, we would stop it the next day. But it’s in the dark.Did you know it’s illegal for Congress to spend money to study gun violence as a health issue? It’s not allowed. Keep that stuff in the dark. We’re not people of the dark. We’re people of the light. And we say the light comes to everyone of the world, not just some people in the world. It comes to all. It’s right there in John. We read it today. We believe it. We’re the ones that are going to come out and say, oh, no. We follow the light of the world. You’re not going to cover up all these things in the dark. We’re here to tell you. And if someone needs help, we’re at least going to get out of the way. And we might even be on that truck with lights and sirens. Get out of our way. We’re helping people that need help. And no, we’re not checking their insurance cards. That’s what it means when the light of the world comes into the world.Now, it’s not without controversy and upsets and changing this back to the way things were, you know, and that’s it. That’s the only thing that can happen. Not even from other Christians. Have you heard about Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps? They’ve kind of not been around as much. But it used to be a big thing. They’d go to funerals and protest and curse people at funerals of veterans, and veterans coming home. They go to churches and demonstrate. They go everywhere and demonstrate and make things about how terrible and awful the people were who were trying to go to a funeral or trying to have a service.They went to Chicago to the Trinity UCC Church, who are unashamedly Christian and magnificently black [indiscernible], that’s their motto up there. Trinity UCC Church, a great history. And Dr. Morris was there, and Moss was there, and comes to church. I don’t know if he walked the labyrinth before church, or maybe they gave him a key, I don’t know. Could happen. But he was there early, and they were there, Westboro Baptist Church, cursing people going to church, calling them horrible awful names. Imagine, if you will, coming to church, coming to the official church, and it’s kids, it’s old ladies and good people and maybe some people that are hurting. Who knows? People come to church when they’re hurting, sure. And they get cursed at. They get damned. They get yelled at on the way. And Dr. Moss, like a lot of good pastors do in big churches, went to the choir because that’s where you go because you know the choir, they’re kind of the zealous of the church. If you had a choir, you would know this. Don’t be messin’ with the choir. You know. These are the shock troops of the church. And he went to the choir, and they had a hundred people in the choir, robed choir, hundred people. They rocked and rolled it.And he told them there’s people out there cursing our people coming into church. They’re cursing the small children, the little children. They’re yelling at the old ladies. They’re making things – they’re going through hell, and they need protection. They need help. I want you to go out there. I want you to robe up. And I want you to go out there, and I want you to sing so loud that they cannot hear those curses. I want you to sing so loud that they come in to praises and not to curses. I want you to sing “This Little Light of Mine.”This little light of mine,I’m gonna let it shine.This little light of mine,I’m gonna let it shine.This little light of mine,I’m gonna to let it shine,Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.And they sang that song and overwhelmed the chants, and people coming to church were protected. People that were vulnerable were shielded from the hate and from the awfulness that was there. And they didn’t just do it and ignore the people that were saying the curses and the things. They offered to pray for them. And when they were turned down, you don’t get in the way of the choir. When they were turned down, the choir went ahead and prayed for them anyway, right there out in front, so it was in the midst of the cursing and the damnations and the awfulness and the racial things was prayer and praise. That’s light. That’s light.When someone’s hurting, when someone’s vulnerable, when someone’s being attacked, the people of the light are there. It could be a choir singing “This Little Light of Mine.” It could be people on the fire truck with lights and sirens. It could be people in the courtroom saying we want to know how the health of our mothers are doing and whether what we’re doing is killing them. We want to know what’s going on in our schools and our children and are they safe, and what’s going on with that? Why do they die so much, and no other nation has this trouble? Don’t sweep it under the rug. Shine the little light on it. We’re going to be light shiners. We’re going to be looking for those that are in the dark and bring them into the light and say we are here to help you.You don’t have to. You don’t have to give out the right of way. But man, it’s great when we can look out for one another and refuse to accept a city that’s on fire because someone didn’t pay their insurance, because someone didn’t have the right placard up. We said no, we’re not going to let you lose everything and die because you didn’t pay the insurance premium. You know, that’s one step away from “A nice little house you got here. Too bad if anything would happen to it.” Little protection money over there.Friends, we can be different. John says the world is different because Jesus Christ came into the world. The light came into the world, and darkness fled. Let us be the little light. Let us be the light that helps those that are in the dark and are hurting. Amen.
Crosses and Thorns
Crosses and Thornsa sermon homily by Rev. J. Christy RamseyDOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service September 15, 2024at St. Peters Episcopal Church at Carson City, Nevadaedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Mark 8:27-38 Sermons also available free on iTunes
This is a homily, not a sermon. Father Mike was very emphatic on that fact. You may not know the difference. Michael was concerned that I did not, that somehow, three years of seminary, that didn’t come up. But for the rest of you, let me see how I can explain this. A sermon would be a segment on “60 Minutes.” You know? And a homily would be a Public Service Announcement. The more you know. For those of you under 50, thanks for coming. A sermon would be a YouTube video by MrBeast, and a homily would be a TikTok video. I worked all night on that. Okay.
Another thing that people get confused is between thorns and crosses. Now, thorns we find in 1 Corinthians 12, and of course crosses that we bear are here in Mark 8. People get those confused. They think a thorn is a cross, and that’s not true.
Now, a thorn in the side of Paul is something annoying. It could be a physical malady, some kind of sickness, some kind of chronic thing. Or it could be a person, you know who you are, don’t look around. Could be that, too. But something that annoys you, that puts you off, that reminds you that you are not in control of everything, and basically you’re not God, and that there’s other things going on than you. For those that aren’t God people here, it’s not – the world does not revolve around you. That’s a thorn. Something annoying, something painful, something that puts you off – you, you, you, you, you – that tries to remind you you’re not all that. That’s a thorn.
A cross, totally different. Have you ever seen those ads that say whatever, and then it goes “Serious inquiries only”? That’s what cross says. Cross is serious inquiries only. It’s not about suffering. It’s not about pain. It’s not about discomfort. This is not that idea of the cross. That is not what Christianity, Jesus Christ is about healing, reconciliation. It’s about making the world better, about redeeming creation on God. It is not about the pain and the suffering and hard. That’s a thorn.
If you see what I mean, if you go with the cross and the pain, you’re still about you, you, you, my pain, my upset, oh, oh, oh. That’s not a cross. And also notice that the cross is something you pick up. It’s not something that picks up you. Something that you choose. It’s a vocation, a choice, something that you want, you’ve decided to do. There’s going to be troubles, there’s going to be suffering, it’s going to be long term, sure. But it’s not a thorn. It’s not something that’s done to you. It’s something you do for others. And there’s a test. If it’s about you and yourself, it’s a thorn. If it’s about others and creation, the community, and the kingdom of God, then it’s a cross.
Elizabeth Johnson said it this way:
Jesus speaks of losing our lives for his sake and for the sake of the gospel. Taking up a cross means being willing to suffer the consequences of following Jesus faithfully, whatever those consequences might be. It means putting Jesus’s priorities and purposes ahead of our own comfort or security. It means being willing to lose our lives by spending them for others using our time, resources, gifts, and energy so that others may experience God’s love made known in Jesus Christ. Elizabeth Johnson.
Hamilton City, California. Jose has a thorn. Every time it rained, being fire chief, he got out, out of his bed, and went out to the levee because it was a hundred years old, and every rain threatened to undermine it and flood the town. And he was out there stacking the sandbags, hoping that this wouldn’t be the time that the levee failed. That’s a thorn. That’s a pain. That’s annoyance. That’s interruption to your life. That’s a reminder that you are not in control. Thorn, thorn, thorn, thorn, thorn, all the way down.
Jose decided to stop the flooding. He got the Army Corps of Engineers out there. He got the project done, how to restore the wetlands, how to make a floodplain so that it could flood without destroying the town. He had all this done. It only took him 25 years. Hundreds of tamales to raise money to hire the experts that they needed to get the environment. It only took him multiple cross-country trips on the red-eye there and back to save a hotel room night, to lobby it, to go every year to try to get and do the budget. It only took him 25 years of working so closely with others, he actually married the one that was working on it. And I don’t know, I think their time together might have been reduced. 25 years.
He was asked, other people come and say – because it was finally done. Finally, after 25 years, it was done. The floodplain was restored. The wetlands were there. The river was tamed again, and the levee was gone from a hundred years ago, and the town was protected. And from all over people came and said, “Jose, how did you do it?” And he goes, “Are you sure? Are you sure you want to know? Because I tell you, 25 years ago, if someone had told me what it would take to get this done, I don’t know if I would do it.” That’s cross. That’s vocation. That’s giving yourself, your time, your life for others, for the restoration of creation, for building community and healing. That’s taking up the cross. Throwing another sandbag on the riverbank is a thorn. But now, when the rains come, Jose and the rest of town can turn over and go back to sleep. That’s what happens when you bear a cross.
Now, this suffering isn’t suffering for pain or for heartache or anything like that. It’s suffering of the consequences of restoring creation, of giving yourself and your life for others. September 11th was about a year or two after Mr. Rogers did his final show of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He didn’t have a farewell tour, a closing finale or anything. It’s just another day, and he didn’t want to upset the children. And he just left it, and lights were turned off, and the set torn down and delivered to the Children’s Museum in Pittsburgh.
But then came 9/11, and the country was at a loss. And Mister Rogers came back to TV with a PSA. Even in the aftermath of 9/11, Mister Rogers maintained his fidelity to his principles that drove him: Love your neighbor and love yourself. Here’s the inspiring words of Mister Rogers after September 11th: “No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we are all called to be tikkun olam, repairers of creation. Thank you for whatever you do, wherever you are, to bring joy and light and hope and faith and pardon and love to your neighborhood and to yourself.
Retaining Sin
Retaining Sina sermon by Rev. J. Christy RamseyDOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service April 7, 2024at St Peter’s Episcopal Church in Carson City, Nevadaedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.Acts 4:32-35 ⟡ 1 John 1:1-2:2 ⟡ John 20:19-31
Sermons also available free on iTunes
Welcome to Mirror Easter. Last week, who was here last week? No one. Okay, a couple people. All right. So last week, the varsity team was up front, and the spectators were in the pew. All right. So this week, the spectators are up front leading the service. You all coming here on the second Sunday of Easter? You’re the varsity team. You show up the second Sunday of Easter where the substitute for the substitute is leading the service. Ah, commitment. Thank you very much. That’s right, Christy has risen. Is that blasphemy? I don’t know. He’s not here. And we’re all surprised, just like, you know, the other guy. Okay.
I know every one of you read the scripture before you came to church today. You’re probably waiting for a doubting Thomas sermon. Those are great. I love those. Not having a church for a while, I’m always preaching second Sunday of Easter. In fact, I looked at the prayer book earlier. My marks from last year were still there. Second Sunday of Easter. And if you want to look at that sermon, Cathedrals and Measles, on the website ExtraChristy.com, go look at that great sermon, Doubting Thomas. Woo boy, good.
Not today. This is a varsity group here. We’re going to get a varsity sermon. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take that little bitty crazy scripture that’s in the gospel. That you probably just went over, because I don’t want to think about it, but we’re going to think about it. You know the one? The one with your namesake, the Saint Peter one? If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. What in the world does that mean? Is there some kind of ginormous ATM? Can we log in on our web and say, I would like to deposit some sins, and I’d like to withdraw some sins? What in the world are they talking about?
Now some people say, well that means that, you know, if you’ve been gluttonous or wrath – oh, let’s read them off, I have my list here. Sermon notes: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth. So some people say that if you have any of those, you can get them forgiven. But why in the world would we want to retain them? Okay, maybe gluttony. Rest. What is this? This is a strange scripture on a strange Sunday. Bizarro Mirror Easter Sunday, where the varsity people are in the pews, and the spectators are upfront.
It only makes sense if you know that it is plural. That’s right, it’s not singular sense, not just you and me, itty bitty, 10 Commandments, four spiritual laws, kind of individual, you and me, God, we’re here, checklist, I got whatever I want. It is plural. If you all – I used to translate Greek, you all. I got in trouble in seminary all the time, and I argued with them. But if you all retain the sins, they are retained. And if you all forgive the sins, they’re forgiven. Okay, so it’s a community thing.
So we get along and get together like Presbyterians and have a committee and vote whether or not someone sinned? I don’t know. That doesn’t sound right, either. But I want to tell you something, this is John. This is the Gospel of John. We even got a little bit of 1 John over there. And for John, that list of sins, not sin, not at all. Sin is not individual moral failings. It is not characteristics. It is not individual behavior. That is not sin. Sin is when you don’t do what God wants you to do. And that’s your whole life. That’s not just in moments of temptation in front of that cookie drawer. Or special magazine. Or website. I guess I should update.
But for John, sin is corporate and communal. J.B. Phillips back in 1953 had a book that was really important when I was growing up called “Your God is Too Small,” and every now and then people rediscover it, and it blows their mind. But I want to tell you that it’s not just your God is too small, your sin is too small. We’re not talking about little bitty sins. This is the varsity group. We can handle it. We’re not talking about individual sins on individual Sundays and individual days. We’re talking about great corporate. And, you know, this makes more sense for 1 John. Did you listen to 1 John? Was anybody else upset? You are all sinners? What kind of scripture is that for church? You are all sinners. And you say, “Well, no, I’m not,” and it comes right back. And if you say you’re not, you’re a liar. Oh, I’m a sinner and a liar? How come we didn’t all get up and leave? Were you listening?
I’ll make it more homely. You’re racist. And if you say you’re not racist, you’re a liar. Now we’re getting some of the feeling back. I’m not racist. I don’t say the N-word. I have not fired anyone on the basis of their race or creed or color. I don’t have any slaves. I’m not racist. We’re back to that, are we? Back to the individual understanding of sin. Back to the me and God and nobody else. When it’s plural, when it’s corporate, when it’s John, and when things aren’t right in the world, that is the sin, not what any individual may do.
I had a good childhood and upbringing. Middle-class life. We didn’t want for anything. Had a big house. Even got air conditioning when it came in. That was a big deal. My parents both had college educations and good jobs. Their parents were able to work in Akron, Ohio, in the rubber companies and got good pay and good money so that they could send their kids to college so that I could have a better life. Well, what’s that about racism, Christy? My grandpa, Christy Ramsey, had to join the Ku Klux Klan to get a job at Goodyear. Because only the Klan members worked in the rubber company. You see the difference between I’m a racist and racism? I’m a benefit of that. I’m benefiting of racism. That got my family out of the West Virginia hollows and into colleges and nice middle-class home in the Highland Square area of Akron. See the difference? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t benefit from racism. John knew that. Now you do.
What are we to do? What are we to do? We’ve got to quit thinking that sin is something we do in private. It’s just between me and God or go in a box and confess it, and we’re good to go. Because sin is communal, sins in society.
Let’s talk about my parents again. My parents both went to college. Books cost 10 bucks for their semester. Ten dollars. They went to a state school, a university school. Remember back then when the governments actually paid for higher education, actually supported higher education? It’s flipped now. Now the individuals have to pay and not the corporate. And now because it’s an individual choice they have to compete for students and get those out-of-state tuition bucks in there, so they have to put the rock climbing walls and have the sous chef and the other chefs in the back and raise their tuition so they compete against the market pressures on that because the government says we don’t have the money for higher education.
And yet people say, “I paid for my college education. Why don’t those young people pay their loans?” You didn’t pay for it. The state paid for it. The government paid for it. Our taxes paid for it. But that has changed and flipped around. Eighteen year olds, we do not allow them to choose to have an adult beverage because their minds just aren’t ready for it. They can’t handle that kind of responsibility of getting a beer. But we let them sign up for a $100,000 debt that’s going to haunt them the rest of their lives. I’d rather risk a beer on them. You hear the sin?
In my tradition, every Sunday we say forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Gets really quiet. About half the congregation drops off at that point. Come back for the next one. Corporate sin. That’s not God’s will. John would say, there’s sin right there. We got racism, we got sin. But that savior guy we follow. Remember him? Came back from the dead last week. Big news. Remember? You know, you know he was born in a homeless shelter. There was no room for him. There was no inn. There was no place for him. Public camping was outlawed back then. He was born homeless. It wasn’t too much longer he had to be a political refugee, fleeing across borders against a government that wanted to kill him. Have you read that in the paper lately? Have you seen it on the web? Got to update my notes.
They’re sin. That is the sin. And we’ve got a choice. Now you can see the choice. Before it made no sense. But now you see, yeah, we have a choice whether we’re going to fund public education or put our kids into generations of debt. We have a choice. We can retrain that. Or we, what, forgive debt? It’s our choice. Okay? You’re forgiven. That’s the way it’s going to be. It’s up to you, Christians. You can have homeless, or you can house people.
What kind of society have we constructed just in my lifetime? That we have revised the tax code and the way we reward people for the work. And that it used to be when they grew up, if you were making a million dollars, every dollar you made at that top end was 90 cents to the government, 90% to the government, we had, oh that’s wrong, take it on down. Now we’ve got millionaires that can go to outer space, while we got millions that don’t have space to live for the night. If you forgive the sins of any, or if you retain them, they will be retained. So when you look around, and you say why does God do this? Why does God do this?
Jesus told us. Second Sunday of Easter, varsity team was there, but not everybody. Wasn’t a packed church. He said, you know, it’s up to you. You’ve got a choice. You can retain sins, or you can forgive them. Now, some people listened to him. Some people decided that we ought to try this. You know, Jesus. We heard about it today. People sold their houses, brought their money and gave it to those that need. 100% capital gains taxed? Agh! Right there in the Bible. Right there in the Bible. But I already paid the taxes on the house. If we read a little bit more in the scriptures, we’d find out that that impressed the community so much the community grew and grew. People looked at them and said, wow, those Christians have got something going on there. Look at how they take care of each other. Look at how much they love each other. Look at how much there’s no one in need among them. What kind of craziness is this? It’s Christianity. That’s what it is.
You know, when it was time to get us straightened around, God didn’t send us down the checklist. He didn’t send us down the Ten Commandments and saying “Don’t do these things and you’re cool.” He doesn’t send down and say that these are the seven deadly sins, don’t do them and you’re good with me. He didn’t even send down four spiritual laws. He didn’t send down the sinner’s prayer. None of that stuff. Zero paperwork, obviously. I’m afraid God is not a Presbyterian or there would have been more paperwork involved. He sent a person. He sent a person to show us how to live, how we should live with one another.
Did you know that Jesus healed people with preexisting conditions? How un-American! I hate to even ask if they were employed, and if it was an employer’s plan or not. He healed people that didn’t deserve healing. He healed the Roman servant, the occupier. Because guess what? It’s not God’s will that anyone suffers from lack of health care. And that’s up to us. We can retain that sin in our society, or we can get rid of it. Other countries have. Are we worse than other countries? I think we’re better than everybody because I was born here so obviously we’re best. Why can’t we get this done?
You know, we’ve just got used to children dying in massacres by guns. By mass shootings. Remember when we used to be all upset, and we prayed at church, and we stopped church, and we had special prayers and services. And now it’s just another one. Because we decided to retain that sin and not get rid of it. Again, other countries have. Other countries had one, one mass shooting and said, that’s it, everybody brings in your gun. They go, well, yeah, of course, you know, because why? Because guns don’t die, children do. And they brought them all in, turned them all in. Said no, we’re not going to retain that sin. We’re going to forgive it. We can do it. Or we can pray, oh, please, mental health people, not be mental healthy, little individual sins on individual people who, why doesn’t it stop? Unh-unh.
That’s not for this varsity group. We can take on the big game. We can say we’re going to get rid of sin. We’re going to make it safe to go to the mall, go to school, without being in a fortress. It’s our choice. Jesus said that. He came back from the dead to tell us that. We should listen. That wasn’t an easy trip. I think it was something important he had to tell us. Oh yeah, I forgot about the sin thing. I’ve got to go back. And he comes back, and he tells us, and what do we do? Um, I had lustful thoughts. I had an extra cookie. I murdered. Okay, that one. Don’t murder people. That’s a bad thing. But maybe not make it so easy to murder people. He came as a person, and people kept wanting lists from him, and rules. And he kept showing them how to live, over and over again.
Remember that woman caught in adultery? That’s in John, too. I’ll go over there. Remember they brought her. This woman was caught in adultery. Okay, time out, time out. Caught in adultery? Where’s the other person? I don’t know. I don’t want to get graphic. Family show. But it should be two people. So there’s a woman caught in adultery, and with some reason the other person’s gone. Don’t know what happened there. But here it is. Let’s stone her. Let the one without sin throw the first stone.
What does that mean about our punishment system, our penal code? What does that mean about cash bail? Why do we have cash bail? Only rich people get to get out of jail. Poor people, you go right in jail, and we’ll get around to you someday. It doesn’t have to be that way. Some states have abandoned cash bail. And guess what? Everything’s fine. Most people show up, same as much as cash bail. But think of this, not in terms of politics, but in terms of retaining sin and forgiving sin.
And another good thing about this, you know with the individual sin you can feel bad about yourself and be all upset and say, “Oh, oh, I’m just a weak person. I’m not a good person. I’m a sinful person. I’ve done these sins.” But if you’re understanding sin as like understanding that, if you’re a fish, you’re wet. To say we’re without sin is like a fish saying, what’s water? I’m not wet. It’s all around us. At one time it is comforting, and the other time it’s also challenging. And we’re just the people to meet that challenge.
Imagine, if you would, if people would look to us and say, “Look at those Christians, how they take care of people. Look how they’re doing nights off the streets. Look how they’re doing that.” Why can’t we be more like that as a society and say no. No one sleeps outside. No. And I’m not telling just pass the law saying it’s against the law to sleep outside. And it’s fair because, you know what, rich and poor are both banned from sleeping under the bridge. Fairness, American style.
What do we do? Acts gave us a taste. Acts gave us a taste of what it meant to care and love one another. Imagine people giving up their homes to make sure everybody had enough to eat and a place to sleep and a place to live. Imagine that. It can be that way. We’re so wrapped up in the sin, we can’t even see it. Like that fish in the water doesn’t realize they’re wet. Like me, who doesn’t understand that my privileges come from racism going back generations, when only white people were allowed to have good jobs.
But we don’t have to stay that way. We can’t give up. Jesus Christ offers us a way out. We celebrate that in communion. We say that the difference of sin, the way to get out of sin is to live a different way of life. To live in community. To live in love. Christ upon the cross. He looks down. He sees his mother Mary, and he sees who’s going to be destitute, and he sees the beloved disciples. And he said, “Behold your mother. Mother, behold your son.” What does that say about how we take care of the poor and elderly in our country? It says we take care of them like they’re our own because they are.
Way back in the Old Testament, in Leviticus 19:33, it’s a scripture. Look it up. It’s actually in the Bible, and it says you shall treat the foreigner in your soil as if they were native-born. Right there in scriptures, 19:33. If you don’t like a little rule thing, and you want a story, read Ruth. “Your people shall be my people. Where you go, I will go.” What does that say about immigration and refugees? It says a lot about what you believe are the privileges and rights of the native-born. There are responsibilities, not just rights.
Jesus comes to tell us how we live. And only by living in love, only living in community can we ever hope to get out of the sin that we all swim in, that’s been forced down to us by the institutions and the generations and the choices of others throughout time and space that’s made our society the way we are. They have chosen to retain sin instead of to let them go. But we don’t have to do that. We can be different.
There is a TV series, “Fargo.” I beg you do not watch it. It is terribly awful, violent. Don’t do that. I love it. And this, I’m going to spoil the ending for you. Because I would love if this was a spoiler for our society, too. We have the killer, the one that has been pursuing her all the whole series, the one that kills and maims without remorse or hesitation, with efficiency so cold it will give you nightmares, who comes into her house to kill her. And she invites him to dinner.
MAN: But the food was not food.
WOMAN: What was it?
MAN: It was sin. The sins of the rich. Greed, envy, disgust. They were bitter, the sins. But he ate them all. For he was starving. From then on, a man does not sleep or grow old. He cannot die. He has no dreams. All that is left is sin.
WOMAN: It feels like that, I know, what they do to us. Make us swallow like it’s our fault. But you want to know the cure? You’ve got to eat something made with love and joy.
Finish
Finisha sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service October 9, 2022via Zoom at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CAedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
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I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Fight, finish, and I’m going to go with fidelity because I can’t remember unless they all start with the same letter. So fight, faith, and fidelity. Those three things is what Paul lifted up. Or whoever wrote 2 Timothy. If you want to start an argument with anybody, just go up and say, “As Paul says in 2 Timothy.” Oh, my gosh, they all yell at you. Paul didn’t write 2 Timothy. That was somebody else, and the letter uses a totally different vocabulary
I had one guy in seminary that said, “Well, you see, Paul had that shipwreck. And when he had a shipwreck, he hit his head. And when he hit his head, his whole vocabulary changed. And so that’s why 2 Timothy doesn’t match up with the rest of the letters.” I thought it was a stretch, but whatever.
Whatever this was, this was somebody trying to say, or Paul saying, what Paul was like on the very last days, month of life. He had lost the first appeal. He had already been there. And it looks like where he’s sitting now he’s going to go off to be killed by empire for going against the king, going against – meddling with politics. Oh, my gosh. And so at this time he sort of looks back over his life, according to this author of 2 Timothy, and he says these three things. Instead of being upset or angry or depressed or giving up or regrets, instead he says three things: Fight, fidelity, finish.
Now, you can say the good fight is that he did it according to the rules, that he had the umpire with him all the way, the officials said he was okay, he counted the mats, he didn’t cheat and all that. I don’t think so. I think the good fight is something worth fighting for. Something that is worth fighting for is a good fight. John Lewis, a politician and a great leader of our country, talked about getting in, not fighting, he talked about getting in good trouble. He talked about good trouble, to get in good trouble. You could always tell John Lewis because when everybody else was out marching ready to get beaten up, bloodied, and tear-gassed, and they were in their work clothes for getting beaten up, bloodied, and tear-gassed, John Lewis was the guy in the suit. He came, he was serious.
And John Lewis was saying that if you see unfairness, if you see injustice, if you see someone being oppressed, you have a moral obligation to speak up, to walk, to shout, to call attention, to shout, to sit down, to demonstrate, all the things you can do to make that right, in fact, to get in good trouble. Good trouble. Trouble that is worthwhile for getting into. John Lewis, at the end, he had a book come out. And it kind of reminds me of 2 Timothy, you know, because it was a collection of his thoughts and essays. He’s supposed to have been involved, I don’t know much involved it was, at the very end of his life.
And the last book came out, it said: “Carry On.” Carry on. And his idea was that he would have a book, the last book of his life, to pass the torch to the next people, maybe some sitting here, to work for the good of the people, good of the country. Carry on. Fight the good fight. Stand up, speak out, get in the way. Get in trouble. Good trouble. I think that’s what Paul got in. He got in some good trouble.
I also want to talk about keeping the faith. Now, keeping the faith could be also, could be that you preserved, that you persevered through all your life, that you didn’t renounce Jesus, that you kept the faith. And, you know, kind of a personal inside yourself, all to yourself. But I like to think it’s more like fidelity, you know, kept the faith as – kept it the way it should be, preserved it. Kept it unadulterated. Kept it from being watered down. Kept it from being distracted. Boy, do we have a trouble with that now.
I mean, we’ve gotten rid of radios. Does anyone still listen to radio? One person. I have a weekly radio show, so I’m looking bad at all of you because I have the weekly radio. But remember you used to tune the radio? And you would tune it, and it’d go . And then you get, you just, you almost get it, and you tune it just in, and you can hear the message, you can hear the voice, you can hear the music and hear the program. But on either side was a lot of static. And they called that, when you just get it just right, and you just had the music, you just had the tones, you just had the sound, you just had the program, you just had the broadcast, and none of that other stuff, they called that “high fidelity,” that you could hear things with fidelity, only the message and nothing else. No other distractions. No other things that obliterated or changed the music.
Boy, do we have trouble with fidelity today with our faith. Horrible, awful trouble, so much static. I call it “white noise.” Have you heard the white noise? All lives matter . Just drowns out the suffering of the people of color, drowns out the suffering of indigenous people, drowns that all out with white noise. All lives matter . You will not replace us. Welcome the stranger. Love the stranger. Welcome the stranger. Help the captives. Welcome people to come in and goes, oh, we’ve got to have borders. Close the borders. Secure the borders. You don’t have a country. White noise. Covering it up and all.
It’s so hard to keep the faith, to have fidelity to the faith, to tune into faith and tune out everything else. I like to say the word “blasphemy.” You know what I hear? I come down through Minden from Carson City, and what’s up in Minden? They have a Save America rally. Now, you all may not be old enough, some of you, but I remember when they had a Save America rally, they were talking about the Savior Jesus Christ. Anybody remember Savior Jesus Christ, supposed to save America, save the world? He was the Savior. That’s fidelity. That’s keeping the faith. Saying something else, someone else going to save America? White noise. White noise.
Paul here says I didn’t let that white noise drown out the message. I kept it high-fidelity. I kept the faith. That’s one of the things that we are called to do, to keep the faith, no matter what happens, no matter what we go to.
Good trouble. Good trouble. What does that mean, taking those two together, high-fidelity to faith and getting into good trouble? Maybe it’s throwing out the whole idea that we don’t elect a President, we elect people who elect the President. What’s that about? I’m against that. What is it about where the leaders choose their voters? What in the world’s that about? And we’ve got to change the districts all around so I get the voters that I want to stay in power. The people in power get to choose who’s going to vote for them to keep them in power. It’s supposed to be the other way. The people are supposed to choose who’s the people in power. The people in power aren’t supposed to choose who’s voting for them. That’s just wrong.
Now, you can tell me, Christy, and you probably will, “Christy, you’re getting into politics. Oh, my gosh. Awful, terrible, awful.” Well, I follow the God that is the God and the Ruler of the Universe. And it’s not the entire Universe except the, you know, little parts of United States where we’re arguing about this issue, so God, you stay out of that part. The rest of the universe, cool. But this part right here, no. You’re not supposed to be there. Unh-unh. That’s white noise. That’s not getting into good trouble. People say, “Oh, Christy, that’s just being politically correct. You’re just being politically correct.”
You know, we had a good word for politically correct. It’s called compassion. It’s called empathy. It’s called looking at other people as ourselves, that feel what they feel, to understand what they’re going through, to be with them in their struggles and their oppression. That’s not politically correct. We had a good word, that’s compassion. And what are they advocating when they say no politically correct? What do they want? They want political corruption? I would much rather be correct than corrupt. So when someone says, oh, that’s just politically correct, oh, you’re for the corruption. You like politically corrupt. I would rather be correct.
If that doesn’t work, you talk to them about empathy. Don’t have to go inventing new words. I thought that was a horrible awful thing to do, to vet new words and change things. We had a perfectly good word called “compassion.” What does this look like? What does it look like when we don’t go with empire? What does this look like if we were kind of like Paul was in that he went up against empire probably preaching like this, in Valley and Lee Vining, got in trouble.
But what does Paul – what does it look like when we go up against empire and say all that stuff that you value, that you structure society, that you’re saying how people should live, that there should be slavery, that there should be oppression, that there should be winners and losers, that there should be huge wealth inequality, that we should worship the emperor to save the empire, instead of God to save the world. What does that look like? We’ve got a video. And we’ll probably see what it looks like. And this is the last part about finishing the race. What does it mean to finish the race? It’s not winning the race. It’s finishing the race.
Now, that is some good trouble. He went against the officials and the crowd and finished the race. He said that his dad came up and said to him, you don’t have to do this. You can quit. And he said, “Get me to Lane 5.” That was his lane. And he finished the race. 65,000 people, the entire crowd, got up and gave him a standing ovation. That was finishing the race. Wasn’t winning the race. And he says in later interviews, “I’d rather have the gold medal.” You’ve got to really admire his honesty.
But that’s what it looks like when we don’t go for the gold when our only motivation, our only thing is to win like the empire tells us to win, like the capitalism system tells us to win, that the one who dies with the most money, and we’ve got to keep trying to make sure that the rich gets even richer, and more and more goes up to the even tippy-top 1%. And everybody else gets crumbs. Winning at all costs. Going for the gold instead of going for community and support and helping one another so that we can all finish the race, instead of one or two winning the race.
John Lewis, Paul, Derek Redmon, all show us what it is like to not get into empire, to live the life of faith, to be faithful. Which is to fight good fights for good things. Get into good trouble when there’s something that needs to be called out, to be fixed, to be changed, for other people so that they can get into the race and finish the race. What it means to be fidelity to the faith when all the other noise attempts to drown it out, to still hit those clear tones and broadcast the gospel message of love your enemies. Do not kick them out. Help those that need help.
Later on I think if we remember we’re going to talk about in Presbyterian churches we say forgiveness of debts. But some people would tell us that forgiving debts of student loans was some kind of horrible awful thing. No one complained about forgiving the PPP loans, but that was different, I’m told. But every Sunday we are radicals. Every Sunday we get into good trouble. Every Sunday we say forgive us our debts as we forgive our debts. Because, well, that’s spiritual debts. Well, no, no. Forgive us our debts. That’s a very subversive thing.
Our people come from a place where honor and debts and money and thrift were very important, the Scottish people. And they chose to say forgive us the absolute worst thing, being in debt, as we forgive the absolute worst thing with others. That was some strong words that we prayed. Don’t let them be drowned out. Don’t let it be confused about who – we’re looking to save America – who we think the savior of the world is. Don’t let that be drowned out. Get in some trouble over it. That’s a good thing to get in trouble over. Stand up for those that are suffering. Call out for people that are suffering injustice or being put down.
Stay tuned in to the message and the faith of Jesus Christ. And you will finish the race. You may not win it, may not want it. But you will finish it. And God will keep you. And it’s not something that’s just one day. John Lewis says it’s not just – freedom isn’t just a place where we stop. It’s just not one day or one hour, or it’s not an election or presidential term. Freedom is a lifelong pursuit. It’s a race that we’re all looking to finish together. Amen.
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Defensive Weapons
Defensive Weaponsa sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service September 18, 2022via Zoom at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CAedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Luke 21:5-19
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Take a look at that cover of the bulletin. And I can see you on Zoom, whether you do it or not. There’s a beautiful temple with some beautiful stones. The key thing is, that does not exist. That was not even in the mind of a human. That was made by a computer. I told a computer to paint me a beautiful temple. And that’s what it did.
So this is an imaginary temple that’s beautiful that’s on the front of our cover, that never existed. What is our beautiful temple? What one would we point out to Jesus, or Jesus would see us honoring and say, look at the beautiful things, by the special gifts dedicated to God. What is your beautiful temple? We have the computers one. What would yours be? Would it be your home? Could it be your home? Do you have a wonderful home, perhaps passed down through the family? Would it be family and grandchildren? Would it be your marriage? Would it be those that you love, some that are here and some that have gone on? What would be your beautiful temple, your place of honor and respect and safety and admiration? Would it be your country? It could be your country. For some it’s the alma mater, at least the football team of the college they went to.
Or maybe it’s a church. Could it be a church? Some people live for the church. Does it help you to realize that when Luke is writing this, finishing up writing it, and when the people are reading it for the very first time, fresh off the parchment, does it help you to realize that at that time the temple was already destroyed? When people first read Luke, the temple was already destroyed. Stones were already disaster, and it’s already a ruin. So for them, for the first readers, and actually for Luke as he writes it, this is not – they would not experience this as a prediction of things to come, but rather as an explanation of things that just happened of the recent past.
What beautiful things have you lost? What do we idealize in the past that we wish were there, that we thought was there, that we thought was eternal and withstand the test of time, and we could put our hopes and our faith and our safety in, but is now gone? Like it would be for the people first hearing this scripture? If we can figure out what that is, we can figure out how the original hearers, the first readers, the intended audience would take this. That’s one part of it.
The next part of it talks about all the attacks on Christians. Or it doesn’t talk about attacks on Christians. It talks about how terrible things would come, and folks that have just experienced the destruction of the temple would certainly recognize this and certainly identify with it. But I want you to think about the phrasing that’s used. And maybe it’s not true to the test. But it certainly spoke to me very profoundly because it talks about attacks on people because of Christ’s name.
Now, what if it wasn’t the attacks on people bearing Christ’s name, and they got attacked because of it? What if we read it another way? What if we thought that people were using Christ’s name to attack others? What if because of Christ’s name, there was attacks taking place? That is easily read in the way, if you look through the scriptures, it says there’s attacks because of Christ’s name.
Well, who’s attacking whom? Is it the Christ name people attacking those without Christ’s name? Or is it others attacking those that had Christ’s name? We always assume the latter, that we’re the persecuted and the martyrs, the ones under attack. And people love to flock to this when a store says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” and their beautiful temple is threatened with destruction. But what if it wasn’t that? What if the attacks were because of Christ’s name? Here’s a little clip. If technology likes us, we will be showing a little clip from the 2003 film called “Saved.” I hope it works well. Let’s see what we can do here.
The gospel is not a weapon. Or this is not a weapon. I wish they would have said the Bible’s not a weapon, or the gospel. That’s from “Saved” in 2003. It seems kind of prophetic to me for today. I mean, who is suffering from the Christians? Who’s being attacked by the Christians? I think I can find more examples of that than I can find examples of the horrible awful trauma imposed upon us by seeing “Happy Holidays” at some places.
Is it the immigrants? Do immigrants because of the CHINOs – I call them CHINOs, you know, Christians In Name Only. The immigrants got bussed up to Martha’s Vineyard, political pawns, with lies, and were registered in homeless shelters throughout the nation. And they had appointments in Texas and Washington D.C. and Georgia for Monday morning and were shipped up to Martha’s Vineyard for Saturday. By Christians. You know, immigrants, like Jesus. Is it white people or brown people? Brown people like Jesus. Is it people that have nice homes or the homeless that are swept off the streets like, you know, homeless, like Jesus, didn’t have a place to be born? Is it Christians that get attacked, or non-Americans? You know, like Jesus. Pretty scary. But scary for different ways.
I mean, I’m a martyr. That’s my spiritual gift. You know martyrdom is a spiritual gift? I think it’s a one-time use thing. I don’t know. But I, you know, I’ll suffer. And I kind of know about that and kind of being a pastor and a church leader and, you know, I kind of understand a little bit about suffering for your faith and heard about stories and inspirations and all that, and I understand that. But suffering because of your faith and then having other people use the faith so other people suffer. I don’t want to face that. I don’t like that. That’s worse to me than the other option, that folks are being attacked because of Christians.
I’m going to try to share the screen now. Put your – how’s that? Do you see a quote up there? Yeah.
This is Jamie Raskin. He’s Jewish and identifies as a Humanist, as well. This is from 2006. “Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.” That should give us pause as Christians.
You know, Jamie’s a Jew, and according to Jews or according to their tradition, they’re religious in the following of their faith. They are required, they are required by their religion to prioritize the life of the mother over the life of the fetus, of the unborn child, of the developing embryo, whatever names you choose. They are required that when the choice comes down to it, that they must prioritize the health and life of the mother. That’s against the law. They can go to jail now for practicing their religion. From Christians.
I mean, for 50 years it was fine. I mean, we had a – I read Roe v. Wade back when it was passed in the ‘80s, studied it, came to terms with it as a way the nation can go forward, accommodating all religions and not just imposing one understanding, a very narrow understanding, a biblical understanding of life on everybody else because freedom of religion is not the freedom of other people to practice my religion. That’s not freedom of religion.
When folks got so upset about this issue or that, and the Christians came after me and talked to me about, oh, my gosh, it’s against God’s will, that gay marriage, for example. And I’d tell them, you know, it’s okay if you do not participate in gay marriage. You can still keep your own marriage. You know you’re allowed to do that. But somehow freedom of religion has changed to freedom for other people to practice my religion. And that’s not good. And people are attacked because of Jesus’s name. But it’s not the Jesus’s name people. It’s the people with Jesus’s name that are attacking.
Did you know that insurance companies now are allowed, according to a recent court case, not to cover preventative medicine for HIV because the company does not approve of homosexuality? And said, well, that helps the homosexuals not die from doing things I don’t believe in, so I don’t want to pay for the not dying medicine. I want to let them die because they don’t believe the way I do. That is very troubling to me as a minister, and I’m going to trouble you with it because I’m troubled. I see that as an attack in Jesus’s name, on folks that are vulnerable. And I don’t like it, and I’m going to preach against it.
But I don’t want to leave you with that. I try not to be all terrible awful, even though I’m three hours away, if you got in the bar, really mad, got in the car, start down, it’d be three hours before you got here. But there are other good things in this scripture that you might have missed, as well. But let me point them out. There’s hope in this scripture, and endurance in this scripture, and even advice in this scripture. It’s so good that the disturbing parts kind of uncover it.
One of the advices there that is really good to me – remember I say my spiritual gift is martyrdom, and I always go looking for opportunities to practice my spiritual gift, which means I’m always on the defensive, always looking for someone attacking me, so I can be a martyr, so I can be defensive. And I’m not going to get into it. I pay someone to listen to me twice a month so you don’t have to listen. But what it talks about there is it talks about defense. Do not prepare a defense in advance.
Oh, my gosh, is that a hard one for me. I’m always preparing a defense in advance. I’m ready for all your objections to the sermon. Sometime last week I was ready in my head because I prepare a defense in advance. And God said don’t do that. Don’t prepare a defense in advance. Wow. Instead, it says I will give you words and wisdom. And it’s important those are both because wisdom, we think of wisdom as pithy sayings. We think of wisdom as little bon mots, little tiny little things to say that, oh, my gosh, I need to put that up on a poster and put it as my desktop background or something.
But that’s not wisdom in the Bible. Wisdom in the Bible is so much more than words. Wisdom is a way of being in the world. Wisdom is a way of being open to others, to God, and of course to the possibility that I might actually be wrong. Wisdom is listening to others. Wisdom is taking advice. Wisdom is listening to God, to the situation, and finding a way through it all, that mess. Wisdom is openness. Defense, on the other hand, if you’re being defensive, you’re going to shut down, shut out, build the gates around, build up the walls, reinforce your own beliefs, take away all the other advice, put down anybody else because you’re defending. And God said don’t do that.
Consider that defense is the opposite of wisdom. If you’re preparing your defense, you’re going away from wisdom. If you don’t allow other people in, if you do not see other folks living their lives, if you do not allow other people their pronouns, even though you don’t understand it, what’s the big deal? If you go in defensive about that, go, well, I’m not doing that, you’re going away from wisdom. Wisdom is openness. Wisdom is learning. Wisdom is listening to God. And wisdom is paying attention to others. Wisdom is paying attention to what God is doing in the world. Wisdom is listening to other people’s stories and their faith and their understanding. That’s wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. It’s a way of being in the world. And it’s not being defensive. If you know it all, you’re not going to learn anything.
I think the difference could be in the phrase of “that’s different.” Have you ever been told when you were talking to someone or arguing with someone, let’s be honest, and you said, well, what about this, you know, the what-abouters? And you say, “Well, that’s different.” Well, now, the thing between defense and wisdom is how that is used in the conversation. Is it that’s different, period, end of sentence, go away, you bother me, gates are shut, the walls are up, I’m defensive, you’re not going to get in here because, you know what, that’s different. So that stops everything. Okay, that’s defense.
But you know it could also be the beginning of wisdom. That same phrase with different ways of saying it could be the beginning of wisdom because you can say it with curiosity instead of condemnation. You can say it as, not as a curse, but as an invitation. You could say, well, that’s different. I never thought of that before. Let’s talk about that. I didn’t consider that point of view. There, there’s wisdom. So when someone says to you, “Well, that’s different,” you can say, “Thanks for noticing,” and continue the conversation about the differences we have in our faith, our life, our experience and where we go and how we live together. “That’s different.” “Well, thanks for noticing.” Let’s talk about that. Because as we talk and we learn, that is the beginning of wisdom.
And Jesus, in the scripture it says here that – and Jesus prompts us, is that how you will endure? And if we’re thinking the way I’m thinking, that you endure the attacks of Christians, or as I call them, CHINOs, which are not a comfy, cotton-based pant, but rather Christians In Name Only, what are you going to do? You can be defensive, and I want to be defensive. I mean, I’ve got a scripture and a commentary for every scripture they got, buddy boy. They come at me with some abortion scripture, I’m going to show them Numbers 5 because right there looks like a prescription for abortion according to God, right there in Numbers 5. Oh, you never read Numbers 5? I read the whole Bible. Go ahead. Try me. I can do that all day long.
But that’s not wise. What’s wise is to be open to other things and to live our lives according to respect, admiration, and to get along with other people, to realize that our freedom of religion does not mean everybody else has to follow our religion. That’s not what this America is for, not what the country’s for, not what Jesus desires for us. Jesus does not desire us to attack others in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus I’m passing this law, so you all have to be Christian. No, no. I reject that. I hope you do, too. Because the more that we are defensive about our faith, the more we’re going to retreat from wisdom.
Wisdom is what’s going on? What is God doing in the world? Where is God working in my life and in the lives of others? What could be the best for all the people, not just my people? That’s very difficult to do, especially for me when my spiritual gift is martyrdom, and I want to stop everybody from attacking me, and anyone who doesn’t live like me must be attacking me. But no. Jesus says no.
So I hope you consider flipping this scripture around and not look so much at checking off, oh, my gosh, here comes another attack against Christians, checkmark, checkmark. Because you can do that. You can be defensive. Don’t do that. You’re going to reduce your wisdom. Instead, flip it around and watch how we, Christians, in Christ’s name, attack others. How we turn families against one another in Jesus’s name. And how we prepare defenses when we should be preparing to listen and to be open to the wisdom of others.
Friends, you will endure. There is good news in this scripture today. It’s not just all about calamities and disasters. And remember that even then, if you remember that the temple was already destroyed when they were reading this, it wasn’t so much about let’s know the future and have a peek at what God’s doing in the future, and we can tell, and we have extra special knowledge that no one else does; but rather it was let’s try to understand where we are here and now and what we’re suffering here and now, and what our challenges are here and now, that we could be open to what God is doing in the world here and now with one another. Not gather our battlements around our beautiful temple and wonderful gifts and stones, but realizing that God is not there, and that it’s already gone, but what is left is not to be defensive, to be wise and listen to others and see God’s work in the world and know that we will endure if we follow God instead of our own defenses.
Thanks.
Amen.
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Believe
Believea sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service August 14, 2022at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CAedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Luke 16:19-31
Sermons also available free on iTunes
I want to talk to you about truth. And why we can’t believe it. Why we have so much trouble with it. Now, again, I must warn you in these times that if you think truth and lie is political, you get another political sermon today. Hopefully it’s not as long. But if you think that truth is a good thing for Christians to consider when we follow the guy, the savior, the son of God that calls himself, what?, the way, the truth, and the life, well, then this is a faithful sermon. I mean, after all, truth is Jesus’s middle name. We should be able to talk about that as Christians.
What is going on in this scripture? Is this the weirdest scripture ever? Is it true? Ooh. That’s a tough one. If you’re saying, Christy, is it true, is this a transcript of a conversation between heaven and hell and between Abraham and the rich man who has no name, and Lazarus, who doesn’t say a word in the whole darn story, is that true? Is it a transcript? Did Fox News have a reporter there transcribing everything? Was it on a podcast? Was it captured by a secret recording device? Is there video? If there’s video, didn’t happen. If you say all that about being true, well, I don’t know. If you’re saying, Christy, is this a roadmap to heaven and hell? Is this a way to figure out how we could go with heaven and hell? Can we measure the actual chasm? How deep is it? How wide? Can we sing about it deep and wide or what? Is it true that way? I’m not so sure.
And maybe even step back further, and you say, Christy, Christy, is this all about heaven is a place where those who have a lot get tormented, the rich get tormented, and those that have suffered get comfortable, so it’s okey-doke, the great wealth inequality and divide today, because after all it’ll get all sorted out in the afterlife? Is that what this scripture’s about? Now, most preachers will tell you that the whole thing is on the last one, that even if someone would rise from the dead, they would not believe them. Jesus is kind of predicting what would happen when he comes back from the dead and people don’t believe him. But I don’t know if Jesus was really thinking about that when he told the story.
What is true in this story? Strangely, I think what is true is the last line, that people don’t believe based on evidence, based on what they see and what they know. They do it the other way around. We don’t take a whole bunch of little evidence and then come up with the truth. We don’t do that as a people, as a species, as human beings. We don’t do that. We’re not like a whole bunch of scientific instruments and measurements and rulers and spectrographs and that we figure out what is true. We’re not like the James Webb Telescope where we look out, we take those photons and assemble them into galaxy and the truth of the universe. We don’t do that.
There is a book called Noise that just came out, and it’s by a really big thinker named Daniel Kahneman. Here’s what he said on Science Friday in July.
We have the wrong idea about where beliefs come from, our own or those of others. We think we believe in whatever we believe because we have evidence for it. Because we have reasons for believing.
Reasons. When you ask people, why do you believe that, they are not going to stay silent. They’re going to speak. They’re going to give you reasons that they are convinced explain their beliefs.
But actually the correct way to think about this is to reverse it. People believe in reasons because they believe in the conclusion. The conclusion comes first for us humans. And the belief in the conclusion in many cases is largely determined by social factors. You believe that people you love and trust believe, and you find reasons to believe it. And they tell you your reasons for believing that, and you accept the reasons. For this larger social phenomenon it is not an error of reasoning because reasoning isn’t involved until after you’ve made your decision and conclusion.
And that, by the way, is true to your beliefs and my beliefs. Your beliefs and my beliefs reflect what we’ve been socialized. It reflects the company we keep. It reflects our belief in certain ways of reaching conclusion, like a belief in the scientific method. Other people just have different beliefs because they’ve been socialized differently. And because they have different beliefs, they accept different kinds of evidence. And the evidence that we think is overwhelming just doesn’t convince them of anything. And it’s only gotten worse. With social media and streaming services, you know, when I grew up there were three networks. Four if you counted UHF, but who watches news on that? There were three networks and the paper, the newspaper. That was it. That’s all you got.
But now you can fine-tune your reality down to the very last demographic got point. If you want to see only Trump news all the time, just switch on this channel. Or you get this Facebook feed. And Facebook tracks how long you watch things, and they’ll show you more like that. YouTube’s even worse, that the more you watch stuff, the more of that kind of stuff you get. So suddenly you’re in a very tight little bubble of social news and information that you are not exposed to anything else. And of course when you’re clicking on it, you’re clicking on stuff that interests you that already support your conclusions and what you think. And we’re just never going to get to the truth.
So in Twitter, I don’t know if anybody has Twitter. But on TweetDeck, if you click on an article that said, an article, whatever you wanted to call it. It’s terrible awful. You click on it and say I want to retweet this. I want to pass it on. Twitter will stop you now and say, uh, do you want to read that first, before you send it out to everybody? How do I know that? Oops. We come to a conclusion, and then we find reasons.
So you say to yourself, you see, so how can people believe the Big Lie? It’s obvious to me that the election was fair. I mean, they’ve had 60 court cases, and we’ll go after our reasons one after another. But it doesn’t matter because we went from conclusions to reasons, not reasons to conclusions. And the other people do the same way. Of course it was stolen because there was boat parades and Trump is the greatest ever and he told us that it was stolen. They have all these reasons, too. But it doesn’t really matter because they started, just like us, with the conclusions, and then went for the reasons afterwards.
What can you do if our whole life, our whole belief system, the way we live, the way we look at the world, the way we vote, the way we talk to another, is conclusion first, reasoning to support it after? What is there to do?
There’s a great movie, the video’s coming out. There’s a great movie called “Secondhand Lions” from 2003. I highly recommend it. It got a little punchy in places, but not so bad compared to today. And one of those things is there’s a mystery of the two men and where the heck they come from. They were gone for 40 years. They supposedly have a lot of money, like buried treasure money. And where they’ve been 40 years, supposedly they were in Africa and had these wild adventures. And they were telling them to their great-nephew Walter. And Walter confronts Hub about those stories in our clip today.
WALTER: Those stories about Africa, about you. They’re true, aren’t they.
HUB: Doesn’t matter.
WALTER: It does, too. Around my mom, all I hear is lies. I don’t know what to believe.
HUB: If you want to believe in something, then believe in it. Just because something isn’t true, that’s no reason you can’t believe in it. There’s a long speech I can give, and it sounds like you need to hear a piece of it. Sometimes things that may or may not be true are the things that man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. They find courage and virtue in everything. The power and money, money and power mean nothing. The good always triumphs over evil. I want you to remember this. Love, true love never dies. Remember that, boy. Remember that. Doesn’t matter if it is true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in. Got that?
WALTER: That was a good speech.
HUB: Think so? Thanks.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. You can still believe in it. Do we agree on that? If we choose what we believe, and then find reasons to come to that? Why do we believe? We can say, well, we’ve been socialized to believe the Bible and the scriptures and the Savior and the stories and Sunday school and all that stuff. But you know, that’s what our friend the author says. But you know he doesn’t go far enough because it’s not just what we believe and what we experience and what we figured out, what we socialized. I don’t think so. I don’t think it gives enough thought to it, too.
Because, you know, what we believe is partly what we talk about is what the received canon is, what the received faith is that goes, not just what we know, certainly hopefully not just the faith is based only on what we’ve experienced, but it’s through the history of the church and thousands of years, and experiences that go all the way back to those that actually knew Jesus and those that were with him and around him and around the witnesses that wrote the gospels. And it comes back through us through thousands of years. So it’s not just what we experience, but what the church has experienced, the people have experienced. You know, it’s like having blue checkmarks on Twitter, you know, these are verified sources that we believe in.
But I think he’s right in that we don’t believe things because we actually found Noah’s Ark and its preserved wood, and we did carbon dating, and we found all sorts of animal food, and all sorts of different debris from animals, and so we know that was Noah’s Ark, and so we know it – no, we don’t do that. That part’s true. We believe what we believe because of what we see in the lives of other people, not just social things, but how we see other people live out their lives.
There was a woman named Terry. Terry came to the church I served. Terry did not believe in God. She was right out front saying she did not believe in God. But oh my gosh, she was there every Sunday. So she was there every Sunday with her partner, who was a big God believer. And she came, and she listened. For years she listened to me yell at her. I mean preach, like I do. And she finally came in to be baptized – she was in her fifties – and accepted Jesus Christ, not because it was proven to her, but because she saw the difference in the life of her partner and the friends and the church. And she saw what it meant to others, people, what it prompted other – her partner was a great deacon, leader of the deacons, just always helping people everywhere, all the time.
And she was baptized, became a member, elected to Session, served on Session. And then when I left that church she was my reference. And it wasn’t because I proved Christianity to her by the four spiritual laws or anything else that led from reasoning to conclusion. It was because she had the conclusion, you know, this Christian thing seems to be working out pretty good for these people. They’re pretty good people that are around here. And she went that way.
You know Jesus doesn’t really give an entire theological course. The systematic theology of Jesus is not a thing in the Bible. He doesn’t say one after another, how does the trinity work. He doesn’t say how does salvation work. He doesn’t even say what effectual calling is, and we get tested on that in seminary, and there’s nothing from Jesus on it. He doesn’t say anything. What does he do? He tells stories about people and their lives and how they live and how they treated other people. And he says this is the way that people treat one another. This is the way the kingdom is. This is the way people work out.
He healed people. He healed the sick. He didn’t say “Give me your testimony, and also you’re going to have to be baptized. You’re going to have to do” – no, he healed the sick, whoever was brought to him. He healed the Roman servant, the Roman, the occupier, the military, the colonizer, the one that beat down and will eventually kill him. He healed the servants. Are we going to say “friend”? That’s another sermon. There’s no faith there. But he was showing them how we live in the kingdom.
So you’ve got some friends, one way or the other. I don’t know which way they are. We are not going to take a survey. I will be checking your cars for bumper stickers later and taking notes. But you’re not going to change one way or the other by arguing them with proof and conclusions. I mean, just look at the things going on. They go down to Mar-a-Lago and do an FBI raid. And there’s all, “Oh, a raid, it’s terrible, it’s awful, what the heck are you doing there? There’s nothing there.” And they go, “Well, okay, there were boxes of classified secrets.” Oh, yeah. “Oh, it was obviously planted. It’s not really that important.”
Evidence doesn’t matter because we’ve already come to a conclusion, and we’re just looking for reasons to support it. So what Hub tells us, and what Jesus tells us, and what I’m telling you, is that choose straight up what you’re going to believe. And then go around the world making that happen, making reasons for other people to believe that what you write is true.
If you believe all people are basically good, what are you going to be looking for? You’ve going to be looking at evidence that all people are basically good. That’s a pretty good way to spend your life. If you believe that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything, that is what you’re going to work on. You’re going to work on being honorable, being courageous, being virtuous. And you’re going to be looking for that in other people, and pointing that out, and lifting that up, and celebrating that.
If you believe that money and power, power and money mean nothing, you go live your life that way. And you go look for reasons why money and power, power and money mean nothing. If you believe good always triumphs over evil. I always like the saying
“In the end, everything will be okay. If it’s not okay, it’s not yet the end.
~Fernando Sabino, translated from Portuguese, popularized by John Lenon.
You’ve got to be looking to do that, looking for reasons to believe that, to celebrate that, to promote that, to pass it along. The same thing with true love. True love never dies.
And there are problems in the scripture. We could go on and on. I know you like long sermons, but what’s going on in that scripture. But, you know, even if you hear the sermon about oh, my gosh, he’s ordering Lazarus around even though Lazarus is dead and kind of not his servant anymore because, you know, dead. You know, and he doesn’t even treat him, he won’t even go himself, he doesn’t even ask himself, oh, Abraham, forgive me for being such a big jerk. That would be a whole different sermon there, if he did that. But it’s a story, and Jesus was telling us that people don’t come to faith by people telling them and arguing with them about how they’re wrong and how they should live different. It comes from us living different, from us choosing what we believe and living that way, of getting our conclusion and then making the reasons in world and in their lives to support that conclusion.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful, if we were the proof that faith and courage and virtue were the most important, that power and money mean nothing, and that true love is forever, never ends. Wouldn’t that be great if that was our conclusion, and we spent our life coming up with reasons why that’s true? Much better than arguing with other people about how that should be because, even if someone comes back from the dead, they’re not going to believe it. But they will not believe it. But we can live it, and we can pass it on by our lives.
Amen.
Barns
Barnsa sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service July 10, 2022at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CAedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Luke 12:13-21
Sermons also available free on iTunes
(Transcipt being prepared.)
Choices
Choicesa sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service June 12,2022at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CAedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Luke 10:38-42
Sermons also available free on iTunes
(Transcipt being prepared.)
What Does It Mean
What Does It Meana sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service May 8,2022at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CAedited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Acts 2:1-21
Sermons also available free on iTunes
Right about below the middle there, you see that, all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” That’s Acts 2:12. For many years I had that as my license plate, ACTS212. And people, you know, what does this mean, amazed and perplexed. And people would come up to me, and they would point at my license plate, and they would say, “What does this mean?” And I said, “Exactly.” Yeah, they didn’t laugh either. But I enjoyed it. It was fun for me. It was self-referential. They’d look at that, were confused and perplexed, and they said, “What does this mean?” And I said, “You’re absolutely right. You got it. What does this mean?”
What a great attitude to go through life. I mean we have here a wonderful, amazing occurrence where everything is turned upside down. Have any of you had anything like this in the last two years? You know, where you thought you knew what was going on, but now things are closed, things are changed, you can wear a mask, you can’t wear a mask, you’d better wear a mask, get a vaccine, not a vaccine, oh, my gosh, spinning all around. You’ve got to bleach down everything. Oh, no, it’s breathing.
Oh, my gosh, everything’s messed up. The government’s going to give you money to not go to work. Well, that used to be bad. I heard that was bad earlier. That was a bad thing. No, everybody’s going to – oh, okay. I don’t understand. We’re going to give you loans, but you don’t have to pay them back. Well, that’s not really a loan, is it? I don’t think. Everything’s turned upside down. Everything’s crazy. Just like here.
And you know, you look at all these residents of Mesopotamia and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, and you just say, oh, my gosh, I’m glad I didn’t have to read scripture today. That’s one of the worst scriptures to – you don’t like someone in your church, and you’re a pastor, you say, “Hey, would you like to do the scripture for Pentecost?” “Oh, why, thank you, that’s quite the honor.” Oh, yeah, quite the honor. Then they get to the Acts, and they go, “Oh.”
The strange thing besides the strange words here, if we were in the crowd, if we were reading the scripture when it originally was written, we would say, hold on there. Those people have been gone for centuries, for generations. In here, they said there are people here where nations haven’t existed for generations, for hundreds of years. How could there be people from nations that aren’t around anymore? Peoples that have been exterminated, that have been extinct, wiped out. They’re in the list. Amazing things. And it’s not just because of that, but because everybody hears in their own language.
Now, you may think, well, you know, the Pentecostal church, I know what that is, that’s where everybody gets up, and they start speaking the heavenly language no one can understand but angels. Well, sure. But that’s not this. This is the opposite of that. It’s not about the teaching. The only tongues that we talk about are tongues of fire, not tongues in your mouth. The miracle here is the miracle of listening, of understanding, that everybody, no matter where they’re from, no matter what time they’re from, no matter what country they’re from, whether they’re Jews or not Jews, everybody hears in their own native language the almighty powers of God.
It’s a reversal of Babel. Remember Babel back in Genesis, a great story back there, in that when people got together and said we’re going to make a name for ourselves, we’re going to build up this great big tower all the way to heaven. And then when we get up to heaven we’re going to knock the gods off the throne, and then we’ll be gods up there. You know, it was kind of like a coup. And God looked down and said, “No, we’re not. You guys have gotten too big. We’re going to divide your language so you can’t speak to one another, can’t understand one another.” And so all the nations of the world were divided.
And here at Pentecost, all the nations of the world are united, all hearing about God’s deeds of power. What do you do when things are crazy? What do you do when things don’t make sense? You can be like people in the scriptures. The first one says they’re amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? You can be amazed. Have you heard about “Amazing Grace”? Anybody heard about “Amazing Grace”? I’m checking to see if you’re still awake. No one’s awake. A couple. All right. Pretty good for the Bishop crowd. I often have to calm these people down. They’re like crazy up in the aisle shouting. I don’t know, did your sister tell you? They’re wild. They’re wild here.
All right. So anyhow, so are you amazed by grace? You see the grace, and you’re just, oh, thank you, Lord, that’s amazing. I’m just taken aback and taken along. I’m so glad to be here among you. That’s one way to go. You can look back and say, you know, I didn’t know that every pastor in every church could become a televangelist in a week. I would never have bet that. If you had told me in March of 2020 by next month every church, every pastor is either going to be on TV, on the computer screen, or there’s not going to be a service, I would say “That’s amazing. You’re crazy.” But it happened. Even little Bishop got a little Zoom, zooming around. Who would have thought?
There’s a church, I’m not going to say, well, Virginia City. There’s a church. They are very old up there. Anybody been to Virginia City? Oh, yeah, yeah. Everything’s old up there; isn’t it. Yeah. Now, the church is really old, and they’re very proud of being old. Okay, fine. They’ve got some beautiful stained glass windows. You want to see some colorful stained glass windows, you go to Virginia City. Pastels, they’re like 10 feet high, and they’re beautiful, and they love them.
So I go up there, and I say, okay, there’s a big old screen up here that they use in worship. That wasn’t there before. Putting things up on the screen in Virginia City. They’re still thinking, they’ve still got the gaslights in the wall in case it turns out this electricity thing was a fad. You know, they’re thinking it may stay here, it may not. But they have a big screen up, and they’re using PowerPoint. And I said, wow, well, at least we got the stained – and the stained glass window’s about – it’s got to be 20 feet in the back of the balcony, has this huge black curtain over it, and it’s shut. They put a curtain over the stained glass windows.
How many people have seen curtains over stained glass windows at church? I had not. I have been to many churches. I said, “Oh, I see you put a curtain over the stained glass.” And they said “Yeah, it was making a glare on the screen.” I was amazed and perplexed. Obviously, this was God’s working because nobody voted for that when I was there, and I was there for like 18 months when they were between pastors. What do you do when you see amazing things happen? You can be amazed and perplexed, and come in and ask, like I did, “What’s going on with the stained glass? What’s going on with you? What are you doing here?” You could be like that. Or you can be like, has anyone read YouTube comments? Anybody look in the comments section of any video? You have? Don’t do that. Where’s your parents? What is going on in YouTube comments? You’ve been – we’re talking later.
That reminds me when the teenagers would come up and talk to me after church was out. They would tell me about this movie. And, you know, and the movie was hmm, you know. So I would say,
“Do you think that movie would be appropriate for me to see?” And they would think, and they would say, “Well, I don’t know, Pastor, it’s a little sexy and has some violence.” Not at all getting the irony of it, but that’s all right.
So you can be like those YouTube commenters, and any commenters, and people that – and you know these people – always got something negative to say. And they were right there at Pentecost, weren’t they. “Oh, they’re just drunk. They’re just drunk. God’s not doing anything. There’s nothing special going on here other than they’re drunk.” And what would that be today? Well, maybe drunk. But you know what I think it would be today? “Oh, that’s just fake news. That’s fake news. That didn’t happen. I got it from QAnon there was no Pentecost. All those people with the tongues of flame, paid actors. Those tongues of flame, papier-mâché. I’m telling you, I heard it on the news channel.” Yeah. It’s absolutely true, not true. People can do that about what God is doing in the world. Their reactions can go beyond amazed and perplexed into confusion, into denial, into saying, oh, it’s all drunk, it’s all made up, it’s all fake news.
What did we go through this time? During the pandemic we had Black Lives Matter. That was amazing, to see that come up and to see the people witness to what they are putting up with and the death that they were suffering. And you heard people that were amazed and perplexed saying, “That went on with black people? I can’t believe that happened.” But there’s a video. And then you had people say, “Oh, my gosh, that’s fake news, that’s made up. They’re all drunk.” We had that, too, didn’t we.
And what about the MeToo movement? Something about not working all day and not going out all day got these things going somehow. The MeToo movement where women actually tried to tell men what they put up with every day. All the comments they get. All the little aggressions they get. All the things they’ve got to put up with. All the little lists they’ve got to do to stay safe that men don’t even think about. The MeToo movement. And what happened? Some were amazed and perplexed, saying, “What does this mean?” And others say, “Nah, they’re making too much out of all this, it’s politically correct.” You know what’s another word for politically correct? Compassionate. Compassion. Oh, you’re just being politically correct. They can just switch that around, say you’re just being compassionate to people that aren’t like you.
So what’s the solution? Well, Peter has it. Peter doesn’t come off too well in Luke. I don’t know if you know this. But I’ll tell you now, Luke was buddies with Paul. Paul and Peter, not the best of friends. Peter was more let’s everybody be Jews, plus Paul was we’re not doing any more of that Jew stuff. And they kind of got into this. And Luke was writing Acts, and he was on Paul’s camp. But in this one time Peter seems to get it, according to Luke Acts. And he says, “They’re not drunk. It’s only 9:00 o’clock in the morning.” I know some people that that wouldn’t stop. But you do? Anybody? That seemed to be persuasive back then. It’s only 9:00 o’clock in the morning. They’re not drunk.
But this is what God is doing. God has done this. God has given voice to the people that have been silent. God has given voice that we can hear the people that we exterminated. God has given voice to the people that are no longer part of this community or even of the world. God has given voice to them. And it’s what God has said all along, that the daughters and sons will prophesize, the old and young would do it. It’s all about God. You know you’ve heard about both-and-ism, bothism. You know, it goes, well, we do both sides. Well, there’s the other side. Well, you know, some say this and some say that. What’s the answer to all that both-and? Even if the other side is just crazy, divorced from any kind of reality, we’ve got to have both sides.
And what does that leave? Well, that’s he said/she said. Well, that’s two things going together, and you don’t know which one to go. I’ll tell you how to fix it. You fix it like Peter did. You don’t do both sides, you do God’s side. That’s what Peter said. Peter didn’t pick a side. He says, “I’m on the side of God.” This is what God is doing in the work. So you look at Black Lives Matter. You look at the MeToo movement. You look at any kind of movement or thing. You don’t say, well, some people say this, some people say that. You go and say, “What does God say? What does God want us to do? What is God speaking to us?”
You don’t have to pick a side. You already did by coming here. You picked God’s side. Do you think God wants people to be treated differently based upon the color of their skin? Based upon their heritage or their race? You think God wants that? No. You think God wants women to be harassed, to be afraid, to have to watch out for themselves all the time, to be taking choice between harassment and career advancement, or harassment and their own lives? Is that something God would want? No.
Pentecost is about the gift of the spirit, the gift of the spirit that allows us to listen to voices that have long been silenced, by society, by the world, by culture, by the church. And we can either be amazed and perplexed and saying, “What does this mean? What is God saying to us here?” Or we could say, “Fake news, they’re all drunk, continue on as normal.”
Some of the wonderful things in the church have opened up. People have got the experience of being homebound. Every church member in America got a little taste of what it’s like, of not being able to go to church on Sunday, of what it’s like to be homebound. I hope that we’re amazed and confused by that, and we say, what does this mean going forward? What can we do to help all the people that can’t come to church because of physical limitations, by distance, by employment.
Or maybe they just don’t like to be hugged. Oh, my gosh, I don’t like to be hugged. I endure being hugged. I’ve got issues. I pay someone to listen to it twice a month so you don’t have to. But what a wonderful thing it was to go to church and know I’m not being hugged. I don’t like to be hugged by people I don’t feel trust and safe and know for, I don’t know, 20, 30 years. We all got a taste of that. I hope we don’t forget. I hope we’re able to say, what does it mean to be a person that can’t be touched or can’t get a hug from a stranger, but still wants to come to church? What is it like to be a person that can’t leave their home? What is it like to be a person that through no fault of their own loses their job?
And I hope we don’t go back to saying, oh, that’s just fake news. They’re all drunk. We can just go on with what we’re doing. I hope we don’t waste these two years where we had a tremendous spiritual opportunity to be with people that we don’t see, that we ignore, that we’ve exterminated, that we have sidelined. We all had that experience during the pandemic. We had most of our, well, we had some of our privileges taken away.
That’s what it’s like, to be in a Pentecost moment, when everything is turned around, and of all the choices you have, I beg you, choose to say, what does this mean? What is God telling us here? What does this mean for the Church and for our lives? How can we listen to the people we’ve ignored, that we’ve thrown out, that we’ve taken out, not just from countries and racial groups in the Bible, but from the MeToo movement, from women, from people of color, from the unemployed, from homebound. From mothers. Do you know how difficult, most of you may know how difficult it is to be a mother and have a job? And how it’s not an issue at all to be a father and have a job?
One of the things that came out from that is that jobs are a lot more flexible now. People aren’t doing what they used to be doing. You’ve got to be here from this hour to this hour. You’ve got to move here. You’ve got to take this job here. You can only work here. Now everybody has a little higher expectations. Why do I have to be in the office every day? Why can’t I have flexible hours? I’ve got parents. I’ve got kids I’ve got to take care of. And we can do that. We’ve proved it. I hope we don’t waste that.
I think God was telling us many things during the pandemic. Well, maybe one of the things was, hey, take a look at the way you’re living. And people got away from the rat race, from working every day, from grinding out a living. And they looked around, and they said, you know, it’s not right that we’re treated this way. And we need to tell other people that. I hope we listen because listening is what Pentecost is about. Amen.
Here is a video of the version of this sermon given at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Reno, Nevada in May 2022.
Straining to Forget
Straining to Forgeta sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at the 9:30 AM Worship Service April 3,2022at Lee Vining Presbyterian Church, Lee Vining,CAand given that same day at 11 AM at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop, CaliforniaBoth Services were via ZOOM™edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Philippians 3:4b-14
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“Morning, Swimmers. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on a bit. Then eventually one of them looks over to the other and says, “Why did that oldster call us ‘swimmers’?” And the other fish said, “Don’t worry about that. What the heck is water?” (From the 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College by David Foster Wallace.)
We don’t think of society that we swim in all our lives. It’s invisible to us. Even though it’s all around, supporting us, hemming us in, up and down and all around. And Paul doesn’t think about society when he talks about his position in life. Paul’s terms are remote and romanticized. Pharisee? What’s the educational requirements of the Pharisee? Who is a Pharisee? What is a Pharisee? We might think we know, but we don’t. A medical procedure done on the eighth day? What does that matter? And what is the Benjamin tribe? Why does that make a difference? You know, you want to know, what does Paul sound like today? Well, I thought about it. And here’s my intro letter to the Presbyterians.
If anybody has confidence in being a preacher, it’s me. I was assigned male at birth and, bonus, identify as male. I’m a cisgender person, a heterosexual in a heteronormative culture. I can say who I love in any state, and I can hold hands with my beloved in public. I can tell a grade schooler in Florida that Betty Lynn is my wife, and I love her. And my marriage is just marriage, not straight marriage. And it’s recognized by hospitals, courts, insurance, and yes, the all-important wedding RSVP.
I’m a citizen from birth of the United States of America, of the Cleveland Browns people; a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant born of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. I’m not in danger of exile from the only country I’ve known because I was brought here as a child. Nor am I told sharply to “Speak American” when I use my native language, even though it is more native to this land by 15,000 years than the King’s English brought here by colonizers.
As to the law, I am a proud 48-year holder of a driver’s license and an insurance card. I hold the same country’s passport for the last 40 years. I’ve never been a refugee, an alien, or a migrant. I have a health insurance plan group number and have added recently a vaccine card with, yes, four shots recorded. My papers are so legit, I don’t need to show them when I use a check or credit card. As to zeal, ha-ha, I am a high school, Presbyterian College, and Presbyterian Seminary graduate, first-time passer of all five Presbyterian ordination examinations, an ordained Presbyterian pastor licensed to wed in four states and bury in all 50, recently elected by my Presbytery to Stated Clerk.
My religious holidays are federal holidays, and work and school closings and seasonal greetings follow my religious calendar. 93% of Americans celebrate my religion’s Christmas with me. How many times did you remember to wish others a Ramadan Mubarak this week? As to righteousness under the law, no felonies, not even a misdemeanor. A clear background check and a credit score above 750. Graduate of the Sheriff’s Academy. Not so much me, but thanks to my whiteness, I can drive at night. I can sit on a porch. I can jog any road, stand on a corner, and barbecue at a park without vigilantes or police involvement and a criminal record.
This is just normal for me. Maybe it’s normal for you. It’s a sea I live unaware that there is water all around me, holding me up. What is this water? This is just normal life. Maybe it’s normal for you. Maybe you rebel at cisgender, heteronormative, indigenous colonizers, the war on Ramadan, dismissing them as politically correct because that’s how normal works. You see, the way normal works is anything that isn’t white male-centered Christian with the big “C,” following heterosexual gender roles, is special, is identity politics, PC, not normal. This is the way we keep people in their place. We tell people what is normal as another way of saying, “Know your place. There’s no place for people like you in ‘normal.’”
Do you know there’s others in this world? For them, what I think of normal life for me, just a given, is seen by them, by the majority of the world, as a life of privilege. Sure, I work. But in that 50-yard dash to the finish line I started about 10 yards away from the finish. Others have to do a half marathon to do that 50 yards, or get to run with their shoes tied. Or, if they’re playing beach volleyball before 2012, they have to compete in bikinis, not shorts. Some have to run the race with their shoes tied or even chained because that’s the way the world is. That’s normal. What water? We’re just swimming here.
Now, many have said that Paul’s Letters Introduction is a rhetorical device, that being with Christ and the gospel is of so much greater value than the others. It is only as if the other’s trash. Do you know it’s a privilege to toss privilege in the trash? Only those with privilege can toss it. If you don’t have privilege, you are reminded often that you don’t have privilege to toss away. Only white folks can say they don’t see race. Society doesn’t give non-whites that option ever to forget. Yet even then, as we look at the whole Bible and the scriptural witness, Paul is not forgetting his normal privilege. His Roman citizenship comes in handy when he gets cross-wise with the local authorities. He claims it when he gets a chance, is using it to advance a gospel and help himself and others from punishment and even death. I guess if you’ve got it, privilege, flaunt it for the gospel.
Back in Acts 16 we see Paul in prison for freeing a woman from the owners that were exploiting her labor and her talents for their own benefit and profits. Christians getting in trouble for calling out folks getting rich by oppressing others. That’s in the Bible. They are accused of these Jews were causing an uproar against the customs that are illegal for us as Romans to follow. Law and order. We’re supposed to oppress these people and make money. It’s all in the law. It’s okay. In fact, it’s required. Acts 16.
And that wasn’t the only time he was arrested and used his Roman citizenship to spare himself. Ephesians, Philemon, Colossians, and Philippians are traditionally, this book itself is traditionally written during his arrest time, recorded in Acts 21 through 28. And there Paul is, again, upset and normal, being accused of bringing in Greeks. That’s right. Smuggling them foreigners, those illegals. Those people not like us that don’t belong here should go back where they belong. It’s almost as if he believes what he said in Galatians 3:28. Neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female. Neither male nor female? Paul. Yikes. You’d better stay out of Florida, buddy, with that gender fluid talk.
No doubt many of you are firing up the emails to explain to me how it’s spiritual and only for Christians, or anything else to smooth and dilute the message. But remember, if you think this message is smooth and diluted and not upsetting, remember Paul was beaten in prison and finally killed about it. The oppressors and the powerful and the empire knew that he wasn’t just talking about thoughts and prayers. I guarantee you, if Christianity doesn’t get you in trouble with the American Empire, the economic exploiters, and the gender norm police, consider you might be doing it wrong.
Gee, Christy. Just because you’re not in town, and safely away up there at Carson City, doesn’t mean you can make us feel bad about being white people. Geez. How in the world can we do this? How in the world can we be like Paul? I don’t want to go to prison.
You know, we have changed the normal; haven’t we? I mean, right now I’m sitting in Carson City, preaching to you in Lee Vining. And in about an hour I’m going to be sitting here still, but preaching down in Valley Bishop, if all goes well and the technical winds hold. We have changed.
I don’t know if ever you’ve been to Virginia City Sanctuary. I recommend if you ever are, stop in. J.P. will probably give you a tour. He lives across the street. But I was up there visiting. And I looked at their beautiful two-story, maybe story-and-a-half stained glass windows. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Well, I looked where it used to be. Because they have a thick black drape, at least 20 feet long, covering the stained glass window. My goodness. Jesus would roll over in his grave if he was in the grave.
And I talked to him about that. And I said, “Hey, the stained glass, you put a great big curtain over it, I see.” And he said, “Yeah, it was making a glare on the screen.” That is a miracle, friends and neighbors. That is such a change from the way we used to swim. Nothing would change. But they said, “You know, we need the screen. We need to include people that can’t be here anymore.” I’m glad to see you’re continuing it on, even though, “You don’t have to.” And I hope other churches figure out that this is a new normal, a new way of including people that can’t be included.
I know a recovery group that used to meet in the church, you know, classic meet in the church every week. And, well, the pandemic, the church closed, so they had to get on Zoom. And you know what they found out? Their attendance doubled. They got more newcomers in six months than they did in six years in a physical location. Turns out people are more comfortable seeking help and being real and vulnerable when they don’t have to go into a church and be in person. Something for us to think about. Is our goal to change people’s lives, to offer help for the hurting? Or is our goal to fill up a physical presence and keep it in a room?
Privilege isn’t a horrible thing. Everything I said I’m sinfully proud of. And I’m sure everything Paul said wasn’t bad things. They were good things. But they’re not the only thing. And they’re not the only way to be in the world. And what’s normal for me is not normal for others. For others it’s privilege.
And when those other people say they would like the things that I take for granted, when my daughter wants to have the picture of her partner on her desk at school without being called to the principal’s office and a parents’ meeting, I take that for granted. She has to fight for it. When some people say I just want to see the people in church, I want to hear the sermon, but they’re sick or disabled or traveling, or just too much time and energy for an aged body to put out every Sunday, I take it for granted. I go to church. Why doesn’t everybody else? When my friend is at his girlfriend’s house and steps out on the porch and then goes back in the house, only to get the police called upon him and to get arrested because, you see, he’s black, and she’s white, and he must have broken in. I can go out on my porch all the time. It’s normal for me. Perhaps it’s a privilege for others.
You know, Paul doesn’t say he gave up privilege. He doesn’t say that it was all in the trash and was over and done, he snapped his fingers, and suddenly he’s a wonderful person and just opened everybody and Jew to Jew and Greek to Greek and all that good stuff. But no. He said he strives. He talks about how he hasn’t attained it yet. He talked about his struggle in Philippians about how he hasn’t attained it, how he keeps on trying to get there, and he knows that the future promises something, that he is worthwhile, struggling with all this stuff and society in this life. And so too with us. I know it is with me.
I was at a Presbytery down in Las Vegas, and we walked to a restaurant for a lunch with one of the people seeking to become part of our Presbytery. And one of the women had to go back to the meeting for another meeting, and she left and walked back alone. You know, I didn’t think anything of it. But the other people at the table were [gasp], “She’s walking alone? That’s not a good idea.” I guess women can’t walk places I can walk. It’s normal for me to walk through the city. It’s not something that over half our population can do without thinking.
Paul also said something in Corinthians 9:22: “To the Jew I became as a Jew. To those under the law I became as one under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law. To the weak I became as the weak. I’ve become all things to all people so that by any means I might save some.”
Friends, how’s the water? Take a look around to see how you’re swimming and ask those that you pass by and those that you seek out what it’s like for them to be in that fish bowl. Amen.
Making Room for Christmas People
Christmas Parkinga sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at 9:30 AM Worship Service November 7,2021 at Christ Presbyterian Church in Gardnerville, NevadaI am wearing a mask so the deep breathing is not a sign of illnessbut a sign of caring for others.edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Luke 3:1-6
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Well, it’s infrastructure week in the Lectionary. That was a joke. Thank you. Thank you very much. You know, mountains made low, valleys filled up, crooked made straight. Infrastructure; right? And just like real-life infrastructure, you’ve got problems. I mean, we might say it’s bad, but it’s not that bad. We’ve got problems. They say it’s too expensive. We don’t like it when things are disrupted. We’ve got detours and construction. Who’s all this for? Who needs a roundabout? I love them. Some people hate them. Infrastructure week.
In Carson City they’ve got a couple million dollars to continue their complete street program. I don’t know if you know about this. Maybe some of you are old enough to remember. Probably not. But back before there were automobiles, the streets were for everyone. Did you know that? It was for walking, and horses and carriages, and vendors and carts, and everybody would use a street. But when the cars came along, there’s a whole campaign talking about, you know, jaywalkers. “Jay” was a slang and derogatory term for somebody that didn’t know how city lives lived. And soon the streets went back just for cars. You’d better get out of their way. You know, pedestrians, pedestrians were getting killed in New York City, and their solution was
“Get out of the way.” Streets are just for cars.
Some of that’s changed over the years. You know, that Complete Streets program, that is to actually make streets for everyone again. There are going to be walking paths, bicycle paths, you know, actual bicycle lanes that are more than a paint and a prayer. Yeah, it’s all bicycle lanes are; you know? They’re just a, [indiscernible], oh, Lord, don’t keep the car [indiscernible]. Actual curbs and things. For people to walk, crosswalks and those curb cuts with the annoying bumps for, you know, the blind and the hard sighted. Maybe little beeps with the crosswalk so people can hear if they can’t see. Actual signs to stop the cars. Crosswalks where pedestrians have the right of way. Maybe flashing lights so they could actually stop traffic to walk across. Prepare the way of the Lord where all flesh will see salvation.
It’s been a huge change in our lives. The thoughts about what streets are for, from just adding more and more lanes so more and more cars could get where they’re going faster and faster, which just brings more cars, more traffic, more jams, more problems. Infrastructure week.
How about that handicap parking? You probably remember when that came up. Remember handicap parking when it first started? It was a request, a polite thing. Please, please keep this for handicapped folks. You know? And then, you know, everybody was parking there. So they got these handicap placards in license plates and things; you know? And then people still parked there. So then now you look at it, they have humungous fines, and they’ll tow your car. And we finally were able to make way for handicapped folks to park.
Have you been to Home Depot? Have you seen there’s vet parking there? There is. There’s special parking for vets. Some places there’s stork parking for people that are expecting a child and maybe aren’t walking or running as well as they’re supposed to. You’ve got a 10-pounder coming on the way, every step counts, buddy. You know.
What would be Christmas parking? Have you thought about that? What would be a sign for Christmas parking? I kind of get it on the front. And it’s actually, this is a legit sign that says “Handicap ramp ahead,” in case you were wondering. But I kind of thought that, you know, in the mountains and the valleys and making them accessible, I kind of thought that might be the sign for Christmas parking. You know? We’re making mountains low, raising up valleys, making a crooked way straight.
Who would Christmas parking be for? We hear that the good news, it’s not for the able-bodied young white male, but for those who dwell in deep darkness, for those with sadness. Imagine if we had Christmas parking for those that were facing the mountains in the way, or those that were in the valleys, even the pits of despair. What if we made the way straight for them, or flat for them? Even though it wasn’t our mountain. Even though we weren’t in a valley. What would it be like? Too often I see people fix the problems that are out there, the people that are in the deep dip bits of valleys, and people that are facing mountains of problems and challenges, and just say, “Well, they’re not there.” Or “They should know better.”
You ever been – it’s not quite yet, but later on in the winter, you ever been driving around town, and then you see a car parked, and it’s got like a foot of snow on the roof? Have you ever seen that? There’s no snow anywhere in town, but the car has a foot of snow. You know, first of all you think, you know, you could brush that off. That’d be a good idea. But, you know, you have a foot of snow, but there’s no snow anywhere else. And I’m thinking people would say, “Well, that’s just fake snow because I didn’t experience, I don’t have any problem with snow. That’s just fake snow. That’s weather crisis actors. Can’t have problems. I don’t have problems. They don’t have problems.”
Well, I try to think, oh, my gosh, someone had a lot of snow where they’re at. They probably had a hard time getting down here. What would it be like if we had Christmas parking for all flesh? You know, that’s what it says. It says all flesh will see salvation. Not the deserving, thank God. Not the ones who work for it. All flesh. And you see how you prepare for this. John went out, and he didn’t say, let me affirm your [ware] and give you thanks and gratefulness for the life you’ve been living. John went out and said, “I’m preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
Oh, my gosh. Would he be in trouble today. Because we all know that if you dare to suggest that there is something wrong with the life that we live, we’re very angry. We want it banned. We want it out of here. You are teaching hatred to our children. You can’t possibly say anything we have done in our lives is wrong. We’ve done nothing wrong. That was all in the past, John. Don’t you dare come out here and say we have anything to repent for. You see what happens if you don’t repent. You can’t get forgiveness. It’s repentance for forgiveness, according to John. It’s only then that the mountains can be made low, the valleys raised up, the crooked paths made straight. And only then is there Christmas parking for all salvation, for all flesh. Wow, huh?
What are some of the mountains and valleys that are in the way of Christ coming? Have you ever thought about here we are, 2021, you think you’re tired of the pandemic and the mask. How about tired of waiting for Jesus? I mean, every year we throw a big party, and every year he doesn’t show up. We spend a whole month getting ready for him. Preparation, advent, he’s coming, he’s coming, and nothing. Why doesn’t he come? Why doesn’t Jesus come? Well, are there still mountains? Are there still valleys? Are there still crooked paths? Yeah. Yeah, there still is. I think Jesus might be saying, why haven’t they got that ready for me?
I mean, when Rachel came to visit, you know, oh, my gosh, every piece of furniture in the living room and most in the other rooms were put out to the garage. We had the carpets scrubbed and clean. We’re getting ready for the advent of the girlfriend. We were ready. I hope. I think. My adult daughter Rachel was whispering tips to me over the first weekend. God bless, you know how well that goes over when your kid tells you how you should, you know.
But, you know, just like those John the Baptist, I do have some things to repent for, some things I do need forgiveness. And it’s not their fault they call that up. What are some mountains that we have? How about the mountain of student debt? Let’s just pick that one. No one here has got student debt. Maybe? Anybody? No? All right. I went to college in 1977. Now it’s 2021. What percentage increase in college has happened since I went to college? Anybody got a guess how much more it is now than then?
A percentage, let’s go percentage increase.
ATTENDEE: Probably three times.
REV. CHRISTY: Three times, 300%, would be 300%, yeah, yeah. Now, strangely enough, the minimum wage nationwide has gone about 300% up. Nevada, 400% up since then. California, 500% since then. Okay. So those are that. College, thanks for answering, Jim. College has gone up 1,424.23%. 1,424.23%. Now, I don’t think that all that expense is an additional 40 years of history. I don’t think you can put that in there. So if it was 20,000 back then, it’d be $304,846.53 now. That’s from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a mountain. That’s a mountain. And then the minimum wage, I think it’s a valley. People are in the pit. Do you know that the minimum wage – how many, anybody, Jim, you want another one? How much was the first minimum wage? That was going to ruin business, destroy the economy? Anybody remember? What?
ATTENDEE: I think it was $5, wasn’t it?
REV. CHRISTY: No, no, it was 25 cents, 25 cents an hour. That was going to ruin the country.
ATTENDEE: That’s what I got for babysitting.
REV. CHRISTY: Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, back in Roosevelt, FDR? No? No, okay. So 25 cents an hour. No, that 25 cents is a little bit different now. And since then it’s only – since ‘77 it’s only gone up – it’s gone up. It’s gone up three, 400% depending on the state you were, 500. But that’s a valley. Can’t afford college. Can’t afford a house. My kids don’t have a house. They don’t plan on having a house. They don’t see how. They’re hard workers. They’re good people. My daughter’s a teacher. My son works for BMW. That’s a valley. That’s a pit. We mostly didn’t avoid it.
How about the valley of medical debt? Some of you might relate to that. How about that? Do you know we’re the only industrial civilized nation in the world, you know, we’re the greatest in the world. We’re the only ones you can go bankrupt with a major illness. My friend Eric, they don’t know how he’s going to pay his hospital bill. The longer he lives, the more he’s going to wish he didn’t, I think. That’s a pit. That’s a valley. That’s a dark place.
And on the other hand there’s a mountain. You know, you look at the pit of how much medical debt comes, you know, you don’t have – people don’t understand there’s no medical debt in any other country. Nobody has a GoFundMe in Canada to pay for their cancer treatment. Why can’t we figure that out? We’re great. We’re rich. We’re smart. We’ve got great hospitals, doctors, medicines. We could figure it out. We could move that mountain. Maybe one is because – we could raise that valley. Excuse me.
The mountain I’m thinking about is the mountain of profits from drugs. Have you been following the drug crisis? That’s a mountain. Raising the price of insulin through the roof. And how about all the Oxycontin and the painkiller and the drugs? Millions and billions of dollars. Get people hooked legally by prescription. That’s obscene. And why is it okay and accepted that the seniors get on buses and drive to Canada – before pandemic – to buy their drugs? Why is that okay? Why do we think, oh, that’s a great idea, great thing to do?
The world is dying of pandemics. And we’ve got drugs to fight it. Oh, but the patents. We can’t let other countries make it for their people. We’ve got patents. Just because the government paid for the research doesn’t mean the companies shouldn’t have their dollar. And so now we’re wearing masks. And we’re going to continue to wear masks because there’s going to be all sorts of craziness going on all over the world because they’re not going to get vaccinated, and it’s going to mutate, and we’re going to go through the Greek alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet, all the alphabets. That’s a pit. That’s a valley. And according to our scripture, Christ is saying, when you going to get that fixed? It’s infrastructure week, friends. Fix up the road so I can come.
Aren’t you glad this is my last sermon here? Whew. But you know what? We’ve done mountains. I don’t want to tell you that we can’t do stuff as a people, as a nation. We can do stuff. We set our mind to it, we can do it. How many people have polio? That used to be horrible. That used to take down a President. That used to be lifelong affliction. You used to never recover, used to be in an iron lung, which is now, you know, a ventilator. But back then you had a big old tank that you lived in. You were struggling to breathe. Finally they closed swimming pools, drained pools. They didn’t know what to do.
The vaccine came out, and every child in America sent dimes to the White House to get rid of polio. Chipping away that horrible, horrible, horrible disease. The vaccine was mandated, and people were glad to get it. And polio’s gone. People don’t have to be stumbling on the road because they have polio. That road is made straight. We can do that.
Remember drunk driving? Remember that? There used to not be any laws against drunk driving. It was pretty recent. Used to be able to get sober by driving, by just saying, “I’m good to drive,” and then you’re good. And you drive. Wasn’t any laws against driving drunk. It was accepted. I credit mostly MADD, you know, Mothers Against Drunk Driving? They banded together, said enough. There’s too many people dying. Enough of this. And they started shadowing politicians and judges and made it impossible for them to ignore that great deep pit of drunk drivers killing their loved ones, their children. Whatever you think about laws or enforcement or all that, it’s gone way down. Maybe it’ll be gone sometime. And I dare say that it’s no longer socially acceptable to drink and drive.
What about smoking? Remember smoking? Remember smoking in public places and restaurants and theaters? In planes? I remember being on a plane, I couldn’t see the plane. I couldn’t see who was sitting in the plane. It was just a big cloud in the back. My dad went to a restaurant, he was pretty sensitive to the smells of cigarettes, asked for the nonsmoking table. And so here it was. It was like all these tables were smoking, and then there was one right here that was nonsmoking, and they sat him here. And he goes, what was that? I want the table downwind of the nonsmoking table. Remember that?
I remember going with some people to a theater, to a movie, and we went in, they go, where do you want to sit? And he looked around and says, where’s the nonsmoking section? I was so thrown by that because by then there was nonsmoking in our state for theaters. We got rid of that. Whatever you think about laws and government and all that, we moved that mountain. The servers and workers that were in that space eight, 12, 10 hours a day, whatever, they don’t have to breathe that smoke anymore. Oh, yeah, people talk about their rights and freedoms and all that. Just like they talk about how upsetting it is to have a detour when there’s a perfectly good street there they tore up for some improvements. Infrastructure week is not without cost, not without inconvenience, not without actual problems in trying to get things better for most people.
Remember the seniors buying dog food, in the store anyhow? The cashier says, “Oh, what’s the name of your dog?” And they couldn’t tell her because the dog food was for them. I think that story helped make Social Security a little bit more secure. Used to be okay. Hey, don’t have money, you know, you’re old, I guess you just die somewhere. But we moved that mountain. Whatever you think about, is it adequate, did they [indiscernible], we worked on that, made room for folks.
So we can do that. It’s painful. It’s difficult. It’s controversial. It requires this inconvenience and problems as we have to go around detours as the infrastructure’s being upgraded. But you know what comes, you know, if we can move those mountains, if we can fill in those pits, if we can make the paths straight, it will be Christmas parking for all flesh to see salvation. And Christ will come. Finally. You moved everything out. You got everything ready for me. I’ll come in.
Advent is getting ready for Jesus to come. Friends, we’ve got a lot to do. Let’s hope he comes. Stays. Maybe even buys us dinner. You know. Because we’ve made the path straight for all flesh to see salvation. We’ve taken down mountains so all people can live without crushing debt, medical or college. We’ve raised up the valleys and the pits so people aren’t killed again when the medical bills come. When they look at their paycheck, realize, oh, I have to get the third job.
Thank you all for all that you’ve done. Thank you for being a witness that there’s a different way of living in the world by being here today, and by living your life as you are. By doing things that don’t profit you personally as much as they help others. For all that I’m very thankful, and I am blessed to know you, and know that you’re down here doing good work in Gardnerville and the world. So friends, keep moving them mountains, keep filling them valleys, keep straightening those paths. And we will welcome all flesh to salvation and make Christmas parking available for all. Amen.
Greater Service Springs from Lesser Certainity
Going Out of Businessa sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at 9:30 AM Worship Service November 7,2021 at Christ Presbyterian Church in Gardnerville, NevadaI am wearing a mask so the deep breathing is not a sign of illnessbut a sign of caring for others.edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. John 18:33-37
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I’m wearing a thousand-dollar suit, standing on the accelerator of a quarter-million-dollar ride weighing 20 tons, trying to beat death in a race. Oh, and I can’t see a thing. The fog is so dense it’s like being in the middle of a white night. I remember this as a time I considered what business do I have being a firefighter?
Now, we may not know about kings, maybe Burger King or Carole King. But we do know about business. I think it’s helpful to look at this scripture, not about examination of how Jesus is and is not a king, but about what is Jesus’s business. We know about business. Everywhere from “That’s none of your business,” or “That’s my business,” to “The church has no business addressing anything of controversy or importance, or in contemporary thought and talk,” be it race, economics, schooling, dress codes. It’s not the church’s business. Is it?
Jesus seems to be trying to redefine what it means to be king. He both says “No, I’m not,” and “Yes, I am,” or “Not in that way.” This is a very helpful thing for us to consider in the time of pandemic. Because of all the times when we do not know where we’re going and what’s going next, in redefining what it is to be church, what it is to be Christian, now is the time. Is what is church? What is church business? We might have had a clue before the pandemic. We might have been able to say, well, the church business is to have a worship service on Sunday. The church business is to support a pastor to give comfort and challenge to the people. That’s church business.
But you all know that when the pandemic hit, you guys stopped having church services. You had to redefine what church was. You used email to connect with one another. And in a kind of a really nice spiritual technical meld, you said – Carl was saying could you all get together in your own homes and read this email, pray these prayers, sing these hymns, consider the sermon separately together in your own homes. And for a long time that was church business.
Business is difficult for us to take over as a church. If you ever heard that the church has to be run with the business, you might be thinking, well, that is just limited to generally accepted accounting principles, or that’s just limited to filling out the forms and obeying zoning laws and doing everything that a business needs to do to survive. It’s about being a good fiduciary responsibility and making sure that the money is accounted for and that the accounting is done right and that the offering is changed and that the bills are paid and the forms are filled out. Right before service I filled out another form.
So the church like a business we’d know about. But what kind of business are we in? That is a more helpful thought than what kind of king is Jesus. More and more church has been run like a business where we try to figure out exactly what our objective is, specific measurable, attainable, relevant, time-related objectives. And then we figure out the cost risk benefitting analysis. Maybe we have brainstorms. We look for expertise. We gather up data. We solve problems just like a business.
Well, that doesn’t work when everything’s changing so fast. That doesn’t work when what did happen last week, last month, last year is not guaranteed and almost certainly guaranteed not to be the same as next year. And all that process focuses on us and our expertise and our knowledge. So many churches fall into this business trap of getting the expert in. The first automatic response of any church that is looking for a minister is to say we need a pastor to bring in new people. They don’t really mean new people. They mean the same people as there are now, just 20 years younger, or 40 years younger. If you could just get us, but 40 years younger, in fact you can make us 40 years younger, that’d be okay because then nothing would have to change.
But that’s not a good way to go forward. Sure, it’s problem-solving. It’s objective. It’s brainstorming. It’s expertise-driven. It’s what everything that they teach you in business school, everything that they teach you as a way to be successful in the United States of America, salute business. But it doesn’t really serve us before or even especially during the pandemic.
Susan Beaumont wrote a really good book that is very good and somewhere here. But anyhow, ah, oh, that’s the synod executive. I brought her to help me with props. I love this. “How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going.” How to lead when you don’t know where you’re going. You know, and I’m back in that fire truck, and my wife didn’t know about this till today, so don’t tell her, but I’m in that fire truck, I cannot see where I’m going. I literally cannot see. The fog in Ohio is so thick you can almost taste it. It is right there. And I’m in a 20-ton fire truck, standing on the accelerator, racing death to the accident scene.
Because you know you get an hour from accident to hospital. You get one hour. That’s the golden hour. If you want someone to live, you’ve got to get them to the hospital in an hour. That’s just the way it is. Well, you say one hour, okay. Where we lived, the hospital was 40 minutes away. So we had 20 minutes to get there and get them in an ambulance. Twenty minutes. Not an hour. How do you go race and beat death when you can’t see where you’re going? Go faster. You get a bigger fire truck. Get more training. None of these help if you can’t see where you’re going. You don’t know what’s coming up in the road.
I remember asking John Love, strangely enough, front seat of the fire engine, Presbyterian minister and the funeral director. We showed up on an accident scene, and people just about had a heart attack. “I’m not that bad. They’re coming for me.” No, no, we’re not here for that. What do you do when you can’t see where you’re going? Going faster doesn’t help. Having more equipment doesn’t help. Having more training doesn’t help. Susan Beaumont says that, you know, maybe we’ve got to get out of this decision-making kind of mindset, where we look to ourselves for solutions to the problems. Where we define the problems by what we are and what we see and the things we see. Where we have meetings.
Have you ever noticed we have meetings that it’s like, you ever been to California, going down here? And there’s that little building, you know, and you have to drive through, and they’re checking for produce? You’ve seen that little building. And I’m thinking what in the world? They’ve never stopped us. I don’t know, maybe because of our skin color? I don’t know what’s going on. But and you just drive on through. And I’m thinking, well, that was ridiculous. That has nothing to do with where I’m going, what I’m doing, and my purpose. And I kind of think sometimes that’s like prayers before and after meetings. You know, people, come on, we’ve got to do a prayer, and then we can get through to California and do what we’re going to do.
What if we didn’t do that? What if the doing what we’re going to do was a little tiny bit at the beginning and the end of a meeting? And maybe the meeting wasn’t a meeting to decide, but a meeting, as Susan puts out, to discern God’s will, to listen to the spirit instead of the experts. To approach our time together with openness instead of advocacy, with looking for community instead of champions of a cause. That we approached it with expectation instead of expertise. That we sought completeness, wholeness, instead of the optimal solution to a set problem. What if we counted, not clock ticks, but heartbeats? That’s for all your poetry folks here, but what about the nuts-and-bolts people here? How does this work?
It’s hard to do because we keep slipping into decision-making. And decision-making is needed and useful, but it’s not a be-all and end-all, especially if the church, especially if we don’t know what’s going on. How does this discernment work? Well, it’s taking time. It’s stillness. It’s listening. It’s deciding not to decide. It’s changing meetings into retreats. You know, what’s the purpose of the retreat? What’s the outcomes of the retreat? What’s the measurable products of a retreat? Susan says that in her things, one of the things she does, she has meetings where they covenant together that they will not make decisions during the meeting. Instead they’re there to listen to the spirit and be attentive and be prayerful. It sounds crazy just because we’re not used to it.
One of the exercises I really like, and this may be concrete enough for you to decide, think about what she’s talking about and what others are talking about, and looking toward discernment as a way to figure out what to do as a church in these uncertain times as opposed to decisions and looking to the business model. And she calls it “shedding.” And shedding is a lot of things. It’s when you put your expertise aside. And what she invites everyone to do, and maybe it’s a requirement, I don’t know how she rolls, but what she says is that whatever the issue, problem, challenge is before the group, she invites everyone to write down what they’re absolutely certain of, what they absolutely know, their core understanding of the problem, to write that down on a piece of paper, their answer.
And then she invites them to fold it and place it in the offering plate. And she puts the basket there in front of the table and says, “Here are our certainties. And we’re going to leave them there in the basket during our time together. Now, they’re still there. They’re not erased or lost or negated. But they’re just going to be set aside here. We’re going to keep them safe right here. We’re all going to watch them. And at the end of our time together, you’re welcome to pick them back up. You know, it’s nothing wrong or evil. But just for this time together we’re going to set aside our certainties that we advocate and believe and try to make happen. We’re going to set them aside and listen to what God is saying, what spirit is moving among us.” Weird. Kind of feels like Pilate must have felt talking to Jesus. What are you talking about, Jesus? Are you a king or not? Why are you being so difficult? It’s a simple question. Why can’t you decide?
You’re in a great time of change where you’ve got to decide what to do. I hope you decide not to decide. I hope you decide to discern what to do. To put aside what you think has to happen. Oh, we’ve got to have a great preacher, a great minister. Got to have Christy. Right, mm-hmm. Yeah. Put it in there. Put those aside. You know? We’ve got to have someone here to get the youth back. We’ve got to have someone back here to establish Sunday School. We’ve got to have someone, I don’t know, I’m just saying these things out. I don’t know whatever certainty you have about what you need and what needs to happen. We’ve got to get back to that garage because that overhead crane is totally underused. Got to get that gone. I read that every time I come here. So put those aside.
And then, you know, when you put your certainties aside, and your biases aside, and you expertise aside, when you put those all in, there’s room for the spirit. And that’s kind of the kingship Christ was talking about. I think. I think that was a business he was about. I can’t decide. I’m hoping more light will emerge. But it’s important to be open to that. And as long as we decide that we’re going to decide, you know, your problems and ratios and data and brainstorming and cost benefit analysis and all the great tools of business, we’re looking to ourselves and our expertise instead of to God and spirits moving.
Well, how does that work out in the world? What’s an example? I belong to a service club up the road. And as many clubs, they were disrupted by the pandemic. I mean, this is a club that was like the nightmare of germ spreading. I mean, we had – it was in the rules. You got fined. You had to shake hands with everybody in the room. You had to. We had to go around and sit together. We had to – we were singing together. We were in the same room together. We couldn’t do any of that. We had board meetings. We couldn’t have board meetings where we discussed what to do and how to do it. Couldn’t do it. We had some folks that they couldn’t come – no one could come in person. Some people couldn’t do technology, and what are we going to do?
Well, I’ll tell you what this club did. Three people, three very competent, three very successful, three very expertise business people did it all. We wound up meeting at the park. They set up the park. They bought all the food. Charged the club. It was all ready for it. The first one, me being an idiot, I brought food. And they go, oh, we don’t need that. We bought it all. Oh, okay. And so slowly over the 18 months these three people did all the work of the club. They got a debit card because it was easier to bill to the club if you had a debit card. You didn’t have to go through all the reimbursement from the treasurer. And the treasurer wasn’t coming out of her house because she was immunocompromised. And so she couldn’t even make the meetings, and she didn’t have tech to be in person. They got their names on all the accounts.
I used to do the emails. I did emails out for our big fundraiser, our big thing. I did a couple, 300 emails. And so I was asking about is it time to send another email, goes no, no, we took the list, and we had our office staff do it. It’s all done. And they did a great job, those three. It was done efficiently, purposefully, and perfectly.
And then the new president came, long-time member of the club. And at the board meeting he said, “You know, we never authorized you all to do this. We never said it was okay to have a debit card. We never said it was all right to change the names on all the accounts to you three people. We never said that you could take over this. We never said you could do that.” And he got angry. How dare they go against the perfect business plan? How dare they say there was something wrong with the perfect complete work that they did? It’s successful. They kept the club going. They made money. They kept dues. So they all quit and took half the club with them. Because they saved us.
The new president, what do you think happened? The new president resigned, groveled back, asked them to come back saying, oh, it’s a big misunderstanding, let’s have a meeting, go through all that. Well, maybe some of that happened. But what happened with me, you know, he talked to me, and he said, “You know what they didn’t get, what they didn’t understand? This is a service club. We’re not a business. We’re not here to do things efficiently and purposefully and make everything exactly the way it should. We’re not here to hire people to do service and work, but they had their office staff doing all the work. We’re here for this person to do emails, for that person to bring the food, for this person to contact the businesses, for this person to do that.
“And together we do good. And we become better people. And we make relationship with other people because all of us, no one’s doing it all. Everybody’s doing their part and doing a little part. And sure, it’s not perfect. It’s not the stellar achievement of a for-profit organization with a dedicated staff. But that’s not what we’re here for. We’re a service club so people, all the people can give service and do good for the community and for each other. That’s what they forgot. We don’t hire it done, even though it could be done even better. We do it for our souls and for our community, as well as for the people we help.”
Now, there’s a club that decided not to be excellent, that decided not to solve all their problems in the best possible way, according to the business model. There’s a club that made a conscious choice, a costly choice. If we’re going to be a service club, everyone’s going to be having opportunity to do service, a good average whatever. We’re going to do this together. We’re going to go forward together. We’re going to learn. We’re going to make mistakes. But we’re going to get better. We’re going to help each other and ourselves.
I think that’s what church should be. Not about perfection, not about what we think is tradition or what we have pride in or what we remember from the past, where we seek to have the people look to the community. But a group of people getting together, stumbling at times, but lifting one another up, saying we’re here for goodness and for God. We’re here to get better, to do good, and to be better.
And that’s what I think Pilate missed, too, about how Jesus reigned, not with ordering of things to do, but with the changing of hearts and souls and minds. And that is church business. Amen.
How Hearts Get Hard and Why In God’s Name It Matters
Hardness of Hearta sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at 10 AM Worship Service October 3, 2021at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Carson City.I am wearing a mask so the deep breathing is not a sign of illnessbut a sign of caring for others.edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Mark 10:2-16
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I want to talk to you about hardness of heart. Hardness of heart. Now, forget what you know about being hard-hearted because that is probably society’s definition of what hard-hearted is: someone that is not kind, not generous, not compassionate. Kindness, generosity, and compassion are all good things. But in the Bible, the lack of them is not what makes one hard-hearted. To find out the Bible’s meaning of hard-hearted, we have to go back to the Hebrew Scriptures. There’s a lot of hard-heartedness going along in the Hebrew Scriptures.
The most common place where there’s hard-heartedness is the story of – anyone? Anyone? Bueller? No? Nothing? Anybody on Zoom chat? The Exodus story with Pharaoh. That Pharaoh guy was always getting his heart hardened. Right? And every time there was a plague; Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. And it wasn’t because he wasn’t kind or generous or compassionate or understanding. Hard-hearted in the Bible means you can’t see what God is doing in the world. This comes from not caring why things are happening only how. And Pharaoh lived for the how, never the why.
Remember the first plagues that came up, the frogs, the Nile turning to blood-red, all these things? Pharaoh was focused on how. Because he turned to his magicians, and his magicians did the same thing. Oh, well, that’s not anything special. My magicians can do that, as well. I know how you did it. I know the secret. I know the trick. I know the magic. And he completely missed why God was doing it. For that he was called “hard-hearted.”
Hard-hearted is when we don’t see what God is doing in the world and instead focus on how we are in the world. Don’t we do that a lot? In the beginning of our Greek scripture reading we hear more about how. In fact, all through this chapter it’s about the hows presented to Jesus, and Jesus going, why is God doing this in the world?
The Pharisees come up and say is it lawful – how – for a man to divorce his wife? And Jesus asks them, what does the law say? And they answer with a how. Well, you give her a certificate of divorce, you go to a notary public, you get it stamped, you do all the things and that. And Jesus calls that “hard-hearted.” Not because of the lack of compassion or kindness, the meanness of divorce, but because, as he goes on to explain, it’s not what God intends.
You see, Jesus isn’t here giving some moral rules for divorce. He isn’t here outlawing divorce. He isn’t tell you how to live your life. He isn’t telling you a bunch of reasons. We don’t have to go back and break out the scarlet letter “A” and put it on people so we know not to marry them. He’s telling us the why. And I know you all are a little titillated, maybe, about that word “adultery.” Can we say that in church? Have the children left?
But you know, adultery is not just what we usually think of it in culture. Adultery means to water down; right? If you have adulterated milk, that means someone put some water in it or some other things, watered it down. If a food or anything else is adulterated, it means it’s not the way it should be. If you think about that, the why of the adultery, instead of the scandlous how, it’s obvious today whoever does these things isn’t living the way God wants us to live. Every time in this chapter, and it’s three stories in one chapter, but we’ve only have two this week because as Father Jeff says, the lectionary elf says oh, no, only two, only two.
Every story, one, marriage and how a man owns a wife. That’s the way it was back then. Then there was children, another thing that a man would own. Leads up to, with the author of Mark, the story that we’ll hear next week about the rich young ruler although you have combined different gospel accounts to get the complete description. The story is about a man with great possessions that comes to Jesus with a how question. How do I inherit eternal life? How do I do it? And Jesus looks at him and loves him and answers with why are you living your life? Give away all that you have to the poor, and follow me.
And the answer to the how do I get this eternal life, Jesus tasks the rich young ruler, examine why you are living. Why are you living? Are you living to serve others? Are you living to help others? It’s the why question you should be looking at, not the how. Do we do that today? You know, we really, really are encouraged to ask the how questions and stop there. Now, I’m not going – the how people, need them in my life. I need them. I love them. That’s what I need, some people to tell me how to do stuff. But we can’t stop there. We’ve got to examine the why are we doing even what we know how to do.
I quote Hélder Câmara, Archbishop in Brazil. A famous quote about how and why.
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why are they poor, they call me a communist.
When I focus on how we’re going to feed the poor, well, that’s good. That’s safe. That’s acceptable. But when I ask why are there hungry people, why are there poor people, oh, now you’ve gone from preaching to meddling. You’re being a communist if you ask the why questions.
I love signs. I’m a big sign guy. Have you see the signs of the pandemic? I love reading them and considering them. The ones about masks. I know how you voted in the last election, just by the sign on your door. You know that? How did that happen? But can you see those? And some say “Due to government mandate, because of the Governor and the CDC, you’ve got to wear a mask.”
I don’t know about you, and we can take a survey later about how you feel about the Governor, but I’m pretty darn sure the Governor did not kill 700,000 Americans. I’m going to go out on a limb and say he didn’t do that. So that sign on the door saying the Governor makes us wear a mask, I’m saying, you know, that’s a how. That’s a how. How do we get masks on? We had the Governor say that. But have you seen others? Not many. Maybe I’m not going to the right places. It’s just occurred to me that, that maybe I need to go different places. But some say something like, “Due to the pandemic, you have to wear a mask.” Or a couple I’ve seen, “To protect you and others, you have to wear a mask.” Now, there’s someone that gets the why, and not just the how.
It’s been a bad year for the hows. Awful year. I’ve gone over and over about how are we going to meet as a Presbytery. That’s like my one job is to have a Presbytery meeting. I have a job. My job is to have a Presbytery meeting. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got to do. Oh, my lord has it been hard to get a Presbytery meeting. I’m halfway through my term. I’ve had 28 minutes of Presbytery meeting in a year and a half. And that was only to have a meeting so we could pass a by-law change so we didn’t have to have meetings. It’s been a bad year for the how people.
But you know what? It’s going to be even harder coming back because I’m telling you, at least half of the people, maybe more, stop at the how. For them, church is all about the hows. How do we do worship? How do we do coffee hour? How do we do fellowship? How do we do communion? And that’s all they know, and that’s where they stop. And when you take away those hows, you’ve taken away their church. When you take away the how, you’ve taken away their faith and their identity, and they don’t have anything left. And they say, what? The ritual phase? I didn’t sign up for this. This is not how it’s done.
And I’m not picking on you church folk. It’s throughout the churches, all the churches. It’s also through the clubs. I’m a member of a social club, service club. We lost half our members. Half our members are gone. Our president was in tears our last meeting. Why? Because we’re not doing how it’s supposed to be done. And for some people that’s all their membership means, how we do things. That’s not how we do things. They forget the why. Or they never got to the why. We’re not there to meet together, shake hands, tell jokes, have our masks off, talk to one another, give hugs, all these things that people object to we can’t do anymore.
We’re there, and we say this, “To serve the community, one child at a time.” (see Why Kiwanis.) That’s why we’re meeting. That’s why we have a club. It’s not to meet together. It’s not to have lunch together. It’s not to talk together. It’s not to handshake together. It’s not to have fun together. It’s not to joke together. It’s to serve the community, one child at a time. That hasn’t changed. Pandemic does not stop the whys. Crisis does not change the why. Challenges does not change – oh, it wipes out the hows. And if that’s all you’ve got, you’re going to lose your faith, the how-to faith. But why God faith goes on.
You look throughout Scriptures through this lens, where we continue to come to God with how do we do something. And those are important, and those are good and helpful. But it is deadly if we stop there. We’ve got to continue on and say why are we doing things. Even Job, which is a huge sermon in all itself and story. Our little sermon from Job, our little Scripture from Job. How do you live? But Job, when everything went a terrible way, worse than the pandemic, and it gets worse for Job, he knows why he’s there. Shall we take the good from God, but not the evil? Why are we there? To serve. To be in a relationship with God, in good times and in bad. That’s why I’m here. That has not changed, even though everything else has.
Friends, as difficult as this last 18 months have been, it’s been so difficult, you’ve even got Presbyterians up preaching to you. Oh, my God. Lord almighty. When will it end, Lord? Even though the hows are broke away and changed and discarded, I’m telling you this is an excellent opportunity to remember the whys. Why are we here as a church? Because the hows have gone away. The things we used to do, the rituals we used to fund, the calendar, the cut-and-paste events. All gone. And we’re like Job, scratching ourselves with Zoom mics, hoping the itch would go away.
Shall we take the good from God, and abandon him when things aren’t so good? We will if we only focus on how we are supposed to live and how things are supposed to be and how others are supposed to be and that darn governor mandate. But if we focus on we’re here to help one another, to keep each other safe from pandemic, from death; we’re here to keep the hospitals less than full so that when people have a heart attack or a stroke there’s actually a hospital bed for them and not filled up with some COVID person from the pandemic. I don’t know about you, but it’s a lot easier for me to wear a mask for that reason than because the Governor told me so.
So I’m telling you, you want a way out, don’t be asking Jesus the how questions. Always look for the why, why questions. The how will lead you to a hardness of heart where you will not see God’s work in the world. You totally miss it. But looking at the why and the intentions of God will lead you to a blessed, contented, and maybe even, yes, the answer to the rich young ruler’s question: eternal life. Amen.
We can search for miracle as well as we can find malice in others
Hanlon’s Razora sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at Christ Presbyterian Church, Gardnerville, NV on August 1,2021edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Ephesians 4:1-16
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One difference between a community and a cult is just that – difference. A community embraces it. A cult outlaws it. Both are organized around a common goal and beliefs. But community is harder than a cult because everyone is not like you and me. More specifically, it’s harder because not everybody is me. If it was me, everything would be fine. But it doesn’t work that way in community. Only in cults.
You’re saying, why is he talking about community? Because that’s what our scripture’s about. You may think that it’s about spiritual gifts. This is one of those spiritual gifts inventory passages. You know, the one we all love to like. It’s just like, you know, it’s an Amazon Wish List, and we just got a gift card. You know, we’re going through it saying, oh, what can I get? Oh, boy.
But I want to caution you, at least for today, do not pretend that this is Christmas Eve, and the verses are gaily wrapped packages for us to shake and figure out what we got. Because that’s not what the scripture is about. In fact, all the spiritual gift list is not to talk to us about how wonderful it is to have gifts, although that’s pretty good. It is about community. It is about differences, about how people that are different, in different ways, are blessed together to build up the body, even though they are different. You get that? It is about embracing differences.
And look how subtly it has changed. Instead of saying, oh, them, they’re not like us, they’re different; instead of saying people are different, and we’ve got to put up with them, it says what? People have different gifts. People that are different are gifts, not burdens. Not something to be fixed. Not something to be convinced. Not something to come in line with the one true opinion – which is mine, by the way. They are gifts.
What if we went along with that? It goes, “Oh, what a gift that is.” You know, it’s kind of like in the South. I don’t know, anybody from the South? They have that saying, “Oh, bless her heart.” That means I don’t really approve of what you’re doing or saying, but bless you anyway. Now, you can go through what that means. But I’m going to take it to mean you’re a gift. Your specialness, uniqueness, problematic behavior I’m taking as a blessing; I’m taking as a gift.
Now, one of my main errors is I forget to explain my title. So let’s get that done. Hanlon’s Razor is by Robert Hanlon. Did I get the name right?
ATTENDEE: Hanlon.
Hanlon, yes, thanks. I wrote it down for all of us. Yeah, Robert Hanlon is a computer programmer. And he sent in this to a joke book, kind of distilling what has been floating around in literature and quotes for centuries. And he says that “Do not attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Don’t think someone is evil and out to get you when it could be they’re just stupid, and not even thinking about themselves or you or anybody.
Now, Bob, come on. That’s pretty harsh. You know. Stupid? Really, Bob? You know, Bob must be one of those cultural elites, you know, went to college, thinks they know everything. Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve just cut myself with Hanlon’s Razor because I’m assuming malice in what he says. Well, I’m still not happy with the stupid.
So since I’m the one true measure of all things for like 20 minutes, I would like to say a different one. Let’s call it Ramsey’s Razor. That’s great. You saw that coming. Ramsey’s Razor. And I’m going to say do not attribute to malice what can be explained by miracle. Do not attribute to malice, to evil in the world, to somebody out to get you, what could be a miracle.
When you say “miracle,” what do you mean? Some supernatural intervention in the orderly course of nature? Well, yeah, those are showy, and that’s good. But that’s not just all the miracles. For me, miracle is that what we talked about in the gospel, a sign. A work that points to Jesus Christ and to God. And you look at it, and you say, “I see God there.” You know, like you look at my face, and you see Jesus. Right there. A miracle. You think God when you see this. And you see Jesus struggling in the gospel because he straight-off calls him out. He calls him out. He says, “You’re just here because you’ve got the loaves, and you were fed with bread.” And he’s talking about the feeding of the 5,000. He’s talking about the miracle.
And boy, do we go on about that. You know, oh, he just had five loaves and two fish, and then they came up, and they had baskets over, and let’s do the calculation, take an inventory, and how many was that? And it was just men, so it was probably more like 10,000. You know, okay, that’s an okay miracle. But, you know, I’m pretty sure a competent caterer could do that, and definitely a magician could pull that off. There’d be a little prep work, but it’s doable. Far as a miracle goes, I don’t know.
But I tell you, how about this? If, I’m saying if. So no emails to the stated clerk; okay? I’m saying “if” right here. So if, what if this is? You remember the story? It’s supposed to be a sign of God for the miracle. A child comes up. Maybe a girl. A child comes up and says, “Well, I got my lunch. I could share that.” And a disciple says, “Well, what’s that among so many?” And so Jesus accepted that gift, and he brought her out in front of the crowd, and he broke it. Remember? He broke it. He held it up, and he blessed it. He took it from, let’s say a little girl, and shared it out.
And people say, well, it was a miracle because of the baskets. The baskets were magic baskets. They never filled. Well, you know, back then there wasn’t any fast foods, or wasn’t any restaurants on the turnpike. There wasn’t any of that stuff. People, if they were going out for the day, you’d better believe they had food. They were packing a lunch. But you know, when you’re in a crowd, and all sorts of people around, maybe you don’t want to get out your food when there’s a bunch of hungry people around you. Maybe you don’t want to do that.
But, you know, they saw the little girl, and they go, well, you know, the little girl shared stuff. She shared all she had. I’m not going to be shamed up by a little girl. I got stuff. Hey, you want something? It’s like that Nevada Day Parade. Have you ever tried to be sober throughout a Nevada Day Parade? You’ve got to pretty much be militant about it. “Hey, I got something. Try some of this.” You know?
So that little girl, and Jesus’s acceptance of her gift, changed that crowd of strangers into a crowd of friends and family, sitting down for a meal. And where they had scarcity, when they had nothing, they had plenty because they had it with them all along. You know, it’s like that famous church building – have you ever heard of the church building fundraising capital campaign? The campaign person comes up and says, “I’ve got good news. We have all the money we need for this capital campaign.” And everybody goes, “Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.” And then he says, “Yeah, it’s right in your wallets.” Not so much hallelujah there.
And I tell you that my version of the transformation of that crowd from strangers that will let the other persons go hungry, to a family and friends and a community that shares their bread with one another until there’s enough and more left over, I’m telling you that’s a miracle. That shows me God and the way God wants us in the world, much more than how much bread is in that basket in the leftovers. That’s the gospel.
And we look out at the crowd, and they said, oh, that person’s going to take my bread. That person’s going to steal my lunch. That person is going to grab my wine if I bring it out. Malice. But Jesus was able to turn that into miracle. Be okay if I share my stuff. Everyone else will share. It’ll be a miracle. I’ll be a sign of God’s working among us. It’d be a taste of heaven, if I assume miracle instead of malice.
My brother doesn’t call me for decades. He just doesn’t call. And I thought it was, you know, because of that incident 25 years ago, you know, back when we were kids. Or it was because he doesn’t care about me, or because he’s mad at me, or because I’m too preachy, or because of his wife. Malice. None of that’s true. I mean, I didn’t check it out, just put it in my head.
We’ve been pretty much meeting on Zoom for an hour every week during the pandemic. You know, we go back and forth. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not so good; you know? But there’s no malice there. Miracle. I was talking to him, and both of my brothers come on the Zoom most of the time. And he says, you know, “We’ve got to keep this up because, if we don’t, I don’t talk to Tim for a year.” It’s not malice. It’s just that we’re not looking for the miracle.
Twice I was in a big church. How do you know it’s a big church? Because the pastor’s office has a private bathroom. I’m telling you, as I got older, that got better and better, I’ll tell you. And one time I was in a church, and I’d go around the church, doing I don’t know, whatever I was doing. And behind me followed the custodian. The custodian followed me. You know, he just giggled. I could hear him chortling back there. And I go, “What are you doing?” He goes, “Oh, no, don’t mind me. I’m fine.” I walk more and hear him giggling. What’s he doing? What is up with that guy? You know? Couldn’t figure it out.
And I go, why is he following me? Does he think I’m stealing stuff? What is he doing? You know? I go, “What are you doing?” I finally said. He goes, “Well, Pastor, when you walk around with your coffee, you spill little drops on the carpet. And it’s a lot easier just to wipe them up as soon as they come off.”
Malice or miracle? You know, where there’s confirmation bias, you probably heard about this, this is what runs YouTube and Facebook and our magazine subscriptions in olden times, you know, and our television news selection now in that we want to hear things we already know. We want to confirm our beliefs of what we already suspect and believe and understand. And so Facebook and YouTube have really fired up on that. And if you keep watching YouTube, they say, oh, you like that? Here’s a little bit more. Oh, you like that? Here’s even more. And if you like that, here’s even more and more. And you just keep rolling down into a rabbit hole of our own biases and prejudice.
And then there’s also availability bias or availability heuristic. Which means the information that is most recently available, that it’s easy for us to get, is the one we go by. Basically, it’s the lazy principle. You know, it’s a lot easier to read a tweet than a book. It’s a lot easier to go with a hot take from a TV host over a few 30-second sound bytes than it is to listen to a lecture on an expert. It’s a lot easier to watch someone on TikTok or YouTube, or someone at your breakfast table tell you about the latest medical news, about this or that, than to actually go to your doctor and actually talk to someone who actually studied medicine. That’s harder to do.
Availability. We look for the easy stuff. And too often, the stuff that is apparent, that is out there, that is ready for us to consume is the stuff that is designed to make us upset, to fire us up, to say the both/and, either/or, the other side, oh, gets upset, we’re going to suck you in to watch and click. Malice, not miracle.
And the malice people will tell you that the different ones are out to get us. And they’ll have little snippets or little snaps, little tweets to tell you about the different ones that are out to get you. Where in our scripture today we find the different ones are out to bless us. Ramsey’s Razors don’t attribute to malice what God says could be a miracle. Do you know how hard it must be with someone with the gift of prophecy? That person’s got to be hard to put up with. Or an evangelist? Can you imagine being with someone that’s an evangelist? But in our scripture it says those are gifts. Those are miracles. That’s what makes community.
If we look at what we have in our community as gifts instead as obstacles to fix, we can find the miracles. We want to fill up the voids in our life, the emptiness, the unknowns, the questions. And we can do that. We can do that with faith. We can believe that God is there, God is working. We can do that. And we can do that with fear, and so often we do. The scary unknown, the monsters in the dark, the scariness of what is coming next. We can fill that up with fear. And I’m not telling you either one. Sometimes it is fearful. Sometimes it is faithful, and it might be good for us to practice more on the faithful thing. I’m not telling you not to do that.
But I’m telling you, what if we could keep that empty space open? Keep it available for God’s work and miracle? Fill it up, not with faith, not with fear, but just keep it open and say God will show us the way. We’ll be faithful, and God will be there. You don’t have to fill it up with fear, or even with faith.
Ever hear that story about is a glass half full or half empty? That’s a trick question because I believe there’s no way to tell from a static picture whether the glass is half full or half empty. You’ve got to know which way you’re going. Because if you’re filling up the glass, it’s half full. If you’re draining the glass, it’s half empty. It’s on the way to being empty, or it’s on the way for being filled. There’s no way to say right in the middle, is that half full or half empty? It’s only with the direction. Maybe that’s hard to understand.
Let’s talk about church. Is the church half full or half empty? Well, if you’re thinking the church is going to grow, more people are going to come, you’re going to say oh, my gosh, the church is half full. We’d better get some more chairs. If you’re thinking the other way, oh, my gosh, the church is half empty. We’d better get rid of the chairs. Or what if we could say it’s neither half full or half empty? There’s room for others. There’s room for others. There’s room for people to come. Did you know that church planner says if your church is more than 80% filled, new people won’t come because they say there’s no room for me here. They don’t see it as half full or half empty. They look at it, is there room for me?
And I tell you, if we fill things up with malice, there’s no room for a miracle. But if we somehow are able to keep the things we don’t know, the future we cannot see, and say to ourselves that with God we can go forward in there, if we can keep that place open, well, then, there’s room for God to do marvelous things. There’s room for God for a miracle to create community. There’s room for God to say, those people, they’re different. Praise God. It’s a blessing, not a curse.
Amen.
A Fourth of July sermon about four Julys when us includes or excludes the other who don’t know their place.
God does call us to a Nomad not Normal life.
Normal or Nomada sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church Carson City, NV on June 6.2021edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. 1 Samuel 8:4-11, 16-20
Mark 3:20-35
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Video versions (both masked and unbasked) are at the end of the text
We have all felt like Samuel. No, I’m not talking about being called old by the people, although we may have been there, too. I’m talking about Samuel going crazy. This is crazy Samuel time. When you know what is right. When you know what happens, and what will happen, and how the world is arranged, and you tell the people that. In no uncertain terms, you tell them the reality of having a king, for example. The high taxes. The forced labor. All the stuff.
And the people, they don’t argue. They don’t have a conversation, much less the compromise or consensus. They just say, to all your wonderful reasons of how the world works, they say no. No. No. All the stuff you said, all the great reasons you gave, we say no. We want a king. We want to be like other nations. Did you hear it? We want to be normal. Who can say hallelujah to being normal? I haven’t heard more consensus around an idea ever. I want to be normal. All praise to the God normal, where everything is normal.
I want to talk to you about normal, that that isn’t normal. And they’re proud of that. I can tell you for sure you are not normal. And I just have to say one day, one morning, my first Nevada Day parade. First, we have the governor riding atop a military half-track, going down Main Street. I go, what? That’s not normal, the governor in a military half-track going down the main street. That’s a little odd. Then next, a few floats later, we have a convertible with sex workers telling us to come on down to the brothel for the Nevada Day Special. Okay, that’s not normal for this Ohio boy. And then, to finish up the parade, we have the synchronized shooting rifles drill team. Okay. We really don’t think that’s normal in Ohio or anywhere I’ve been. We shoot guns together in a parade. Not something we do.
And we talk about going into a pharmacy or a grocery store, and there are slot machines, and a whole room full of them. Now, people have told me all my life that the way I eat is a gamble, but here we have the slot machines to prove it. Normal. People wanting to be normal. We want to be like the other nations. You know, they have a king that goes out before them and fights their battles and does the things that other nations do. We want to be normal.
And I’m here to tell you that the Bible is against normal. Well, that’s not totally true. I mean, the Bible is sort of split. The people and God come down differently because God is against normal. The people, they’re all for it. And you could say the whole story of the Bible could be, look at the lens between God saying don’t be normal and the people saying, yeah, we really want to be normal. And that’s all story of salvation. The abnormal love and grace of God calling normal people into abnormal community.
And it’s not just the Hebrew Scriptures. Our reading from the Gospel, we have the family of Jesus saying why can’t that kid just be normal? Why can’t he get a normal job? Why is he fooling around with demons? And you see that it says “restrained.” The family didn’t come to talk to him. The family didn’t come to be with him in his meeting. The family didn’t come to dinner. They were outside. They were there to restrain him. Was this some kind of early intervention? To try to convince him to change his ways? To get him out of that cult he was starting? They wanted him to be normal.
Does that ever happen today? I think if you go to any Pride event, you don’t even have to go to the parade. You can just go to the people that came to watch the parade. And they will tell you about their family, wanting them to just be normal. Not be who they are, but be normal. Not be with who they love, but be normal. Study just came out in Canada that one out of 10 gay people up in Canada have been forced into some kind of conversion therapy. One out of 10 in 2021. To be normal. Do we worship normal?
Normally, in a typical year, 300 children die of ‘flu. Every year, year in, year out, 300 children. 600 parents. Let me see if I get my math. Hundreds, thousands of grandparents lose a child. Normal. Oh, it’s normal. But this year, with us wearing masks, keeping distance, washing our hands, zero children died of the ‘flu. Zero. That is not normal. When you tell me, you want to go back to normal, I’ve got to say, hold on now. Have you thought about what normal was? Children dying? You want to go back to normal?
You know, with normal, for people of color, every time they get a traffic stop, to be in a life-or-death situation, to be somehow an unwilling participant in a murder edition of Simon Says, that if you don’t do what I say as quickly as I said in the right quickly way, your life is in danger. That was normal. It was normal for us white people to deny, ignore, explain away, and say, oh, they must’ve done something wrong. Oh, if they only did things quickly, or did follow instructions, or did this. It was just normal for people to get killed, people of color to get killed over a traffic stop, over a minor violation, over a misdemeanor. Is that normal we want?
How about women? This is the only year, year and a half, in the recent history of our country where women were not constantly told to smile. They’re so much prettier when they smile. Where men would tell women how they should feel, how they should look, how they should act. Heck fire, you didn’t even have to wear makeup if you didn’t want to. It used to be normal to tell people how to live and how to smile and how they should be in the world. And now we can put the mask on. They don’t know if we’re grimacing or whatever. Do you want to get back to that normal?
What about us religious folks? Yeah, maybe you’re not a person of color. Maybe you’re not a woman. Maybe you don’t have children young and susceptible to the ‘flu. We’re all in church. We know what normal is at church. Want to get back to the normal. Do we? I mean, with normal, that if you are not able-bodied and could not sit quietly without interruption for an hour – hour and a half if Christy’s preaching – you weren’t allowed to be in church. You couldn’t be there. You couldn’t be a part of the community. Oh yeah, we had homebound ministry. God bless everybody for doing all that. But you couldn’t be with the people. Couldn’t be with the Zoom.
And you know Zoom’s in the Bible. You all know that; right? I’m telling you. You know what they call the Internet? The cloud; right? You’ve heard that. Cloud? The Internet? What’s it say in the Bible? Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, (Hebrews 12:1) Zoom, we’re talking about you. And if you weren’t in town, if you were visiting out of town, if you moved out of town, you were cut off from community. If you couldn’t get it together, and you couldn’t be in the exact same time, the exact same place, you couldn’t experience worship.
And I’ll go further. Even if you weren’t disabled visibly, some people couldn’t come to church because of social anxiety. They didn’t like to be touched and hugged and nattered at. Maybe there was somebody that they weren’t comfortable being around with, they didn’t feel safe with. They had a divorce, and the other person got custody of the church. You know how that goes. But with Zoom online, they could come and could worship together.
I don’t like to be hugged. I’ve got things, and I pay people to listen to. You don’t have to. But I don’t like to be hugged. I’ve got arthritis. I don’t wear a badge. I don’t have one of those wonderful placards that people are wearing now. But handshakes hurt me a lot of times. You know how terrible that is for a pastor, to not be able to handshake people? Not without a grimace? There’s other people that have more problems than I do that don’t want to be hugged, for one good reason or bad or whatever, and so they don’t come to church. With Zoom, they can come and be like everyone else.
Don’t be normal. Examine the normal. Sure, it’s great. I mean, this year has been four times the planning, twice the effort, for one half of the results. It is so much easier to copy and paste, whether it’s church services or our life, to just replicate from one to another, change the dates, couple things, and off we go. It’s so much easier, and that’s why people love the normal. But that doesn’t leave much room for God. If you embrace the normal, and only the normal, God says you have rejected me.
And you know what normal starts with? “No.” You can’t have normal without “no.” No, you can’t have your own feelings. You’ve got to smile all the time, women. No, you can’t be with who you love. No, you can’t be gay. You just decide to be gay. Stop being gay. No, you can’t be it. No, you can’t be a non—hugger and be in our church. No, you can’t be disabled and fully participate in worship. No. Normal starts with no.
What do you do? What can we do? Well, you know, God reminds us in Samuel, you know, his preference. He says, hey, remember the normal I took you out of? Remember the normal called slavery, and Egypt? Remember that normal? Oh, yes, another day of being a slave. Well, same day as the last. Another day of backbreaking work with no hope and no help. Okay, normal.
And God says no, no more normal. I want you to be a nomad. That’s a difference of being normal; right? And that’s what we’ve been the last year and a half. We’ve been nomads. We don’t know where we are or where were going. We’re saying, do we have masks? Do we not have masks? Is there contact? Is there not contact? Do we fog the place or not fog the place? Do we have to stay away? How many vaccines do we have? Do we have vaccines? Is it going to disappear? Is it not? Nomads. We don’t know where we are. We don’t know where were going. We don’t know what’s next. We kept planning for things, and we had to cancel them. Where does the virus come from? Where is it going? What’s going on? Nomads.
And when we’re not in our normal place, God has room to act. God has room to do wonderful things, just in the church. The church has made more changes and accommodations and advancements in the first month of the pandemic than we did in 20, 30 years. Thirty years we’ve been talking about there’s a whole world outside these walls we could bring in if we just used the technology. Oh, no, that’s not normal.
I remember – have you ever seen Father Jeff, he’s really into it. He’s very competent. But the day they closed church and said he had to go online, in Ohio we call it “deer in the headlights.” You know, where the eyes get really big. And he says, “What am I going to do?” And I go, “I’ll be there. I’ll be there Tuesday. We’ll figure this out. We can get it done.” So I come in, and he’s just, “What am I going to do? It’s not normal to not have church, but have church.”
And I asked him a couple of questions. I said, “Well, do you want to talk and preach to a camera? Because we could do it that way. Or do you want to talk and preach to people on a screen that you can see?” And he says, “Oh, I want to see the people. I have to see the people.” “All right. We’ll get you hooked up.” It wasn’t normal. But it was a way during a crisis for the people of God to come together.
And we were gathered from all over. People from all different places and times of the congregation were gathered together, and we could be together as much as we could, as cyber nomads, surfing the storms of the pandemic. You thought that was hard. It was. You did well. Some churches aren’t coming back. I have a church that right now they’re discussing whether to close or not. But you did well.
But good news. Don’t rush back to normal. Don’t rush back to normal. Because for so many people, normal wasn’t working. Normal didn’t let them talk to God. And if you are honest and introspective, perhaps normal wasn’t working for you. So don’t be too concerned if everybody around you doesn’t look at the world the way you do. That’s a little upsetting right now. Like Samuel, you’re going to say, “I have great reasons. I have the facts. I have the list. I have all the YouTube videos that you can watch and know that I am correct.”
But God says, don’t take it personal. We’re struggling with whether or not to go with me and be a nomad into this new world, or whether to return to Egypt and slavery and patriarchy and monarchy for the false god of normal. Friends, be nomads. Follow God. Be with God in whatever crazy place you are. Don’t try to shut down and shut out others by saying no to them, “No, that’s not normal.” Instead say, “Come along with us. We’re nomads on a journey together.”
Amen.
Unmasked and Unrobed
Masked Version with Robe
How We Count People and Sin
One of the Twelvea sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from worship at St Paul’s Lutheran Family, Carson City, NV on April 11.2021 John 20:19-31
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One of the twelve. Did you catch that? There’s a lot going on in the scripture. But in the 24th verse, the first line of the second paragraph of the reading, we read this: “One of the twelve.” I caught my breath when I read that this year because I realized there wasn’t twelve. Judas was gone. Eleven. Thomas is not there. He’s absent. Ten. What about that young man that ran away in Mark? Nine. How about that rough old fisherman that denied Jesus three times? Eight. “One of the twelve.” How do you count in a fearful time? How many people are here today?
In my day job, I’m the clerk of the Presbytery of Nevada. All the Presbyterian churches in Nevada, a couple lost souls in California we took pity on and a couple others, report to me how many people came to worship last year on average. And they were calling me and say, “What are we going to put down? What’s the right answer? We haven’t met since March. Our average is zero in worship.”
What do we put down? Does Zoom count? How about if there’s two in the little boxes? What if there’s just a strange picture of Wonder Woman every week? Is that really a person? And YouTube views. Does that have to be on Sunday? Or what if we took the whole count? And then there’s Facebook. And then sometimes people do all three at once. I don’t know how they do it, but they do it. How are we going to count how many are a part of us in a fearful time?
If Jesus, and I’ve asked him, came in and could tell me the number, what would he say? What would he say here? What would he say there? How many are in the room? Scriptures, the author of John seems to think all of them were there. “One of the twelve.”
Gallup has something to say. If you know George Gallup and his organization, he’s gone, but the organization goes on. Have you seen the study that just came out? For the first time in the history of this nation church membership is below 50%. The most common membership of church, United States is “none” for the first time ever. Well, we’ve been seeing it coming. It’s been sliding on down. And it’s not just those avocado-eating, toast-eating young people. Even the greatest generations, their percentage has gone down. Every age group, boomers, you name it, everyone, church membership has gone down. We’re at 47%. 1999, not so long ago, we were at 70%.
“No religion” is getting a boost. They’ve gone from 8% up to 21%. Others are kind of in that fuzzy crazy thing of, yeah, I’m with you, but I’m never there kind of thing; you know? I don’t know, you know, you don’t have to worry. I’m not a Lutheran. But in Presbyterian church, half of people who claim they’re Presbyterian aren’t. We have no record of them. One out of two Presbyterians aren’t Presbyterian. So there’s those people.
Now, you may tell me, Christy, no one joins anything anymore. The Book of the Month Club is way far away. People aren’t joiners. They don’t sign up for things. They don’t go to clubs. I mean, look at the Grange. You know, that used to be great. Not so much anymore. Look at the Masons. Look at all the fraternal and lodges, Odd Fellows, the Moose, all those things are all having trouble. And I said, well, okay, maybe. But are you a member of Amazon Prime? That seems to be doing pretty well. Have you heard about this thing called Facebook? I think they’ve got more members than there are people in the world, sharing their lives, encouraging or discouraging one another, making connections, building up, tearing down. Sounds like something we used to do.
Heck fire, even Best Buy is rolling out a membership plan. I don’t know exactly what that would mean, but I’m signing up. And political parties? I don’t know about you, but it seems like a lot more people are joining up political parties. And youth sports. Is there any youth that isn’t a member of two, three organizations? My goodness. So I don’t think we can just say, well, no one’s joining nothing. I don’t think so.
So how do we count? You know, this Sunday we skipped over – did you notice there’s two Sundays in the scripture? It’s really unfair for a preacher to have two Sundays in one Sunday’s reading. I mean, you should separate them out because we forget about that first Sunday, and we look at the second Sunday. You know, the one about the proof and the doubt and the goriness that if we weren’t used to it would be rated “M” on the graphic novel; you know? There’s going to be some hand in the side. Ugh. We skip over that. We talk about the proof and the denial and the doubt and the faith and all this other stuff. There are plenty of sermons on that. I got a couple on the Internet, if you’re really desperate.
But I want to talk about the first Sunday after Easter. You know, today. Where the Bible says one of the twelve wasn’t there. Well, then there wasn’t twelve there, was there, Bible. Bible knows that. Bible knows that Judas is gone. Bible knows that Peter’s not out in the open. Bible knows that one of the disciples ran away. Yet the Bible still says twelve. What happened that first Sunday with the twelve? Jesus came back, and the sermon went something like this. You might recognize it. There was peace. Peace. There was ritual actions. There was joy. And there was a message.
Did you catch it? It closed the service, sermon at the end, classic structure. Jesus said, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Of all the things to say the Sunday after Easter. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Of all the things Jesus could tell them, coming back from hell, rising from the dead, triumphant over the worst the empire could give him, he says about forgiving sins of any, but also warns them about retaining sins of any.
Now, immediately, what did we do as a church? We immediately took this little scripture, and we made a huge big patriarchal power structure, hierarchical, ecclesiastical, with all sorts of penance and potions and indulgences and wherefore and courts and censors and discipline and all this. I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind this first Sunday after Easter. He didn’t think that we were going to make some kind of religious industrial complex out of forgiving and sinning and forgiving and penance and rules and what you have to do to get back right.
And look who was there that first Sunday? Look who was not? A denier, deserter, doubter, and all of them despairing. And to this group he says “peace.” There’s no peace, Jesus. Rome is after us. The Jewish, our own people are after us. We’re hiding here. But you see, peace isn’t the peace we think of, absence of war, safety from conflict. Peace is much, much more than that. Peace is everything is where it should be. Everything is in its place. Everything is fitting. Everything is cozy. Everything is the way that God wants it to be. Peace, peace. The twelve are here because God’s peace is here, and all is where it should be. Peace.
But if you think of peace as the way God wants the world to be, where everything is fitting, where everybody has what they need to live, where everything is cozy, if you will, then you can understand sin. Sin is not some morality play, some purity test, some list of morals or do’s and don’ts. It isn’t about a dress code. It isn’t about a date code. It isn’t about what you pledge to do or not do on a certain time and place. Sin is not doing God’s will. If you are not conforming, if you’re going against what God wants you to do, that is sin. Which is the opposite of peace. Peace is what God wants the world to be like, what relationships should be. Sin is when we don’t do that, when we rebel. When we don’t do what God wants. When we do things for selfish things. When we don’t have our place in society and with people.
And you could think of that first Sunday. You think this is a tough worship service? Mass? Social distancings? No coffee? No hugs? Imagine those people back then. That was a bad Sunday. Jesus dead. Doors locked. Fear of the authorities. Peace. To this he says “peace.” To them he says the world. Let’s not talk sin. Let’s talk about it. If you forgive the way the world is not like what God wants, if you can forgive the way people are not the way God wants them to be, well, then they are forgiven. And I think there were some uncomfortable looks around the room. Was a denier there? Did people kind of look to the side? Say that guy, that guy we have to forgive? God wants peace between me and that guy who couldn’t even say he was with us the time we needed him? Was there a couple people? You know there was. That looked at that empty chair where Judas always sat, you know, that’s where he was. He was just there last week. One of the twelve. That guy. I hate him. You tell me to forgive him? Our things will still be broken.
Or the guy who ran away, not named, in Mark. Was he there? Was the guy who locked the door, oh, we’ve got to. You never know, things are coming to get us. You know who this is. Conspiracy theory guy. He’s everywhere. Even back then. We’ve got to make up with him? What about Thomas? Thomas. He didn’t even show up. We haven’t seen that guy. He’s given up. I hear he went back to work. Him? If you forgive, that’s a lot more tough than some kind of purity test or some kind of moral law, to hear Jesus say you get right with the folks that aren’t the way God wants them to be. And that will fix things.
And then there’s judgment. He warns those folks because he knew. He could read a room. He looked around, and it’s, oh, geez, I’m going to come back next week. You guys got some homework. If you don’t do this, if you retain, if you keep this up, if you keep acting like this, the way God wants the world to be will continue to be broken. The world will continue to be in sin, meaning not the way God wants it to be. If you want to save the world, you can’t keep going after the folks and the things that don’t measure up to God, God’s will.
How do you get rid of sin? We might say repent. We might say get on the right course. We might say penance, depending on our tradition. We might say confession. We might say a lot of things. But the Bible today says the way to get rid of sin is to forgive. To forgive. And are forgiven. And if you don’t forgive, if you retain, if you’re still mad at Peter, you’re still mad at Peter for not having the guts to stand up and support you, if you’re still mad at Thomas for not showing up on Sunday like he’s supposed to, if you’re still mad at Judas, well, then, guess what? Sin’s going to continue. The world’s not going to be the way God wants it to be. And there will be no peace.
And I’ll be here next week and see how you’re doing. Somebody was listening. Somebody took it to heart. Somebody went out to Thomas. You know, they didn’t say Thomas, oh, you really missed something, Thomas. Shame on you for not showing up. Thomas, we have seen the Lord. We have seen what God wants for the world. We have seen Jesus. Here’s our faith. I know you don’t have any. Here’s some. And even though he was a jerk about it, and don’t raise a hand, but how many people you talk to are jerks about things now? Yeah, they’re out in force. Even though he was a jerk about it and says, well, I ain’t calling you a liar, but you’re lying. Unless I see it, it didn’t happen. You still invite that guy to church? They did. They listened to Jesus. And the next week the doors were shut. They weren’t locked. At least they didn’t say they locked. They were just shut. Progress, not perfection.
You know, Jesus answered him, asked him, have you believed because you’ve seen me? I wonder what Thomas would say? Because you know what, he didn’t actually, we don’t have actually that he didn’t actually poke Jesus like he said he had to. He didn’t actually slide his hand in there. At least it’s not in the Bible that he did that. I’m wondering if Thomas said, well, not because I saw you. I’m here because of these guys. Even after me being a jerk and abandoning them, they came and got me. And I didn’t see you. I didn’t poke you. I didn’t look at your wounds before I came to church.
I’m glad you’re here. But the reason I’m here, the reason I’m being faithful is because of these people around me that told me I didn’t have to be perfect, that they forgave me when I abandoned them. That they forgave me for being a jerk and not believing them. And that’s what healed me. Nothing that I did. But the love and forgiveness that the other people have shown to me, that’s what got rid of it. You know, if they didn’t go after Thomas and tell him and invite him, if they retained his behavior that God didn’t want, I wonder if the Bible would say eleven instead of twelve.
Friends, we’ve got some work to do. Going to be a tremendous adjustment as we come to something else other. Already, you’ve already done that, I applaud you. Are we retaining sins or forgiving them? Are we forgiving that things aren’t the way God wants them to be and pronouncing peace? Everyone has a place, and you fit in here somehow. We’re going to make it work. Or are we going to retain the brokenness and the way things God doesn’t want to be? Seems like it’s up to us which way we go, whether we have peace, where everyone is forgiven and loved, or we don’t have peace, where everybody is separated and not counted.
There’s a poem by Ruth Etchells, found it on Facebook. You know, that membership thing.
The Ballad of the Judas Tree by Ruth Etchells
In Hell there grew a Judas Tree
Where Judas hanged and died
Because he could not bear to see
Hs master crucified
Our Lord descended into Hell
And found his Judas there
For ever hanging on the tree
Grown from his own despair
So Jesus cut his Judas down
And took him in his arms
‘It was for this I came’ he said
‘And not to do you harm
My Father gave me twelve good men
And all of them I kept
Though one betrayed and one denied
Some fled and others slept
In three days’ time I must return
To make the others glad
But first I had to come to Hell
And share the death you had
My tree will grow in place of yours
Its roots lie here as well
There is no final victory
Without this soul from Hell ‘
So when we all condemn him
As of every traitor worst
Remember that of all his men
Our Lord forgave him first.
From the Church of Scotland website for Easter Day
The audio and transcript are from the Saturday version. Here is a YouTube of the Sunday Service
For the Sake of the Gospel, for the good news to be good news, for Christianity to be a blessing and not a curse Paul tells us that and lives out a freedom and privilege that is not for him and his but for others, the wage slave, society’s outcasts, a Jews a religious minority-immigrants kicked out of Rome, the disabled. Losers by society standards that Paul calls us and shows us to use our power, our privilege, our birthrights to include. We are blessed so that others can win those blessings as well.
Bring what is valuable about the past into a new future
Bringing Forward What’s Behinda sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey
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Audio from St. Paul’s Lutheran Church parking lot on August 30, 2020edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions; all errors are mine. Matthew 16:21-28
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Phone, glasses, Hearphones, and once my brother Tim. That is the answer to the question, “What do you go back for?” If I leave my phone, my glasses, or even this morning my Hearphones, my hearing aids, I go back for them and get them. And one time, on the way to a very memorable church service, I left my brother Tim, and we went back for him. What do you go back for? What do you go back for to bring into the present and take with you into the future?
I gave out notecards to some of you, I hope you got them, it’s a Sankofa bird on the front. You can take a look at it there. It’s very small here. But I hope you got yours. If you look closely, it might remind you of those geese that are always over there at the high school and the park, Oh, my gosh. But it’s not. It’s a Sankofa bird. And if you see, it’s reaching back to get an egg to bring forward into the future. It’s part of a Native American and Mexican tradition, and African. And what it means is that it is okay to stop and go back to the past and bring something of value forward. It also says that that is something you should do, that that is something that is noble and expected, that you will stop what you’re doing and figure out what part of the past you want to bring into the future.
We are at an amazing, unique time. I don’t know, I hope I can say this in front of you all, but it was official church communication. I wanted to go to one of the churches in our denomination, not the Lutherans – God bless the Lutherans. I went and I said, “Hey, can I come to your church?” And they took it to the committee, and the committee’s first question was, will he sanitize the bathrooms? Apparently they have laid off their custodian, and anybody that goes in, it’s do-it-yourself cleaning. What a strange and wonderful time we are living in, to get that question when you want to go to church.
It used to be that the status quo, the way things always have been, was the one thing that could not be vetoed. That’s the one thing that could not be changed. You almost have to have a unanimous – a consensus to do anything different. You know this is difficult in churches, even in society.
But the coronavirus and the quarantine has vetoed the status quo. Something that we said was impossible has been done. I remember driving by closed casinos in Nevada. Oh, my gosh. You know, snowballs in hell are nothing compared to a dark casino in Nevada. Who would believe such a change? This is the time where we pause, like the bird, in going forward, and look into our past and say, “Well, that’s all messed up. The way of the future is not the old ways. What are we going to bring forward into the future?”
These are very challenging verses we have today, as much as they were [horn honking]. Thank you, amen. As much as they were back in the time of Jesus. Imagine, if you will, not the hospitality of Romans being preached. And you say to yourself, well, that’s hard to do. That’s difficult to do. All these people with the politics and the division and the different ideas and the fights over the mask and the statues and the marches and the counter protests and the shootings. How can we be hospitable? And gentle? And welcoming? God just doesn’t know what we face.
But remember when these were written. The folks reading this were under armed occupation as a conquered people by a foreign power. I don’t know what you think the level of our situation is now, but it’s not that bad. And yet the Scripture still was written, these directives still were given to those people. If they could do it, we can do it.
Have you thought about what this would play out with, like today? I mean, if Peter and Jesus were here today and had this discussion, how would it work out? Have you guys heard of Facebook? I am convinced Facebook has both brought together and blown apart more relationships than five generations of gossips. It is an amazing engine to both bring people together! I mean, I’ve got high school friends that comment on my stuff. I haven’t seen them in, well, a long time.
It also blows people apart. You know that meme they shared about the politician that you liked? Remember that mean thing they said about people you care about? Amen. Have you unfriended a friend on Facebook over that? I can imagine it would go something like this with Peter and Jesus on Facebook. You know, it’d be Facebook. It’d be Jesus’s page. You know, I imagine it’d be very pastoral, lot of pastel colors maybe, maybe a sunrise. Couple hills maybe in the background. He’d be there smiling. And his post might be, “Taking the Jerusalem challenge. I know, I know it’s difficult. But I’m going to J-Town. It’s tough, but it’s something I need to do. I’m going to go there and protest. And come with me, I’m going to make them hear what I have to say.”
Have you seen that post? Can you imagine Peter – and God bless Peter, he didn’t post directly on the wall. That’s not good. Don’t do that, folks. He did a message to Jesus, you know, with the little Messenger app that pops up on your phone. You say, what is that thing? He says, “Hey, Jesus, I forbid you to go to J-Town. That’s not a good idea. Have you heard what’s going on there? Have you heard about the protest? Have you heard about the violence? People getting killed there, Jesus. Don’t go, Jesus. You shouldn’t be going there.” And Jesus, I imagine Jesus does this. Maybe he doesn’t, but I’m thinking. Jesus sends him one of them little faces, one with the devil horns on it; you know? And that’s it. Just devil get behind me.
Have you had awkward, perhaps relationship-breaking Facebook conversations about what to bring forward? We can’t leave this behind. We’ve got to leave this brutality. We’ve got to leave this racism. We’ve got to leave the Confederate statues. We’ve got to leave this oppression. We’ve got to leave this two system where there’s one justice for those that are white; and those that are not, they get another system. We’ve got to leave that all behind. And then you’ve got other people saying, no, no, no, we’ve got to bring that forward. That’s our heritage. That’s part of what makes our country great. You’re wrong. Things are great. Things are wonderful. We need everything. We’ve got bring that forward. And there’s a great tug of war, just like that bird, about what to bring forward and what to leave behind.
We make these choices all the time. All the time. And it’s not about erasing history. It’s what we choose to bring forward. Imagine, if you will, after – I don’t know, I don’t want to get in trouble here. But a year, a year out of the church? I don’t know. Don’t quote me on this. It’s going to be a while. But at the church, you went in there, and you found out that some people were honoring your heritage by putting up a statue of Judas, and another great big statue of Satan in the church because, you know, that’s history. That’s heritage. That’s in the Scriptures. We can’t forget that. I think you’d say we don’t need to bring that forward, brother. Sister, I don’t think we need that in the church. We remember Satan. We see him a lot out in the world every day. We don’t need a big old statue of him in our faith.
Well, Christy, you gave us the problem, didn’t give us any solution. Hate when that happens. What are we going to do? How can we do this?
Short Wave is a wonderful daily podcast about science, very entertaining, about 10 minutes long. I just binge through them, read, listen to them while I’m driving somewhere. I don’t go anywhere anymore, but so 10 minutes takes me a couple trips. But they said to get yourself out of this depression and get yourself out of this funk, and to get yourself out of the terrible place that you might be in in this time, two things are important: control, and recognizing that the present times or situation is temporary. Control and temporary. So you focus on what you can do.
What is in my control? What can I do? I can’t stop the pandemic, but I can help other people. I can make masks. I can give money to the folks that don’t have it. I can go out and support the workers that are out of work by going through all the rigmarole to do carryout and try to give them some money. If I have a place, I can maybe help out somebody that doesn’t have a place. Maybe I don’t collect the rent this month if I’m a landlord. Maybe I support a little help for those that are helpless. What is in my control? What can I do?
In Jesus’s case, he says, you know, there’s a lot of evil out there. There’s a lot of trouble out there. There’s a lot of oppression out there. There’s a lot of sin out there. I can do something about that. I can go and proclaim God’s love, God’s compassion, God’s inclusion. And I can tell it and tell it until I’m dead. That’s what I can do. I can’t stop all evil. I can’t control other people. But I can live a worthy life full of service and healing and love, as long as I’m here. That’s in my control. That’s where God wants me to go. So the one is control. What is God calling me to do, not what God is calling those other folks to do. Not what I think they ought to do. It’s with God, what is God calling me to do? I can do that. What can I do? Get some control in your life by that.
And remember this is temporary. As Christians we know that we have a heavenly home that is eternal in the heavens, and we’re just here temporarily. So everything that happens is temporary, and most temporary is this time of pandemic. There will be a time when this pandemic is over. I don’t know when. It’s a race between when the pandemic is over and Jesus comes. I don’t know which is going to come first. What I’m thinking is that it’ll be a sure sign, if the Overby House opens, that’d be the end times. That I’m sure of. Jesus has a reservation there first night.
It’s temporary, friends. And you know, Jesus did this with Peter, too. I don’t know if you’ve been doing a friendship study, looking at the timeline between Jesus and Peter on Facebook. But my gosh, those two are always getting into it. You know, they need some couples counseling, those two. You see them going back and forth. You know, because Peter is showboating. Just last week, jumping off the boat, or a couple weeks ago, jumping off the boat, walking on that water like showboating around. Come on, Peter, give it a rest. This is Jesus’s moment. You know, why are you horning in on that? You don’t even do it well. And Jesus sighs and picks him up afterwards.
And then he had a good time, a good spot. He says, “Jesus, you are the Messiah.” He confessed him as Lord. Good times. And now we’ve got this one, where he stops him from doing what he needs to do, what he wants to do, what he’s called to do, and gets in his way and tries to control Jesus. Have you done that? Have you tried to control Jesus and say, “That’s not the way, Jesus. Oh, no, no, no, no. We’re not going there. We’re not going out in the parking lot.” Heck, no. I love the Lord, but not that much. I need my pew and my cushion and my roof. Can somebody get a roof.
Have you had days like that? Maybe over more significant issues? But Jesus sticks with him and even sticks with him when he betrays him and denies him. Spoiler alert, this is coming up. Peter denies Jesus, betrays him. “I do not know the man.” Right when he needed a friend, someone to stand with him. Through all that drama, through all that back and forth, Jesus stays with Peter. Because he knows that bad days are temporary. And somehow he saw good in Peter. And the last time we see them together they reconcile, where Jesus asks him if he loves him three times, bringing back the three times Peter denied him. And Peter says, “You know I do. I love you, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”
So you had a bad time. So maybe you denied Jesus. I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe you did some things you weren’t supposed to do. Maybe you have some regrets. I’m telling you now, the answer, the way out is to recognize that was temporary, and that you have control to do good and to be better. You can be like Jesus and Peter. And even though you had ups and downs and troubles and upsetness, if you love the Lord, there’s a way out. If you love the Lord enough to take care of other people. If you love the Lord to take care of those he cares about. If you love the Lord enough to be as hospitable as we hear Paul telling the folks under Roman rule to be hospitable, and kind, and to forego vengeance, but leave room for God.
I had a friend. His name’s Randy. Randy was in Kiwanis with me in Akron, Ohio. And that guy had a heart that would not end. I mean, he was the one, if you had a Kiwanis service project, he would come two days early and prep it and bring supplies that he bought out of his own pocket, wouldn’t take money. The day he was there he would come early and stay late. And he would bring his entire family and friends to help. And then he would clean up afterwards and come back the next day and finish up what wasn’t done.
But then Facebook. I swear every Russian meme that ever came across that was heartless and mean and untrue, Randy had to repeat and had to post. The first couple dozen times I said, “Randy, what are you doing, dude?” I would say, “Hey, check this out, this article. It’s just not true. It’s not at all. It’s just trying to make you angry. If you’re angry when you see a meme, stop and think that the purpose of this meme and this post is not for information. The purpose of this post is to make me angry. And don’t let it do that.” We had some back and forth, and he says, “I just can’t help it. I just can’t help it.” So I unfriended him. I just – my blood pressure couldn’t take it. And I didn’t want to keep going after him and arguing with him.
But what I’m going to do today, these are little cards, these little note cards. And I’ve got some homework for you. I mean, you’ve got time; right? Everything’s crazy. Everything’s closed. I’m going to write Randy. I’m going to write Randy and see if we can get some relationship back. Because that was temporary, you know. Those posts were maybe even unthinking. And I know he’s a good and kind man, although his choice in candidates is just godawful. But he’s a good guy. He’s a loving father, faithful husband, hard worker in his own business, and generous to a fault.
I’m going to write him this card, and I’m going to try to get back with him because I think this is what the Scripture says to us. Leave room for God to take vengeance. Leave room. Welcome everyone, and let God correct them and get them right. Don’t tell Jesus not to go to somewhere he’s not welcome. Don’t tell Jesus you shouldn’t be concerned about those people. You should stay away from them.
Do you have a Randy in your life? Maybe family? Maybe a friend that, in this time of division and polarization and every issue under the sun – who would have thought we’re arguing about the Post Office? Can you give me a break? Can we just get a buy on the Post Office this year. Anyone you having problems with? Maybe you have a problem with me. Maybe have a problem with Chad. I don’t know. Maybe you’re here because you have a problem with your church or pastor.
I’m telling you, I’m a Stated Clerk of the Presbytery, and I sort of have my eyes on the churches throughout Nevada. And pastors are quitting. Pastors are going in the hospital with stress diseases. It is a horrible, awful time to be a pastor. You think you’re upset about the way the church is going? Imagine if you were the pastor. Maybe if you’ve got no one in your life that you want to reconcile with, no one in your life that you think you need a better relationship with, write it to Chad. I write to Pastor, and I get a note back, “Oh, thank you, you don’t know how much I needed that.” You know, what a difference it made.
Our Scriptures today say that we can make room for others that disagree with us. Our Scriptures today say even when they’re going the wrong way and we’re absolutely convinced that they’re going the wrong way, they can still be related to us. And what a message, what a time for us to hear that.
Friends, what are we going to bring forward in the future? This is something that we need to reflect on. We need to consider. We need to talk together. We need to make room for one another. What are we going to turn back and bring forward? How is our church life and our church worship going to be different going forward? Is it going to be more technology? Are we going to have more opportunities for people to gather, rather than at a certain time and place in a certain building in a certain seat in a certain location? Is this going to be a great renaissance for the church? A great awakening and expansion? A transformation of what it means to be God’s people? I hope so. I hope so.
It’s up to us what we bring forward. We have a great opportunity now to take stock of, well, what is essential? What is necessary? What is loving? What makes room for people? What does hospitality look like in this day and age? My first boss in a spiritual position as a chaplain left to move on, and she said this: “I do not go alone, and I leave no one behind.” I do not go alone. I leave no one behind. As we go through this time, into a new time, imagine what you want to bring forward, who you want to bring forward. And remember you do not go alone. And remember to leave no one behind.
Amen.
How to Stop the Shouting
Stop the Shoutinga sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING
Audio from St. Paul’s Lutheran Church parking lot on August 16, 2020edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions; all errors are mine. Matthew 15:21-28
Sermons also available free on iTunes
Looking for the way to make the shouting people go away…
Would someone please stop the shouting. That’s what the disciples want. They want the shouting to stop.
I want to tell you how to stop the shouting. And I want to show you ways that do not work, as well, for they are all here in our Scripture. 2020 among many things is a year of shouting, and a year of people wanting other people to go away and quit shouting.
We have lots of shouting. We have lots of people shouting for crumbs of compassion to come off the tables of their master. And we have lots of people telling them to go away. We don’t want to hear your shouting. And they do it by curfew. They do it by tear gas. They do it by appealing to any authority they can: Please, for the love of God, stop this shouting. And the shouting doesn’t stop. No matter how many appeals we say, no matter what we say, no matter what we do, the shouting goes on, it seems.
A woman of a different race says her demon daughter matters. And Jesus says, “Oh, no. You’re not going to trick me there. All children matter. Not just yours. All children. That’s what I’m here for.” And then the reading ends, and everybody goes home happy.
That doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen in our Scripture, and it certainly doesn’t happen in our country. Shouting “Go home,” saying “All children matter,” does not stop the shouting. It didn’t then, and it doesn’t now, even if you say it is the love of Christ that makes me tell you all children matter. Go home. Stop shouting.
How can we stop the shouting? That is what we ask Jesus to do for us. Strangely, we can look at the Internet. I know that’s strange. The Internet is more often a pooling of our ignorance. But there is a site called Quora. I don’t know what you spend your time on. I’m not going to take a survey. You can tell me in private later, maybe with confession with Pastor Chad, if you need to. But I go to Quora to find out what people are asking and find out how people are responding.
Here is how the Quora website/email subscription works: somebody asks a question. Other people give answers. And then here’s the key part. The answers get voted up or down. So the answer that makes most sense to most people bubbles up to the top.
And I was looking at this Scripture and looking at Quora, and there was a letter asking: “Who do I see, how do I get compensation for what happened?” And he told a story. He’s there at home, his home, you know, paid for, mortgage, you know, taxes paid, lawn cut, you know, everything you want in a good neighborhood and a good neighbor. And over the hill comes this riotous noise, this thumping and banging and booming. And up comes a helicopter, and it drops a bucket, boom, into his pool, scoops up a whole bunch of water, without a by your leave or if you please, and flies away with it. And he says: “Who do I see about getting paid for that water?”
Well, the answer, if you’re wondering, and you probably know from being in Nevada where wildfires are everywhere, those helicopters can get water anywhere they can, anytime they want, whenever they need it becausethe letter writer didn’t mention thissomething was on fire. Maybe the entire landscape. Maybe the entire mountain was on fire, and that helicopter was trying to save homes and lives. Other people’s homes, not his own.
BUT All water matters. Why are you taking my water? All waters matter. He didn’t mention that other homes were threatened by fire and that water could make a difference between life and death, between having a home and being homeless. No. All water matters.
I was on the firefighting force in Ottawa, Ohio. We didn’t have wildfires, thank goodness. We just had structures, and pretty contained. But I tell you, I am certainly thankful and glad that never, when we were going to a fire, did we find counter-protesters telling us to shut off our sirens, they were bothering them; quit the shouting; and, by the way, all waters matter. Why don’t you top off my pool?
We were going to a fire. We’re trying to save property and lives. People kind of understood that.
I remember growing up in Akron, Ohio, and looking down the main street of Akron, Ohio, which is called Market Street. And I remember when a fire truck siren went, as far as you could see, and you could see a mile in each direction, every car and vehicle got off the road, let that fire truck through.
In Ohio, at least when I was a firefighter back then, fire trucks had absolutely no special privileges. They were not allowed to violate any traffic. ALL TRAFFIC MATTERED. Fire engines did not have the right of way. All they could do was to ask. Said excuse me, there’s a fire. Could you get out of the way for a minute? And back then, people knew that even though they had the right to that road, even though all cars mattered: they saw that somebody needed that road more than them. Someone needed help, and they got out of the way.
How do we stop the shouting? Now, all allegories fail. The children and the dogs and the puppies and all that, that doesn’t exactly match up one-to-one. And there’s a whole lot written about that. And neither does my firefighting thing. That doesn’t match up one-to-one with reality. If it was, it would be reality. But I’m telling you to go a little bit further with this.
The way you stop the shouting, if you will, the way you stop the fire engine sirens, is not by telling them that all homes matter. Turn that off. It is not by saying you’re bothering me, shut off that siren, I have rights. The way to stop the fire sirens, the way to stop the shouting is to put out the fire.
I’m telling you, as long as that fire was going, there were sirens. If we couldn’t get it the fire out, we called in more and more people, more and more sirens, until the fire was out. We didn’t shout and say, oh, all homes matter. We didn’t say turn off the sirens, we can’t keep bothering people. We put out the fire.
What about now? What’s the allegory here? What’s it doing here? Because the disciples tried to say shut up. They tried the curfew. They tried the tear gas. They tried the appeal to authority. They tried to get the people in to haul them out and take them away, send them away, put them back, get them out of here, clear the plaza.
It didn’t work. Sound familiar? And then Jesus himself, and for the love of Jesus, it says that he said he is here for all the children of God, not just a demon daughter. I mean, why do we care? We had nothing to do with her demon daughter. We didn’t possess them. We didn’t send the demon on them. We didn’t sic the demon on her. We didn’t tell her to live in the demon place. We didn’t do any of that. We’re here for all the good children of God. You know, people who look like us and demon free.
Even when it’s said by Jesus himself, it is not enough. I don’t know why then we think it makes a difference if we correct people with a lie saying all matters in theory when it is not true in reality. It didn’t work for JESUS, why do we think it will make a difference for us?
What makes a difference? What stops a fire of fear? It is faith. It is faith.
The Faith I’m talking about, the faith that Jesus sees is not found listed in “The Book of Confessions,” Al. We are not talking about “The Book of Covenant,” for all the Lutherans here. Not even “The Sinner’s Prayer.” I’m not talking about the “Five Fundamentals of Faith.” Because this woman knew nothing of those. Yet still Jesus said, “You have faith.” And what was that faith? The faith was there is a relationship with all people. With children and dogs that you call them, and those inside and outside, all are at the table. There’s relationship.
And Jesus saw that. Oh, woman. When you can see past my disciples sending you away, when you can see past me even telling you that I’m not here for you, when you can see past the divides of gender and divides of race and the divides of culture and the divides of country, and you can see past all that and say we are all related at the table of the master, that is faith that goes to the heart of the Triune God that is based, is essence of relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, twirling and dancing, and relationship in Eternity. You have faith that that relationship will go through everyone on the world, including you. And that is what’ll bring healing. That is what will put out the fire. And when the fire is out, the sirens stop, and not until then.
Louis C.K. has made some very poor choices in his life. I’m not holding him up as a moral example or exemplar for you and your relationships with others in every aspect. But there is something I really like that he said to his children. I don’t know if you have been a parent – I think most of you have been children. You know how children like to make sure they get their fair share, whether it’s desserts or ice cream or cereal or, oh my gosh, the fights over the backseat, who had the middle line and the hump and back and forth. I don’t know, flick your lights you are listening to yourself. Is there anybody here that has children that looked at other to check out who had more? Is anyone asleep? Do we need an amen? We’ve got a couple of hands up.
Louis C.K. had it up to here when they started comparing the amount of cereal in their bowls. He said, and this is what he said to them, and the rule in his house:
The only time, the only time you look in your neighbor’s bowl
is to make sure they have enough.
The only time you look in your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have as much as they do.
Put out the fire and stop the shouting. There’s no other way to live out the faith that we’re all in this together. Amen.