March 21, 2022 – “Putting Up Fences”

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country.When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully.And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.” Mark 12:1-9

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants begins with these words, “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it…”.  Why do so many people put a fence around themselves and refuse to share their fruit with others? When we put up fences between us and our neighbors, we are, in essence, putting a fence up between us and G-d. But there are many reasons why people decide not to share their G-d-given fruit with others.

First, they believe that what they have is theirs and theirs alone. They forget that all we have comes from G-d. Second, by hoarding their things, they believe they are protecting themselves from having others steal their fruit, or damage their fruit. After all, it is their stuff.

I know that at times we pray for G-d to put a hedge of protection around us so that we are protected from our enemies. But this hedge of protection can become a wall that separates and isolates us from the “others” around us. In his poem “Mending Wall” Robert Frost writes:

 Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.

His poem may go on to say “Good fences make good neighbors”, but I believe good fences only leave us feeling isolated and alone. Instead of fences, let’s build relationships modeled from our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Let us pray,

Lord Christ, we too often want to isolate and wall ourselves away from others. Give to me your love and presence so I can learn not to wall others out, but to reach out to others in love. Amen.

Pastor Dave

March 20, 2022 – Lent 3C        

“At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did’” Luke 13:1-5

“What is Karma?” One definition of Karma is “a person’s destiny or fate following a series of life events.”  Karma is more understood as a Buddhist or Hindu process of: “the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence (lives), viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.” As such, in the Buddhist understanding Karma is an explanation for what happens to someone because of the sins of their past—and by past I mean past life experiences. Now, I would suggest to you that there might be different kinds of Karma. For example, the people who just happened to go to a Mosque or a Temple or Church for prayers or a service — and someone comes into the building and shoots them dead–well I would call that kind of Karma “Bad Random Karma”. And then there is “Regular Karma”, which might explain why someone has a bridge beam fall on their heads while they are stuck in traffic—and just happen to be sitting under a bridge under construction.  Have you shut me out yet? Just wait, it gets better…

There is the story told about a small country congregation in Georgia where on a Sunday night they were having an evening prayer service back in 1938. The prayer service was in full motion when a local man named Sam came running into the church. When he caught his breath he shouted “I just heard on the radio that Martians have landed and are attacking people in New Jersey.” The congregation stared at the pastor, because everything is the pastor’s problem or responsibility—and he had stopped in mid sentence in his sermon. Now, we all know that this local man was taken in by the Orson Wells “War of the World” radio theater—but no one knew that at the time. Finally an old farmer stood up and said “I expect that Sam has some of his facts wrong, but if it is true, we are in the right place here at church. So, let’s keep going…”

Where else do we go, or where else do we want to be when bad karma strikes us, Amen? But, truth be told, if space ships are landing, or someone is outside shooting up the place, I would rather be in church than in a farmer’s field trying to shoot down a space ship.

What we need to do my friends, as children of G-d, we need to change the narrative, not only in our lives, but in the lives of the small world we inhabit. Right now, it is through the tragedies, the doom and gloom, the terrorist attacks, the announcements of rogue asteroids that cause people to run around shouting that the end is near—that G-d is about to punish us—that the sky is about to fall. That is the only way a lot of people see G-d interacting in our world.

As people of G-d, we need to make “Grace” the sign of the times. How? Well, we need to learn to live lives of Grace—and to learn to give away Grace prodigally, wastefully, by being bearers of Grace unconditionally—and then we, as people of G-d, we become the “signs of the times”.

Pastor Dave