The Pastor’s Words

Text:  John 6:1-21
26 July 2009
Topic:  Against All Odds

Just up the road from Ocean City, New Jersey, where we spent last week on vacation, is Atlantic City, New Jersey where thousands, if not millions of dollars, are lost to the “house.”  Oh, to be sure, there are a few who actually win hundreds, and occasionally thousands of dollars, but people who gamble lose money, and some people lose a lot of money.
And now, it’s happening in Chester, Pennsylvania, one of the poorest communities in our commonwealth.  Here’s what the online ad says about Harrah’s Chester located in Chester, Pennslyvania:
 
Our Slots are Spinning, Non-Stop, Around the Clock!
Harrah’s Chester Casino & Racetrack is open 24 hours 7 days a week - 365 days a year!  The hottest gaming action is here at the all-new Harrah’s Chester Casino & Racetrack. In addition to the adrenaline-pumping thrills of horse racing, the casino at Harrah’s Chester features more than 2,900 of your favorite slots and video poker machines.

At Harrah’s Chester, you’ll find an astounding 100,000-square-feet of gaming space, with all your favorite slot machines, including classics like Wheel of Fortune and Jackpot Party as well as the newest in video poker such as the wildly popular World Series of Poker machines and Electronic Blackjack. Whether you enjoy playing on the penny slots or taking the plunge on the $100 high limit machines, Harrah’s Chester has something for everyone.
 
Their final boast is that “Harrah’s of Chester has something for everyone, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year.”  Every day of the year, Harrah’s Chester claims to have something for everyone.  It’s just that it won’t last, it won’t really satisfy.  It will fade and pass away, unless, of course, you lose all of your money at Harrah’s before then.
In our gospel for today, Jesus is met by crowds of people who had heard of his healing power.  They had gathered, not only to see him but to be healed by him. 
The crowds of people in Jesus’ day were not unlike the crowds of people that might gather anywhere today.  They were working class people, they were middle management people, they were business people, they were mothers and fathers, grandparents and little children all coming out to see Jesus and to be healed by him.  The crowd would have looked much like what we look like today.
The text tells us, that in the crowd, there were about 5000 men, not counting women and children.  Jesus looked out on all those people and figured they’d need to eat before he could minister to them.  So, he asked his disciples where they could get enough food to feed all the people. 
This presented a problem for the disciples – a huge problem!   Imagine, what we would have done if Jesus had asked us to quickly go and find enough food to feed 5000 men, plus women and children.  I don’t think we’d have done any better than the disciples who said, “Well, there’s a boy here who has five small loaves of barley bread and two fish.  But what good is that with all these people?”   (John 6:9  CEV) The odds of getting everyone fed with that measly amount of food would have been nil.
But, as we have come to believe, Jesus was, and is, always better than the odds.  Jesus took those five loaves and two fish, blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the people, and they were filled. 
Those people were fed, just like we are fed at this altar each and every week.  A very small amount of bread and wine are taken and blessed.  Bread is broken, wine is poured, and together they are given to us as the Body and Blood of Christ.  Miraculously, a very thin piece of bread, and a mere taste of wine, fills us and sustains us, forgives us and heals us.
We come here to be fed, just like the crowds came to Jesus.  We come here because we have a spiritual hunger.  And it is met, and filled, by Jesus.
The current population of the United States is just over 307,000,000 people.  The current population of the world is about 6.7 billion.  Over the course of time another several billion people have lived on this planet we call earth. 
And out of all those people who have ever lived on this earth, or who are currently living on this earth, against all odds, Jesus, the one and only Son of God, was born in a small dusty village in the Middle East.  One, among the billions – that’s BILLIONS with a “B” – who have ever lived, one was born to save us.
And against all odds, Jesus, the savior and healer comes to you and me once again today.  He comes to Aubrey in the waters of baptism.  He comes to us in the meal we call Holy Communion.  He comes and gives to us the forgiveness of sins.  In this meal he assures us life on this earth.  And in this meal, he promises us life eternal. 
Today, we are recipients, once again, of the miraculous powers of a God who truly cares about the thousands and millions, and even billions of hungry people who are standing before him.
Right now, the only hunger that Aubrey knows is the one coming from her belly.  But one day, as she begins to live and love, as she tries something and fails, as she encounters life’s corners, she will begin to experience a spiritual hunger, a hunger that can only be filled by the power and love and forgiveness of Jesus the Christ. 
We don’t need casinos.  We don’t need odds on horse races and one-armed-bandits called slot machines.  The odds of winning are way too slim.
We’ve already got a 24-7-365 power that is greater than any Harrah’s or Showboat, better than any Caesar’s or Bally’s. 
We’ve got the one who took five loaves and two fish and fed 5000 men plus women and children.  Surely, he will feed us too.  AMEN

Text:  Amos 7:7-15, Mark 6:14-29
12 July 2009
Topic:  Pennies for Peace
 
What’s right?  And what’s wrong?  Read the newspaper, watch TV.  And there you will find people commenting all the time upon what’s right and what’s wrong in the city, in the nation, in the world.  People have a strong sense about what they believe is the right way to live, and the wrong way to live, and they are not shy about expressing it. 
I confess, I do this with the Phillies all the time.  Each night I watch or listen to the Phillies and I cannot help from commenting upon their performance.  For instance, I can tell you, they made a bad decision in letting their reserve catcher, Chris Coste, go!  Not just because he’s from North Dakota, but because I believe they’re going to need his bat later in the season.  See, I just expressed what I believe was right and wrong, something people do all the time.
This notion of telling what’s right and wrong probably originated with God.  I mean, isn’t that what happened in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve decided to go their own way?  God had to tell them what was right and what was wrong. 
And so it’s no accident that in today’s first lesson, in the book of Amos, God wanted things to be right.  God wanted things to be level, to be square, to be plumb. 
The Lord God said through Amos the prophet, “I’m using a measuring line [a plumb line – for those of you who know construction] to show that my people Israel don’t measure up, and I won’t forgive them any more.  Their sacred places will be destroyed, and I will send war against the nation of King Jereboam.”  (Amos 7:8b-9 CEV)
God said this because the nation of Israel was a nation of very rich people who cared very little about the needs of the many poor who were also living in the nation at that time.
The Lord also said through Amos that temple worship was a sham.  People were gathering for worship but empty words were being spoken, and meaningless music was being made.  Their worship may have been pretty, but as far as the Lord was concerned, it wasn’t pleasing.
A similar thing happened in the gospel reading for today.  John the Baptist was in prison because he dared to say there are standards by which we must live.  He told King Herod it was wrong for him to be sleeping with his brother’s wife.  And for that, he was put into prison and ultimately was beheaded. 
John the Baptist dared to proclaim there is a right and a wrong that God has established.  John the Baptist dared to say, “There’s a plumb line in life that must be adhered to and obeyed.”  There are certain standards that should apply to everyone on earth.  And people of good-will need to stand up and be counted upon to support these basic standards for living.
Ten thousand miles away, on the other side of the earth from where we are living are the countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  What most of us know about these two countries is that Osama Bin Laden is probably hiding out in the mountains of one of them.  And that, sometime later this fall, the United States will have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting a war against terrorists and people who simply don’t want us alive.
Rarely does anyone from this part of the world go for a vacation to that part of the world – unless you are going to climb a mountain.  But that’s what Greg Mortenson was going to do in 1993.   He had gone to Pakistan to climb K-2, the second largest mountain on the face of the earth.  The adventures from his trek are recorded in the book entitled, Three Cups of Tea.
I first heard about the book, Three Cups of Tea, at our Wednesday morning Bible study.  One of the women, Gail Jesten, came to class one day and said, “This book is a must-read book.”  I listened to the basic story, was convinced I needed to read it, went out, got a copy and read it.
In that book, which I strongly encourage you to read, you will read of one man’s encounter with a people on this earth, so remote, they have very few of the modern amenities you and I take for granted.  Electricity and running water are luxuries.  Automobiles aren’t able to run in those mountains.  Trucks work, to a point, but in the end, shoe leather and sheer brute strength are what people use to get around in the high altitudes of the Himalayan Mountains.
Up there, in the world’s tallest mountains, just a few years ago, there were barely any schools.  And what schools were there were for boys only.  In most cases girls weren’t allowed to go to school, but even where they were allowed, they were discouraged from attending. 
Greg Mortenson, who paid an unexpected visit to the villages of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1993 thought this was wrong.  He discovered in his visit that the children of the mountain villages he was visiting had an open-air school without any walls.  The children had no text books, and no writing materials.  Their only teacher was one who came every other day because the village couldn’t pay the dollar a day salary of the teacher.  Greg Mortenson, an American, and a Lutheran, thought this was wrong and decided then and there to do something about it.  He decided to help these mountain villages build schools.
His mother, an elementary school principal in Wisconsin, heard of her son’s desire to build schools, asked him to come and speak to the children of her school and the children spontaneously  launched a “Pennies for Pakistan” drive in order to build schools in that far off land.  In one month’s time, they filled two forty-gallon trash cans, collecting 62,345 pennies, which works out to be $623.45.  That was the beginning of Pennies for Peace. 
One school was built, then another, and then more, and even more.  From that very humble beginning, thousands and even millions of dollars have been raised so that today, over 100 schools have been built in the mountain regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
One man, Greg Mortenson, like Amos and John the Baptist, saw something they knew to be wrong, stood up and said it, and then did something about it.  Greg Mortenson, and the Central Asia Institute, unfunded by any government, have brought hope and education to people who otherwise would have neither.
Jesus said in his sermon on the Mount, “You have heard people say, “Love your neighbors and hate your enemies.”But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends. If you greet only your friends, what’s so great about that? Don’t even unbelievers do that? But you must always act like your Father in heaven.”  (Matthew 5:43-48 CEV)
Pennies for Peace is one way we can concretely change the world we are living in.  Pennies for Peace is something young and old alike can support.  When we bring pennies to worship and put them in the big jug, we will be standing up for something that’s right.  Giving children a basic education is surely something God would want us to support. 
The children of our congregation and I hope you will add to your worship by bringing pennies to worship until we fill this jar.  AMEN