Resurrection Morn

“Resurrection Morn”

A Sermon based on Mk. 16:1-8, Mt. 27:62-28:15, Lk. 24:1-12, & Jn. 20:1-10

By The Reverend John Edward Harris, D. Min.

The Presbyterian Church of Cadiz

Cadiz, Ohio

April 5, 2015

Resurrection of the Lord / Easter

                   Not long after beginning to serve as your Interim Pastor I started thinking about preaching a sermon inspired by our Tiffany window.  A little research and reflection suggested that what our window presents is a compendium of resurrection morning accounts from the Synoptic Gospels as well as John.

          The first three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—are called the Synoptic Gospels; synoptic means “seen together” because of their close similarities which enable the texts to be set out in parallel for comparison. It is generally agreed that there is a literary relationship among the Synoptic Gospels but that relationship is far from definitive. The Gospel According to John compared to the Synoptic Gospels, is so sharply distinguished—in style, wording, structure, and especially theological emphasis, seeming to see Jesus and his ministry from such a different perspective compared to the first three Gospels—that it stands alone showing very little literary relationship to the Matthew, Mark or Luke (The Oxford Companion to the Bible, p. 724.).

          While the Gospels were written centuries ago, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) didn’t establish Tiffany Glass Company until 1885, intending to make ecclesiastical and secular windows and, shortly thereafter, lamps.  (Tiffany & Co., his father’s firm, was independent.) In 1892 Tiffany renamed his firm Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company and established a glass manufacturing plant on Long Island directed by glassmaker Arthur Nash where our window was probably created.

          Our Tiffany Window bares an 1884 Copyright from Tiffany Glass Decorating Company and was originally designed and built for the Calvary Methodist Church in Pittsburgh. After Calvary ordered the 10 x 20 window the church found that it was too small for its plans so they ordered a larger one. Presbyterians in Cadiz were therefore able to obtain it at the bargain basement price of $2,000, which, adjusting for inflation, would be close to $50,000 today. Referred to as the Dewey Memorial Window, thanks to bequest from the estate of Nancy Prichard Dewey which made the purchase possible, the window was dedicated in April 1900.  It was removed in 2000, restored, and in 2001 reinstalled and rededicated at a cost of $60,000.

          The window’s design, entitled “Resurrection Morn”, is executed in three panels. The left panel features three women. The Gospel according to Mark is the only Gospel that tells us specifically three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, brought spices so that they might go and anoint the body of Jesus.

          The right panel features two men. The Gospel According to John is the only Gospel that tells us that two men, Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, ran together to the tomb.

          The lower center panel features three soldiers. The Gospel according to Matthew is the only Gospel that reports Jewish guards, without telling us how many, being stationed at the tomb. While our Resurrection Morn features three guards, the Resurrection Morn window now in the Calvary Methodist Church in Pittsburgh, being larger, features four guards.

          The main center panel features Christ flanked by two white robed figures. The Gospel According to Luke is the only Gospel that reports two beings in dazzling clothes appearing at the empty tomb.

          The top panel features what appear to be cherubs, “supernatural creatures associated with the presence of God, and in postbiblical tradition identified as one of the choirs of angels.” While cherubs are mentioned nearly a hundred times in the bible (The Oxford Companion to the Bible, p. 107), they are not mentioned in any of the resurrection accounts. They probably appear at the top of our window simply for balance and decorative affect.

          What our Tiffany window presents to us, then, is not a single Gospel account of “Resurrection Morn” but a compendium.  Rather than depicting “Resurrection Morn” through the lens of any one particular Gospel, it offers us an element from each of the four Gospels.

          As I have ruminated on how our window might shed light on the morning of the resurrection, it dawned on me that the four groups of characters—the three women, the guard, the two men approaching the tomb, and the two beings in dazzling clothes— offer vignettes of at least four possible reactions and responses to the news of the empty tomb.

          The first vignette I want to focus on is that of the three women from Mark because most scholars agree that Mark is the oldest of the  Gospels and was used as a source for both Matthew and Luke. As we already heard, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, the type used to embalm a corpse, intending to anoint the lifeless body of Jesus. These three women serve as an example of people who set out to do a good and right thing without thinking it through, for they had no idea who would roll the stone away from the tomb, and without the stone being rolled away, there was no way for them to anoint the body. Yet they had the faith or determination to try anyway. Maybe sometimes we need to set out to do what is right and good, not knowing how we will surmount all the obstacles, but having the determination and faith to do it anyway.

          Unexpectedly finding the stone rolled away, the three women enter to tomb. Seeing who or what is obviously an angelic being rather than the corpse of Jesus, they tremble in their footsteps. The heavenly messenger instructs them to go and tell Jesus’ disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee. Mark then tells us that the women fled and, filled with bewilderment and fear, said nothing! But, if they said nothing how can we be reading about what they experienced? They must have eventually overcome their fear and bewilderment and told someone.

          First and foremost, let it be known that in Mark, the oldest Gospel, it is women who first arrive at the empty tomb, women who first learn that Jesus has been raised, and women who are instructed to go and tell the men.  Seized by terror and amazement, they may not have told anyone right away, but eventually they must have told someone. If nothing else, the women should warn us not to assume that men or people with the power and authority are always the first ones to know and experience God’s revelation.

          The Jewish guard in Matthew is perhaps the antithesis of the trio of women in Mark. Sent to secure the tomb so that Jesus’ disciples could not go and steal the body and then claim that he was raised from the dead, when there was a great earthquake and an angel of the Lord appeared and rolled away the stone, the guards shook from fear and, sent to guard the body of a dead man, became themselves like dead men. Apparently the guard did not hear anything the angel said to the women. Afterward, some of the guard reported to the temple authorities what they had experienced. The religious authorities paid off or bribed the guards to lie and say they actually saw Jesus’ disciples come by night and take away the body of Jesus while they were asleep.

          I think the account of the guards warns us not to sell our souls and value financial gain over spiritual insight and illumination. I think they also warn us that sometimes we in the church can go to great lengths, and even great expenses, to guard against change when change is what God has been about all along. They warn us not to cast aspersions against those whose religious understanding and spiritual experiences are not like our own, for as we seek to guard the church we may in fact be working against new things God might be doing in the world.

          In Luke, not one but “two men in dazzling clothes” stand beside the women in the empty tomb. Obviously heavenly messengers, they tell the women not to look for the living among the dead and remind them of what Jesus had taught them. I think these two spiritual beings remind us that sometimes we need an out of this world, unexplainable experience, something or someone to give us a spiritual slap against the face to wake us from our spiritual slumber in order to recall and better understand the religious lessons we have already been taught but have forgotten. While we might normally expect our religious and spiritual faculties to be awakened by the Word of God in Scripture, Sermon, and  Sacrament, we should never rule out the unexpected and inexplicable.

           While I am generally a rational and logical kind of guy, I am also enough of a mystic to believe the world is still filled with mystery and that God can surprise us when we least expect it.

          John, the most unique of the four Gospels, tells us that Simon Peter, and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, which tradition identifies as John, the author of the Gospel,  ran to the tomb after hearing from Mary Magdalene that the tomb was empty. The other disciple went into the tomb, saw, and believed. But what did he believe? “As yet he and Peter did not understand the scripture”, that Jesus must rise from the dead. He obviously did not believe that Jesus had been raised. Maybe at first having doubted her, he finally believed what Mary had told him, that the tomb was indeed empty, now that he had seen the empty tomb for himself. And then in what seems the most anticlimactic statement possible, the Gospel tells us that these two disciples return not to the other disciples but to their homes.

          Perhaps these two disciples warn us not to at first doubt what others tell us about their spiritual and religious experiences but to go look for ourselves. They might also warn us not to base our faith on first impressions, for our first impressions might not be the whole story, and we have not fully processed and understood what we have seen, heard, and experienced.

          Finally, focus on the window. Note that two of the guard, sitting motionless on the ground, have their faces covered, hiding their gaze from both Jesus and from us, but one, also sitting on the ground, is looking toward us, as if wondering what we think, if we know the truth or will believe his lie. The three women and the two disciples appear to be neither looking toward nor walking toward Jesus. They are looking at and walking toward us, as if they expect to encounter us and tell us their story. The two motionless angelic beings frame a radiant, resurrected Christ who appears to be descending some steps and walking straight toward us, as if he himself intends to encounter us.

          It is as if the women and the disciples and Jesus are attempting to break the dimensions of time and space by extending a two dimensional interpretation of the past into a three dimension experience in the present that includes us. 

“The Race for Survival”

In an attempt to contribute to the discussion about whether or not the PC(USA) ought to participate in observing Evolution Weekend, I am posting a sermon I preached in observance of Evolution Weekend, February 15, 2009, at North Church Queens, Flushing, NY.

While Pastor at North Church we observed Evolution Weekend in many ways, including showing films on a Friday or Saturday evening followed by a discussion, and including prayers for scientists in the liturgy.  I did not preach a sermon focusing on evolution or even mentioning evolution every year, but in 2009 I did.

“The Race for Survival”

A Sermon based on 2 Kings 5:1-14 and 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

 

          2009 seems to be filling up with observances of significant birthdays of significant historical figures.  Presbyterians and Reformed Christians around the world will celebrate John Calvin’s 500^th Birthday this coming July 10.  This past week we marked the 200^th birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, both born on February 12, 1809.

          With the election of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the 44^th President of the United States and his frequent references to that other Illinois Senator elected President, there has been renewed interest in Lincoln and his presidency.   The popularity of Doris Kearns Godwin’s 2005 book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, has added to that renewed interest in the 16^th President.

          While Americans are renewing their interest in Lincoln, Brit’s are renewing their interest in Charles Darwin.  Buried in Westminster Abby with full state honors, Darwin is one of England’s more famous sons.  In addition to this year being the 200^th year since Darwin’s birth, it is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work On the Origin of Species. 

          At first it might seem that the day of birth is the only thing Lincoln and Darwin have in common.  But consider this stretched, perhaps even forced, but original metaphorical comparison:  As Lincoln freed slaves from involuntary servitude; Darwin freed moderns from their bondage to pre-modern religious dogmas.

          Now segue to the reading from 2 Kings 5 and the story about the healing of Naaman.  When Naaman presented himself to the King of Israel with a letter from the King of Aram requesting that the King of Israel cure Naaman of his leprosy, the King of Israel thought that the King of Aram was “trying to pick a quarrel” with him.  In some circles, especially religious circles, even mentioning the name of Charles Darwin, or his theory of Evolution, would be akin to picking a quarrel.  I, however, have no bone to pick with Darwin.  Nor do I desire to pick a quarrel with you or anyone else.   On the other hand, not mentioning him in a sermon during the year in which we mark his 200^th birthday and the 150^th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species might be considered irresponsible.  Perhaps as Elisha healed Naaman of his leprosy, I might help heal us of some of our fear of talking about both faith and science in the same hour and in the same room, especially an hour of Christian worship in a Christian sanctuary.

          Personally, I have never had a problem reconciling my faith with the theory of evolution.  I have always been a scientifically minded, and not since early adolescence have I taken the entire Bible literally.  In high school I was on a college preparatory scientific track that included five years of math and both Chemistry and Physics in my junior year.  I was named one of three outstanding Chemistry I students.  In my spare time I hung out in the Planetarium and once spent all night in the cold winter air with the person who taught both physics and astronomy to view Comet Kohoutek. All my vocational testing in high school indicated that I should have entered the scientific field as a chemist, physicist, or mathematician.  But I wanted to me a minister.

          Between high school and college I spent a week in Wilmington, Delaware with a lot of other scientifically minded teenagers.  On three of those days I worked with physicists at the DuPont Research Facility.  In college I continued to study math even though I was majoring in Social Work, and had accumulated enough hours in Math and Psychology to qualify for and be inducted into Chi Beta Phi, a National Scientific Honorary.  My older brother holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Chemistry.

          Science is in my blood.  It is in my DNA. I can no more ignore Darwin than I can ignore Calvin.  Thus it should not surprise you that a few years ago I signed an open letter from American Christian clergy concerning Religion and Science, part of the Clergy letter Project.  “The Clergy Letter Project is an organization that has created and maintains a statement signed by American Christian clergy of  different denominations rejecting creationism, with specific reference to points raised by intelligent design proponents. This effort was organized in 2004 by biologist Michael Zimmerman, now Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.”

          The text of the letter states “Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts."

          "We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”  End of letter.

          The Clergy Letter Project has designated the weekend closest to Darwin’s birthday as Evolution Weekend, an opportunity for serious discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science. One important goal of the weekend is to elevate the quality of the discussion on this critical topic - to move beyond sound bites. A second critical goal is to demonstrate that religious people from many faiths and locations understand that evolution is sound science and poses no problems for their faith. Finally, as with The Clergy Letter itself, which has now been signed by more than 11,000 members of the Christian clergy in the United States, Evolution Weekend makes it clear that those claiming that people must choose between religion and science are creating a false dichotomy.

Through sermons, discussion groups, meaningful conversations and seminars, religious leaders and religious communities, by participating in Evolution Weekend, attempt to show that religion and science are not adversaries.  Perhaps before this time next year, the session will officially choose to endorse and participate in Evolution weekend and North Church can offer itself as a religious community where people of faith do not have to choose between science and religion.

          A few years ago my interest in science led me to read The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells.  Doctor Wells heads up the Human Genographic Project, not to be confused with the Human Genome Project, though there are some similarities.  Doctor Wells and the Human Genographic Project used DNA to trace human migration.  Their research suggests that all humans are indeed descendants of the same woman and man, but not as we might usually think.

          According to findings of the Human Genographic Project: “Mitochondrial Eve – the mother of us all—lived in Africa around 150,000 years ago.  She represents the root of the mitochondrial family tree, and as such she unites everyone around the world in a shared maternal history.  Adam, the man from whom all men alive today ultimately derive their Y-chromosomes, lived 59,000 years ago; more than 80,000 years after that estimated for Eve.

          These dates obviously do not represent the date of origin of our species—otherwise Eve would have been waiting a long time for Adam to show up.  They simply represent the time, peering back into the past, when we stop seeing genetic diversity in our mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome lineages.

          We are a relatively young species.  Around 60,000 years ago—only 2,000 generations—our ancestors all lived in Africa.  Another way of saying this is that all modern humans were in Africa until at least 60,000 years ago.”

          Thus, while it does seem scientifically true that we can indeed trace the origin of our species back to one woman and one man, they did not live in a garden between the Tigris and Euphrates less than 5,000 years ago, as Bishop Usher once suggested.  They lived in the Rift Valley of Africa over 60,000 to 150,000 years ago.

          Now segue to the reading from 1 Corinthians 9, where Paul writes to Christians in Corinth that “in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize.”  Is that not the essence of Darwin’s theory of evolution, the survival of the fittest, and that all species are running in a race and that only those that adapt survive?  If I understand Darwin’s theory correctly, it is a species’ ability to genetically and biologically adapt over time that enables a species to survive and that accounts for evolutionary change.

          While it is not fair to apply Darwin’s theory of biological change to social systems, Social Darwinism has done just that.  Rather than appeal to misapplied evolutionary theory, however, I appeal to the philosophy of Hegel and his theory of dialectic; of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, to argue that the institutional Church must also change and adapt if it is to survive as an institution.  The reason Judaism, Christianity and Islam and other “living” religions have survived is because they have been able to adapt.  When religions do not adapt to changing times and circumstances, they die out.  They lose the race.

          Hegel argued that which is true will survive.  Another way of stating it is that which survives is true.  If our faith changes and adapts to answer new questions and face new situations that could not even have been imagined two thousand years ago, then our faith is true and will survive.  If our faith is too concrete, too static, too fundamentalist, and too rigid, unable to change and adapt, then it probably will not survive and after its demise will be judged not to be true.

          While I think that Darwin’s theory of evolution is the best scientific explanation for the various species now inhabiting planet earth and for why some species have become extinct, I do not believe in evolution.  I do not place my faith in Darwin.  I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and place my faith in God, the Holy One of Israel.  While I think the theory of evolution is the best explanation of how life evolved on earth, it offers absolutely no explanation of why it evolved.  For that I must turn to Scripture.

          I think Darwin offers us the best explanation of how different species have so far won the race for survival.  I think the Bible offers us the best message for finding meaning in light of the fact that so far humans seem to have won that race.

One Fat Sheep and Ninety-nine Lean Sheep - A Sermon

“One Fat Sheep and Ninety-nine Lean Sheep”

A Sermon based on Ezekiel 34:11-16,20-24 and Matthew 25:31-46

By The Reverend John Edward Harris, D. Min.

North Church Queens

Flushing, NY

November 20, 2011

Christ the King Year A

This morning, through the prophet Ezekiel, we have once again encountered a familiar biblical metaphor, one that speaks of God as a shepherd. For Ezekiel, if God was a shepherd, then the people of Israel scattered throughout the Middle East after the fall and destruction of Jerusalem in 597, were God’s scattered sheep.

Following Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem in 597, Nebuchadnezzar installed Zedekiah as King of Judah. However, Zedekiah revolted against Babylon and entered into an alliance with Pharaoh. Nebuchadnezzar responded by invading Judah and began another siege of Jerusalem in January 589 BC.

In 587 BC, the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign, Nebuchadnezzar’s army broke through Jerusalem's walls, conquering the city. Jerusalem was plundered and Solomon’s Temple was destroyed. The city was razed to the ground. Most of Jerusalem’s brightest, best and most talented were taken into captivity in Babylon. Only a small number of Jews were permitted to remain, left behind to tend to the land. Those Jews Jews who had not been taken into Babylonian captivity and could escape dispersed throughout the Middle East, becoming, metaphorically, God’s lost sheep.

Through Ezekiel, God promises to rescue and gather the lost sheep and to feed them with good pasture. God promises to nurse back to health any sheep that was injured. God promises to strengthen any sheep that was weak. Hearing, through the prophet Ezekiel, the prophet to the exiles, that God would seek out these lost sheep, these dispersed Jews, rescuing them from the places to which they had been dispersed, bringing them back into their own land, the Land of Israel, the land of milk and honey, would be good news if you were a Jews of the Diaspora.

However, there is also some bad news contained in Ezekiel’s prophecy. God also promises to destroy the fat and strong sheep, feeding them not with rich pastures, but with justice. Through Ezekiel, God promises to judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep, claiming that the fat sheep have pushed with the flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with their horns until they scattered the weak sheep far and wide.

Just as we might ask what came first, the chicken or the egg, we might wonder if the weak sheep are week because they are lean, or if they are lean because they are week. On the one hand, the weak sheep are lean because the strong sheep have pushed and butted them around, preventing them from grazing in the best pastures, where they could eat their fill and no longer be lean. On the other hand, the lean sheep are weak because the strong sheep have pushed and butted them around, preventing them from grazing in the best pastures where they could eat their fill and grow stronger. While the weak sheep grow weaker and the lean sheep grow leaner, the strong sheep grow stronger and the fat sheep grow fatter because they have kept the best pastures for themselves.

Some scholars indentify the fat sheep as the nations, which, at that time, oppressed Israel, particularly Babylon. One could also interpret the fat sheep as the leaders of Israel who grew fat while the city was being besieged, the leaders of Israel whose failed foreign policy led to the city’s destruction.

Fast forward about six hundred years and we hear Jesus talking about himself as if he were a King, sitting on a throne, judging between the nations, separating people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the … goats. It might surprise us that Jesus talks about sheep and goats when Ezekiel mentioned only fat, strong sheep and weak, lean sheep, except Ezekiel did not mention only sheep. In verses 17-19, verses we did not read this morning, Ezekiel also writes about God judging between “sheep and sheep, between rams and goats.” Therefore, Jesus was well within the prophetic tradition of Ezekiel, and may very well have had Ezekiel’s prophecy in mind, when he to talked about judging between the nations, metaphorically referring to them as sheep and goats. Sheep and goats, after all, are closely related. They are in the same subfamily but in are separate species.

According to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus will judge between the sheep and the goats not based on how they appear, fat or lean, strong or weak, but how they act. The sheep who fed the hungry, the sheep who gave drink to the thirsty, the sheep who welcomed the stranger, the sheep who clothed the naked, the sheep who cared for the sick, the sheep who visited the imprisoned, will be judged righteous and will inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. They will enjoy eternal life.

On the other hand, the sheep who did not give food to the hungry, the sheep who did not give drink to the thirsty, the sheep who did not welcome the stranger, the sheep who did not clothe the naked, the sheep who did not care for the sick, and the sheep who did not visit the imprisoned, will be judged accursed, finding themselves not in the kingdom prepared for them since the beginning of time but in the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. They will suffer eternal punishment.

Now, fast-forward another 2,000 years. These are not the days of Ezekiel. Neither our city, nor our nation, is besieged by a foreign power. Instead, we are besieged by the threat of another recession, and the growing economic disparity between the rich and the poor, a disparity that is reaching proportions not seen since just before the great Depression.

Economists not only tell us that the income gap between the rich and poor in our nation is growing increasingly wider, but that the middle class, the backbone of American prosperity, is shrinking. Economists also tell us that the latest generation of Americans will be the first generation in our country’s history to enjoy a lower standard of living than enjoyed by their parents. Meanwhile, as Congress and its Super Committee cannot reach a compromise on a national budget, they have apparently determined at least one matter of national importance, that when it comes to school lunches, frozen pizza is indeed a vegetable. The United States Congress, just this past week, voted to rebuke new USDA guidelines for school lunches that would have increased the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables in school cafeterias and instead declared that the tomato paste on frozen pizza qualified it as a vegetable.

It is no wonder that hundreds, if not thousands of Occupy Wall Street protestors, prevented from actually occupying Wall Street, have instead occupied Zuccotti Park and numerous other public areas across the country in our major cities. The weak and lean sheep have grown weary of the fat and strong sheep pushing and butting them around and, as of yet, have not found any other or more constructive forum and way to express the frustration and outrage.

No, these are not the days of Ezekiel. These are not the days of Jesus. But I am convinced that if these were the days of Jesus that he would be camped out in Zuccotti park rather than roaming the halls of Congress or the trading floors of Wall Street. I think Jesus would be appalled that politicians who claim that this is a Christian Nation are proposing a national budget that would make the weak and lean sheep even leaner and weaker while enabling the fat and strong sheep to grow even stronger and fatter. A nation that fails to care for its hungry, its thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner, not to mention its homeless, its aging, and its veterans, has no right to call itself or consider itself a Christian nation, or even a just and good nation!

Earlier in Matthew 18:12-14, we hear Jesus say “What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.” From a Christian ethical perspective, we might say, in our context that it is the wealthiest one percent of American sheep that has gone astray. As the wealthiest one percent has gone astray, they have left the other ninety-nine percent behind.

In our current economic, political and social context, “The One Percent” was at first a 2006 documentary about the growing wealth gap between America’s wealthy elite compared to the overall citizenry. The film's title refers to the top one percent of Americans in terms of wealth, who controlled 42.2 percent of total financial wealth in 2004. More recently, the Ninety-nine percent has become the self identifying rallying cry of the unemployed, under-employed, college graduates with thousands of dollars of student loan debts but who cannot find a job to help them pay off their debt because there are no jobs, former home owners who have had their mortgages foreclosed, and the millions of Americans without access to health care, who are demonstrating against the concentration of wealth by the top 1%

Who are the 1%. Based on 2009 tax year filing data, the Internal Revenue Service says an adjusted gross income of $343,927 or more will put you in the top 1 percent of taxpayers. I doubt if many, or any, of us worshiping here this morning would qualify. Yet, “Roughly 11% of Congress have net worth of more than $9million, according to a USA TODAY analysis of 2010 financial disclosures complied by the center for Responsive Politics. That is enough to put them in the top 1% of wealth. Congress also has 250 millionaires, the data shows. The median net worth: $891,506, almost nine times the typical household.” No wonder Congress is doing nothing. They can afford to do nothing. Follows of Christ, however, must do something.

I am not alone in thinking that if Jesus were here today, we would find him in Zuccotti Park. We probably would also find there John Calvin. According to Setri Nyomi, the General Secretary of the World Communion of Reformed Churches, “The cause of demonstrators involved in the “Occupy Wall Street” movement would have been supported by John Calvin, the 16th century church reformer who helped shape modern-day Protestantism” In a lecture he delivered this past Tuesday at Princeton Theological Seminary, he said “I am sure [Calvin] would have been in the streets of New York or London with a placard. ” After all, Calvin wrote extensively about social and economic justice, almost as much as he did about theology. Calvin cared as much about Geneva having a working sewer system for all who lived there as he cared about the salvation of all who lived there. According to Nyomi, “Calvin expressed opposition to all forms of social oppression resulting from money.” Nyomi believes Calvin’s words resonate with life today. “The church of the 21st century needs to align itself with voices of justice … even if it means being out there in the streets,” he writes.

Memories and Dreams - A Sermon Ten Years After 9-11

Memories and Dreams
A Sermon by the Reverend John Edward Harris, D. Min.
Preached at the Whitestone Community Service of Prayer
In Remembrance of the Events of September 11, 2001
St. Luke Roman Catholic Church, Whitestone, NY
September 10, 2011

When the topic of the terrorist attacks of ten years ago comes up in conversation, as it has so often of late, what is one of the first questions we are likely to ask or to be asked? “Where were you when you first learned of the attacks?”

I was living in West Virginia, having started a new pastorate just the week before. As I was driving to the hospital to visit a member, I was listening to NPR, when an announcer broke in to regular programming to say that a plane had reportedly crashed into one of World Trade Towers, but that details were sketchy. A little later, as I was visiting the member and his wife in his hospital room, we were watching the coverage of the events on the television in his room when the second plane hit the tower. At least that is the way I remember it now ten years later.

Nearly two weeks later, I wrote in my journal for the first time after the attacks. Here is an excerpt from what I wrote. Please keep in mind that the chronology might be a little off because I was writing from memory.

“Tuesday, September 11, is a day that will live long in my memory and in the memory of all Americans. Around 9:00 AM, a 747 or 757, hijacked out of Boston, flew into one of the Twin World Trade Towers. Less than 15 minutes later, another hijacked airliner crashed into the second tower, a crash watched my millions, if not during the live coverage of the first crash, then on taped replay. Within the hour, a third hijacked airliner, out of Dulles, crashed into the Pentagon. And a fourth jetliner, hijacked out of Newark, crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew tried to retake the plane from the hijackers. Its intended target may have been Camp David, or the White House or Capitol.

Within an hour or two after being crashed into by the two planes, both Twin Towers collapsed in upon themselves to the ground. Two weeks later, debris is still being removed and any hope of finding survivors is nil. In total, over 5,000 people were killed or are missing from the result of the terrorist attacks.

The attacks are being linked to Saudi Arabian Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorist Osama Bin Laden, believed to be hiding out somewhere in Afghanistan.

President Bush has declared war on Terrorism and American Forces are being deployed to the Persian Gulf and Middle East for an expected retaliatory strike against terrorist camps and bases, an assault that will undoubtedly involve US ground troops and some US causalities.”

Ten years ago, we began a new chapter in America’s history. We are still looking back, still remembering, still asking questions, still wandering what it all means. The end of this chapter in America’s history has yet to be written, however. American troops are still in Afghanistan and still in Iraq in what is now the longest war in American history. As we live and breathe, and remember those who died on September 11, 2001, you and I, along with Government workers from the President of the United States to the Army Private serving in Afghanistan, along with Captains of Industry to the construction worker laboring to rebuild the World Trade Center, along with Bishops and Moderators and Church leaders to the average worshiper in the Synagogue, Church and Mosque, are still living in aftermath of 9-11 and wondering how to move forward, how to bring this chapter to an end.

This evening, in a small part of the great city of New York known as Whitestone, Protestants and Roman Catholics have broken down historical barriers that have divided us centuries and have come together to remember and pray for peace. We have gathered not just to look back and remember, but also to look forward and dream as we pray.

Yes, as Christians we do look back; back to God’s good creation broken by sin, back to God’s promises to Noah and to Abraham and Sarah, and back to the birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. We also look forward, however. Along with Isaiah, Joel, and Micah, we look forward to beating swords in plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Along with John on the Island of Patmos we dream of a new heaven and a new earth. We dream of the holy city, not New York but the new Jerusalem, and in that city God will wipe away every tear. Death will be no more. Mourning, crying, and pain will have ended. In the midst of the city will be the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. On either side of the river will be the tree of life. The leaves of the tree will for the healing of the nations.

As disciples of the Prince of Peace, we must not only dream of peace, and pray for peace, but be peacemakers, asking for and offering forgiveness, seeking and working for reconciliation not only between Roman Catholics and Protestants, but also among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, indeed, among peace loving people of all faiths, and even no faith.

We who lived through the events of September 11, 2001 can never forget the events of ten years ago tomorrow, nor fail to remember the people who lost their lives that day and the days soon after. However, let us dwell not on what once was but on what shall be, looking not to the past but to the future, a future that for Christians is filled with hope and the promise of peace. Let us not ask one another “Where were you and what where you doing ten years ago tomorrow?” Rather, let us ask one another “Where do you want to be and what do you want to be doing ten years from tomorrow?”