Sermon of the Week
Woe is a Potent Word

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on February 17, 2019.
#pcusa

Keywords: Treasure, Blessings, Woe, Beatitudes, Sermon on the Plain, Where You Sit, Kazi Mannan

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Jeremiah 17:5-8
and Luke 6:17-26

A rather bizarre thing happened this week
as I was reading and preparing for today’s sermon.

I came across a great little story that, apparently,
The Russian Rabbis used to tell.

It goes something like this:
In Krakov there lived a man named Isaac, son of Yekel.
Yekel was a very poor man whose family was often hungry.

One night in a dream, he saw the distant city of Prague,
and as he dreamt
he noticed that there was a certain bridge with a treasure buried beneath it.

The dream was so vivid that he could not forget it,
and that became even more true
when it kept recurring
every night for two weeks.

It bugged him.

Finally, in order to get rid of the dream,
he decided to walk from Krakov to Prague to see for himself.

After several days, he arrived in Prague,
found the bridge and went underneath to locate the treasure.

Well, suddenly a soldier grabbed him and started questioning him.

Who are you?
What are you doing prowling under the bridge?

Being an innocent man, Isaac, Son of Yekel told the truth.
“I am looking for a treasure I had dreamt was underneath the bridge.”

The soldier roared with laughter.
“You stupid man!
Don’t you know that you cannot trust what you see in dreams?

Why, for the last two weeks,
I myself dreamt that far away in Krakov
in the house of a Jew named Isaac, son of Yekel,
there is as treasure buried underneath the stove in his kitchen.

But wouldn’t it be the most idiotic thing in the world
if I were to go all the way there to look for it?

One could waste a lifetime looking for treasure that does not exist.”

Still laughing, the soldier gave Isaac a kick and let him go.

So Isaac, son of Yekel, walked back to Krakov,
to his own home,
where he moved the stove in his kitchen,
found the treasure buried there
and lived to a ripe old age as a rich man.

Great little story,
cited in a sermon that the Rev Sarah Jackson Shelton
once preached on this text.[i]

What was fascinating was when I dug a little deeper
and I saw the reference she cited when sharing that story.

Turns out that the story came from something that Belden Lane wrote.
Beldon was a professor at Saint Louis University
and a mentor for me when I was seeking to become a pastor.
(More than that, Beldon’s daughter Kate was a friend of mine.
We graduated high school the same year together.)
(Belden C. Lane, Christian Century, Dec. 16, 1981)

Sometimes searching through these amazingly rich stories from the bible
lead to revelations like that:
people you miss, you know
that you’d forgotten that you miss…
experiences from your past that shape and make you who you are today.

Stories that come to mind when you hear a story
and think about it deeply.

///
Those connections and experiences are important,
and they’re particular.

My stories are different from your stories,
and they can impact quite a bit how we read a story, and what it means to us.

This reading from Luke today is a good example
that we might use to explore that phenomenon.

Scholars call this the “Sermon on the Plain,”
because, as you heard, it starts by saying that,
Jesus came down and stood on a level place. [Read more…]

Meditation of the Week
Many Gifts

A Meditation preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on January 27, 2019.
#pcusa

Keywords: Annual Meetings, Presbyterians, Frozen Chosen, Common Good, Not That Kind of Christian, Sin and Salvation.

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
1 Corinthians 12:12-31
and Luke 4:14-21

We have a full day here at The Kirk,
so we should just jump right in.

Toward the end of January, every year, we pause for an annual meeting,
which is a particularly Presbyterian way of being church together.

The two most common jokes told about Presbyterians are
either about our ordinarily calm and collected demeanor:
that’s what they mean when we’re referred to as the “frozen chosen.”

That’s not a reference to what it’s like when our boiler isn’t working, by the way.

The other most common joke, of course,
is about how we Presbyterians love our meetings.
How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb? They ask.
Only one, really, but ten more to have a meeting about it first.

Our annual meeting is a moment for us to pause and take stock of the prior year
and to do a bit of business.

Because we’re required to incorporate with the state
we have a meeting of our corporation.

They’re run by tireless and faithful members of the congregation that we elect
to the board of trustees, and they help keep an eye on the civil side of things:
deeds and contracts and getting the paperwork right.

Thank God for people who know how to do all of that well
and, more than that, who are willing to do it.

We also see reports from the various groups
that have been doing the day in day out work of our church.

Some of them have been planning church school activities
for kids and youth and adults,
and some have organized our worship services
and all the things that make it work out just so.

Others have been organizing ways for us to care for one another
when we’re sick or one of us just had a baby.

We have a group that helps with our building
and the peace park outside and the annual budget,
and another that gets us excited about serving our community,
places like Center Elementary, and Harvesters Food Bank and Christmas in October.

It takes many hands to do all of that. To make a church. To BE a church.

We will have staff reports and conversation about plans we’re looking at
to shuffle some of those groups around, for good and important reasons,
and we’ll elect members of the congregation to some important work.
You’ll consider some changes to your pastor’s terms of call.

All of that in a 20 or 30 minute meeting. Not bad.

Sometimes all of that gets to be a bit of a blur, though.
I wish it weren’t so, but it’s true.

There’s a lot of words on the page, and we’ll hear a lot of words during the meeting,
but behind all of them are the people of this congregation
the members and the friends
that make up a community.

And it’s a community that is made up of many different people
with different lives and needs and perspectives and histories and worries and joys.

What God does in a church like this is, quite honestly, breathtaking,
taking all these disparate people and helping them all find some purpose
and some happiness
and some challenge
and some acceptance
and some rest
and some hope
all by working together toward something bigger than themselves.

///
One of the things that makes me sad
is how fewer people are finding that sort of place in our society.

Many people by now have offered some reasons for why this is so.

Some don’t know it’s there.
They honestly don’t. [Read more…]