Text: 1 Kings 19:1-13

Good morning.  Our family has been anticipating this day for quite some time now and it’s very good to be with you.  I have to tell just one story from the April candidating weekend.  I appreciated all the opportunities to meet with different ones of you personally along with Commissions and Council and had a positive feeling about things as the Sunday service was coming to a close.  We knew we wanted to come here, but had to wait to make sure that the feeling was mutual.  Knowing there was going to be a vote that evening, Stella B. wrote on one of the unused name tags, and gave it to me as our family was walking out into the lobby after the service.  It said, “Me for pastor,” and she instructed me to stick it to my shirt.  With Stella as our campaign manager, I was pretty sure at that point things were going to work out well.

The prophethood of all believers.

You are most likely familiar with the idea of the priesthood of all believers, that marvelous humanizing notion that came out of the 16th century Protestant Reformation.  The priesthood of all believers is this great equalizer which teaches that each and every one of us – old, young; female, male; installed, not installed; members of any of the many vocational paths one might take – we all have access to the Divine, and the Divine is uniquely represented in each one of us as ministering persons.  It’s as simple as that.  The priesthood of all believers was first taught by Martin Luther and has been embraced by Anabaptists.  From what I have come to know of CMC so far, this is a value you whole-heartedly embrace.

The Old Testament lectionary reading for today comes from…

I’ve been thinking a while about what I want to say today, and I asked Abbie if she thought it was OK if I didn’t base the talk on a passage of Scripture or mention God much.  Her reply was that she thought I had done my fair share of that here and that I should feel free to do what I was hoping to do, which was tell stories.  I have come to find her advice sound, so I’m taking it.  I want to say a grateful farewell to you by telling a few of the many stories that could be told about what it has been like to be your pastor.  By way of connection to Scripture and God, perhaps we can think of these stories the same way we think of the story of Esther in the Bible, in which the name of God is never mentioned, even as the presence of God permeates every scene.

When Abbie and I came to Cincinnati in the summer of 2006, I was fresh out of seminary, Abbie had just completed her work as a music therapist with developmentally disabled adults, and Eve was about as old as Ila is right now.  Lily and Belle and Ila were not yet.

One of my first distinct memories of meeting the congregation was the day we moved into the small brick house two doors down from the church on Brownway Ave.  There was a full group of CMFers there to lend a hand that day.  We worked in two crews.  Downstairs Abbie was with the more typical moving crew, getting boxes and furniture out of the UHaul, and bringing them into the house to stack in whatever space seemed most appropriate.

Upstairs I was with the other crew.  This group was armed with hammers,…

 http://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/51213-prayer.mp3

For the last number of years, I’ve had the amazing privilege of speaking with you most every week in this place.  This is not farewell Sunday and this is not a farewell speech, but, with Pentecost Sunday next week and our tradition of hearing from anyone who wants to share about what it has meant for them to be connected with this congregation in the past year, this is something like a farewell eve by way of sermon giving.  So, while the 26th will involve more storytelling and reflection on our time here as a whole, I thought that this could be something more along the lines of some final words of spiritual and biblical reflection.

Although we don’t follow it every Sunday, I have come to love the lectionary and being guided by these larger themes that so many Christian groups around the world have agreed to focus on together throughout the cycle of the year.  It was serendipitous that one of last Sunday’s readings was the story of Lydia’s baptism, which fit well with our own celebration of baptism.  So I’m grateful, and take it as guiding sign, that in this week’s gospel reading we catch Jesus praying.  It’s a good theme.

Plus, this focus beats out the alternative that the lectionary offers, which is a separate set of readings to observe Ascension Sunday, when Jesus ascends into the clouds as he leaves the disciples after their final encounter, which traditionally occurs the Sunday before Pentecost.  This is a potentially fruitful theme as well, but with our leaving soon I have no desire to give any implications that these are somehow equivalent!  Although, after sending out the resignation letter by email in March, I received a text from John Bromels which read, “This is an outrage!  You can’t just…

At the end of last year I received this book as a gift.  It’s called Dark Water Dancing to a Breeze: A Literary Companion to Rivers and Lakes.  It’s a collection of short essays and journal entries from some of the leading observers and enjoyers of nature over the last number of centuries.  Names I recognized include John James Audubon, Charles Darwin, and Mark Twain.  The writings range all the way from a reflection on the overpowering force of a flood, to a humorous inquiry as to how the heavily polluted Ganges in India still serves as the Great Purifier – that was Mark Twain’s piece.  The editor opens the book by saying: “Whether we are conscious of it or not, water is omnipresent in our lives.  This is literally true, since our bodies are 70 percent water and because, for practical as well as other reasons, most towns and cities and built beside water.  With a bit of thought, we can section the course of our lives by the rivers or lakes we’ve lived or traveled on.” (p. 11)

The giver of this book was Caroline Lehman, a thoughtful gift from a thoughtful person.  It was given after the completion of catechism, the class youth take which provides a big picture view of the contours of Christian faith in a Mennonite Anabaptist perspective.  Not a baptism class, per se, but something of a prerequisite for youth who might consider baptism at some point.  Whether the gift meant ‘thank you for this class,’ or ‘thank you that this class is over,’ I’m not sure.

Caroline most likely didn’t have baptism in mind when she gave this book, but with a title like “dark water dancing to a breeze,” it’s hard to resist the connection.  Water and breeze – water and wind/breath/Spirit…

http://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/42813-consider-it-take-counsel-and-speak-out.mp3

Why in the world is this story in the Bible?

And why are we reading it in a worship service?

A man taking a concubine, angering her then trying to win her back, schmoozing with the girl’s father and regaining the girl, needing a place to stay and being given no hospitality, taken in by an old man who at first appears to be a god-send.  A mob pounding on the door demanding a body to abuse, the old man now only concerned with protecting one of his guests, and himself.  The girl being seized and thrown out to pacify the mob, which unleashes its brutality against her.  And finally, a breaking apart of the abused body, each part sent out as a gruesome message to the different tribes of Israel.

Let me ask again: Why in the world is this story in the Bible? Of all the stories Israel could have told about its history, its identity, its coming to be as a people, why include this one?  And dare we remember it and contemplate it in church?

Let me ask the question another way: What if this story wasn’t in the Bible?  What if something like this had actually happened – one, or a thousand times – and did not get told.  What if these kinds of stories were silenced, edited out of the official records, swept neatly under the rug in the attempt to convince the world that the house is clean and there is nothing to see here, nothing wrong here.  If this story wasn’t in the Bible, wasn’t a part of the official memory of the people of Israel, wasn’t in front of our face, would these kinds of brutally painful stories just go away?

For the last number of years we have chosen to observe Blue Sunday, the…