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…

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“Snatch” isn’t a word I use all that often.  I’m not sure why, because now that I’ve thought about it a bit, it’s a pretty great word.  It’s one of those words that sounds like what it means.  It’s abrupt, snatch, over before you realize what just happened.  But that S and N at the beginning sound like someone has been plotting for a while.  Sneaky, like a snake.  And then the atch.  Once the premeditated sneaker reaches the desired object, things happen quick, Sssnnn-atch, grab, grasp, latch on and it’s gone.  Too fast to catch.  It just got snatched.

Snacks get snatched around our house by little, and big hands.  We’re probably not the only house of sneaky snack snatchers.  Our girls do need to work on covering their tracks with the plenty of incriminating evidence they leave behind, like ladders in the pantry, opened wrappers on the table, and chocolate on the face.  True story, during Lent Lily said that she was going to give up sneaking.  It was a vow not well kept, but Lent is all about forgiveness.

Snatch is a word that Jesus uses twice in this passage in John.  Maybe the Aramaic word also sounds like what it means.  Jesus is having another of those heated confrontations with the religious leaders, who have asked him to stop beating around the bush and tell them whether or not he is the Messiah.  So, Jesus starts talking about sheep.  Specifically, sheep that hear his voice and sheep that don’t.  Jesus’ sheep hear his voice.  He knows them and they follow him, Jesus says.  He gives them eternal life, and they will never perish.  Then the bits about snatching.  “No one will snatch them out of my hand.  What my Father has given me…