Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

The Importance of Not Being Earnest

Rev. Trey Hall Scripture: Luke 10:1-12

On the Meat of God's Law

Nice is Not Enough

Bishop Hee-Soo Jung Mark 6:14-29 Psalm 24 Ephesians 1:3-14 I am honored to stand before you today. For many years this pulpit has consistently proclaimed the Good News of God’s redeeming love for all people! I appreciate the introduction I’ve been given! There are a few things I’d like to add. First, I not only look and sound Korean, I am Korean-American! That said, I need to say I deeply love America and rejoiced in being able to be in ministry in your midst! If you have a stereotype of Korean Christians – allow me to define myself. I’m neither a fundamentalist nor a supporter of the religious right. As a Korean. I love tea and a good tea ceremony, but the “tea party” is not my thing! I am a follower of the Christ. My faith is shaped by the faith Jesus himself professed. But many proclaim a faith that is primarily “about Jesus.” Faith “about Jesus” speaks of the metaphysical meaning of his death and resurrection, with scant regard for his teachings. A faith “about “Jesus asks you, “Do you believe Jesus died for you?” If you believe “these right things” about Jesus, you get a free pass to paradise. Otherwise you go to hell. Faith modeled upon the faith “of Jesus” places his life and teachings at its center. The faith of Jesus emphasizes love of God and neighbor and responds to Jesus call to “Follow Me!” The difference is between being some sort of “believer in Jesus,” and becoming a “follower of Jesus.” The faith of Jesus can’t ignore the repeated emphasis of Jesus on “the love of God and the love of others.” Those who claim the faith “of Jesus” see him accepting and affirming every human as already a member of God’s family and feel compelled to do the same. His life and ministry was one of accepting and affirming all those that his religious peers were excluding. For Jesus, there was no question as to “who was in” and “who was out” with God. All were in! I come to Christianity from a Buddhist background. It prepared me well for following Jesus. I honor and respect that background. However, that was not so for me in my teen years, when I rejected everything that was Buddhist. I refused to see that the Buddha shared a great deal with the Christ who I had come to serve, that the Buddha was a friend of Jesus. Our Gospel reading for today was not pleasant to hear! Mark tells the gory details of what happened to John the Baptist following his arrest. If you’ve ever seen Straus’s “Salome,” you’ve experienced the terror of this story! King Herod torn by guilt. Salome driven to insanity. I draw your attention to an earlier section of Mark’s gospel – chapter 1, verses 14-15, where Mark makes a crucial reference to John’s arrest and it’s impact upon Jesus: After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God: "Time's up! God's kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message." (Mk. 1:14-15, Peterson) Prior to John’s arrest, Jesus was a little known carpenter’s son in Nazareth. Being “nice,” apparently had been sufficient. But now, “being nice was not enough.” Jesus saw that sources of evil were clearly at work in the world, and “being nice” would never be sufficient to confront those forces. Then in Mark 6, the plot thickens! Mark tells the story of John the Baptist’s execution by Herod. And why does he tell that story at this point? The story needs telling because Herod has learned of Jesus and his work that seemed all-to-similar to that of John the Baptist. Now Herod is not all that sane himself. He’s overwhelmed by guilt for being seduced by Salome’s dancing and having granted her request for John’s decapitation. Now, upon hearing reports of Jesus actions, Herod is convinced that Jesus is John the Baptist come back to life! (Mk. 6:14b) Can you imagine a worse nightmare! Christian churches throughout the world encourage their members “to be nice,” to live honorable, upstanding lives, to do no harm, to do good when possible. Who could argue with that? Yet evil exists – evils that are not fazed by our “being nice,” evils that depend on our “being nice” for them to survive Sometimes things happen in our lives that “radicalize” us to leave our comfort zone and address the evils the plague us. For Jesus, it was the arrest of John. I’ve heard the stories of so many. “This is what happened,” they’ve said. Then they told their story. In a recent visit to my home country, Korea, I met Jin Sook Kim, a labor leader. Kim Jin-Sook, a 50-year-old activist ended her record-breaking 309-day protest on top of a shipyard crane in Busan during my visit. Eariler last year when she learned that Hanjin Heavy Industries’ laid off 94 workers without any justice she knew “nice was not enough”. Kim’s sit-in protest began on Jan. 6, 2011, on the 35-meter-high (115.8-foot-high) crane, drawing nationwide attention and inspiring large demonstrations through “Hope Bus Movement.” Her risk taking and sacrificial leadership brought amazing attention and reconciliation to the whole society of Korea. I visited her in Busan hospital And was inspired by her bold and faithful life! She was tired, yet her face was radiant! We were surprise to discover that she was from the same village I grew up in, and had attended the same high school I had, several years after me. The minimum to which God calls us is “to be nice,” to do no harm. But from time to time, God will say to you, “Nice is not enough! It’s time for you to act, to take a stand, to risk your life in welcoming God’s realm in our midst. We to live in that in-between moment. Between the fading days of prosperity, the growing divide between rich and poor with little in the middle. We stand between good and evil, light and dark – the fading of many dreams, the decline of Christian community. We sometimes fear to utter a prophetic word because it might cost us. It might shatter the status quo, we might lose church members, struggle financially or decline as a denomination. Yet holding back - trying to straddle the kingdom of faith and the realm of politeness does cost. Speaking the truth will cost. Staying safe, playing it nice - also cost. "Nice is Not Enough." John the Baptist did not calculate the danger of his words, he engaged in a prophetic ministry and paved the way for Jesus preaching. Today Christ disciples are called to be prophetic messengers, to extend words and actions of hospitality to the immigrant, the poor, those alienated for their sexuality. We can no longer simply nod at those on the street who have been left behind, "Nice is Not Enough". We must open our doors, our hearts, our boarders, our wallets to those on the margins. We must be willing to risk contradicting the status quo. The cost may be steep, the price uncomfortable, but our world can no longer wait. There is violence, brokenness, devastated lives in all corners of the world. We as Christ disciples are called to defend these innocent victims. May God bless you and give you courage! Courage for active Discipleship! Amen

It's Not Radical; It's Just Christian

Rev. Dr. Gennifer Bengamin Brooks Romans 12:9-12 and Matthew 13:24-30 A few years ago, the theme of radical hospitality was bandied about in ecclesial circles as a necessity, not specifically for living as Christians, but for encouraging persons to become part of the church community. It was a campaign that ran through congregations as they tried inventive and imaginative ways to live into that slogan. Based on my unscientific observation however, although many churches sincerely instituted new and laudable programs to attract newcomers, searchers if you will, from my perspective they missed the most critical element of Christianity, namely the need to live a holy life. The call to holy living was for John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, the sine qua non of Christianity and his mandate to the people called Methodists was to live holy lives individually and to practice social holiness as the gathered community. Wesley called himself “a man of one book,” the Bible and he preached many sermons specifically about what it meant to live the holy life of a Christian.  Certainly this list of requirements that we heard read from Paul’s letter to the Romans was familiar to him and featured in several of his sermons in one way or another. But if you are anything like me, looking at this list, you just might come to the conclusion that being a Christian is hard. And you would be correct. It is hard to live the holy life required of a Christian. Now Paul had to know how difficult it was for the people of the church in Rome, living in the midst of the decadent Roman culture, and being persecuted as well. He had to know how hard it would be for them to adhere to his teaching. In fact Paul did know. Paul knew about the many challenges that the fledging Christian communities faced. That’s why he wrote to them again and again. His letter to the church at Rome is prime evidence that he was aware of the difficulties faced by adherents in following the way of Christ. Paul is on his way to Rome, to a church community that he did not establish and a people he did not know. He takes the time to write to them, to prepare them to receive him; to enable them to know something about him before he shows up; and to address some theological issues that he considered critical to their Christian identity. Scholars are certain that this letter was in no way intended to be a kind of theological treatise, it is simply Paul’s way of priming the pump, so to speak, so that the people of the Roman church will be prepared to accept his teaching, which is focused particularly on the righteousness of God. Paul considers it of great importance that the community understands both their call to live a holy life and that they are undergirded in that life by divine love; that they can count on the grace of God to sustain them through the trials of their lives so that they can live as Christ ordained.  In calling them to a life of holiness he encourages them to reject the values of their culture through non-conformance to its practices, and to allow their belief in Christ to transform and renew their minds. That’s a tall order for persons who are being persecuted by their society. In fact it’s a tall order for any people in any time and place and certainly for us in our post-Christian era. The idea of a post-Christian era is based on the fact that Christianity has declined significantly in the Western world, but that does not mean that it has lost its place in the world. Just ask some of those so-called third world nations in Africa where Christianity is flourishing. But as I see the state of the Christian Church and hear the statistics from our own United Methodist Church, I wonder if indeed we, the Church, the body of Christ, are not living as post-Christians, where Christ has no established or significant place in our individual lives, or sadder still, in our congregations. And when I am confronted by texts such as Paul’s list of requirements, I wonder if it is really possible to live up to the criteria that name us as Christians. Whether we are in a post-Christian era or not, the truth is that it is not easy to be Christian. It is very hard to follow the dictates of Christian living all the time. It has always been. Consider for a moment Jesus’ two summative commandments to us: Love God with our whole being and love our neighbors as we love ourselves. And right away we have the same problem as the rich young ruler who asked the original question: who is my neighbor? The world tells us to look out for number one; to take care of ourselves first, lest we are trampled by the hordes that are reaching for the same brass ring – tarnished though it might be. So what if that means that you step on the little people that made you big; what if that means that you gladly accept the six-figure bonus for your stock transactions that bankrupted your smaller clients; what if you enjoy the best health care money can buy, while so many of the most needy, on whose backs you rose to your position, have no way of getting the most basic care of their urgent needs – and forget about preventive care. I’ve got mine you get yours. It’s not my fault; it’s the system; that’s the way of the world. And anyway I think I should have the right to choose my neighbors, that’s why I live in a gated community. And as if Jesus is not hard enough to deal with, Paul’s message is over the top. It’s just too complicated. It has too many requirements. How am I to remember everything it says? I can do some things, like genuine love – I’m not faking it; I hate anything evil and I give honor where honor is due. I’m patient most of the time and I pray pretty regularly. But suffering, why do I have to put up with that? And I’m a good contributor, especially to my special interests, but this thing about strangers and hospitality – well I’m not inviting anyone and everyone to my parties, they’re not part of my community. Yes, it’s hard and it would take all day to deal with every one of the thirteen items on Paul’s list so for this moment of preaching, all I want us to focus on is Paul’s command to extend hospitality to strangers. And I’m not talking about the old radical hospitality.  I want us look at hospitality as an essential Christian characteristic. Since it appears last in Paul’s list, one would be forgiven for believing that there are other things more important to which Christians should give their attention, but this list is not hierarchical, so we must assume it has equal value in the requirement of holy living as requisite to a Christian life. So the question is: how does one live up to this mandate, especially in our post-Christian Western world? It’s a conundrum. And it gets even more complicated as we are confronted by these other words that are intrinsically part of the culture of these United States of America:

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me …”

Emma Lazarus wrote these words in her poem “The New Colossus” that is inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty that stands in the New York harbor. They were important words of welcome to the myriad immigrants fleeing persecution from other lands to the New World of America. They spoke of hospitality, of openness to receive whoever came to these shores, and were an open invitation to a new life. Reflecting on them in light of both Paul’s words and Jesus’ teaching through his many parables and his actions of welcome and open reception to the outcast and ignored of his society, it seems to me that hospitality is essential for life and especially for Christian living in our time and place. But if hospitality to strangers means reaching out to huddled masses and wretched refuse and homeless, smelly people, count me out. I give money for that sort of thing. There’s no need for me to be involved with those people. What you are asking is radical stuff. Who are these people anyway? They are not part of my community. How can I help them if I don’t know who they are? And where did they come from anyway? Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, speaking at the opening convocation of my school, Garrett-Evangelical, last September, said something about hospitality, a theme we adopted for the year, that made me stop and think. He said “true hospitality is openness to new ideas.” I had never heard such a definition before. It was both new and radical to my way of thinking, but as I thought about the call to holy living, it made perfect sense to me. It moved hospitality from being simply how we welcomed people into our sphere of life, and into the realm of new thoughts and open acceptance of unfamiliar ideas and persons. Hospitality as openness to the new frees our minds from societal boundaries of race and clan and class and all the many unnatural barriers that separate us one from the other. True hospitality enables us to welcome the new in each person and in the world, and perhaps as Christians it can help us to see more clearly and to receive more readily the people of the world, Christian or otherwise. As Christians we are called to love. Jesus is clear in his command to love God totally and love neighbor as ourselves. And using Dr. Mouw’s definition, the question of the identity of one’s neighbor can open us up to a greater vision in seeing our neighbors for who they are in their fullness as children of God, which would then move us to offer true hospitality to all. Sounds radical, doesn’t it? But it’s not radical, it’s just Christian. So again I ask, who are those strangers and neighbors that are entitled to our hospitality? It’s certainly not those people who are crossing our borders illegally. They must be rooted out. They don’t belong here. They’re stealing the substance of our land and taking from the rightful owners. They are illegal, non-persons. They are the weeds that Jesus spoke of in his parable. Well … perhaps we should apply the analogy of weeds and wheat to the issue of illegal immigration from the perspective of the native peoples of this land. They showed hospitality to strangers, and paid a high price for it, namely the genocide of their people. Maybe that is the fear we reflect in our treatment of immigrants of color, legal or otherwise. And what about those who live among us, unknown, unseen, dismissed because of their situation in life. For too many they are the weeds of our society, because of their lack of resources, their poverty; they are strangers, persons we do not want to know, who are different than we are in all kinds of ways, who speak a different language, dress differently, enjoy unfamiliar foods, choose differently the persons on whom they will lavish care and love in the fullness of their sexual identity; even hold different religious or political beliefs. These are the ones on whom we are to lavish love and extend hospitality. What? This is radical stuff, preacher. No it’s not. It’s not radical, it’s just Christian. It is the way of Christ who counsels us through this parable to let all people live and grow together as the whole people of God; to celebrate our differences; to welcome and care for lost and the lonely, the depressed and the dispossessed, and all the strangers that come among us until Christ returns.  It is the call of the Christian in the assurance that God and God alone will determine who belongs in the realm of God. Only God has the right to decide who goes and who stays; who’s in and who’s out; who’s up and who’s down. The Christ who fills our hearts with love calls us to show that same love through our hospitality to all people, in all the ways we can – by providing healthcare for everyone, by accepting differently-abled people into all walks of life; by receiving and honoring the way each person lovingly lives in their sexual identity; by sharing with and caring for the poor and needy; by showing compassion in all the ways that it is needed.  And as Paul tells us, we can do so because of the righteousness of God that is made manifest in the redemption of Jesus Christ. Christ with the righteousness of God fills us with grace, God’s amazing love, unexpected and undeserved, so that we can be persons of love and live holy, Christian lives in this post-Christian world. Not only that but with arms outstretched, Christ stands ready to support us as we reach out our arms to receive the strangers in our midst. On the cross Jesus stretched out his arms embracing the whole world. When we get weary from opening our arms, just lean back on Christ, rest your open arms on his and experience the support that he provides as you try to live in holiness and righteousness through your hospitality offered to the stranger, the unknown neighbor and the whole world. In some place, at some time, in some way that we may not even know, much less understand, we too are or have been regarded as weeds to be plucked out, thrown out, abandoned or destroyed.  But Christ reclaims us. Christ not only cherishes and nourishes us so that we can grow in the fullness of life, but Christ with open arms supports our efforts to live a holy Christian life enabling us to reach out in welcome and hospitality to all people.  So will you do it? Will you try? Through Christ and with Christ we can extend true Christian hospitality to strangers as well as to family and friends. We can do it. With Christ we can. Through Christ we can live holy lives; we can be true Christians. It is his will for our lives, so we must. And by the way, it’s not radical, it’s just Christian.

Generous Redemption: A Journey Beyond Fear

Rev. Dr. Thom White Wolf Fassett Psalm 130 2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Scripture:

Psalm 130: The plaintive lament and appeal by David. Waiting for divine redemption.

130:1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD. 130:2 Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! 130:3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? 130:4 But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered. 130:5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; 130:6 my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. 130:7 O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. 130:8 It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

II Corinthians 8:7-15, The Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians:

8:7 Now as you excel in everything--in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you--so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. 8:8 I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. 8:9 For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. 8:10 And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something-- 8:11 now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means. 8:12 For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has--not according to what one does not have. 8:13 I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between 8:14 your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. 8:15 As it is written, "The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little."

Meaning of scripture:

What is this all about, anyway?  Here in Psalm 130, the Psalmist stands in the classic position of petitioning God, “out of the depths,” in fervent prayer and lament. Walter Brueggemann suggests that, today, we have lost genuine interaction with God in our prayers in a way that allows us to complain about injustice asking God to hear the cries of those who suffer. Out of the depths, the Psalmist pleads, “Lord, hear my voice.”  Hear my sinfulness. And God does not count our iniquities, or else no one would be acceptable. All of us live under the judgment of God and we must be conscious of our “right” relationship to God. We wait expectantly upon God, embracing hope, anticipating what God is about to do. And then the Psalmist turns from personal confession to corporate sinfulness and our collective failures as people of faith telling us that God will redeem us, deliver us from our corporate, self-inflicted wounds.

2 Corinthians 7-15, may be more familiar to us and sounds as if we are being directed toward more generosity in our stewardship campaigns. And, in a way, that is true except we often miss the most poignant theme in these passages calling for our stewardship of the world and those we don’t know who are lifted up by our generosity and our sharing in their painful conditions revealing what we believe about God’s promise and God’s activities in the world. Here, Paul is urging the congregation to reflect in their lives and behavior their faith, their trust in the Gospel. Even in our own afflictions, our own pain, we reflect the generosity we have received from Jesus. If others are paying so high a price, surely we can share out of our wealth and generosity, Paul suggests. Christ gave himself so that we might receive the wealth of God’s grace. And together with those who receive our care, we sing praises to God in our shared faith. While we care for the hurting people of Macedonia and Jerusalem, of far away places in the world and our community, we are connected in faith, bound to one another, not giving beyond our capability but sharing equally. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:8: "And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work.”

In a prayer in a Quaker meeting, John Greenleaf Whittier, put it more simply: “In calm and cool and silence, once again I find my old accustomed place among my brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue shall utter words; where never hymn is sung, nor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung, nor dim light falling through the pictured pane! There, syllabled by silence, let me hear the still small voice which reached the prophet’s ear; read in my heart a still diviner law than Israel’s leader on his tables saw! There let me strive with each besetting sin, recall my wandering fancies, and restrain the sore disquiet of a restless brain; and, as the path of duty is made plain, may grace be given that I may walk therein…cheerful, in the light around me thrown, walking as one to pleasant service led; doing God’s will as if it were my own, yet trusting not in mine, but in his strength alone!

Comment on Sermon Title: Generous Redemption: a Journey Beyond Fear

How do we “play” with these images as we look at the scriptures and reflect on our own conditions, our own lives? How do we understand our redemption and how it frees us to live lives that none of us would have guessed possible?  How do we define our lives--by our accomplishments, our material gains, our family, our friends, our jobs? Or, as redeemed people, journeying beyond fear living out our faith in the midst of the world’s challenges and bitter turns without thought of ourselves, something bigger than the Fourth of July, more triumphant than Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture?

I wouldn’t be here except that one day I was redeemed—given a chance, perhaps, a second chance. My mother was passing through Washington, DC, and her time came for my birth. I was born to a single mother in Columbia Women’s Hospital, fatherless, poor, and indigent. My future didn’t look too good. After recovery from her near-death birthing of me, we returned to Northern Pennsylvania where, until I was four years old, I was a ward of the Orphan’s court. Adopted into a non-Native family, I lived and grew up in a very bumpy and difficult environment. I was told by high school advisors that I should not think of college because I was more suited to learn a trade and find a job. But I knew there was something more. I listened to a still small voice and was convinced that I needed to heed that call. There was a compelling voice telling me that I could do things that I would not have imagined otherwise. I placed it all on that redeeming call and made my way in the world as one who had placed my time, talents and gifts on an altar that took me into the most challenging dynamics of faith and leadership I could never have imagined. The poor, the sick, the disenfranchised, the prisoner, the refugee, the lost, the least, became a part of my life in that journey beyond fear.

My friend, Willie and Helen Sunungetuk, lived redeemed lives. Willie and Helen were Inuit, born in the village of Wales, above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, in the early 1900’s. Willie and Helen, childhood sweethearts and, later, married, saw enough of life to discourage any of us. Before their children were born, they witnessed the terrible influenza epidemic of 1918 that killed more than one-third of the village’s population of 600. Most of them died within a week. Having married and with children in tow, they moved to Nome so their children could receive an education. Willie and Helen knew the subsistence days of Arctic survival were coming to a close and their children needed new survival tools in a new world. Willie became the janitor of the Nome high school but both Willie and Helen continued some of their subsistence practices that included a fish camp on the edge of the Bering Sea. Every harvest season I could see racks and rows of pink salmon drying in the long days of summer.

I first met Willie and Helen in 1977 in their home. Crunching over the ice in the afternoon darkness of Arctic night, chilled by -40 degree temperatures, I was warmly greeted and offered magnificent hospitality. They told me about their journey and how committed they were to the United Methodist/Presbyterian Church of Nome. They had been given a second chance. They were redeemed in the faith and were committed to living out the teachings of Jesus. Willie was still the janitor of the school and was proud that he had never missed a day of work. He and Helen had raised their children in the traditional way and they had gone to universities to acquire the survival tools of the new age. Now Willie was focusing his leadership role in the community out of the depths of his faith and what he believed--warning against oil companies moving in and despoiling the sea and the tundra. His children were doing their best to speak a new language about survival and the moral dilemmas of their generation. Two of them were major artists and university teachers making their statements about Native issues and symbols of the new world crashing upon Native communities bringing disease, addiction and suicide.

What is this about, this talk of redemption and commitment to the Gospel? How does the awesome story of our lives live out of these scriptures? After all, they point to personal and corporate justice…freedom for me, freedom for you, freedom for all who would call upon God’s name. Justice and freedom can be dangerous to us, personally and corporately, for they signal change and, for the Christian, a radical departure from how we have lived—calling for a radical covenant beyond patriotism, beyond fear. Our comfort zones may crinkle as we are drawn to reflect in our behavior our commitment to the Gospel.

There are so many hands being held up around the globe seeking recognition, help, support and relief compelling us toward love of God and our neighbors. More than 15,000 killed in Syria by government forces; wildfires in Gila National Forest in New Mexico and Colorado; Olaiya’s Cradle, funded by the District of Columbia for young mothers between 18 and 21, in their third trimester of pregnancy and homeless or living in unsafe situations who turn away women because of lack of resources; the 9000 formerly homeless people in the DC region now housed with 12,000 people still homeless in the region; the untold numbers of LGBT sisters and brothers ostracized by the church; 800,000 to a million “Dreamers”—undocumented immigrant young people seeking “deferred action” through the executive action of the President; the Roma children and their families facing poverty in Serbia and elsewhere; the nearly 2.5 million people in US jails and prisons where the United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its incarcerated; the more than 22% of India’s population who are malnourished as record grain harvests are being exported; those yearning for peace in Palestine and Israel as more illegal settlements in the West Bank are established triggering rocket fire from Palestine harming innocent people; 30 million Americans without health care now able to find a safe harbor; the children of poverty in the US which has the second highest rate of childhood poverty in the developed world, next to Romania; racism and discrimination in the United States hanging on like barnacles to this ship of state.

A daunting number of hands raised in the air. Take a breath.  “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it to me.” Ah, yes, we remember and we pray, and act as we share good news and peace, grace and hope through our personal and corporate lives, through Christ’s love and compassion—ambassadors of the Good News.

If we have seen the pain and do nothing about it we are deliberately and willfully blind. How do we avoid seeing the pain of the world, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, the stranger, the immigrant, the struggle of brothers and sisters seeking freedom from want and discrimination on a global scale. We have received generous redemption, prepared to journey beyond fear seeking abundant living for ourselves and others. Our freedom from fear will influence who lives in the White House, who adopts humanitarian legislation in the Senate and the House of Representative, who rules justly in the Supreme Court, how we live on in our community, on our streets, in our homes and how we pray in our sacred places. We are the graciously redeemed lives journeying beyond fear bringing freedom not only for ourselves but for others as well, forsaking the false prophets on today’s high secular altars dispensing dissembling speeches and self adulation. Perhaps we need an altar call for those who wish to commit themselves to seeing, doing and acting.

How do we leave our foot prints in the sands of time? Some say they just want to be saved, just want a one-to-one relationship with God—that’s all. Stuck on their way from redemption to glory—saved and frozen.

Willie knew something about redemption and commitment even on his death bed. Willie landed in the Native Hospital in Anchorage dying with cancer. Soon afterwards, while I visited Nome, the family asked me to take him some of his Native food because he was so homesick. So, I stuffed a parcel of seal oil and walrus fat into the overhead storage on my flight to Anchorage. It was a warm summer day and by the time we arrived in Anchorage, the tourists on the plane were trying to figure out where the unusual scents were coming from. Later, in a visit with him, I learned that Willie had been asked to address the youth in the Elder’s Conference in Nome. He was determined to get there. He had been practicing his speech in bed and was preparing to leave the hospital when he had a setback and couldn’t go. One afternoon, I took a little tape recorder to him and suggested he might like to tape his speech in the event he was not able to travel to the conference. He picked it up and with disgust shoved it to the bottom of his bed. He would get there.

We talked through the afternoon until his supper arrived and I said I would leave and give him some rest. As I rose to leave, Willie picked up the tape recorder and said, “How do you run this thing?” I showed him and said that I would wait outside so he could record his speech. As I walked down the hall, I could hear Willie challenging the youth to hold fast to their beliefs, not take helicopter rides with oil companies, keep their Native life undisturbed, preserve the people, and care for the animals and the land. Some weeks later, Willie’s speech was played for the youth in the Elder’s Conference. Willie had made his last journey.

Finally, what about the children? They are watching us. They see our every move, how we gesticulate, move our arms and legs, walk. They see the expressions on our faces, hear the tone of our voices—how we relate to them, loved ones, neighbors and strangers. They will adjudicate the authenticity of our witness. While traveling in India, I met a woman begging on the streets with a baby nestled in a sling on her back. I talked with her through an interpreter and as we talked, the baby held out her hand toward me as she had learned from her mother. The children are watching us.

When we are called to accountability at the end of our time on this earth, we will be asked, “Have you loved my children—all of them?”