Fourth Sermon at Rock Springs, WY

Just a short note about how things are coming along at First Congregational UCC in Rock Springs. My first Sunday as their Transitional Minister, there were 51 adults and 8 children in attendance. The second Sunday we had 57 adults and 11 children present. On the third Sunday, we were down in count on adults with 41 in attendance and 7 children. This week, my 4th week, we had a special event of both a Baptism (my first as a UCC Minister as well as it being an infant!) and a "goodbye" to a long standing and well loved member who arrived at this church with her husband who was the pastor, three pastors ago. We counted 61 adults and 14 children in attendance.
I have found each week very interesting as I work on sermons that are designed to help this congregation, examine who they are and the behaviors that lead them to where they are presently at. This Sunday's sermon was most stressful for me as I was dealing with the topic of Boundaries, and what can happen when one or more people violate boundaries. As I become better acquainted with this body of believers I grow more fondly of everyone that I meet. It has been a long number of years since I have been in a Parish setting and working as a minister and I find myself continually being renewed daily and am finding such excitement and fulfillment as I exercise my calling. God is truly good and most gracious and I thank Him for allowing me the privilege of working with this faith community.

Courage for Community
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
Esther 7: 1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50
First Cong UCC, Rock Springs, WY Sept 27, 2009


How many of you enjoy going to a good party? What would be one of your favorite celebrations that happen on a yearly basis? One of my very favorite holiday celebrations is Halloween! Now there are a lot of Christians who would be highly offended by the fact that I as a minister enjoy celebrating the tradition of Halloween. In fact this October 31st, we are going to be hosting an after “trick or treat” party here at the church for children 6th grade and under. Now I have heard almost all the explanations as to why it isn’t a good idea for those of us who call ourselves Christian to celebrate this festive holiday; with the most severe reason being it is a way of celebrating Satan. What I have come to believe when I hear these explanations about why I shouldn’t dress up in costume and enjoy this celebration, is that those people who are telling me the reason “why not” really don’t understand what the origins of Halloween are.
Another name of Halloween is All Hallows Eve, or the day before All Saints day; which is a day that the church does celebrate. The idea of dressing up in scary costumes or wearing scary masks, such as Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton or Freddie from Friday the 13th movies or that of various demon, or witches, or anything else that we might perceive as representative of evil, was done by early Christians to help protect them from evil spirits that were believed to roam the earth that night looking for mischief. So, when I say that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, I am really telling you that I enjoy celebrating the day prior to All Saints Day. Well actually, I just like dressing up into costumes and bobbing for apples and I just don’t understand why as a grown up, it is no longer acceptable to go trick or treating.
For those of us who label ourselves as Christians, we say our religious background is rooted in both the Hebrew and Christian tradition. Yet I would be safe in guessing that most Christians are not aware of many of the Hebrew Celebrations. So here is a test question to test my assumption. How many of you know of the Feast of Purim? What day was it celebrated on this year? Where did its origins come from? Well, we can find all this out in the Book of Esther. Let me try to give a Perry Mason summation of what today’s lectionary reading leaves out.
The joyous holiday of Purim celebrates the salvation of the Hebrews from the wicked Haman, through the leadership of Queen Esther and her cousin Mordecai. Purim takes place on the 14th day of Adar, the 12th month of the Jewish calendar (which corresponds with our season of Lent.) The carnival-like atmosphere of Purim, wearing of costumes, and bringing gifts of food door-to-door sometimes leads to it being referred to as the "Jewish Mardi Gras" or "Jewish Halloween".

The story of Purim is found in the book of Esther. This is publically read in synagogues twice on Purim: when the holiday begins at nightfall, and the following morning. When the name of Haman is read, people stomp their feet, hiss, boo, or shake noisemakers to obliterate his name.

The story takes place in the Persian Empire, which extended to 127 provinces. In the third year of his reign, King Xerxes threw a lavish party, to which he summoned his wife, Queen Vashti, to display her beauty. When Vashti refused to obey his command, he had her killed for insubordination. Regretting this decision after sobering up, Xerxes began a kingdom-wide search for a new queen, adding a member to his harem every night, but not finding a suitable replacement until Esther—a beautiful Hebrew girl—was brought before him. He fell in love with her and made her the new queen. She had not wanted to be part of the search, and would not tell him anything about her background.
Soon after this, Haman became the chief advisor to Xerxes. He felt slighted by Mordecai, a Hebrew who refused to bow to him (and who, unknown to him or the king, was Esther's cousin). He obtained permission from the king to send out a decree to the entire kingdom calling for all the Hebrews to be wiped out on the 13th of Adar. He chose this date, by using lots (or rolling dice.) (The Persian word for lots was pur; the holiday of Purim gets its name from this event.)

Mordecai sent word to Esther about this decree, and called upon her to intercede with the king. This was a risky move for Esther; it was forbidden to see the king without first being summoned, and he had after all killed his previous wife for not obeying his orders. Nevertheless, she accepted that she needed to take action. She called for a three-day fast among the Hebrews in the city, after which she went to see the king. She found favor in the king's eyes, and he offered to give her anything she wanted.

After a couple of subplots involving Mordecai and Haman fell into place, Esther informed the king that Haman was, in fact, plotting to kill her and all of her people. Incensed, the king ordered Haman to be hanged, and installed Mordecai in his place. While the original decree could not be rescinded, Mordecai was able to send out a second decree calling upon the Jews to defend themselves and kill their enemies. This they did, routing all opposition on the 13th of Adar, and celebrating on the 14th. This celebration on the 14th is now observed annually, on Purim.

The traditional observances of Purim include public readings of the Book of Esther, feasting, gifts of charity to the poor, and gifts of food among friends. Other popular activities include staging comedic plays, expounding on the Torah in humorous ways, dressing up in costumes, holding beauty contests, and marching in parades. (Web based information on Feast of Purim)

So, now for those of you who have never really read the book of Esther all the way through, you now have a general idea of what the story is about. Let’s turn our attention for a moment to the Gospel reading for today. Here we continue on with Jesus’ teaching. Last week we left off where Jesus was holding the child in his lap and telling us basically we need to respect and include everyone, even the most vulnerable among us, in our fellowship.
This week, the texts starts off with John, speaking up about a person who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and how proud they were that they had chastised him and told him to stop it, simply because that person wasn’t a part of their merry band of disciples. Jesus was not pleased! “Don’t stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally.”
Jesus then goes on to make this strange statement, “On the other hand, if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.” This is some pretty strong teaching to those who like to bully and lord over others.
But here is the hard part of the story that doesn’t seem to be consistent with Jesus’ general nature. At least to the way we tend to Romanticize Jesus’ loving behavior. “If your hand or your foot gets in God’s way, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owner of two hands and two feet, godless in the furnace of eternal fire….”
In the time of Jesus, it was believed that the only way to God was to be a person without blemish. It was taken to the extreme, so if you were blind, or lame, or had leprosy, you were not welcomed into the temple to worship and give tithe to God. This is one reason why we read about so many healings in the four Gospels, as it was about restoring people back into the family of faith. It was about “reconciliation” of those excluded and marginalized back to God.
So here is Jesus telling his disciples that you can still be in community with God, you can still worship and be acceptable in God’s eyes, even if you are missing a leg or a hand or your tongue. For it is better to cut off that which is truly keeping you separated from the life that God is asking us to be apart of – that of love and acceptance, of being just and seeking justice for those who have no voice and are being brutalized by social systems.
So how does the story about a courageous woman, such as Esther and the reprimanding that the disciples got from Jesus come together? There are numerous themes running through both of these stories, but the one that jumps out at me the most is that of Boundaries! These are two differing stories as to what can happen to people when Boundaries are not observed and are over stepped and if not challenged the pain and grief that can be placed on a lot of innocent life’s.
We have had some very painful examples of “boundaries” being violated over the last decade. There is a current film series being presented at the White Mountain Library on “The Faces of Addiction”. The one I saw this past Thursday was dealing with “Enron” and the pain and suffering and devastation of livelihood, that it’s CEO’s and corporate culture has caused. With the efforts of its CEO, Kenneth Lay in getting Congress to deregulate the utility industry, the checks and balances of business practices were not in place, thereby giving rise to abuse and over-stepping of ethical boundaries, legally! They had the power without repercussions to literally cut off electrical power to millions of consumers, solely to raise the price of electricity. The boundary crossed was the need to feed the addiction of greed and ego!
Haman, the right hand man to Xerxes, out of resentment toward Modecai, maneuvered to pass a law that would eventually allow him, with the law on his side, to carry out genocide of the Hebrew people. He had overstepped the boundary of “morality” and, had Esther not placed herself in probable danger, standing up and exposing this evil, would have seen an entire race of people murdered.
The problem of maintaining boundaries exists within any given church. There are people who, for a number of reasons, but generally stemming to the basic fear of loss of power, over- step boundaries. This was the case of the disciples when they were telling the “non-disciple” that he needed to stop his healing in the name of Jesus. The disciples had crossed a boundary that ensured “exclusivity” where Jesus was working towards “inclusivity”.
In the church where I hold my membership, there was a violation of boundaries a few years ago, between a person who had at one time been the Church Moderator. This person perceived themself as a main power broker in the congregation. When the church had hired a new organist, this person was not on the committee that did the interviewing and had a personal ax to grind with the chairperson of the music committee. This individual transferred that grudge to the new organist/choir director and proceeded to make life very uncomfortable for him as well as the choir members and eventually the whole church.
Ultimately, there was a show-down between the choir director and this individual, with the choir director resigning. Now mind you, there was plenty of boundary breaking going on by both parties. When confronted by the church council, this church member who had violated these boundaries was unable to “own up” to their behavior and left the church with angry feelings.
In time this individual sought out mediation with the Conference chair person of the Committee on Ministry, trying to receive vindication toward their action and wanting the pastor to make a public apology. This person was informed that a public apology couldn’t be made by the pastor because they had indeed over-stepped boundaries and that by giving in to their demands would only reinforce continued behavior in the future and create future problems in the church.
Moving forward a couple of years later, This person came to St. Paul’s to visit during a special occasion and after introducing themselves to our present choir director/organist, promptly stated with great pride that they were responsible for getting rid of the previous organist. I use this example because it is very, very sad to realize that this person still doesn’t recognize their part within the issue nor does this person understand the concept of boundaries.
What Esther was doing when she stood up and told the King that Haman wanted to kill her and her people, Esther was being the voice of accountability. Haman had crossed boundaries and if not kept in check would have destroyed a whole race of people. Jesus was saying, it is better to cut off that part of the body that is going to ruin you or those around you. Anyone who has ever dealt with “addictions” knows that the only way the addict is going to grow beyond that addiction into a healthier life is to not enable the addict to continue that behavior.
In faith communities, there has to be accountability of one’s actions and behavior. If the faith community never stands up and intervenes on behalf of the person who is not honoring boundaries – that person will never realize their behavior as unacceptable and will continue to violate boundaries.
As a society, we must demand accountability of our government and of corporate behavior. We have seen what happens when rules are broken or legally dismantled; left to themselves, addiction to greed and ego move to stepping over boundaries and people get hurt and sometimes even destroyed.
James gives us some encouragement on such a tough topic:”Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” There is salvation to ego, it is found through the love of Christ and the power of the resurrection. All we have to do is to have the courage to stand up, approach the King and state the truth; to love one another as Christ has shown us and to hold each other up in prayer and deed. Amen