GET THE CONNECTION?

Amos 8:1-12; Luke 10:38-42

There's an old Jewish saying,

"If you want to make God laugh,

tell God your plans." 

God has been laughing at Paul and me since last January.

We had planned all year long

to take two weeks of vacation together

while the kids were at Mo-Ranch.

But, we have learned that appendixes happen.

So, Paul and I had two weeks together,

along withParkland Hospital

and home health nurses.

But we had enough time together

to do what we probably would have done on vacation anyway:

argue about physics.

This past week,

Paul and I got into an argument

about whether Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion was correct:

that, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

I totally understand the idea of "cause and effect,"

but I'm not convinced

that our lives are no more than balls on  a pool table,

where pressure applied from one to another

can force it halfway across the room.

But I cannot sustain an argument

with Paul Watson and Isaac Newton at the same time.

Today we are going to talk about the "physics"

that occur when an odd reading from the prophet Amos

bumps up against the more familiar story of Martha and Mary

Here, it's not just that the balls on the pool table knock each other around,

it's like they turn into something else altogether.

Some of us know the reading from Luke so well,

it's almost like we can read the passage

and know already what the sermon is going to say.

But when we pair it up with this reading from Amos,

there's a whole different feel to it.

Putting these two readings together

points out the connectedness of our lives:

our connectedness to God,

our connectedness to creation,

our connectedness to each other

and to people we may never meet.

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The ways that our lives are connected

with people halfway around the world,

and actually with the world itself,

is very much on our minds these days.

What happens to the rain forests in Brazil

or to the ozone layer inside the Arctic Circle

has a direct bearing on our lives.

And we are becoming all too aware

that our own habits of consumption

are having a direct bearing

on the rain forests in Brazil

and the ozone layer inside the Arctic Circle.

The Euro is binding all of Europe together economically

as much as NAFTA is blurring the dividing lines

between Canada and the US and Mexico.

Sometimes we feel like if we sneeze,

someone halfway around the world on the internet will say "bless you."

Politically, economically, environmentally and organically,

we are all connected one to another.

But it's always been that way, hasn't it? 

Native Americans have always believed

that all of creation is part of a whole.

They teach their children that the sun and the moon

are relatives to be honored.

In the Old Testament,

the book of Exodus teaches

that the sins of one's parents

are visited upon the third and fourth generations.

That's not because children and grandchildren

have to atone for their parents and grandparents.

That's because the habits and choices of previous generations

play themselves out for generations to come.

For good or ill,

the lives that our ancestors lived

helped to shape us for who we are today.

And when we consider the One

who created the heavens and the earth

and all that is therein,

we see that our lives and our choices

and our shortcomings and our shining achievements

are inextricably bound up with God.

"So corporate are we

that no one can give a cup of cold water

to the least person in the world

without giving it to God." [i]

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One of those organic connections that comes to light

when Amos and Luke bounce off of each other

is the connection between what happens in this place

on this day

and what happens to us

the other six days of the week.

This morning's Old Testament reading doesn't pull any punches.

It is not at all easy for us to hear

what Amos has to say.

And what makes it even more difficult

is that he was talking to churchgoers like us!

He comes right out and says it:

those who consider themselves to be faithful

have trampled on the needy.

He talks about temple-goers

who can't wait for the Sabbath to be over

so that they can be about trampling again.

Or maybe if they don't intend to trample anyone,

maybe they just want to get worship over with

so that they can get on with the rest of their lives!

And if that is the case,

God is willing to oblige.

If there is no patience or desire for God's word,

then God won't waste it.

Ouch.

Friends, these were folks who came to worship every Sabbath,

some of them maybe even more often than some of us.

They knew better.

We know better.

Yet they were using other people,

treating them like objects

that were worth only what the market would bear.

Are we doing that too?

If so,

then Amos is saying to his neighbors

just as much as he is to us

that the things we do for selfish or wrong-headed reasons

will have as much impact on the world

as anything we might do for better reasons.

Friends, none of us is a commodity.

Each of us is a child of God.

We learn that each time we worship here.

And we learn that there is a connection

between what happens in this place

and what happens when we leave this place.

It's all of a piece.

If we come here to worship

and leave here to cheat our neighbors,

and commodify other people,

if we make a profit for ourselves with no thought to the cost of others,

if we could care less

that our appetite for cheap fuel and year-round bananas

is destroying the environment

and taking food right out of the mouths of the hungry,

it's like we might as well not come.

Real worship of the true God will change us,

through and through.

It will change the way we see things,

it will change the way we do things,

it will make all the difference in the world.

We can't just buzz in here for an hour

and sing songs that we like

and visit with our friends

and get it out of the way as fast as we can

so that we can be about our "real" lives.

This IS our real life.

This time isn't about us -

it's about God.

How we worship God

is connected organically to how we live.

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In a similar way,

there is an organic connection between our "doing"

and our "being."

One of my colleagues said recently

that Frank Sinatra had it backwards.

Instead of "do-be-do-be-do,"

the ratio should be just the opposite:

"be-do-be-do-be."

We have the "do" part down to a fine art.

Maybe that's part of our works-righteousness heritage

from church history.

But there are plenty of times

when it is far more important to be -

especially just to be in the presence of God -

than it is to do anything at all.

You and I are prone to take pride in our productivity.

We also may find escape in it.

As long as we are productive, we think,

we are worth something,

we will have all the material goods we need,

our lives will have meaning,

and we won't have to think about anything else.

There's not necessarily anything bad about our being productive.

In fact, usually it's pretty good.

But when we so busy ourselves with productivity

that we lose sight of the God who gave us that gift,

then we've broken the connection between doing and being.

The first question in the Westminster Catechism

teaches us that our chief end in life

is NOT to make a living,

or provide for our families,

or to find our self-worth in what we do,

but "to glorify God and enjoy God forever."

That's it.

That's what we're made for.

Mary had that figured out.

And even though Martha was doing something wonderful

in being a good hostess and preparing a delightful dinner,

she was missing the main attraction.

Maybe the difference in "be" and "do"

boils down to this:

"if Jesus is in the living room,

then the kitchen is not the place to be." [ii]

There is indeed a connection between our being and our doing,

a connection that needs not to be skewed to one side or the other,

but held in healthy balance.

And until we can do that,

if you're anything like me,

you probably need to focus more on the "be" side

when it comes to spending time with God

and keep some of our tendencies to "do" in check.

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Frederick Buechener reflected

on this connectedness we have with each other

and with the world God has given us.

But he saw it as more than just a lovely little gift of God.

He uses the word "hunger"

to talk about the drive we have

to make and keep those connections. 

Listen to how he puts it:

"We hunger to be known and understood.

We hunger to be loved?

We hunger not just to be loved but to love,

not just to be forgiven but to forgive,

not just to be known and understood

for all the good times and bad times

that for better or worse have made us who we are,

but to know and understand each other

to the same point of seeing that,

in the last analysis,

we all have the same good times,

the same bad times,

and that for that very reason

there is no such thing in all the world

as anyone who is really a stranger."[iii]

About a month ago,

a man named Xavier Cervera

was hosting a dinner party for his friends

out on the patio of his home on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Towards the end of the party, for whatever reason,

he took his dog out for a walk

and left the back gate unlatched.

While he was gone,

an armed robber came in through the gate,

grabbed a teenaged guest,

put a gun to her head.

and said "Give me all your money, or I'll shoot."

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

What would you have done?

Most everyone froze, including the girl's parents.

But then one of the guests said,

"We were just finishing dinner.

Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The burglar took a sip of the wine

and saw that it was good!

So they offered him more -

the whole bottle in fact.

And then he had some Camembert to go with it.

He sat down at their table

and put the gun back in his pocket,

and said "I think I may have come to the wrong house."

Another guest said to him

that his mother wouldn't be very proud

if she knew what he was doing,

and he began to cry.

He told her that his mother was no longer living,

and asked the woman for a hug.

And so each of them hugged him.

By the time he got ready to leave,

he asked if they could have a group hug.

They all stood and surrounded him

with their arms out.

With that, he walked out of the patio,

carrying a crystal wine glass full of Chateau Malescot.

No one was hurt,

nothing was stolen,

and he has yet to be found.

The wine glass was found, though -

in the alleyway, on the ground,

unbroken.

After he left, they all went inside and called 911.

When the police came, one detective said,

"A group hug?

Why didn't you all take that opportunity

to squeeze him down to the ground

and call the police?" [iv]

Why indeed.

Frederick Buechener would say that,

"in the last analysis,

we all have the same good times,

the same bad times,

and that for that very reason

there is no such thing in all the world

as anyone who is really a stranger."

Sir Isaac Newton would say,

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Amos and Martha and Mary and Jesus would say,

we're all connected.

Amen.