A sermon, a song, and a renaissance painting.

In March of 1995 the song One of Us, written by Eric Bazilian, and sung by Joan Osborne, was released to critical acclaim and rave reviews. The song was popular, peaking at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 that year. That is to say it was the fourth most song played on the radio then, and reached an awful lot of ears.

The title received Grammy nominations in 1996 for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year too.

What If
The song asks the cosmically complicated question – What if God was one of Us? – without providing a clear answer.

Well distributed and widely liked, that the tune stood out to me in the mid-90s is still somewhat of a mystery. I was a sophomore in college when One of Us was released, having recently switched from majoring in engineering to psychology. This was still many years away from a personal exploration of ordained ministry; the song’s topic wasn’t exactly on the vocational radar.

Even more, female pop wasn’t anywhere close to my preferred music genre then.

I was all about alt-rock, hip-hop, punk-rock.

And Joan Osborne? She is all female pop, all the time.

You’d be much more likely to find me in the mosh pit of a Rage Against The Machine concert back then (which I experienced, and it was awesome).

And Joan? She was more known for being a headliner in the all-female late-90s Lilith Fair music festival.

Yet I continue to be drawn to this particular song, and have been now for over 20 years.

One of Us
The song asks that question, what if God was one of us, using these haunting lyrics.

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin’ to make his way home?

The One of Us music video urges us to consider this what-if question even deeper.

To do that, an image of God is used in the video that’s eerily reminiscent of Michelangelo’s 16th century painting, The Creation of Adam. That’s the painting that forms part of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, and famously shows God reaching out of the sky, touching index fingers with Adam.

In the video God’s image is presented as a cardboard cutout, propped up on the ground with 2×4 pieces of lumber. God’s face in this cutout is missing, leaving a photo opportunity for passers by not unlike what you’d see at the state fair. Here people can walk up, put their head in the cutout, and pretend, if only for a moment, to be God.

And it begs the question, what if God was one of us? What would God look like? The video provides multiple options to consider.

Is God that balding Latino man, with mustache and dingy, yellow teeth?
Or the African American with thick beard and long dreadlocks?
Or is it the native American, donning a feather prominently raised over one ear?
Or perhaps it’s the white man, shirtless, Jesus tattoo prominently etched on his pectoral, with a star of David hanging around his neck?

Is God the little boy with the winning smile?
Or the teenager with that super high, super cool spiked mohawk hairdo?
Or is it the bearded guy, complete with skull cap and dark sunglasses?
Or that shirtless elderly man with the big pronounced belly?

Or maybe God is the seemingly homeless veteran, with graying beard, riding a bicycle featuring multiple Puerto Rican flags?

Or, could it be the guy in an angel costume, complete with big cloth wings, riding a skateboard down the boardwalk?

The video mostly defaults to images of male God-types, tho we could easily extend these questions to groups not covered.

What if God was a woman, complete with a bunch of facial piercings?
What if God was the hungry beggar we pass on the street?
Or what if God was in a wheelchair, unable to get around without help?

So many questions.

No clear answers.

We’re left to our own imagination.

What Disciples Do
Today we dive into the second week of our Fall sermon series titled what believers do. Each week Pastor Bryan and I dissect a different aspect of Christian discipleship specifically geared toward the doing part of our faith.

Up today: Disciples seek people for Christ.

To help us understand what it is to seek people for Christ we dig into two parables from Luke 15.

Drawn
Once again it’s those pesky Pharisees, the law-based established religious insiders, giving Jesus a hard time with how he’s running the ministry.

And their critique this time? He’s eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, oh dear.

The tax collectors back then swore their allegiance more to their government than their God, the Pharisees concluded. And they did the government’s bidding by way of a financial shakedown of God’s people. Remember Zacchaeus, the tax collector, up in the tree, separated from the rest gathered there, yet drawn to Jesus, even as an outsider, all the same.
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The sinners were those, in the Pharisees eyes, that either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, keep to all those religious laws of the Old Testament. Remember the woman at the well, she who’d had five husbands. She who was socially ostracized, yet still drawn to Jesus. She who had an extended conversation with him, publicly, in broad daylight.

These were the types of people attracted to Jesus. Even worse he would eat and drink with people of this sort, the very ones religious leaders of the era would typically shun. A controversial Christ?  Yes, absolutely.

Sheep
The first story Jesus shares to address this critique is the parable of the lost sheep.
Here Christ asks us to imagine we’re shepherds, with a flock of 100 sheep, and have lost one. Who here among you, he wonders, wouldn’t leave the 99 in the wilderness, and look for the one?

I’m no expert on agriculture or farm animals. Apologies, deep down I’m still a South Florida city slicker. But this scripture got me wondering, how much is a sheep worth these days? According to the USDA website, from a sheep auction in Kalona Iowa earlier this week, the answer is around $130.

Which begs the question, would you really leave almost thirteen grand of inventory, in the wilderness, exposed to thieves and predators, in the hopes of retrieving one percent of that amount back?

Seen from human eyes, logically speaking, I can’t say that I would.

Yet that’s exactly what this good shepherd does with the flock.

Coins
The second parable here is similar. It describes a woman with ten silver coins who has lost one. Biblical scholars say the coin, a drachma, was worth about the price of a sheep. Or in today’s economy about that same $130.

The math here is a little better at least, she’s only lost one coin out of ten, and still has, in today’s dollars, almost $1,200 on hand. To find that coin she lights a lamp, and sweeps the house. The language used in scripture suggests she keeps looking until the lost coin is found; she searches carefully until she finds it, the text reads. There is seemingly no end to her search until a successful conclusion is reached.

If I’d lost something worth that kind of coin in the house I’d look for it some, sure. But after a couple of hours of checking under beds, and digging between couch cushions, odds are I’d call off the search. Perhaps you would too.

Tho the woman in this parable never does. She searches until she finds.

Even more surprising about this story is who it features. No other parable in the New Testament presents a woman as a metaphor or allegory for God. Here, in a text written two millennia ago, in a context even more patriarchal than the one we live in today, Jesus depicts God as a woman, cleaning her house, desperately, in search of the missing coin.

That suggestion, that God could be described in feminine terms, for many a churchgoer in 2018, is still downright shocking.

But that’s what Jesus does. His parables challenge us to broaden our understanding of the divine. They require us to reevaluate long-held assumptions about the very nature of God.

Party
Both parables have the same conclusion; the shepherd and the woman both have a party. Rejoice with me, for what was lost has now been found, they say.

They celebrate being reunited in ways that make it clear what has been lost to them is valued very, very much. And they aren’t shy about it, throwing a party, publicly, so all know what was lost is now found. And all can celebrate right along with them.

What If Revisited
Let’s get back to that first question, what if God was one of us? What would God look like? To help us explore that check out the music video that hails from an era where MTV still played them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G5XzQN_SDM

So what if God was one of us? It’s a great question to ponder. Ultimately we just don’t know.

This video, and today’s text asks a lot of us, challenging us to broaden our notion of who God is and how God feels about us.

Broaden
Perhaps God isn’t the skin tone or specific gender that history has often assigned.
God is broader than those limiting categories.

God also doesn’t root for one team at the expense of others.

God bless the USA, yes, of course. Tho God bless the whole world too, no exceptions. God is broader than the limiting lines of a map. God is broader than the human-made labels we place on each other.

And God loves us, so deeply, that God does some crazy, crazy things.

So crazy that God leaves the majority, and heads out to find the one.

What we may see as a mere financial calculation – remember the 13 grand those 100 sheep are worth – God sees as a beloved family member. And when you’re family every single person counts.

As we wrestle with how disciples seek people for Christ, I’d suggest first we must wrestle with how we see God. If we view our God as looking like one group, or one gender, we forget that we’re all made in the image of our Creator.

And if we view God as being for one group, and against another, we give ourselves permission to treat others in that same way – with some in, and some out.

But that’s not God, is it. Today’s text makes that clear.

Close
As we here at Bethesda seek people for Christ, whether it’s through:
– Oktoberfest beer drinking
– Scandinavian coffee sipping
– Food pantry stomach filling
– Clothing closet esteem building
– Prison ministry worship experiencing or
– Tanzanian water empowering

In all of this we are challenged to see others as God does.

And that is to say each of us are as loved and as valued as the next.

For when we take that view we work to bring the family back together, just as God intends. And in those moments we party, right alongside God. In those moments we celebrate one big family reunion, where all are present, and all are valued. This is what disciples of Christ are called to do, today, tomorrow, and forevermore.  Amen.

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When I was six months old our family moved from Upstate New York to Houston. We lived in Houston until I was eleven years old, by then I’d gone from being an only child to the oldest of three.

When it was just me, mom and dad our family engaged in a ritual most every day, we took a stroll in the neighborhood. We only had one car at the time, and a couple of bikes, so walking was a pretty central part of how we spent our days.

Initially my parents did what many parents do, they wore me while walking. My wife and I wore our two children when they were small too, it’s great for bonding, and creates hands-free parenting as well, a double win.

After a while I got older, and heavier, and learned to walk as most kids do. It was then that my parents transitioned from wearing me during our neighborhood jaunts to having me walk by their side.

Perfection
Often we’d walk to the grocery store, my mom recalls taking an LL Bean canvas bag with her and filling it with groceries. My mother tells me when her hands were full with groceries, instead of holding hands I’d simply hold onto her pocket to stay close.

My mom also tells me that I adored a Weimaraner that lived in the neighborhood. Most days during these walks the dog would see us through the window and playfully say hello. Weimaraners are a larger breed, they move in this big floppy way, and have these striking blue and greenish eyes.  I still like them.

It was also during these walks I started the first of many collections. Before collecting things like stamps and pennies and baseball cards and video games, for me, it began with stones and flowers. I’d pick up a stone, pick a flower, and then bring them home.

And so our daily walks went. They were filled with grocery trips, time spent with favorite neighborhood dogs, and collecting some of God’s creation by way of stones and flowers. This is the stuff of life.

Bites
Then one day something happened that wasn’t according to this idyllic daily routine.

I was about a year and a half old, and still in diapers. (That transition, to big boy underwear, admittedly took a few more years ? )

During one of our daily walks mom and I stopped near the neighborhood entrance, right next to the sign that announced the name of the apartments we lived in. Wearing just a shirt and diapers I decided to plop down right by one of the wooden posts that held up that neighborhood sign.

It was then, unbeknownst to either of us, that hundreds of fire ants came up from their unseen fire ant mound, that I’d unwittingly sat on, and began biting at me with their normal fire ant fury.

In case you’re unfamiliar with fire ants, they’re typically found in the southeastern and western US, and are larger than common ants. Even worse, fire ants carry venom strong enough that it, with enough bites, has the capacity to kill small animals.

And now hundreds of them were crawling over baby me.

Within seconds I was covered in fire ants, getting bit by some, screaming my little toddler my lungs out, wailing in pain.

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After freeing me of the ants – she recalls I’d been bitten about a dozen times – she washed me off, treated the bites with aloe vera, and put my clothes back on, trying to get things back to normal.

She tells me she felt horrible about it, and as a parent now myself I totally get that; seeing our kids suffer is a horrible feeling.

On this day there were no walks for groceries.
On this day there were no visits to friendly neighborhood dogs.
On this day there was no stone collecting.
On this day there was no flower-picking.

Instead, it was a day of pain and injury, tears and screams, and fast action on my mom’s part to rid me of those nasty ants in my pants as best she could.

Outside the Garden
The story of Genesis 3 tells a similar tale. It’s the story of original sin, complete with the likes of Adam, Eve, daily walks with God, a pesky serpent and a tempting apple.  After that life here on earth gets kind of messy.

I’m going to guess that most everyone reading has heard the story many, many times before. And odds are if you pop into church here and there you’ll hear this story many times again.

Instead of delving into that well-worn narrative I’d suggest those fire ants in my pants represent the challenges we face living outside the garden of Eden.

We were made for daily strolls with our Creator. But sometimes fire ants appear, out of nowhere. And those fire ants cause oodles of pain to both us and the one that made us.

We were made with nary a care in the world, with all our needs met. But sometimes fire ants appear, stripping us of basics like clothing and food.

We were made to appreciate creation. But sometimes fire ants appear. And their very presence separates us from what brings us joy, things like family, friends, and beloved animals. Things like the rocks of the ground, the flowers of the field.

Let me encourage you to keep an eye out for fire ants.

With a little bit of practice we can better spot, and avoid, the mounds they live in. We do this with the reading of scripture, through conversations with fellow Christ-followers, and by participating fully in our communities of faith.

And, with a little bit of practice, we can better spot when others find themselves sitting in those same fire ant mounds, screaming their lungs out, crying for help. In those moments we are called to guide them away from the mound, and toward safety. We are called to help ease their pains, to place balm on their wounds.

Life is far from perfect. And fire ants, unfortunately, are with us to stay. But it is in knowing where the fire ants live, then avoiding them, and then helping others avoid them too, it is there where we find our purpose.

And it is there where we can thrive, for all of our days, joy-filled, pain-free, right alongside one another, living in harmony with the world, just as our Creator intends. Amen.

Do you wash your hands after going to the bathroom? How about before you eat?

The benefits of handwashing, at this point, are well documented.

Studies done by the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, find that handwashing education in the community:

• Reduces the number of people who get sick with diarrhea by 31%
• Reduces respiratory illnesses, like colds, by almost 20%

Teaching people to do that one basic thing, handwashing, has that kind of impact. Because of this the CDC recommends teaching children these basic steps to handwashing.

1) Wet hands
2) Cover wet hands with soap
3) Scrub all surfaces, including palms, back of the hands, between the fingers, and under the fingernails, for about 20 seconds
4) Rinse well with running water, and finally
5) Dry on a clean cloth or by waving those hands in the air

In the US kids are often encouraged to sing the happy birthday song, twice, while washing to help count, that takes about 20 seconds. In other countries different songs are used to encourage the right amount of time.

Or you can check out this three-minute video on how to wash those hands of yours right.

This issue is so important that there’s an annual event, the Global Handwashing Day, that arranges gatherings that help educate the world about this most crucial topic. Last year the Global Handwashing Day event reached 520 million people, either in local gatherings, mass media, or via online campaign. The next one is coming up October 15, and they’re hoping to reach even more.

Speaking a little more broadly about the concept of cleanliness, the CDC estimates that we could prevent almost 1 in 10 sicknesses, around the world, by doing just three things 1) more handwashing, 2) ensuring safe drinking water, and 3) providing better sanitation. Imagine, just by educating and ensuring access to these three things 10% of sicknesses, globally, would be no more.

Handwashing, safe drinking water, and sanitation are things most of us take for granted; perhaps that’s why this level of impact seems so amazing to me.

With so much to gain perhaps it’s no wonder that governments, non-profits, and faith-based organizations all work to bring these life-giving necessities to people globally. Our very own denomination, the ELCA, sponsors the Walk For Water, helping to build wells for clean drinking water.

Dirty Hands
All of these stats, and figures, and global efforts aimed at handwashing and related water issues bring us to our scripture reading from Mark 7.

And it is here we find Jesus’ disciples getting caught, red-handed – or perhaps dirt handed – eating, without washing up first.

Oh dear, it sounds like they’re in trouble.

Once again it’s those pesky Pharisees that notice, and once again they call Jesus to the carpet for it. It’s those Pharisees, the scriptural version of Wile E Coyote, always chasing after the Road Runner (beep beep!) trying to catch Jesus in a trap.

This time, arguably, perhaps it worked.

With the benefit of our modern, scientific era, we know now of the many reasons to diligently wash our hands. In preparing for this message my wife showed me a hospital employee training presentation. That training requires staff at her hospital to sanitize their hands, at a minimum, of every time they either enter or leave a patient’s room. Which could be up to 100 times a day. It’s that important.

Heck even in church here Pastor Bryan and I, along with communion assistants, sanitize our hands before serving communion each week. We do that so germs don’t get passed around. Dare I say we use those hand sanitizers religiously, it’s baked right into the worship service.

So perhaps the Pharisees really had Jesus trapped with this one. They were, after all, technically correct, according to Judaic law. Priests at that time were required to wash their hands before eating holy meat from sacrifices. And now we know, even beyond the ritual of hand washing, there are all those health benefits to doing it too.

The Pivot
But then Jesus did what Jesus does, he broadened a specific critique into a universal truth.

It’s important to note here what Jesus doesn’t say to the Pharisees – he does not condemn or denounce their beliefs. Aka, yes, there’s some value in handwashing before a meal.

The place of this narrative in scripture is also worth a mention; it comes directly after the good news of Jesus first begins to reach the Gentiles.

This text represents that broadening, God’s good news is now becoming available to a lot more people than before.

• It isn’t just for 12 tribes, but is open for all of God’s tribes, regardless of race or ethnicity.
• It isn’t just for people in one land; it is for all lands.
• It isn’t just for those with clean hands, but for those whose hands remain unwashed.

And this new reality is bound to rattle some cages.
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When directly questioned why his disciples were eating with dirty hands Jesus is ready. He responds that the religious leaders standing before him hold to human tradition, all while abandoning the commandments of God. Ouch. That kinda hurts.

Jesus further clarifies that it isn’t what is on or goes into a person that defiles them. What makes them dirty is what comes out of the human heart.

Filthy Hearts
And what comes out of the human heart can be a dark state of affairs. Jesus concludes today’s text by rattling off a litany of actions best kept in a thou shalt not commit context, including theft, murder, adultery, greed, deceit, envy, slander, and pride.

It’s easy to look to outward cleanliness as a barometer for being close to God. Psychology calls that a cognitive shortcut, you see one thing about a person and, from that, assume an awful lot more. Perhaps that’s where the phrase cleanliness is next to Godliness comes from, that outward focus.

But that’s just not where it’s it, a cognitive shortcut of that sort is often entirely incorrect. Mark 7 reminds us of that which dirties us, and causes separation from our Creator; it is our actions. And those actions are a matter of the heart.

• We wash our hands, but then use those same hands to slander our neighbor by typing horrible things about them on Facebook or Twitter.
• Or we shower for church, with nary a bit of dirt on us, and then arrive and dish dirt about others, when we shouldn’t, by way of gossip.
• Or we put on our business best Monday morning, get all sparkling clean, then have to fight a desire to dirty ourselves by succumbing to financial greed.

In all these examples we’re clean on the outside.

In all these examples we’re filthy within.

Near the end of the play MacBeth, the Shakespeare classic, Lady MacBeth is found sleepwalking, saying “out damned spot, out I say!” She has been involved with her husband in a plot to kill the king, and she now sees blood on her hands.

But it is a hallucination, she is imaging it, her hands are physically clean. She has the heart of a murderer, and is in deep psychological pain. Yet no amount of hand washing will clean away what is, for her, a matter of a very dirty heart.

I once heard a Lutheran pastor sum up for her confirmation graduates the tenants of a Christian faith using only three words: Do no harm.

I love that.

While that may be an oversimplification of Christianity it does point us in the right direction, away from the evils Jesus mentions of theft, murder, adultery, greed, deceit, envy, slander, and pride.

And avoiding those pitfalls does help our heart to be clean.

But just not doing nasty stuff to one another isn’t enough.

In addition to not harming our neighbors, we are also called to be in service to them.

Clean Hands, Clean Hearts
Here we can take a cue from both the Pharisees and Christ. The Pharisees were on to something, weren’t they, in this regard they were way ahead of their time. There is value in the ritual of handwashing. We know that now more than ever. This knowledge then becomes our opportunity to be more like Christ. So instead of using a perfectly good ritual of handwashing to judge others, instead use those same moments in service to others.

So keep washing those hands, before meals and after bathroom trips. But don’t stop there, teach others. Teach locally, with kids and grandkids and Sunday school kids and people of all ages and beyond. Consider too participating in the Global Handwashing Day, coming up October 15, to help get the word out even more.

And keep drinking your clean water. The safe, award-winning water we have here in Ames is something to be proud of. But also get involved in making sure others have access to clean drinking water too. This is a global issue.

Yet less we think water issues are purely problems in other countries, on other continents, please remember:

Flint Michigan still doesn’t have clean water.

And it’s been that way for over four years.
Over four years. I hope this gives you pause.
Consider getting involved to fix that.

Finally, sanitation continues to be an issue across our globe. Here I’d encourage you to check out the ELCA Walk For Water campaign. Funds raised through this both build wells that make safe drinking water available, and educate rural communities about sanitation issues too.

Conclusion
When you do these things a couple of outcomes appear on the horizon.

First, you become part of efforts around water and sanitation that obliterates ten percent of all sickness in the world. What an impact! In that you model Christ, the ultimate healer this world has ever known.

And second, your knowledge of clean hands, clean water, and sanitation, when applied to help others, causes a shift within you.

Your direction shifts, from an inner life of self-service, to an outer life, one directed in service toward others.

For it is in living a life, of service to others, that your heart becomes clean, your joy complete, and your purpose, here on earth becomes finally, and eternally fulfilled.  Amen.