ExtraChristy

Psalm 100 & Luke 11:5-13
Click to see scripture.

How God answers prayer.

This message is available as a podcast recorded live at our worship service. Click the podcast image to listen now or right click the image and choose "Save As" to save this message in mp3 file format on your computer for playing later. Below is a text version transcribed by Marissa Hoover and edited by Mary Lu Ramsey. Pastor Christy thanks both of these volunteers for their ministry.[/i]

The sermon today is about the answer to prayer. Has anyone ever had an unanswered prayer? The picture on the front of the bulletin shows a man waiting for the phone to ring – and it never does: unanswered prayer. In our scripture it talks about seeking and asking. More importantly it says that if we seek, we will find; if we knock, the door will be opened; that if we ask, it will be given. How does that stack up to your experiences? Some of you might have learned that it is true but I'm sure that would be rare among you. Some of you might say that you've learned not to ask for those tough things or impossible things. Some of you'd probably come back with a classic answer that I've been knocking, seeking and asking; but God's not ready to do that just yet – I just need more patience.

I believe that it doesn't go into this deep, underlying part of this message. It doesn't talk about cause and effect or a mechanical view of the universe that somehow you can push a button or pull a lever and get back what you need. What it does show you is how you can be related to God, and what you have to do to ask and seek or knock. You have to believe that there is something out there worth asking and seeking or knocking. You have to put yourself out there. You have to go out in relationship. You have to show some faith in that there is good in the world. The last line of Psalm 100 is saying, “Hear, Israel, God is good. God's steadfast love endures forever.” If God's steadfast love endures forever, then you can confidently seek, ask and knock.

What if you never ask, never seek or never knock? You would be without relationship and wrapped up in yourself. You wouldn't be able to do anything in relationship. There is this great drug awareness commercial. It has this little girl that goes and asks her dad for a puppy. So, her dad goes and gets her a puppy. The next one, the girl is a little older and she asks if she can stay up late and he says, “Yes.” So, it goes on and each time the girl is a little older and taller. Finally, as a teenager, she comes to her dad and says, “Dad, I'm having some friends over. Can you buy us some beer? We'll stay right here to drink it and you can watch us.” He says, “No.” She says, “I hate you! You never give me anything I want!” The dad just looks at her.

My son, God bless him, had an hour between the end of school and the beginning of band practice. Those of you who are parents know that this is a recipe for disaster. One day, my son was walking to the store with his friends after school and he looked up because I was honking the horn. I was there in the parking lot between the school and the store. So, I took him and his friends to the store. So him and his friends get out and get what they want and come out and I had got them ice cream to eat. Then I gave them a ride back up to the school. All his friends got out and then Robert turned and asked me what I was doing there. I then told him, “I want you to know that at anytime, any place I can show up.” I told my kids, “I'm not your friend – I am your parent. My job is to keep you safe and to make you a decent human being. Now, if you don't like me because of it or you're mad at me about it then, too bad. If I have to go through your room every night, read your diary, look under your bed, check out all your friends, or call the police on you to keep you safe then that is what I will so. I don't want to hear that I invaded your privacy because I'm telling you now that you have no privacy and you have no rights. I'm in charge of keeping you safe and making you a decent human being; and, I'm going to do whatever it takes to do that.”

My daughter went two weeks without speaking to me. It was lovely. She thought it was a punishment. Our argument was over phone usage. We don't know it and when we think we know how everything works – our right to privacy or phone usage - then we get mad when it doesn't work out the way we wanted. We get sucked into the idea that we can pull a lever or push a button and get the results we want. One of the great tranquilizing drugs of all time, “Valium”, would not be approved today. It's tested more rigorously today against placebos – sugar pills. Neither person in the study knows whether they get Valium or a sugar pill and more studies show that there in no difference. More pills are being washed out because their no better than a sugar pill. It's a sugar pill with people telling you it's a drug. It comes with a brand name and color – and it's sugar. It won't do anything.

It turns out that cause and effect isn't everything. It turns out that relationship is the basic unit of the universe. When people have some relationship with the doctor they find the placebo effect goes up. It does better than a multi-million dollar drug. So when you compare cause and effect to relationship there isn't one. That suggests to me that there are things working in this universe that we do not understand and I call that God. I know that God is good and that he's looking out knowing that at any moment, God could pop up on the road and say, “What are you doing here?” Relationship is the essence of prayer. There is something called quantum entanglement. It is the understanding that just because you open a door, step through it and an alarm goes off, doesn't mean your stepping thorough the door caused the alarm to go off. It was just a coincidence.

When we look at results of prayer and unanswered prayer we're due or when we bought into the limited understanding of the universe that science wants to try out, the only things in the universe are things we can fit inside our head and understand - when we start to measure prayer to that - then we have already lost. Prayer, in its essence, is relationship. It is the belief in something good that somewhere you can risk yourself. Somewhere you can ask, you can seek and you can knock. There is goodness in relationship and in trust and in going out with others. That is a prayerful life. There was an experiment done on prayer. So the scientists make sure there is no relationship between the people – the study showed prayer didn't work.

One scientist turned the question around and asked, “What if prayer is relationship?” So they studied only happily married couples. They electromagnetically isolated each of them to try to find a spiritual connection. So they showed the man a picture of his wife for 10 seconds. They told him to think good thoughts about his wife or say a prayer for her when they showed him her picture. The wife was hooked up to machines and monitors that show your body's and brain's responses. The study showed that within two seconds of the picture being flashed in front of the husband, the wife's brain's response spiked. There is no way cause and effect did that. They say that the chance of that happening is 1 in 11,000. That tells me that cause and effect doesn't explain everything. Ask, seek, knock – not because of what you get and not because of the rewards of it; but, because of the relationship it testifies to - if you are with people when they need you and are there for them, and you believe that ask, seek and knock makes a difference, you believe that life is worth living, you believe that God is good and gives good things to his people.

A pastor friend of mine was devastated when, after she found the perfect church, she was voted down. She was really upset because she felt it was the perfect church for her. She was serving another church at the time. She went to their meeting and said to the Presbyterian Church Session, “My contract's up next month; we should probably talk about what's going to happen.” They said, “We don't have to talk about that.” They gave her a letter on church letterhead that was signed by everyone. They said that because of her greatness and compassion and leadership, we have come to find you to be an excellent pastor. We have decided to ask you to stay with us as the pastor. We will work out things such as travel. We want you to stay here, with us. I said, “What if that other church had said, “Yes?” Then you would have been torn between the two churches. God has spared you the agony and God's mercy did answer your prayer.

Yesterday started the holy month of Ramadan for our Muslim brothers and sisters. I'd like to close with a poem from a Muslim author about prayer.

“I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve. I have asked for prosperity and God gave me brains and strength to work. I asked for courage and God gave me danger to overcome. I asked for love and God gave me troubled people to help. I asked for favors and God gave me opportunities. I received nothing I wanted. I received everything I needed. My prayer has been answered.

Deuteronomy 24:19-22 and Luke 21:1-4 Click to see scripture.

Cutting Corners teaches us to leave some of what is ours for others, for once we were the others.

The CORRECT message is NOW available as a podcast recorded live at our worship service. Click the podcast image to listen now or right click the image and choose "Save As" to save this message in mp3 file format on your computer for playing later.

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Some ideas from Corner in the Nooma video series by Rob Bell

[i]This is a unedited transcript of a message given without notes transcribed by Marissa Hoover (thanks!)[/i]

Cutting corners. Literally, we're talking about cutting corners in, Deuteronomy 21, in that when there is a field that is planted, it is absolutely commanded by God not to harvest the whole fields – to cut corners. Don't take every bit, leave some out there. If you see that you left something, than your to leave it for the alien, the orphan and the widow. It doesn't make any sense at tall, it's totally wrong, very unfair, and I'm even going to say unAmerican. Why should folks that have nothing to do with the production of wealth, share in it? Why should those that have not worked, those that have not contributed, those that do not own the field have any call , claim or part of the fruits of the labor? God isn't fair, though, is he?

I served at a church, in rural Indiana, for ten years. If you wait long enough in Indiana, the Farm Progress Show will come by you. The Farm Progress Show is the greatest show on earth if your a farmer. It is like a state fair on steroids. This is when all the companies come and bring their greatest and best stuff. They bring their combines, their seed and everything else that they want to show you. The Farm Progress Show alternates between the three ' I ' states – Illinois, Iowa and Indiana.

One of the years that I was in Rochester, Indiana, we were blessed with the Farm Progress Show – right there in our town. You never saw better looking fields of corn in your life. They all had their signs up about what seed they use. For the Farm Progress Show, they cut off the first three rows so you can see how great they looked.

We served at the dining tent of the Farm Progress Show. One of the days, I was on the coffee truck and those farmers like their coffee so hot, it's still bubbling when you hand it to them. While we were out there serving coffee, we were looking at the greatest and best combines that they have. I'm talking combines with tractor treads on them. On every one of these combines, they went and harvested a field and they didn't miss a thing. Behind them, all of the farmers walked – picking up the corn cobs. They would look at it to see if there were any kernels left on because that was money left on the ground. The best combine is the one that stripped the corn cobs bare and got every single grain into the truck. That's America but that's not the Bible. The Bible says, “Don't do that. Leave some of what is yours, leave some of what you produce, leave some of what you have paid for and grown for the orphan, the widow and the alien – the illegal immigrants in your land. Socialism?! It's just spreading the wealth around to others. What do we think about that?

If there was a debate, it would be great to talk about what claim the orphan, the widow and the alien have on us. Some people would say, “No, taxes are too high.” I always wanted to ask them, “How high should taxes be?” Would they say zero? The Bible says, “Don't take it all.” Is Capitalism the answer? I'm going to talk about something I know in honor of our guest organist.

The fire department use to be a capitalistic enterprise. They use to place these metal medallions on the sides of peoples houses. These medallions said which insurance company was in charge of fire protection for that house. You bought insurance for your house for fire and each insurance company had a fire department that would come and put out the fires at their houses.

Now, if you didn't have insurance or you had the wrong insurance, they didn't do a thing. As a matter of fact, they would put water on their houses on either side to protect them from the one burning next door because they were insured. It was a very capitalistic system. They had no understanding or motivation to keep the fire from spreading. As long as they kept it off of their properties it was fine. In fact, sometimes it would get comical. If they came to a fire and there was some kind of argument as to which insurance company was in charge of that house; the firefighters would actually fight among themselves over who would put out the fire. They told me in Philadelphia that at times there was

more water on the firefighters than on the other fire company than there was on the fire. It seems a little silly to us – at least I hope it does.

So, we decided to socialize the fire department. We decided that even though everyone doesn't pay the insurance rates or the same company, we believe that it is something the community should provide for every citizen – that no one should have to burn like that. If there is a fire burning anywhere in range of that department, it should be put out to preserve life and property – no matter whose it is. Society seemed to have survived that transition from Capitalism and competition over to community action or being Socialistic is what they call it now. We seem to be better for it.

It's part of the Bible principle that says, “Even those that don't have anything, have a claim on something. If we give into the idea that everything we have is ours and take it all out to the corners, than the corners will be all we have because we are putting ourselves all by ourselves. There is no relationship with the community. You may think of a lot of reasons not to give: other peoples acts, the way other people are, and what people should do. The best reason to give is what it does to you – not them. If you do not give to others, if you are not connected to others, if you do not cut corners so that others will have a little space , you will become a self-made person. That is the smallest package ever made. You'll become just put-up in your own castle with no connection to anything around you that is important. We give for many reasons, but mostly to say we are all part of God's creation

We'll talk about something that is going on now. We are the only country, of the ten industrial countries in the world, that does not provide health care for all citizens. You are telling me that we can't afford it?! You're telling me this while we are paying twice as much as they are for our health care. Gallapol says that more Canadians are happy with their system then Americans – even though we pay double. Fox News put out the same study, but theirs showed that all the other countries were happier with their system than we are with ours. They can get same day, evening and weekend appointments. I'm telling you that we are already rationing our health care. It's called insurance policies and it has caused a billion to pay. In America, 1 out of 4 people don't have a medical procedure done because of cost. It doesn't happen in other countries.

Leave some around the edges for the poor. Leave some around the edges for the widows, the orphans and the aliens in your land. If we cut the corners and take every bit for ourselves, we're going to be standing alone in that corner. No one deserves to be left to die in a house that's burning around them – whether that is a physical house or hell. You cannot explain to me or tell me that we're the only country that can't afford it – if all of the others can. We're better than all those others. I believe that much in America and I believe that much in Scripture and the Bible that tells me not to take everything for myself; but, to leave some for others so that they may have what they need to live. So that I am connected to others and not standing alone in the corner. Amen.

Originally Worship Rites

Amos 5:21-24 and Matthew 23:1-8 Click to see scripture.

Right Worship is not just Ritual Rites, but how we live our faith with justice and righteousness lifting burdens instead of adding them.

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some ideas from Sunday in the Nooma video series by Rob Bell

Thanks to Marissa Hoover for transcribing this message!

We're going to talk about burdens today. We had a great experience at Presbytery this past week. We were at a great church named “New Community Church” in North Lima. It's made from an old plant nursery. In reclaiming the space, they've got greenhouses and gardening programs. They even have an Urban Gardening Program in Youngstown. However, the whole meeting was marred for me when the Committee on Ministry got up and proposed this long, long thing that we had to sign and if we didn't do it we would be relieved of our position. I figured it must be some really serious stuff. Some of the stuff was failure to come to a mandatory meeting called by the Executive Presbyter. If I don't go to a meeting, I could be fired. Well, that seemed a little extreme. It also said that I had to come with grace. Now, that is going to be even tougher than actually showing up – if you know me. It's, also, going to be really tough because according to the thing, I was the only one required to come with grace – everybody else could be nasty. So that makes it even tougher.

The thing that really got me was that they said that you were required to take all your time off: at least two days off a week and use all your time off. Now, I don't know if you've totaled it all up, but that's eight Sundays a year. That is really tough to do. I got spoiled and you got spoiled when Sue Tinker and Bo Schneider were with us. I could ask either Bo or Sue to preach for me and there wouldn't be a problem. Then they went off and got their own churches! We are having the hardest time getting someone to come in to sub for me. Yet, here they are saying I have to take all eight days off or I'll be fired.

So, I wrote back. In fact, I wrote back more than they sent out. I had three, single-spaced pages showing them the errors of their ways. I was a little upset with them about several things. One of the things I did say was, in the words of the great Oliver Hardy, “Why don't you do something to help me?!” I pointed out to them that the pulpit supply list they have on the Web -where we find preachers to sub-hasn't been updated in at least six or eight months. How about going to the Joseph Badgers Meadows Camp and saying, “Can you give our pastor a price break so he can take a couple days off in the Sabbath House every year?” What about when you visit and talk to session instead of just telling them that they need the reports to get in and that they need to fill out the forms? Why don't you tell them the basis of why it's important for ministers to take care of themselves and to take the time off and offer them ways that they can do that? How about doing something to help me?!

You always need to watch – at least I do - what makes you angry about in other people because it's usually the stuff you're doing. It is probably an issue in your own life. So, I thought about where all of this was coming from, and came to the conclusion that it's burdens laying on burdens and not lifting a finger – it's all about the church. Just try this: every time you read “Pharisees” substitute “Presbyterians.” – it's the same thing. The Pharisees were the religious party of the good people. They were the people who upheld the law. They were the ones who went to service every Sunday. They were the ones to follow the rules. They were the ones people looked up to –“Presbyterians.” Presbyterians lay on burdens – heavy burdens, and don't lift a finger to help.

I know you're sick of hearing about it, but, coming to church is an amazing thing to try to do. There are seven doors on the church and only two are open – the front and back. You have to know to park around back. It's just simple things like that. There are burdens about people coming in and how they should act. I think perhaps a lot of it is “leftovers.” Some people who are on television, people that get national media or are on the radio think that everyone is like that. They think all the churches are like that. So, a lot of the burdens that people feel when they come into a church and especially sanctuaries, maybe we didn't put there – but they are there. What if our job was, instead of to burden, was to lift these burdens? What if we got the people that aren't acting right to be better?

You know what really annoys me? It is when Christians get together to pass a law to make other people act Christian. That's going backwards. That is like saying, “We give up – the Gospel is no good!” The Christian Church as a whole got a black-eye over the marriage controversy in California. Christians from throughout the nation threw money into California to change California's laws on the basis of their own beliefs; to tell Californians that we're going to give money so you all follow our standards of life. Even though it has nothing to do with us, we are going to change your laws to make sure you behave correctly. That is going to come back and kick us bad and heavy for years and decades to come – it already has. So, why don't you do something to help me?! Why don't you do something to help weddings and marriages instead of running to the law books?

Here in our own town at an abortion clinic, there is a guy with a $37,000 medical bill because he got beat up trying to protect women who were going into the clinic. He was doing something legal and he wasn't going there to have an abortion himself. He was just trying to help people. Sometimes I want to ask, “How many ribs would Jesus crack?” What a black-eye Christians got!! Oh, those are those Christians. If you don't agree with them, they'll beat you up and send you the hospital. We have got a lot of work to do!

I think about worship and about what we do in worship, whether it's good, bad or indifferent. We talk a lot about that in second service. What do we do in second service? We're going to be eating pizza and talking about: what is important, what is good, what is helpful in worship, what does relation show, what brings us closer to God and what brings God closer to us throughout service. There are times I think to myself, “Man, what are we doing that our services and Sunday school classes aren't full? When I use to go to Cedar Point, I saw signs on different rides that said, “two hour wait.” People would actually stand there and wait. Why isn't worship like that?

I have had one time that I had people in line for worship. I was coming back from visiting a young man named, Garrett. I had told the youth leader that Garrett had had a terrible accident with a brain injury and that he was in a coma. I told him that I was going to Pittsburgh to see him — an hour and a half drive. I would go see Garrett and then drive back for service with the youth group. I asked him if he could get the youth group together by 7:30pm so we could pray for Garrett and let everyone know how he was. The youth leader said he'd have no problem doing it. He was the only person I told; so it was all on his shoulders.

So, I left and I timed myself pretty well. I got there and saw Garrett, prayed with him and talked with his family. Afterwards, I came zooming back and thought I was doing really well because it was only 7:00pm. I arrived at the church to find people waiting at the front door on a Tuesday night. There were young people standing outside of the Presbyterian Church at the door that hasn't been used in 30 years. There were about a dozen of them there about half an hour early. So, I asked them, “Are you here for Garrett?” “Yes!” they said. So, I took them around to the back door and went in and started setting up chairs in Fellowship Hall. We figured around fifty were here and as we turned around another 50 people came in. We had almost the entire high school there including the football team and the teachers. All I told was one guy.

We had to move into the sanctuary. The lights and sound system were neither one on; however, we still had a worship service, prayer and anointing –all 100 kids came forward for anointing. So, I wondered, “What was it about that?” They had a burden and we offered to lift it. They were hurting and we offered healing. They were alone and we offered community. They didn't know what to do and we told them what they could do. We told them how they could keep in contact with him. We had a website and they could send him messages and was keeping them updated.

That poorly planned and not very well executed, constantly changing worship service was perhaps one of the best examples of what worship is about. It is about making relationship between one another and with God, and about lifting burdens. We need to be constantly thinking about what burdens people and how can we lift them. We spend too much time asking how to get people to come and do committee work, or how to get them to come and fill-up the pews or how to get them to be Presbyterian. We're putting heavy burdens on and we're doing nothing to lift them. Christians need to stop putting burdens on people as we've done throughout religion's history – all the way back to Bible times and beyond. It should be about lifting the burdens to help people. Amen.

Jonah 3

Pastor Christy reads the book of Jonah, the man who hated change.

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Jonah is a short book. It is just four chapters, two pages in the Bible, but it traces a complete arc of one man's dealings with God's demands. Jonah is against change. The book with his name shows us how we deal with the demands for change in our own life, from God or otherwise.

Realize – The beginning of working on a problem, or working on God's call is to realize that something is wrong. God takes notice of Nineveh. Jonah knows Nineveh, it was the big bully on the block at the time. God wanted Jonah to go and fix them. Later Jonah says he was afraid God would forgive them instead of destroy them. He wanted no part of the salvation of Nineveh, they did not deserve his help.

The problems are too big, there is nothing I can do, it will take care of itself. When we realize that we are have a part in the solution of the problem, that God has called us to make a difference in the world. We are on are way to the change we need.

Retreat – The most common action after we realize we have a problem to work on, a call to go forward. Jonah runs the other way. Some put Tarshish is on the other side of the Mediterranean in present day Spain, west of Israel, while Nineveh is east. Others put Tarshish in South America near Buenos Aires. Far from Israel and Nineveh. I've meant many people who run away from the problems, literally, they move to another town, move to another church, move to another spouse instead of working on their problems. They bring their problems with them.

I remember talking to the police who pointed out that criminals never figure out that you can't outrun the radio. It is even tougher to go where God can't get you. As Psalm 139 sings, even if you take the wings of the morning to the furthest reaches of the earth will only find God there to greet you. If we make our bed in heaven or hell, we are still in God's hands.

Most of our problems are of our own making. Not the situation, but our reaction and response to the situation. This works out well for the only real thing we can change is ourselves. So fleeing from problems, either by distance or denial doesn't work for wherever we go, there we are. Running away just moves the problem, it does not escape it for you cannot outrun yourself.

Reproach – Strangely, we can go right from retreat to reproach. From acting as if we have nothing to do with the problems, to taking all the problems on ourselves. Sometimes some of us can go overboard with a problem, thinking death or destruction is the only way out. Jonah's says it is all my fault, throw me overboard, I am the source of all the problems and evil.

It is also a popular game when the boat is going down, who is to blame. If no one comes forward, folks pick who to sacrifice by casting lots, by random divination. What have you done to bring this upon us? This is done in countries, churches, and families. Someone is to blame for our troubles, if we throw them overboard, all will be well. What if Jonah had repented on the ship? Decided to do what was required of him, instead of giving up on life itself? He took the beating and the blame instead of using it as a time to change and repent. He hadn't hit bottom yet, he just knew the pain was great, but not great enough to change.

Repent – Jonah hits bottom in the belly of a great fish. He prays there in the dank and dark saying that he will do what God has commanded him. When we get so low there is no way out but up, we see repentance. When the pain overcomes the fear of change, we do what we need to do. Repent means to turn. Change course, go in a new direction.

Some of us wonder how an African American got elected President. We never expected to see the day. I wonder if it took a lot of pain to see a new way out. Maybe we are in the belly of the whale now. A place where we can turn away from racism, classism, greed, and forcing our way on the rest of the world. It is good when things are bleakest, when banks teeter on collapse, investments shrink, and jobs evaporate; when we got of the storm only to swallowed by a fish, to realize that maybe God is trying to get our attention to turn our course. In the belly of the beast, Jonah prayed. It is good when all has gone from bad to worse to pray God.

I talked to one person who made a huge career change. Left the ministry, he said, when all was going bad in his current position and he couldn't even get through the first interview with other churches because he was so down on himself and life…he prayed, I get I'm supposed to leave this church God, show me your way. Immediately a dream job dropped in his lap, and everything else fell into place. He was much happier out of the ministry, but it took a kick in the gut and an honest prayer to get him to see that God wanted him to move.

Reveal – Our third chapter has Jonah reveals his message and result of his warning. All of Ninevah from the King on down makes a change in sackcloth and ashes and repents. He is a change without know that it will work. Who knows? Interesting thing has been reveled in pandemic planning, you know if another great flu epidemic rages through the world like in 1918 where 20 to 100 million people died. Planners have run different ways of coping, shutting down air travel, declaring a holiday, closing schools, distributing vaccine…they found that any change was good and helped the outcome. When something isn't working, when the present form of the world is slipping away, and the current course shows doom is certain, any change can bring a better outcome than the status quo. God does relents and lets the city survive.

Regret – Now this makes Jonah a liar. Worse than that he saved Israel's enemies from the destruction of God. It is like God was like God was going to destroy the terrorists, but you warned them, and they repented so God let them off. How popular would you be back home? Jonah regrets the whole episode.

Change is like that as well. At some point the old ways seems so much better compared to the new. The Israelites mourned for slavery in Egypt, the alcoholic remembers the sweet numbness of the bottle, the abused women returns to her attacker. We forget the storm and the whale belly that got us to change and slip back into what A.A. calls stinky thinking. Jonah can't see the good in an entire city repenting and the saving of people from destruction because his pride was hurt and nationalistic desire for revenge was thwarted.

Reflect – The last chapter is reflection, or a challenge to reflect. God gives Jonah a tree for shade one day and then destroys it the next. Jonah misses the tree and its shade. God says well, you miss the tree you had nothing to do with, that you only had a one day relationship. How much more do I care for the men, women and children of Nineveh? The book ends with that question, which is a cue that that the reader is supposed to answer the question.

The entire book of Jonah is about how God's care changes us. God's messengers or the recipients of that message, God's care is with us in the belly of the beast, the storms of life, and in our most wickedest moments and with our deadliest enemies. If we let God's care and love for us and others direct us from ourselves into relationship and care with others we will find not only ourselves changed for the better, but the world. Amen.

Acts 19:1-10

Pastor Christy talks about how to be a better person via baptism, how the community can make us heroes or evildoers.

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Greg called me over the holidays. Greg was terribly brain damaged in a car accident while I was a pastor of his church. Through a lot of people's prayers, his mother's unwavering support and much therapy, Greg went from not breathing on his own to going to a soccer game with me. We had talks about who he was before and after the injury. He had to regain not only his physical abilities but his emotional and intellectual abilities as well. We had some frank discussions while he was gradually learning to beat me in chess.

It has been about several years since the accident in July of 2003. He calls me when he has a breakthrough or a computer challenge. I always welcome his calls, because I asked for them. I prayed that Greg would speak again, it would be ungrateful for me to complain when he calls. This call wasn't about a computer problem; He said he wanted to tell me he was himself again. “I'm me!� he said. He felt that he was himself again.

There is a pastor, now retired, who would say farewell by saying, “Remember who you are and whose you are.� He was recalling both parts of baptism where we confirm that we are part of the family of God and that creates connection that tugs on both ends. It pulls God to us and us toward God, united with all of God's people baptized together.

Who we are is a tricky thing. Is there a core, a sine non qua, of which there is no changing? We have seen loved ones or friends slip away into Alzheimer's. Some of us have watch others descend into the torment of drugs or the prison of brain injury like Greg. One of the things I enjoy about being a pastor as opposed to a chaplain or other occupation is the opportunity to see people in context over time. Sometimes, I get to know their parents and children as well. I see the parent in the grown child or share in stories spanning generations. Does who a person is change over time? Does a person change based on their situation?

The most famous study took place in the 1971 at Stanford University. The Stanford Prison experiment was to run for two weeks but had to be called off after six days by Phillip Zimbardo, who has written a book The Lucifer Effect about how good normal people gave in to an evil system which he describes using the example of Abu Ghraib prison situation, as system of secrecy, unaccountability, no limits, no sanctions, dehumanizing, no supervision, vague or changing rules. An evil system pushes most of us into evil according to his study.

People are not born evil, but rather with survival talents, and remarkable mental templates to be anything imaginable — just as infants readily learn to speak and understand any of a thousand languages in an instant in their development. We get a push from nature in various directions, such as being more inhibited or bold, but who we become is ultimately a complex process of cultural, historical, religious, economic and political experiences in familial and other institutional settings.

Most of us fail to appreciate the extent to which our behavior is under situational control, because we prefer to believe that is all is internally generated. We wander around cloaked in an illusion of vulnerability, misarmed with an arrogance of free will and rationality. � Phillip Zimbardo http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/04/ten_questions_w.html

His view that evil systems make for evil choices is backup in a simple experiment reported in Science magazine. Last month social scientists in the Netherlands hung a five-euro note sticking out of a mailbox, 13 percent of the people going by took the money. But When it was covered in graffiti, however, more than double the number of the pedestrians (about 27 percent) stole the envelope.

In another test, signs were posted (a) not to walk through a gate and (b) not to chain their bikes to the fence. Twenty-seven percent of the people when through the gate. This bad behavior soared to 82 percent of the passerby when the experimenters chained of bikes to the fence. Breaking one rule weaken all the rules.

This is the broken window theory (BWT), first proposed by James Wilson and George Kelling in 1982, holds that the presence of disorder — in the form of broken windows, litter, and graffiti — can encourage delinquent behavior. Rudolph Guliani, reduced murder rate and crime in New York by having a zero tolerance for graffiti on Subways and arresting even turnstiles jumpers by droves. Little crimes nip in the bud the bigger ones. When folks saw that there were rules and consequences, they acted better. (Info from Seed magazine's January's coverage of Science magazine's December 2008 article http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2009/01/chaos_begets_chaos.php)

What has all this got to do with baptism? A lot. Who are you is not some core set of hard wired circuits in your head or heart. Who you are is shaped by what and who is around you. Baptism is the enveloping of the community over and around the individual. We celebrate communion today among the baptized. If you baptize you are part of us. We together are folks trying to help each other be the people God calls us to be.

We don't go out with squirt guns of holy water zapping every child changing them from doomed to saved. It isn't an individual act. We cannot have a private baptism, it is an oxymoron. The community is the baptism more than the water or the words. Phillip Zimbardo tells us it isn't just evil that is absorbed from the situation, but goodness, what he calls heroic actions. Communities can drag people down, can also build them up as well.

This is why a continuing community the church is so necessary. We are Christians because we catch it from each other. We lay hands one another in ordination to link ourselves to each other and to all that have gone before. We also give each other a hand in being a better sort of person, of coming closer to what Christ calls us to be. We do not form the church only, the church forms us.

We can be a force for good in Goodyear Heights. Those signs that say we report crime is one way. Another way is having activities outside of our building, like our movie nights in the park. We make the night safe for people by being out in the night. Other people raise their expectations for others, and for themselves! As a community we can help each other be better.

My friend Greg had many people praying and pulling for him when he forgot who he was. We had a worship service for the youth group the night he was hurt, which had about 15 coming on a good night. We had to move the service twice as more and more young people came to the service. Over a hundred people came for worship. I announced that we were opening the church web site for messages to Greg and we would be reading them to him at his bedside, they crashed the web site with messages. In the weeks and month that followed I never visited Greg alone, for there was always friends and family there with him. I believe they remade Greg. He came back because so maybe people were pulling him out.

Remember who you are and whose you are. Who you are is God's beloved. Whose you are is God's. As you give to the church's ministry and mission, remember that the church is also giving to you, as together with each other and with God we help each other live out our baptism.