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This is a week in which many people, um maybe the same number as any other week. But there's certainly an extra emphasis on food preparation. And so when the worship planning team um called me to

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a meeting to plan this service, they were very clear that the intent was to combine um equal parts of Reign of Christ Sunday two days ago, Thanksgiving , two days ahead and advent, 15 days ahead

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. And so if that liturgical combination gives you heartburn , then take out a ro a and we'll continue the service. But it does remind me of what my dad used to say to my sister and brother

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and I if any of us ever complained that uh the gravy from the potatoes got over into the green beans, he would say, ok, use your fork or spoon to create some space. But just

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remember when it all goes down, it'll all be in the same place again. So our worship service is a combination that gets mixed up and um it is just that week of the year, let us

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take a moment of silence to prepare ourselves for this preaching and receiving of the gospel let us pray, speak to us again and a new oh God, because we with all others belong to you and are

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claimed by you for it is in your holy name that we pray and submit ourselves. And we say together amen. 49 years ago, tomorrow was November the 27th, 1975. And as a first semester

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student at Austin Seminary, I asked my parents about inviting the Reverend Paul Benjamin home with me for Thanksgiving . Paul was a United Methodist minister, uh who was from the island nation of Sri Lanka off the

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southeast coast of India. He was a, as I said, a United Methodist, he was an ordained clergy person. He was here as an international student in our master of Theology program. Um as

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he, the Methodists had designated Paul for uh advanced assignments in, in the Methodist church. And so this was his first step, his spouse and his daughter would not be here in the States until January

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. And so we asked him to come north to our for Thanksgiving Day. And even though Paul was accustomed to being with United States, Caucasians, I worried slightly that he might not be fully welcomed in

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the rural county, which was my home north of here. But uh so so Paul was in the back of the house as you know, we moved toward midday or just past midday. And my mother

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had told her mother that we had a guest from the northern part of the Indian Ocean. So when I came up front before Paul, my grandmother immediately leaned over and whispered to me. Does Reverend Benjamin

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speak English? And I said, oh, yes , he speaks the queen's English. And, and I was not intending to disrespect or uh be tacky to my grandmother, but I was just delighted that

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she asked a question I could answer. So, uh briefly and clearly and easily. So when Paul came up to the front of the house, I introduced him to my grandmother and I loved it.

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I loved it when he said to her in his wonderful British accent. I am honored to meet you and to be a guest here today, as you would suspect his graciousness won her over. But at

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any meal or social or recreation or business gathering, isn't there the possibility that someone will be treated with less respect and with less hospitality than you or I or others treat those with whom we are customarily comfortable

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. A guest may be invited to the table with several others who do enjoy and, and are familiar with each other's company. And that guest can be somewhat tolerated but also substantially ignored. When not a

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part of the more in group, the insiders always might talk past the outsider and hardly engage that person . If at all the one whom the others regard as not truly one like them may feel hardly acknowledged

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. 840 years before Jesus at the school of the prophets in Israel. Elisha was a dean of faculty , dean of students, dean of housing, dean of everything. And and for all we know if

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, if uh Osama had been around to take a picture of the seminary staff and faculty, Elisha might well have been solo in the photo. He he apparently was also on occasion the recipe planner and the

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primary troubleshooter. So on one particular day, again , there was a famine in the land. We are told Elisha suggested vegetable stew for the dinner meal and the the student uh kitchen crew took assignments and

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they scattered out to, to fetch what was needed . One of the students was intent on bringing back uh some, some form of squash or gourd and there was as you suspect, no H E B

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, no whole foods, no central market, no trader Joe's. And so he goes out to a field. We don't know how far he had to go, but he locates a vine there. And

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can't you just see that how he lights up mentally on this? There are the squash like gourds that he had imagined. So he gathers an apron full and he returns to the seminary kitchen and he dutifully

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chops them up and adds them to the pot. Well, the stew cooks and a few hours later when everyone is served and all the prophets in training begin to spoon their stew from bowl to mouth and

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taste it. A protest broke out like in a junior high school cafeteria. This is so bad. We'll all surely die. Elisha comes over and he inspects the stew. We don't know if he tasted

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it, but he surely smelled it. And so he sends the kitchen crew out for some flour and then he gets a skillet and he approaches the fire and when they bring the flour, he grabs some

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seasoning and he takes a few minutes to make a roux, which he then adds to the vegetable stew and it covers the bitter taste of the chopped up gourds. He says, y'all come on now it's

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OK. And the narrator tells us there was nothing harmful in the pot w with me for a minute though. How did the rest of the student profits relate to the fellow student who gathered the bitter gourds

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and added them to the community stew in his naivete . Well, possibly the larger group at their best at their best. They might have rationalized. Well , if I'd been on the squash search detail,

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I could have made the same mistake. It's a mistake that anybody could make. And, and at a minimum, don't you think that they told this story every time they had a class reunion for as

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many years as they had class reunions? And that's probably why it's in the sacred collection as it is . But there was nothing harmful in the stew that said there can be relational dynamics that are harmful among

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us. Short term, long term hurt feelings can happen whether you're at the black tie and formal gown , Major Foundation Capital Fund banquet, hurt feelings can happen at the Urban Shelter stew pot. Hurt feelings

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can happen over in St's dining hall, hurt feelings can happen at Thanksgiving or Christmas family gatherings. And so far as we know so far as the story in the text reveals, Elisha, neither criticizes nor

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scolds anyone and he steps it up. He was not going to stand still while the whiners whined and the scoffers scoffed and the ostracizes thought about ostracizing or while the shamers shamed, he rose to serve as

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a model bridge builder by making that Roe and adding it to the stew. The bitter taste abated. The dinner meal becomes edible and appreciated and the comradeship of the community is given opportunity for new life,

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but hurt from negative relational experiences certainly can linger for a long time. How did the school of prophets handle their relationships going forward? Was there shaming? Was there ostracizing? Was there silent treatment? Was

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there bitterness in the stew transcended by bitterness in relationships ? I have a friend who was a, a public school high school football coach and athletic director and he told me years uh later, uh and you

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may have heard this that there are in the trade . He says we say there are two kinds of coaches those who have experienced being fired. And those who will experience being fired and, and among families

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and communities in workplaces and in schools in life together with others. That's really true in a little different way. For all of us, there is life that has developed stress from hostilities and hurt and there

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is life that undoubtedly at some time will develop stress from hostility and hurt. What are the causes? Well, it could be that it's we, people being people who we are, we create hostility and

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we become dealers of hurt by what we say and what we don't say by what we do and what we don't do. Our differences are related to age , gender, sexual orientation and identification, personality,

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physical challenges, emotional challenges, race, ethnicity, politics, community of origin community, a country of origin, personality, background, marital status, customs , religion, education, economics, et cetera.

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I think if I counted that's about 18 types of differences. And I bet you can name something I left out. But what's the antidote? What's the recommendation for a way out so that we might truly

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respect and care for each other today? Um As I said earlier, uh it's Tuesday and we're in the liturgical week that is closest to Reign of Christ Sunday. And according to the gospel reading, uh

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Jesus tells Roman ambassador Pilate that he Jesus came into the world to testify to God's truth. And in the story, Pilate replies, what is truth as easy as it was potentially for Elisha's student prophet colleagues

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to ridicule and ostracize the fellow student who made the bitter gourd mistake. It's easy for pilot to ridicule and ostracize to push Jesus out as unfortunately, maybe expendable, but expendable nonetheless. And even you and

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I in reading this story, if we identify with Jesus, then it becomes easy for us to push Pilot out as expendable, doesn't it to ridicule and ostracize him? Because we know Jesus better than Pilate

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did, don't we? But if we ostracize or silent treatment or exclude anyone including hypothetically pilot, can we say that we know Jesus that well and still be truthful if Jesus came to testify to God's truth

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and we push out those we do not embrace um because we're not comfortable because of their country of origin or the gender or social or political or religious perspective that any of us actually prefer. When we're honest

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, what is God's truth in Jesus that we think we embrace? And it seems not to be the truth that Jesus was embodying, not to the degree that Jesus hopes and intends that all of us will

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embrace and be embraced by that being the truth of God's love and presence in community with all others. Children's television mentor and Presbyterian Minister Fred Rogers once said love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is

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an active noun like struggle is, or we might say an active verb. He continued to love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way they are right here. And now the writer of

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the revelation reports that Jesus Christ loves us and frees us from sin or we might say to, to paraphrase that and still be accurate to save us from our unreconciled selves. This declaration reminds me of,

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of two other references. One of them is by Canadian novelist Robert Davies Robertson Davies in his 1970 novel Fifth Business. Um in that story, he tells uh of a Canadian professor of literature who who's invited

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to give a set of lectures. So he goes from Canada to France and then he's riding around Europe on a train. It I think this incident happens in Italy with a much older Catholic priest. And

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the priest discusses how many people read the scriptures and are convinced of Jesus coming again from the clouds in glory. But then the priest as the train rattles along, he concludes frankly, I think he has

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never been very far away. And in 1999 outlaw country singer and guitarist, Tom Waits recorded. Come on up to the house which Waits sings in his gravelly voice. It seems obvious if you listen to

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the lyrics uh that that song is related to being called to heaven where God's grace is better than this hard life. And we count on that. But this belief that is shared by so many people might

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have another angle on it with a bit of biblical perspective. In 2008. 1 of the adult Sunday school classes of First Presbyterian Church, Brian invited me to their room to make a request and my office

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was on the south hallway. So I went across the patio to their classroom on the north hallway. And, and the reason they wanted to meet is they wanted to ask me if we could move the

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comma in the printed version of the Lord's prayer, which appears after thy will be done and appears before on earth as it is in heaven. They said , we think it is a bad comma placement in

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the English translation from the Greek and, and in the Greek in Matthew, there is a comma that's present after thou will or your will be done. But in the first phrase that follows in the Greek

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, the words are thy will be done as it is in the skies or as it is in heaven . So in the Greek translation, heaven comes before earth and then uh it's really a modifying clause.

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So when Jesus teaches at Matthew 610, the the direct object like phrase is actually on earth that will be done also on earth as it is in the skies. Now, that's the way you would translate

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it as our English liturgy translates it. And so they want to know if we could just take the comma after thy will be done and move it to after on earth to where the reading is thy will

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be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so the session agreed and for the duration of my time as pastor there for the next, uh , 15 years that comma was moved and, and

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you'll see that we've moved it today, whether it stays moved or not. It's not my, that's above my pay grade, but, but we moved it to for today. Now, what if Mr

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Waite's song lyrics might be heard like Jesus in Matthew 610 that reflect God's will both in heaven and on earth right now. And then the phrase come on up to the house might be telling how a host

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landowner goes down the lane to the road that is passing by and, and waves the passerbys to pull over and to come on up to the house where we presume a welcome and a hospitable meal graciously is

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served his words in that song that refers to unbounded hospitality. Go like this. You've been whipped by the forces that are inside. You gotta come on up to the house, you're high on top of

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your mountain of woe. You know, you should surrender, but you can't let it go. Gotta come on up to the house. In other words , bring who you are in and know that you

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will leave being more than your unreconciled self and selves who arrived, the one who is love has probably never been very far away and is inviting us still for a free meal together where our unreconciled selves might

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just become more than we usually imagine, reconciled to the host, reconciled to all the other guests and reconciled even to ourselves. If we can set aside the temptation to be comfortable without certain others being invited

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, we make and say to our host and to each other there. What the Reverend Paul Benjamin said to my grandmother in 1975 I am honored to meet you and to be a guest here today. Remember

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there's nothing harmful in the stew. Let us eat on, let us be nourished together, let us be reconciled together to honor each other. We are being made new friends with all sorts of folk.

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Some more similar to you and me. Many rather different. Each one unique as Mr Waits sings to us all. Come on up to the house.