Oh No You Didn’t. - Luke 13

Oh No You Didn’t.

Tony E Dillon Hansen

12 Mar 2017

Sermon based upon Luke 13:1-9, 31-35

Will you pray with me?  Let God guide our senses, our hearts and our ears to receive the lesson given to us.  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord, our Rock, our Redeemer.

I

I understand why some people are skeptical of the word “change”.  

This word is hoisted quite prominently every election cycle.  

Then, the election closes and well,

the change that we want is not what we get or sometimes does not seem to happen at all.

Sometimes, we even hear about how others should change.

In this Lenten season, however, we are invited

to reflect,

to renew

and to change--you know the real kind!

Thus, for today, I would like for us to consider what does “change” in your life look like.

I hear news talk about recent suffering, violence or disaster.

Then, there is a peanut gallery critiquing these events using familiar phrases like

“sucks to be them”,

“it is good thing I don’t live there…”; 

you know next to “those people.”  

This looks suspicious; like covert attitudes about our neighbors. 

Could this attitude come from jealousy for stuff they have,

or are they doing stuff that we wanted to do but never did?

Could this be a disdain for “allowing terrorists” in our neighborhoods, or that country?

Did we notice how they dress,

the holy names they use,

the condition of their neighborhoods,

or the people they love?

Too often, I miss the opportunity to challenge this.  

Yet, when Jesus is asked something like this,

however, there is no shyness and the response is not tempered

You see, our lesson opens with our people asking the Lord

about people involved with some bad news that have recently hit Galilee.   

Our people in the story are almost reveling at the suffering and misfortune of those people involved-- well it is a good thing we are not them, right Jesus?? 

You can almost see Jesus turn and wave a finger to the crowd

—“Oh no you didn’t just ask me that!”

Our people were trying to test Jesus,

but Jesus will have none of it. 

Jesus chastises us for the brazen attempt to goad Him into justifying discrimination.

“Oh no you didn’t” just try to get God to justify your prejudices against God’s own children!  

That is arrogant and presumptuous. 

This is a tried and worn path for far too many people.

People want to invoke God and Jesus to justify prejudice

From this lesson, I doubt God would approve.

Everyone suffers and everyone faces challenges.

Our response to that suffering determines our humanity.

You may not have experienced flood, cancer, addiction, bigotry or neighborhood violence.

This does not make you better than our neighbors;

These should remind you that we are not in control because God is.

Instead, these challenges are reminders to share our love and compassion with them. (Luke 6:27-31) 

Further, there is no need to denounce others,

when our own life needs tending.

Just because you personally may not have felt injustice in this world,

does not mean it is an illusion to others that have.

To say otherwise is arrogant presumption about our neighbors, good people in our community.

I doubt God approves since we are commanded “to love God and neighbor” (Matthew 22).

Not to mention too easily, we could be on the cutting side of the prejudice.

We are all God’s children and beloved.  

To cast a net of prejudices is to cast doubt upon God and deny God’s children.

Did the Romans give that authority? The Governor? The President? Or Church?

No person can give that authority and God certainly has not either

because we are commanded “to love God and neighbor.”

Why would God command us to have compassion and also tell us to ignore it?

Thus, Jesus challenges people to change your attitudes

unless you want to fall victim to the personal crime of arrogance and prejudice.

If you think such arrogance of God’s people will be rewarded,

Jesus reminds us of a rude awakening waiting.

There is so much more in today’s lesson. So, we pivot. 

II

Ever have a doctor say something like

“you could stand to lose some weight…”

or “it might be time to look at your diet…”?

Ever then “decide” maybe I should eat better,

go to the gym,  

or just be a better person

--starting tomorrow.

Then of course,

tomorrow turns into “well maybe the next day”

or the next

and that tomorrow

does not really seem to arrive.

What then? Nothing. 

What was the excuse?

When looking at life’s challenges,

Jesus offers the parable of the fig tree.  

Don’t just look at life and complain

because maybe “No, you didn’t” do anything. 

This parable tells us that when life is challenging;

do not just “ho-hum” and complain.

We are told to make the time

and put some effort into it.

From the story, sometimes

we need to deal with manure first

to get good things in life.

Yet, we are challenged not to give up,

because doing nothing solves nothing.  

Not putting in real effort,

we get nothing more in return.

The gardener in me suggests that
a garden does not plant itself.

What if we fail? Jesus, in so many words says, “So what!”  

You first need to put effort into change to get some change

and yes, sometimes manure is involved.

If you fail, realize that God will still be with you and still help you.

Jesus understands what it is like to experience wildernesses.

Speaking of wilderness experiences,

during this season of Lent,

we are called to reflect and to see

what we can do to make our lives better.  

Can we do some things to improve our spirit, health and attitude?

Even though it is the second Sunday of Lent,

there is no better time to start than right now.

Also in Luke 13

A woman suffering for years took a chance

to reach beyond her suffering,

to reach with faith

and come to Jesus.

She reminds us that we need

to take chances

to renew our faith

to come to Jesus.

Are you ready to come to Jesus?  

III

In the third part, 
Jesus provokes the oppression of Herod and the Roman “fox.”

This is dangerous to publicly criticize violent and hotheaded leaders.   

Do we say, “Sucks to be Jesus” for doing this,

Or that “He deserves what is coming to Him”

because Jesus spoke truth to power?  

That sounds odd or almost insulting ??

Yet, that is what people are saying

when we say that people are “getting what they deserve.”  

Remember another lesson from Jesus,

“whatever you do to the least of my people, you do to me.”

We also have a chance “one more time.”

If you follow the prescription laid out by Jesus

and you try one more time,

maybe you can raise up praises to God.

What do you need to have success? 

Again, in this season of Lent, we are given chances

to reflect,

to change,

to be whole,

or to remember how to live

or to how to have faith.  

We are reminded of our mortality;

that from dust we came and unto dust we will return.  

We only have this time between our birthday and our own funeral.

What and How do you make the most of your gift of life?

I believe Jesus would agree that the road is not easy,

sometimes painful.

Yet, if you do the work,

have faith,

and just be true,

you just might find some glory to come out of suffering.  

You just might be that person that says, “By the grace of God, we did it!”

If you fail, let it go and know that God is still there to lift you back up.

We have an awesome potential,

and yes, we often fail. (I know from my personal experience.)

God gives us chances to succeed

because God wants to see us succeed.

If you start down a bad path,

no need to stay there.

You, like the woman healed, can come to Jesus

now or anytime

to renew and to find hope.

You are invited this Lent to choose a great path for yourself.

With these lessons, 
we are talking about change-- the real kind.

We are asked to look at our attitudes,

to build a plan of change,

to execute and

to have faith that success will come.

Again, set aside prejudices in your life

and just be part of God’s children.  

Remember God’s call to compassion.

Let us open our hearts to the words of Jesus

and find a path to success.

God gives us many opportunities to change,

but in the words of one president, “the work here on Earth is truly our own.” 

If we do these, we will raise up praises to God,

and there won’t be Jesus waving a finger saying, “Oh no you didn’t.”

You can say “By the grace of God, we did it!”

-->

Thanks Be to God! 

Pastoral Prayer Feb 2017

Pastoral Prayer 

12 Feb 2017

Tony E Dillon-Hansen

Holy and Gracious God, let us first come to in you the quiet prayers and meditations of our hearts and minds.

God of Love and Compassion, we are grateful that you have given us this day, our friends, our families, and our lives.

God of Love and Compassion let us be truly worthy of these gifts that you bestow upon us. 

Remind us of your steadfast love and grace in this world and reach out to those in need of your mercy and care.

Let us be thankful for what you have given to us as we ask for you to help our friends, neighbors and leaders.

Reach out with your comfort and guidance to the people of Standing Rock tribe worried about their home and their precious water supply.

Help our neighbors in poverty today find warm meals and hope in the grace of your glowing presence.

Reach out and guide our distant friends and families looking for a home that they may find a blessed and welcoming home here.

Watch over those traveling in the dreadful winter weather and comfort those that suffered through recent tornados of Louisiana.   

Comfort and help those struggling with mental illness, addiction and the many stress of life.  Let us turn to you and your wisdom.

Yes we are in need of you and your guidance.

Show us the wonder of your blissful music and colorful lights to enlighten our days with these bits of your love. 

We thank you for your wisdom in our lives, that we may be able to see through the clouds of doubt to find you and the Truth that you have given to us. Thank you for allowing us to question and to doubt. Thank you for helping us learn about young to grow with you.

Thank you for the many people that came before us, to show us, to walk with us and to be your examples of love on Earth. Show us your peace to our leaders and our divided communities that we may heal and to be your community.

Through Christ we Pray, Amen

Using VirtualBox to Boot old Windows drive via USB

So I had the unfortunate experience of watching my Dell Inspiron decide not to power up or charge the battery.  I could tell it was due to some short in the electrics because every time I plugged in the light on the adapter would go off.

Well now what...  I don't really need the laptop but I want the data that is on the hard drive.. (oh and it would be nice to boot the drive.)

I have both VirtualBox and VMWare on my MacBook Pro with my VMWare used primarily for the Bootcamp install of Windows 10.  All of that aside, I was looking for a solution that would allow me to use my Dell (Seagate) drive as a VM on my Mac.  I have the software tools just need the know-how.

After a series of looking around the Internet for solutions.

First, I need a hard drive caddy.  I bought one from BestBuy for $30 that is an enclosure for 2.5 inch drives and plugs into USB 3.0/2.0

Second, I had to extract the drive from the Dell Inspiron.  After a bunch of screws and totally disassembling the laptop, I pulled out the drive.

Third, plug the old laptop drive into the enclosure and into my Mac.  It works, and I can read the drive using the Mac Finder.  I, however, still need to access programs on the disk that were installed to that Windows on the Dell.

This where the fun really began...

There are no direct ways via the GUI of either VMWare or VirtualBox to launch a bootable drive as a virtual machine using the canned processes for starting a new VM.

I had to :
1. Decide to use VirtualBox (I am using 5.1.12x)
2. Use Mac Disk utility to unmount the partitions of the drive. Otherwise you get VERR_RESOURCE_BUSY errors.

3: Run the VBoxManage tool from the command line with the specific device for the USB drive. (sudo is important here)

sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "/user/VirtualBox VMs/dell.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/disk2

4: If step 3 does not work, VERR_ACCESS_DENIED occurs,

Failed to open the disk image file ~/VirtualBox VMs/dell.vmdk.

Permission problem accessing the file for the medium

then provide user and privileges to the vBox image via Mac using chown and chmod in the Terminal.  Current user (presumably you) must have ownership over the vmdk file you create from the previous step and has to have -rw permissions.

5. Create a Windows 10(64bit)  VM in VirtualBox

6. Attach the new vmdk image to the VirtualBox as a SATA controller.
Interesting that since my old Dell was dual boot (Ubuntu and Windows) I still have the option to boot into Ubuntu when I start up this VM. 

Baptism of Expectations! - Luke 3

Baptism of Expectations!

Tony E Dillon-Hansen (8 January 2017)

Sermon based upon Luke 3:1-22

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Rock, Our Redeemer.

I - Expectation

I ask you to take a moment with me, and reflect on the particular verse “As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah …”

Now, despite what my mother would say about me and if you might have high expectations of me, let me lower them for you some—maybe quite a bit. Despite what some people might say about all the great things you might expect from me, you just might be here for someone else.

In John the Baptist’s case, they don’t know Jesus (Yet). However, people have heard this mystery prophecy about a messiah coming, and John seems to personify what they envisioned of this “messiah.”  

John is getting people motivated by preaching about the perils of political hypocrisy, deliverance and liberation. People start envisioning extravagant thoughts and spreading the news about this John-fellow baptizing people in the Jordan while calling for repentance and rejection of hypocrisy.  Even though, they have heard similar from Isaiah and Ezekiel, John sounds refreshing, albeit revolutionary, to these oppressed people.  He is saying some revolutionary stuff like 1) to share, 2) to do fair business, and 3) to not extort.— very revolutionary!

Also, some people get afraid, very afraid.  King Herod also heard this messiah story who is to be the “deliverer of the Jewish nation” (e.g. perhaps challenge Herod’s authority like Moses did in Egypt), and Herod doesn’t like power challenges— especially from some guy in the wilderness. 

II - Reflection on Baptism.

A large part of this text tells how John would baptize people using the water of the river Jordan. This is where we, as Christians, base the Sacrament of Baptism not just thanks to John, but because Jesus proceeds to be baptized by John — beginning his ministry in the lands of Roman-occupied Israel, and then later instructing his Disciples to go out and baptize.

Why is baptism so important?  Believe me, when people get baptized, there are some expectations. Namely, that you recognize the mystery of Jesus and God in your life, and through the waters of baptism, we are born into the body of the Church. What possibly could go wrong here?

Why did Jesus find it necessary to be baptized prior to His mission?  Perhaps Jesus saw John bringing powerless people to God via baptism. Perhaps, Jesus was showing a sign of solidarity with sinners.  Yet, like the Church says, Baptism is the mark of our acceptance (the sign and seal) of one’s participation in God’s forgiveness, a beginning and new growth into Christian faith and life. We are told that Jesus is beginning to fulfill His mission & growth with God as well.

So when you recognize God, you can always find forgiveness, compassion, and fulfillment. 

I am reminded that Baptism is not just about the lives of individuals being baptized, but also a celebration and renewal by the whole church. As people growing in the church, we also have the opportunities to “re-affirm” that which may have been done for us in baptism as a child and to confirm our covenant with & faithful recognition of the Church and God.

III - Cleansing Transformations

Like John, I feel compelled to remind us that there is one greater than any minister for which we are “not worthy to untie the ...sandals.” 

Water is used to symbolize cleansing, if not actually, because water comes from God and only through God might we be truly cleansed. The water helps wash away and just let go. The power of water in baptism becomes no less dramatic to us as to open the heavens to Jesus. 

I am compelled to tell the story of a young man who was baptized at Plymouth. (I should note that this is a public baptism in front of the whole congregation during worship, and the congregation is invited to renew their baptismal covenant as well).  This gentleman decided to join Plymouth after many great experiences and be baptized. He proceeds to the front of the Church for the baptism. As he received baptismal waters, he just opened up like a sunflower glistening towards the sun.  He was glowing with tears of absolute joy, and total elation flowed from him. (Those tears flowed through the congregation that day.) This was truly a memorable experience—a “conversion of the heart.” I was glad to witness it. 

This happened because in baptism, there is a “conversion of the heart” happening (as John tells us) only by letting go of what we thought we knew (i.e. expectations). Then, you can let God’s love fill you and maybe you witness the light upon you too! That is transformational power.

Now, Should Herod be so scared of this power?

Can we expect to have that kind of baptismal conversion throughout our lives, instead of that one moment? Can we understand how suffering can completely transform into grace? When we ask God to be in our lives, there are many things possible.

Perhaps it is better that people know the real deal is coming and it is not me! You do not have to worry about having low expectations of me because there is someone far better than I waiting for you. Your baptism covenant is evident of this.

Perhaps, it is better that people recognize how God and Christ can make true differences in our lives when we let go and open ourselves to the possibility. 

Let Go of your Expectations! Open your hearts to your baptism, to God and to the possible— rejuvenate your faith.  You just might find your expectations filled.

Thanks Be to God.