Advent 2B – sermon based upon Psalm 34:1-7, 15-22 & Luke 2:1-20
Good morning. As we continue to make our way toward Bethlehem, we are looking more deeply at some of the gifts that Advent brings. In case you missed it last week, each week in worship we are tying in the theme from the Advent devotional in a variety of ways. The music, liturgy, and even the scriptures have been chosen to walk us through the true gifts of this season. This past week, we've explored the gift of faith. On this second week of Advent we're looking at the gift of peace. And new life and love are the themes we'll connect with in the coming weeks.
So today, we have a story of what it looks like to have nearly everything you think could go wrong, go wrong and still it turns into the best Christmas ever... well, I guess it's the first Christmas ever.
All joking aside, it really is one of those stories that we might be tempted to rush to the happy ending and say it all worked out. But it wasn’t easy to get to that happy ending. A nine month expectant mother and her fiancé had to take a dangerous trip because the government needed to tax them. Upon arrival, there wasn’t room for them in the inn nor did they have the money for a nicer place. We can assume they didn’t have family in the area either. They were all alone and in a bind. But they found refuge in a barn and in the end discovered blessings and a peace they could have never imagined.
Most of us are unlikely to have such an experience that is still being told over 2000 years later but it is much like many experiences we have all had. For example, on the way to what was supposed to be a special dinner out for my grandmother’s 75th birthday, we got a flat tire. Then, I stained my shirt changing the tire. At this point we’re running late and if you knew my grandmother, you’d know that punctuality is next to Godliness. By the time we got to the restaurant, we were so late they gave away our reservations. So, we walk down the road to a greasy spoon diner because it's the only place without a wait and we're tired and hungry and cranky by this point so we go in.
Once inside, we meet a server who smiles and treats us like family. She brings us coffee without asking because she can see we're cold. She tells the soup is no good but the meatloaf is outstanding. And it turns into an evening of comfort and refuge in an unlikely place.
That is a true story and I can tell you lots of others. In my work at the hospital, I meet people all the time who think the worst thing that could ever happen to them would be for their child to be sick and in the hospital. They cry with agony and worry about how they don't think they can handle it. They wonder where God is and why this is happening. They feel alone and lost in a strange place.
But if they keep their eyes open and don't succumb to the despair, what they find is people that have their best interest at heart. They feel hands of care and concern that will hold them in the tough moments. They experience support that comes in unexpected forms and packages. And most importantly, they find God working in their lives, even in this unfamiliar and scary place. I can't tell you how many families when referring to the hospital say to me something like, "This place has been the home we never expected and blessing we didn't know we needed."
Life is like that. Just when it isn't going the way we wanted, we find that God has prepared a place for us where we least expected it. And God is like that. When we toil in the brokenness of the world, God reaches out making a safe harbor in humble and unexpected places.
So, what do we make of all this? Why is it that sometimes we find God in the dark places and sometimes we don't? Is it that God wants to help us some of the time and other times we're on our own? Is it that God picks and chooses on supporting us?
Well, I don't think it works that way. From what we learn in this scripture and what I've seen working at the hospital and in my own life, I believe that God is always reaching and supporting us even if we can't always see it. And more than that, I suspect that we would be far worse off if God weren't constantly reaching toward us to help and support us. Oh, it’s true that sometimes we succumb to despair or become blinded by bitterness or get lost in the mire of worry so much so that we can no longer see God's work and provision for our lives. But when we can stay open to God's work, amazing things happen.
Let’s think back on this story for a minute. If Mary had let the worry of such a long journey overcome her, we wouldn't have such an amazing birth story. If Joseph had let the frustration about having to travel at such an in convenient time blind him, he might have mouthed off to the inn keeper and not even gotten to use the barn. If the shepherds had been more concerned with their own matters, they would have missed seeing the young messiah. Things in this story weren’t going so well for them but they kept journeying forward faithfully. And because they did, they found God’s love and provision laid out for them.
See, this journey toward Bethlehem is one of unknowns and fears like we talked about last week. But faith is journeying forward anyway. Yet, God gives us more than what we need for just a faithful journey. We can find peace along the way. We can know safe havens and helpful nurture. We can experience God's love and work for us that is present and reaching to us even when we can't yet see or receive it. But when we can, peaceful nights of sleep, calm in the storm, and blessings in the midst of difficulty are there for us to claim.
So how do we tap into God’s support for us when we’re just nearly so overwhelmed that we can’t take another step? How do we keep from letting frustration about our circumstances and disappointments get the better of how we deal with it so we can be open to the peaceful refuge God has offered? And what does that refuge even look like?
Well, just like in our biblical story and the stories I told, it requires openness on our part to believe in and see God’s blessing in the tough times. I’m not saying that we have to just be optimistic. Being optimistic is not always realistic. For example, we can’t use positive thinking to take care of mortgage difficulty or brokenness in our relationships. Optimism alone in such situations would leave us homeless and alone.
Instead, openness to the goodness around us is more like faith than optimism. It’s listening to that inner voice to pick up the phone and call a friend for help rather than toughing it out alone. It’s allowing ourselves to see something differently so that we recognize the blessing instead of seeing just another obstacle. It’s knowing that we are really not alone and that if we hold fast to what is truly important, we will find safe harbor even if it doesn’t look like what we expected.
Sisters and brothers, the journey to Bethlehem was a tough one but God provided from them in ways they didn’t know and couldn’t expect. Still today, God is working in our lives to help us along the way. As we journey in faith, may we always be open to the peace and refuge that God offers regardless of what it looks like. May we support one another to ease the burdens. And may we truly experience God’s provision for us when we need it most. Amen.
Showing posts with label redemption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label redemption. Show all posts
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Onward In Faith
Advent 1B - Sermon based upon Psalm 42 & Matthew 1:18-2:12
Good morning and welcome to Advent. This is a season of expectancy and preparation. A season of joy, hope, and promise. And given the themes of our advent devotional and sermon series, it is also a season of faith, peace, new life, and love.
You’re going to notice a pattern in the coming weeks that lead us all the way through Christmas. Each week’s theme that goes with the devotional is going to be lifted up in worship in multiple ways. The devotional theme is The True Gifts of Christmas: The Journey to Bethlehem. The music, prayers, liturgy, and even scriptures will go along with the weekly theme. Each week we'll have a Psalm that captures the emotional experience of the theme and a Gospel passage that tells the story.
But for now, we’re here on the first week of Advent. We enter with the theme of faith and the story told in Matthew about Jesus's conception and birth. If ever there was a story of faith in God, this is it.
Here we have a young unmarried woman who finds out she's going to have a very special baby. The scripture tells us that her fience doesn't want to disgrace her but he's still going to “quietly dismiss her.” After transformative encounters, they both believe in God’s will for this child move forward to have the baby.
From the Luke story of Jesus’ birth we also know that they had to make a journey to Bethlehem for census and taxation. That must have been horrible. Can you imagine setting out on a donkey, a man and a 9 month pregnant woman, in a time when life was so much more treacherous than it is now?
And even after Jesus is born, King Herod sends spies so that he can plot against the young Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us. But they too had a transformative experience rooted in joy and did the right thing to protect this child.
And our Psalm this morning is also a true story of faith. It is about the fear and anxiety we experience when we can’t quite feel God’s closeness to us. We want to lash out as the Psalmist does with “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” But just as with Mary and Joseph, the Psalmist remembers “hope in God.”
These are some pretty powerful scriptures if we pause to let them capture our feelings and imagination. So, what do they have to tell us on this first Sunday of Advent?
Well, I think one of the messages is that just because we’re journeying faithfully doesn’t mean that it’s smooth sailing. It’s often an anxiety and fear filled path. Even Joseph was going to leave Mary because he couldn’t understand how God’s plan for Mary included him and I imagine he felt a lot of social pressure as well.
How often are our lives like that? Maybe it’s that we know what the right thing is to do but we feel the pressure and embarrassment of what others are saying around us. Or sometimes it’s that we are not sure how we fit into God’s plan. Or sometimes it’s more a feeling like the Psalmist had of wondering where God is in all this and how to remain faithful while it feels so dark. When faced with loss, uncertainty, and other things that raise our fear level, our lives, just like Mary and Joseph’s are filled with moments that make our faithful walk forward feel more like a burdensome trudge.
Whether it’s the journey of the PNC in search of a pastor or the daily work it takes to make relationships last, we are ALL journeying… and sometimes it’s a tough one. But here’s where the story turns.
God reassures Joseph of his part in all this. Then God protects Jesus from Herod. God even touches the wise men and they go on a different path. Hope and joy healed them from their worries, doubt, and uncertainty. In the case of the wise men, quite literally, the story tells us that they were overwhelmed by joy.
I think this is the real heart of our scripture lesson for today. We worry and struggle in uncertainty quite often. And it becomes a cycle that just gets worse if left to our own devices. The more we worry, the more we drag ourselves down. The more we drag ourselves down, the more we fret about digging back out of the hole of fear, grief, and depression. The more we fret about those things, the more ashamed we feel. And the more ashamed we feel… well, that’s just a terrible spiral downward.
But God’s support and love for us is never wrapped up in fear or shame or overly burdensome toil. God reaches out to us with hope and joy offering us help to put one foot in front of the other and continue our faithful journey. That support comes in all kinds of forms. In the case of Joseph, it came in the form of messenger from God and I imagine it also came in the form of support from people around him and most especially from Mary. For the wise men, they found support from God to do the right thing through an intense sense of joy at the witness of a phenomenon in nature right before meeting Jesus. And while most of us don’t have an experience of meeting and angel, I know that all of us have met messengers from God or had experiences that coincided with special event that invigorated our faith.
See, this is what faith is about, whether it’s during the season of Advent or any other time. We are on a journey and each and every day is another opportunity to keep moving forward toward the hope and promise of God while being open to the nurturing support God gives us.
Now, I’m not trying to make this sound easy. I’ll give you a deeply personal example. All my life, even as a little child, I’ve struggled with depression. It seems to be genetic because most of my family struggles with it. Depression has gripped me in ways that I’ve often felt forgotten by God. The way depression chokes off the light is painful. And after feeling the emptiness and darkness months on end, I’ve even thought that it wasn’t that God had forgotten me. I’ve felt that God must be punishing or cursing me. Now logically, I know that isn’t the case. But depression is an illness that tells us lies about ourselves, others, and God.
Having struggled with this illness for most of my 37 years, I can tell you quite a few things about finding God in the darkness and what faith looks like when you barely have the energy to get out of bed. But I can also tell you that faith cannot be stifled or destroyed by darkness, fear, worry, doubt, and uncertainty.
Just like Mary and Joseph, I have found God’s support every step of the way. Just when I thought I couldn’t bear the isolation any longer, God has sent messengers that reminded me who and who’s I am. God has placed people in my life to help me when I couldn’t help myself. When I needed a jolt to point me in the right direction, God has shown me great joy through phenomenon in nature. God has called me forward in love all along the way.
God’s nurturing love and my faith in that love have helped me journey forward every step of the way. In fact, you’ve even been part of God’s work in my life. As you know, I’m a chaplain and I work night shift at Children’s Memorial Hospital. Working night shift is more than a choice. It’s a metaphor for my experience with God. Because I’ve had to work so hard to find God in the long nights of depression, I want to be part of God’s light to others in the night. I never thought I’d work in a church because I thought my place was in the darkness.
But being here with you has shown me that God calls me into the light as well. The way you’ve encouraged me and the relationships I’ve built here have shown me new paths in my own faith journey. My faithful journey is not only that of holding people in the night but also that of proclaiming God’s radiance in the light and you’ve been the ones who’ve helped cultivate that in me and show me God’s way for which I’ll always be grateful.
Now I didn’t tell you all that to spew out my own story. I told you about my journey because I believe it speaks to the struggles we’ve all had. Advent, holidays, faith, journeys, family, church… all of these things are precious but they also stir in us anxiety and fear about the unknown. But God is with us, each and every one of us. God is speaking and leading and calling us every step of the way.
Sisters and brothers, as we move forward in Advent, may we have faith that God is alive and well in all areas of our lives. Even when it feels scary or burdensome, God is with us, offering us support wrapped in love rather than fear. Our job is to keep putting one foot in front of the other on this journey taking the next step in faith and being open to all the ways God is supporting us. Emmanuel, God with us… We welcome you! Amen
Good morning and welcome to Advent. This is a season of expectancy and preparation. A season of joy, hope, and promise. And given the themes of our advent devotional and sermon series, it is also a season of faith, peace, new life, and love.
You’re going to notice a pattern in the coming weeks that lead us all the way through Christmas. Each week’s theme that goes with the devotional is going to be lifted up in worship in multiple ways. The devotional theme is The True Gifts of Christmas: The Journey to Bethlehem. The music, prayers, liturgy, and even scriptures will go along with the weekly theme. Each week we'll have a Psalm that captures the emotional experience of the theme and a Gospel passage that tells the story.
But for now, we’re here on the first week of Advent. We enter with the theme of faith and the story told in Matthew about Jesus's conception and birth. If ever there was a story of faith in God, this is it.
Here we have a young unmarried woman who finds out she's going to have a very special baby. The scripture tells us that her fience doesn't want to disgrace her but he's still going to “quietly dismiss her.” After transformative encounters, they both believe in God’s will for this child move forward to have the baby.
From the Luke story of Jesus’ birth we also know that they had to make a journey to Bethlehem for census and taxation. That must have been horrible. Can you imagine setting out on a donkey, a man and a 9 month pregnant woman, in a time when life was so much more treacherous than it is now?
And even after Jesus is born, King Herod sends spies so that he can plot against the young Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us. But they too had a transformative experience rooted in joy and did the right thing to protect this child.
And our Psalm this morning is also a true story of faith. It is about the fear and anxiety we experience when we can’t quite feel God’s closeness to us. We want to lash out as the Psalmist does with “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” But just as with Mary and Joseph, the Psalmist remembers “hope in God.”
These are some pretty powerful scriptures if we pause to let them capture our feelings and imagination. So, what do they have to tell us on this first Sunday of Advent?
Well, I think one of the messages is that just because we’re journeying faithfully doesn’t mean that it’s smooth sailing. It’s often an anxiety and fear filled path. Even Joseph was going to leave Mary because he couldn’t understand how God’s plan for Mary included him and I imagine he felt a lot of social pressure as well.
How often are our lives like that? Maybe it’s that we know what the right thing is to do but we feel the pressure and embarrassment of what others are saying around us. Or sometimes it’s that we are not sure how we fit into God’s plan. Or sometimes it’s more a feeling like the Psalmist had of wondering where God is in all this and how to remain faithful while it feels so dark. When faced with loss, uncertainty, and other things that raise our fear level, our lives, just like Mary and Joseph’s are filled with moments that make our faithful walk forward feel more like a burdensome trudge.
Whether it’s the journey of the PNC in search of a pastor or the daily work it takes to make relationships last, we are ALL journeying… and sometimes it’s a tough one. But here’s where the story turns.
God reassures Joseph of his part in all this. Then God protects Jesus from Herod. God even touches the wise men and they go on a different path. Hope and joy healed them from their worries, doubt, and uncertainty. In the case of the wise men, quite literally, the story tells us that they were overwhelmed by joy.
I think this is the real heart of our scripture lesson for today. We worry and struggle in uncertainty quite often. And it becomes a cycle that just gets worse if left to our own devices. The more we worry, the more we drag ourselves down. The more we drag ourselves down, the more we fret about digging back out of the hole of fear, grief, and depression. The more we fret about those things, the more ashamed we feel. And the more ashamed we feel… well, that’s just a terrible spiral downward.
But God’s support and love for us is never wrapped up in fear or shame or overly burdensome toil. God reaches out to us with hope and joy offering us help to put one foot in front of the other and continue our faithful journey. That support comes in all kinds of forms. In the case of Joseph, it came in the form of messenger from God and I imagine it also came in the form of support from people around him and most especially from Mary. For the wise men, they found support from God to do the right thing through an intense sense of joy at the witness of a phenomenon in nature right before meeting Jesus. And while most of us don’t have an experience of meeting and angel, I know that all of us have met messengers from God or had experiences that coincided with special event that invigorated our faith.
See, this is what faith is about, whether it’s during the season of Advent or any other time. We are on a journey and each and every day is another opportunity to keep moving forward toward the hope and promise of God while being open to the nurturing support God gives us.
Now, I’m not trying to make this sound easy. I’ll give you a deeply personal example. All my life, even as a little child, I’ve struggled with depression. It seems to be genetic because most of my family struggles with it. Depression has gripped me in ways that I’ve often felt forgotten by God. The way depression chokes off the light is painful. And after feeling the emptiness and darkness months on end, I’ve even thought that it wasn’t that God had forgotten me. I’ve felt that God must be punishing or cursing me. Now logically, I know that isn’t the case. But depression is an illness that tells us lies about ourselves, others, and God.
Having struggled with this illness for most of my 37 years, I can tell you quite a few things about finding God in the darkness and what faith looks like when you barely have the energy to get out of bed. But I can also tell you that faith cannot be stifled or destroyed by darkness, fear, worry, doubt, and uncertainty.
Just like Mary and Joseph, I have found God’s support every step of the way. Just when I thought I couldn’t bear the isolation any longer, God has sent messengers that reminded me who and who’s I am. God has placed people in my life to help me when I couldn’t help myself. When I needed a jolt to point me in the right direction, God has shown me great joy through phenomenon in nature. God has called me forward in love all along the way.
God’s nurturing love and my faith in that love have helped me journey forward every step of the way. In fact, you’ve even been part of God’s work in my life. As you know, I’m a chaplain and I work night shift at Children’s Memorial Hospital. Working night shift is more than a choice. It’s a metaphor for my experience with God. Because I’ve had to work so hard to find God in the long nights of depression, I want to be part of God’s light to others in the night. I never thought I’d work in a church because I thought my place was in the darkness.
But being here with you has shown me that God calls me into the light as well. The way you’ve encouraged me and the relationships I’ve built here have shown me new paths in my own faith journey. My faithful journey is not only that of holding people in the night but also that of proclaiming God’s radiance in the light and you’ve been the ones who’ve helped cultivate that in me and show me God’s way for which I’ll always be grateful.
Now I didn’t tell you all that to spew out my own story. I told you about my journey because I believe it speaks to the struggles we’ve all had. Advent, holidays, faith, journeys, family, church… all of these things are precious but they also stir in us anxiety and fear about the unknown. But God is with us, each and every one of us. God is speaking and leading and calling us every step of the way.
Sisters and brothers, as we move forward in Advent, may we have faith that God is alive and well in all areas of our lives. Even when it feels scary or burdensome, God is with us, offering us support wrapped in love rather than fear. Our job is to keep putting one foot in front of the other on this journey taking the next step in faith and being open to all the ways God is supporting us. Emmanuel, God with us… We welcome you! Amen
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Serving Together
Serving Together (off lectionary sermon series on the body of Christ based upon Matthew 28:16-20, Galatians 5:16-6:2, & G-2.0101)
Good morning. If you were here last week, you know that this is week 2 of a 3 week sermon series on being the church alive in the world. But as I said last week, don’t worry if you’re not here for all of them. They stand alone nicely so even if you missed it, you won’t be lost today. But just to recap, we looked at scripture and at a passage from the book of order and talked about how Christ is the only true authority in the church. Our job is to faithfully live out Christ’s calling. So we do not stand over or under one another in our workings and callings. No one calling is more special than another. Whether it’s my calling to be a pastor or someone else’s calling to put out donuts, we are faithful together… side by side.
So this week, we are taking the next step trying to unearth what those callings might be for each of us and as a church and our scripture for the day gives us a great place to start. But much like last week, I want to weave in another nugget of wisdom from the Book of Order that we might use as an outline for our thinking today. It comes from G-2.0101 and is entitled "Christ’s Ministry." It reads:
The Church’s ministry is a gift from Jesus Christ to the whole Church. Christ alone rules, calls, teaches, and uses the Church as he wills, exercising his authority by the ministry of women and men for the establishment and extension of God’s new creation. Christ’s ministry is the foundation and standard for all ministry, the pattern of the one who came "not to be served but to serve" (Matt. 20:28). The basic form of ministry is the ministry of the whole people of God, from whose midst some are called to ordered ministries, to fulfill particular functions. Members and those in ordered ministries serve together under the mandate of Christ.
Well, given what I just read, you might be thinking "isn’t that the recap of last week’s sermon?" Well, sort of. But we are going to go deeper in to 2 of these ideas and think about "Christ’s ministry is the foundation and standard for all ministry" and "The basic form of ministry is the ministry of the whole people of God." And I think today’s scripture lessons have some guidance for our thinking.
Our scripture passages are The Great Commissioning found in Matthew where Jesus calls on his followers to go out into the world and baptize, teach, and fellowship with others while all along knowing that Christ is always with us. The second passage is about the fruits of the spirit and reminds us what living by the spirit looks like. It also calls on us to be healers of one another as we struggle to claim who and whose we are.
So we have these very big ideas and as a big picture kind of person, these are the things that ignite in me curiosity and wonder about how it will all unfold. But I realize that for more detail oriented people, these open ended visions are somewhat anxiety producing. So, we’re going deeper today to look for the practical ways of ministry and our callings within it. We are doing so because some of us are curious. Some of us find comfort in details. Others of us need reassurance.
I raise this issue of what we are each getting by our study together because it has bearing on what we will uncover. See, if it is that "Christ’s ministry is the foundation and standard for all ministry" then a great thing to recognize about the life and teachings of Jesus is that he lived and taught in ways that spoke to people the way they each needed to experience it.
We are all very different from one another. Different gifts, different personalities, different interests, different struggles, different experiences… all of which come together to make us unique and yet somehow only made whole in the body of Christ. So to reach out to such diverse groupings, Jesus used stories so that people would zero in on the parts they each needed to hear. He also shared a lot of meals and living room time where people have their guards down and true relationships are built. He used symbols and metaphors so that people would have to think and stretch themselves to understand. And no matter where he was or what was going on, his starting place was that of love for God’s special creation… people.
Over and over again, he astounded people by loving them instead of judging them because he knew that judgment is God’s and the path to true healing is that of love. He didn’t walk up to the woman at the well and call her wretched names or think judgmental thoughts about her. His starting place was that of love for who she was: a child of God with gifts and struggles that was living a life of suffering. Harsh words would have just alienated her more but love heals and transforms.
And while we’re looking at Jesus as the foundation and standard for all ministry, let’s not forget his humility. He is the one who came "not to be served but to serve." Ministry that models Christ is that of service rather than status. Born in a barn, murdered for his faith… those are extraordinary bookends to a life. But in some ways, even more extraordinary are the pages between the bookends that tell of a life of reaching out in search of God as a young child and extending the love of God as an adult. What would our lives look like if we each had such love?
And that’s the question of the day. Christ modeled what ministry looks like and we are called to minister to the "whole people of God." So what would our lives look like if we each had such love? What does ministering to the "whole people of God" look like?
Last week we read scripture that talks about the body of Christ and the different callings. This week we see in Galatians different gifts that we are given by the Spirit. And all along we have Christ telling us to go out and do something with these callings and gifts.
So what does it look like? Well, it starts by taking the time to find out who God made us to be. Jesus invited us to look into ourselves to know and honor this special creation of God. Searching ourselves is critical to knowing how we can serve. God asked Moses to live beyond his skills and God still asks the same of us today but we can’t go farther if we don’t know where to start.
So we each need to consider what our personality is, what our interests are, and what we have to offer as we look to see how we each may minister in the body of Christ. For example, you wouldn’t want me to sing in the choir but thanks be for those that can and we welcome them back this year. And I would be pretty bad at serving on the budget committee because I get overwhelmed with all the numbers. But you know what? I love the bible and I love people so one thing I can do is weave those two together into sermons and worship leadership.
See, it’s pretty much as simple as that. We start with who we are and what God has given us and ask "where can God use me?" Lend a Hand Day, teaching Sunday School, greeting, serving on committees, and all those other forms of stewardship are servant ministry. And even talking and sharing with one another is servant ministry because we are building up the body of Christ as we extend ourselves to one another in fellowship.
But ministry is about far more than what happens inside these walls. The real work of Christ is out there in the world. So again, let’s ask the question, what would our lives look like if we each had such love as Christ? What is our ministry in the world? When we look at our gifts and skills, how do we serve in the body of Christ beyond these walls?
The answer to those questions are as varied as can be. But I think our scripture can guide us. Galatians 6:1 reads, "My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness." What does that have to do with our servant ministry? Well, most of our work both inside these walls and beyond is about healing. Almost everything we experience boils down to the brokenness we encounter within ourselves and around us. So much of our ministry and ministering is about being conduits of peace, healing, and reconciliation through the love of Christ.
Our charge is to heal with a spirit of gentleness. When we see wrong doings, we’re not called to judge, we’re called to restore. Sisters and brothers, each and every one of us struggle. When we think about the things we do wrong, we see a chain of events where we didn’t set out to hurt anyone but it all made sense at the time. As Paul said, "why is it I do what I don’t what to do?" As parents, as teachers, as ministers, as friends, as business people… we all struggle because we all have broken places in us and all need the grace of God and the love of Christ. The surest path to healing is not by wagging a finger at ourselves or others. Changing our behavior out of guilt isn’t really living in the Spirit. Healing comes by modeling Christ and loving the wounds away.
So if our lives are at the intersection of brokenness and love, who are we each called to be in the world? For the person who’s a little shy but always watching, maybe part of their calling is to be the one who always extends a kind smile. For the one gifted with leadership skills, maybe servant ministry looks like being a business person of respect who looks out for how employees are treated. For the ones with a mind for numbers, maybe it’s being a beacon of integrity so that wealth is not used to corrupt or squash others. For those who cook well, maybe it’s offering a meal to someone struggling or bringing the cookies to a meeting that reminds us of what’s important. Perhaps for those of us with old wounds that have been healed, it’s about sharing our path with those in need. If one of our blessings is extra time, maybe servant ministry is about volunteering.
And when the big stuff like 9/11 happens we still see the same things. Firefighters being firefighters and caring about people, even at the risk of losing their lives. Everyday folks dropping everything to clear debris because it serves and restores hope. People far away donating money, blood, and other resources because they love enough to want to be a part of the healing.
See, we get caught up in thinking of our daily lives as work, chores, and strife but if we look deeper we’ll see the way we are functioning as the body of Christ and honor that. And when we look deeper, we might even see new and different ways of sharing our gifts and callings. And that’s what we’ll talk about next week.
But for now, Christ invites us to see who God made us to be and offer that back to creation. As we go from here this week, may we look more deeply at who we are and what we can be in the body of Christ. And most importantly, may we live that calling each and every day. Amen.
Good morning. If you were here last week, you know that this is week 2 of a 3 week sermon series on being the church alive in the world. But as I said last week, don’t worry if you’re not here for all of them. They stand alone nicely so even if you missed it, you won’t be lost today. But just to recap, we looked at scripture and at a passage from the book of order and talked about how Christ is the only true authority in the church. Our job is to faithfully live out Christ’s calling. So we do not stand over or under one another in our workings and callings. No one calling is more special than another. Whether it’s my calling to be a pastor or someone else’s calling to put out donuts, we are faithful together… side by side.
So this week, we are taking the next step trying to unearth what those callings might be for each of us and as a church and our scripture for the day gives us a great place to start. But much like last week, I want to weave in another nugget of wisdom from the Book of Order that we might use as an outline for our thinking today. It comes from G-2.0101 and is entitled "Christ’s Ministry." It reads:
The Church’s ministry is a gift from Jesus Christ to the whole Church. Christ alone rules, calls, teaches, and uses the Church as he wills, exercising his authority by the ministry of women and men for the establishment and extension of God’s new creation. Christ’s ministry is the foundation and standard for all ministry, the pattern of the one who came "not to be served but to serve" (Matt. 20:28). The basic form of ministry is the ministry of the whole people of God, from whose midst some are called to ordered ministries, to fulfill particular functions. Members and those in ordered ministries serve together under the mandate of Christ.
Well, given what I just read, you might be thinking "isn’t that the recap of last week’s sermon?" Well, sort of. But we are going to go deeper in to 2 of these ideas and think about "Christ’s ministry is the foundation and standard for all ministry" and "The basic form of ministry is the ministry of the whole people of God." And I think today’s scripture lessons have some guidance for our thinking.
Our scripture passages are The Great Commissioning found in Matthew where Jesus calls on his followers to go out into the world and baptize, teach, and fellowship with others while all along knowing that Christ is always with us. The second passage is about the fruits of the spirit and reminds us what living by the spirit looks like. It also calls on us to be healers of one another as we struggle to claim who and whose we are.
So we have these very big ideas and as a big picture kind of person, these are the things that ignite in me curiosity and wonder about how it will all unfold. But I realize that for more detail oriented people, these open ended visions are somewhat anxiety producing. So, we’re going deeper today to look for the practical ways of ministry and our callings within it. We are doing so because some of us are curious. Some of us find comfort in details. Others of us need reassurance.
I raise this issue of what we are each getting by our study together because it has bearing on what we will uncover. See, if it is that "Christ’s ministry is the foundation and standard for all ministry" then a great thing to recognize about the life and teachings of Jesus is that he lived and taught in ways that spoke to people the way they each needed to experience it.
We are all very different from one another. Different gifts, different personalities, different interests, different struggles, different experiences… all of which come together to make us unique and yet somehow only made whole in the body of Christ. So to reach out to such diverse groupings, Jesus used stories so that people would zero in on the parts they each needed to hear. He also shared a lot of meals and living room time where people have their guards down and true relationships are built. He used symbols and metaphors so that people would have to think and stretch themselves to understand. And no matter where he was or what was going on, his starting place was that of love for God’s special creation… people.
Over and over again, he astounded people by loving them instead of judging them because he knew that judgment is God’s and the path to true healing is that of love. He didn’t walk up to the woman at the well and call her wretched names or think judgmental thoughts about her. His starting place was that of love for who she was: a child of God with gifts and struggles that was living a life of suffering. Harsh words would have just alienated her more but love heals and transforms.
And while we’re looking at Jesus as the foundation and standard for all ministry, let’s not forget his humility. He is the one who came "not to be served but to serve." Ministry that models Christ is that of service rather than status. Born in a barn, murdered for his faith… those are extraordinary bookends to a life. But in some ways, even more extraordinary are the pages between the bookends that tell of a life of reaching out in search of God as a young child and extending the love of God as an adult. What would our lives look like if we each had such love?
And that’s the question of the day. Christ modeled what ministry looks like and we are called to minister to the "whole people of God." So what would our lives look like if we each had such love? What does ministering to the "whole people of God" look like?
Last week we read scripture that talks about the body of Christ and the different callings. This week we see in Galatians different gifts that we are given by the Spirit. And all along we have Christ telling us to go out and do something with these callings and gifts.
So what does it look like? Well, it starts by taking the time to find out who God made us to be. Jesus invited us to look into ourselves to know and honor this special creation of God. Searching ourselves is critical to knowing how we can serve. God asked Moses to live beyond his skills and God still asks the same of us today but we can’t go farther if we don’t know where to start.
So we each need to consider what our personality is, what our interests are, and what we have to offer as we look to see how we each may minister in the body of Christ. For example, you wouldn’t want me to sing in the choir but thanks be for those that can and we welcome them back this year. And I would be pretty bad at serving on the budget committee because I get overwhelmed with all the numbers. But you know what? I love the bible and I love people so one thing I can do is weave those two together into sermons and worship leadership.
See, it’s pretty much as simple as that. We start with who we are and what God has given us and ask "where can God use me?" Lend a Hand Day, teaching Sunday School, greeting, serving on committees, and all those other forms of stewardship are servant ministry. And even talking and sharing with one another is servant ministry because we are building up the body of Christ as we extend ourselves to one another in fellowship.
But ministry is about far more than what happens inside these walls. The real work of Christ is out there in the world. So again, let’s ask the question, what would our lives look like if we each had such love as Christ? What is our ministry in the world? When we look at our gifts and skills, how do we serve in the body of Christ beyond these walls?
The answer to those questions are as varied as can be. But I think our scripture can guide us. Galatians 6:1 reads, "My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness." What does that have to do with our servant ministry? Well, most of our work both inside these walls and beyond is about healing. Almost everything we experience boils down to the brokenness we encounter within ourselves and around us. So much of our ministry and ministering is about being conduits of peace, healing, and reconciliation through the love of Christ.
Our charge is to heal with a spirit of gentleness. When we see wrong doings, we’re not called to judge, we’re called to restore. Sisters and brothers, each and every one of us struggle. When we think about the things we do wrong, we see a chain of events where we didn’t set out to hurt anyone but it all made sense at the time. As Paul said, "why is it I do what I don’t what to do?" As parents, as teachers, as ministers, as friends, as business people… we all struggle because we all have broken places in us and all need the grace of God and the love of Christ. The surest path to healing is not by wagging a finger at ourselves or others. Changing our behavior out of guilt isn’t really living in the Spirit. Healing comes by modeling Christ and loving the wounds away.
So if our lives are at the intersection of brokenness and love, who are we each called to be in the world? For the person who’s a little shy but always watching, maybe part of their calling is to be the one who always extends a kind smile. For the one gifted with leadership skills, maybe servant ministry looks like being a business person of respect who looks out for how employees are treated. For the ones with a mind for numbers, maybe it’s being a beacon of integrity so that wealth is not used to corrupt or squash others. For those who cook well, maybe it’s offering a meal to someone struggling or bringing the cookies to a meeting that reminds us of what’s important. Perhaps for those of us with old wounds that have been healed, it’s about sharing our path with those in need. If one of our blessings is extra time, maybe servant ministry is about volunteering.
And when the big stuff like 9/11 happens we still see the same things. Firefighters being firefighters and caring about people, even at the risk of losing their lives. Everyday folks dropping everything to clear debris because it serves and restores hope. People far away donating money, blood, and other resources because they love enough to want to be a part of the healing.
See, we get caught up in thinking of our daily lives as work, chores, and strife but if we look deeper we’ll see the way we are functioning as the body of Christ and honor that. And when we look deeper, we might even see new and different ways of sharing our gifts and callings. And that’s what we’ll talk about next week.
But for now, Christ invites us to see who God made us to be and offer that back to creation. As we go from here this week, may we look more deeply at who we are and what we can be in the body of Christ. And most importantly, may we live that calling each and every day. Amen.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Risen and Still Rising
Easter Sunday - Risen and Still Rising <–- Audio file link - A sermon based upon Matthew 28:1-10
Good morning and welcome to the resurrection! I’ve you’ve not been with us all week, you’ve missed the celebration of a remarkable life in Jesus on Palm Sunday. On Maundy Thursday we heard the call of Jesus to be servants to one another and make deeper relationships with one another even in the midst of difficulty. Good Friday, watched in horror as those in religious and political power used their authority to have him brutalized and killed. And Yesterday, we sat vigil in prayer grieving and still reeling from the horror. And this morning at sunrise, we greeted the empty tomb where we saw that Christ seeks to involve us in his resurrection and does so with grace and compassion.
But now, we are in the thick of it all. Jesus is risen. Mary and Mary have the task of telling others. And Jesus even comes to them personally to tell them that he will come to them in Galilee. In each of the Gospels, this story unfolds slightly differently but they all have certain things in common. Christ promises to reveal himself again and does.
So, what do we make of all this? I think the first thing that must be said is that we have a hard time making sense of resurrection. It’s no wonder people both inside and outside of the church fight over whether it’s a myth or real event or even a hoax. But not understanding isn’t the real problem here.
What I think what bears scrutiny is why is it we have such a hard time wrapping our minds around resurrection? If we could understand, we wouldn’t have such difficulty figuring out what it means to our faith. And I’m not talking about skeptics. I’m talking about people of earnest faith who believe that the resurrection is a gift from God to all people. And I am willing to bet that most of us in this room have a hard time with it in some way or we have at some point.
We have a hard time with it because it’s so often beyond our common experience. I mean we struggle to conquer the little habits and “lesser sins” in our lives so how can we truly connect to a story of a risen Christ who crushed sin and suffering? We try. We try a lot and we work hard to make sense of it but at the end of the day, we find ourselves struggling with the same old flaws and sorrows. So, if Jesus was raised as a triumph over death and suffering, why do we struggle so much to experience it ourselves?
And that’s where we’ll start today. This morning in the sunrise service, we looked at how Christ approaches us in resurrection. We said that even when we don’t understand or can’t recognize Christ in our midst, Christ is faithful and reaches to us, and calls us forward with grace and compassion. But it’s just still so hard to see him and internalize what he has to offer.
Maybe that’s just it. Maybe we don’t understand what he’s offering for us to receive it. Maybe we need to expand our understanding of what resurrection is if we’re going to experience it more fully and with less doubt and despair.
So what is resurrection? Well, it is a raising of a body from the dead. The bible offers many stories of such events. But it’s more than just that. In Jesus’ case, it’s the raising and being made whole after being violated and brutalized by those in power. Jesus’ death and resurrection is an event of triumph and says that those who would try to squash the truth and life cannot succeed! The truth and life found in God’s love are so abundant that they live on and on and on.
So another thing we need to hear about resurrection in Christ is that it’s ongoing. Now, ongoing can mean different things. It can mean that something changed and that change still holds or it could also mean that something started changing and the process of change is still happening. I raise this distinction because I think it has bearing on why we have such a hard time internalizing Christ’s resurrection and what that ongoing resurrection means in our own lives.
I think the tension between Christ’s resurrection and our own difficulty understanding it is because Christ’s resurrection is one where something changed and it will always be that way for him. However, because we still live in the brokenness of the world, our experience of resurrection is one where a change starts to take hold in our lives but it’s a process that doesn’t come to completion until we’re fully in God’s loving arms.
So, what am I getting at? Well, I think it means that when we look upon the raised Christ, we really should be in awe because what has happened and is still happening in him is amazing and beyond our reach to fully comprehend in this time and place. We only catch glimpses of it through the body of Christ in the world. The reason the body of Christ functions with such mystery and wonder and beauty is because it’s purity is beyond our reach even though we participate in it as we are.
But this also means that we are a people both fully redeemed and still being refined. We are in the process of resurrection and it’s an ongoing venture that takes time and work. Our savior serves as a model while we’re fast at work trying to put the pieces together.
In the reformed tradition, we say that we are always both “being and becoming.” I always liked that phrase. It says that we are God’s beloved children as we are and more than adequate yet we have far more we could become here and now if we’ll be open to the pathway of resurrection.
But what does this really mean to us? Well, I suspect that we are our own barriers to experiencing resurrection more than anything else. Because we are not experiencing the one time miraculous event of Jesus but rather a process of resurrection, we don’t see the bigger picture of what is going on in our lives. We lose patience or faith or energy or hope. And, simply put I think we have to have grace and love for ourselves here and now just like God does. And if we have grace and love for ourselves and others, we’ll hear the calling to grow further in the body of Christ and continue becoming that fully resurrected spirit in Christ.
But what does it really mean? It means that we all have those places we struggle, those flaws that haunt us. We all have wounds from experiences that have not healed and continue to make us vulnerable to reacting out of pain and fear. Those are the things we must have grace and compassion for in ourselves. God already does. But do we?
When we struggle with depression or other ailments of the mind and spirit, how gentle are we with ourselves? When the pain and fear that illness bring takes hold on us, do we stay open to the love that the body of Christ offers? When our security is threatened, do we keep our hearts open? When lose someone, do we let ourselves be vulnerable? When we fall on our face over and over and over again with the same struggle whether it’s dishonoring our body or having a self-centered spirit, do we keep looking to God or do we condemn ourselves, denying our value and worth in God’s eyes. And when the unknown is in our midst, do we stop to see if it might be Christ or do we look away in fear?
Do you want to know what Christ’s ongoing resurrection looks like? Ongoing resurrection is the person who bears the pain of an abusive past or maybe even the present and still gets up with hope that healing can happen. Resurrection is the person with cancer who says I’ll not go through this alone because the healing I find in those who love me equals or exceeds the healing I get from these treatments. Resurrection is the family that keeps growing and changing and dealing with everything that comes up because being a family is hard and takes daily renewal. Resurrection is the person who loses a loved one and honors the love they shared by carrying that love forward and sharing it with others.
Do you want to see the face of resurrection? Look around this room. Look at the faces of people around you. Look at this group of people who have lost several pastors in 10 years and been betrayed and wounded yet you still come here with faith and hope in the living Christ. Hope that healing will be yours. And faith that it’s not the pastor that makes this church, but the people. That, my friends is resurrection lived. It’s lived in a process that has ups and downs but new life woven into every part of it.
Sisters and brothers, resurrection is loving and hoping and living in the face of the brokenness. It is knowing that the risen Christ will keep working through and around us. It is being both redeemed and still being refined, being and becoming. Each and every day, we are taking part in the process of resurrection and new life
As we go from here celebrating our risen Lord, may we also seek and take part in the ways Christ is healing our lives into resurrected glory. May we claim God’s love and healing so that we can experience it. And may we live the resurrection each and every day. Amen.
Good morning and welcome to the resurrection! I’ve you’ve not been with us all week, you’ve missed the celebration of a remarkable life in Jesus on Palm Sunday. On Maundy Thursday we heard the call of Jesus to be servants to one another and make deeper relationships with one another even in the midst of difficulty. Good Friday, watched in horror as those in religious and political power used their authority to have him brutalized and killed. And Yesterday, we sat vigil in prayer grieving and still reeling from the horror. And this morning at sunrise, we greeted the empty tomb where we saw that Christ seeks to involve us in his resurrection and does so with grace and compassion.
But now, we are in the thick of it all. Jesus is risen. Mary and Mary have the task of telling others. And Jesus even comes to them personally to tell them that he will come to them in Galilee. In each of the Gospels, this story unfolds slightly differently but they all have certain things in common. Christ promises to reveal himself again and does.
So, what do we make of all this? I think the first thing that must be said is that we have a hard time making sense of resurrection. It’s no wonder people both inside and outside of the church fight over whether it’s a myth or real event or even a hoax. But not understanding isn’t the real problem here.
What I think what bears scrutiny is why is it we have such a hard time wrapping our minds around resurrection? If we could understand, we wouldn’t have such difficulty figuring out what it means to our faith. And I’m not talking about skeptics. I’m talking about people of earnest faith who believe that the resurrection is a gift from God to all people. And I am willing to bet that most of us in this room have a hard time with it in some way or we have at some point.
We have a hard time with it because it’s so often beyond our common experience. I mean we struggle to conquer the little habits and “lesser sins” in our lives so how can we truly connect to a story of a risen Christ who crushed sin and suffering? We try. We try a lot and we work hard to make sense of it but at the end of the day, we find ourselves struggling with the same old flaws and sorrows. So, if Jesus was raised as a triumph over death and suffering, why do we struggle so much to experience it ourselves?
And that’s where we’ll start today. This morning in the sunrise service, we looked at how Christ approaches us in resurrection. We said that even when we don’t understand or can’t recognize Christ in our midst, Christ is faithful and reaches to us, and calls us forward with grace and compassion. But it’s just still so hard to see him and internalize what he has to offer.
Maybe that’s just it. Maybe we don’t understand what he’s offering for us to receive it. Maybe we need to expand our understanding of what resurrection is if we’re going to experience it more fully and with less doubt and despair.
So what is resurrection? Well, it is a raising of a body from the dead. The bible offers many stories of such events. But it’s more than just that. In Jesus’ case, it’s the raising and being made whole after being violated and brutalized by those in power. Jesus’ death and resurrection is an event of triumph and says that those who would try to squash the truth and life cannot succeed! The truth and life found in God’s love are so abundant that they live on and on and on.
So another thing we need to hear about resurrection in Christ is that it’s ongoing. Now, ongoing can mean different things. It can mean that something changed and that change still holds or it could also mean that something started changing and the process of change is still happening. I raise this distinction because I think it has bearing on why we have such a hard time internalizing Christ’s resurrection and what that ongoing resurrection means in our own lives.
I think the tension between Christ’s resurrection and our own difficulty understanding it is because Christ’s resurrection is one where something changed and it will always be that way for him. However, because we still live in the brokenness of the world, our experience of resurrection is one where a change starts to take hold in our lives but it’s a process that doesn’t come to completion until we’re fully in God’s loving arms.
So, what am I getting at? Well, I think it means that when we look upon the raised Christ, we really should be in awe because what has happened and is still happening in him is amazing and beyond our reach to fully comprehend in this time and place. We only catch glimpses of it through the body of Christ in the world. The reason the body of Christ functions with such mystery and wonder and beauty is because it’s purity is beyond our reach even though we participate in it as we are.
But this also means that we are a people both fully redeemed and still being refined. We are in the process of resurrection and it’s an ongoing venture that takes time and work. Our savior serves as a model while we’re fast at work trying to put the pieces together.
In the reformed tradition, we say that we are always both “being and becoming.” I always liked that phrase. It says that we are God’s beloved children as we are and more than adequate yet we have far more we could become here and now if we’ll be open to the pathway of resurrection.
But what does this really mean to us? Well, I suspect that we are our own barriers to experiencing resurrection more than anything else. Because we are not experiencing the one time miraculous event of Jesus but rather a process of resurrection, we don’t see the bigger picture of what is going on in our lives. We lose patience or faith or energy or hope. And, simply put I think we have to have grace and love for ourselves here and now just like God does. And if we have grace and love for ourselves and others, we’ll hear the calling to grow further in the body of Christ and continue becoming that fully resurrected spirit in Christ.
But what does it really mean? It means that we all have those places we struggle, those flaws that haunt us. We all have wounds from experiences that have not healed and continue to make us vulnerable to reacting out of pain and fear. Those are the things we must have grace and compassion for in ourselves. God already does. But do we?
When we struggle with depression or other ailments of the mind and spirit, how gentle are we with ourselves? When the pain and fear that illness bring takes hold on us, do we stay open to the love that the body of Christ offers? When our security is threatened, do we keep our hearts open? When lose someone, do we let ourselves be vulnerable? When we fall on our face over and over and over again with the same struggle whether it’s dishonoring our body or having a self-centered spirit, do we keep looking to God or do we condemn ourselves, denying our value and worth in God’s eyes. And when the unknown is in our midst, do we stop to see if it might be Christ or do we look away in fear?
Do you want to know what Christ’s ongoing resurrection looks like? Ongoing resurrection is the person who bears the pain of an abusive past or maybe even the present and still gets up with hope that healing can happen. Resurrection is the person with cancer who says I’ll not go through this alone because the healing I find in those who love me equals or exceeds the healing I get from these treatments. Resurrection is the family that keeps growing and changing and dealing with everything that comes up because being a family is hard and takes daily renewal. Resurrection is the person who loses a loved one and honors the love they shared by carrying that love forward and sharing it with others.
Do you want to see the face of resurrection? Look around this room. Look at the faces of people around you. Look at this group of people who have lost several pastors in 10 years and been betrayed and wounded yet you still come here with faith and hope in the living Christ. Hope that healing will be yours. And faith that it’s not the pastor that makes this church, but the people. That, my friends is resurrection lived. It’s lived in a process that has ups and downs but new life woven into every part of it.
Sisters and brothers, resurrection is loving and hoping and living in the face of the brokenness. It is knowing that the risen Christ will keep working through and around us. It is being both redeemed and still being refined, being and becoming. Each and every day, we are taking part in the process of resurrection and new life
As we go from here celebrating our risen Lord, may we also seek and take part in the ways Christ is healing our lives into resurrected glory. May we claim God’s love and healing so that we can experience it. And may we live the resurrection each and every day. Amen.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
All That I’ve Seen
Sermon based upon Acts 17:22-31 <-- Audio file of sermon
Good morning and welcome to the first Sunday of Advent. This advent a few stars are going to tell you their story. Stars you say? Yes, stars… as in the twinkling lights in the night sky. Our advent devotional, “The Stars Tell The Story,” walks us through the this year’s journey to Christmas through the eyes of several stars.
This week Polaris will tell you about the birth of light and God’s faithfulness to creation. Next week, the fallen star of Lucifer will talk to you. And the following week another star will share with you about promises. That will then lead us to the guiding star of Bethlehem illuminated by the cantata on the 4th Sunday of Advent.
So without further ado, I present to you Polaris.
Good morning and welcome to the first Sunday of Advent. This advent a few stars are going to tell you their story. Stars you say? Yes, stars… as in the twinkling lights in the night sky. Our advent devotional, “The Stars Tell The Story,” walks us through the this year’s journey to Christmas through the eyes of several stars.
This week Polaris will tell you about the birth of light and God’s faithfulness to creation. Next week, the fallen star of Lucifer will talk to you. And the following week another star will share with you about promises. That will then lead us to the guiding star of Bethlehem illuminated by the cantata on the 4th Sunday of Advent.
So without further ado, I present to you Polaris.
Hello, my name is Polaris but a lot of you know me as the North Star or even the handle of the little dipper. I must admit I was a little surprised to be invited to speak. People look at me and wish upon me because I burn so bright in your northern sky but they don’t usually care to hear what I have to say. So I thank you for inviting me because I’ve seen a lot and I especially love to share what I’ve seen of God.
You see, God is the reason I know anything. In the beginning, I was just a ball of dust in the darkness. I didn’t really even realize who I was or what I could be because all I knew was darkness. But then, just like your bible says, God whispered a word to me… a word so simple but it changed everything. God said “light.” It was as if life began at that moment… at least I know my life began at that moment. See, when God speaks to us, we are forever transformed.
This thing called light has been an ongoing gift from God since that day. Think about it. The story of God’s work in creation is referred to as conquering darkness so that life can spring forth. Whether it’s lighting a path forward or driving away evil or casting out secrets that fester in the darkness, light is a tool and gift of God and I’ve been truly blessed to be one of God’s faithful servants by sharing my light.
I’ve pointed the way for travelers, kept people company, and watched over them while they sleep. My work as one of God’s good creations has been very meaningful. But you know what the best part has been? Watching people like you.
The first people I watched were Adam and Eve. Did you know that they loved the nighttime? It’s true. They would sit together and tell each other stories as they gazed into the night sky. I liked watching them. I liked it because they were just so full of love. They loved each other. They loved God. They loved the gifts of God. Everything they did, was from love in its most pure form. Even when that serpent tricked them, they weren’t trying to act in an unloving way. They were manipulated into thinking that the fruit would make them grow wise because of the knowledge of good and evil. They didn’t realize that they could not really handle such wisdom. So sadly, the knowledge they gained only polluted their love.
Lots of folks like to point to that story as saying that we’re somehow bad or broken. I don’t know if that’s true. You know what I think? I think it’s just that we’re all limited. We’re limited in what we can see. We’re limited in what we can understand. We’re limited in time. Only God who is in all places, knows all creation intimately, and lives beyond the bounds of time can really use wisdom of good and evil correctly.
Let me tell you what I mean. Take me for example. I am limited in what I know of the earth because I’m always on one side of it. I’ve never seen most of Africa. I’ve never seen Chili or Argentina. And I’ve never seen Antarctica. To me, they might as well not exist. And they don’t know I exist either.
But I’ve seen folks that travel from that side of the earth. And I trust my star friend, Sirius when she tells me that they are beautiful places. But I’m so limited, that I don’t think I could make a good judgment or assess what God has done there or tell you what the people need there. I just don’t know enough.
People are the same way. Adam and Eve and all of humanity now carry the burden of knowing both good and evil. In many cases, you know what good and evil look like and often know how to handle them. But sometimes you know just enough to cause trouble because only God can use that power fully.
For example, look over there at Lavender. She seems nice enough. But when you try to use God’s wisdom of good and evil to judge her, things just get all messed up. Watch this… Did you know that she gave $5 to a homeless person last week? That seems good right? Well it was good for the homeless person but Lavender didn’t do it because of a loving desire to help. She did it because she felt her own shame and inability to truly look into the eyes of the other person. So, you tell me… she did something good but not from a loving motivation. How should she be judged? And let’s go back in time. Did you know that she used to steal things when she was a child? That sounds bad right? But what you don’t know is that her family was very poor and they were hungry. And she has worked hard to make amends for it ever since. So see, trying to use the knowledge of good and evil is complicated. We’re all just so limited. Only God knows enough to use it well.
And speaking of what God knows, I think our limitedness includes what we know about God too. That’s why I love the story of Paul seeing the Athenian shrine to the “god nobody knows.” At least the Athenians were humble enough to know that God might be bigger than what they knew. When I was watching God form the rest of creation, it was clear that we would all be looking at God from different sides, just like I look at the earth from a particular side. So, I encourage you to be careful when you speak of God. Speak boldly of what God has done in your life but speak humbly about what God’s will is for others. It’s just so hard to see what God is doing when you only see part of the story.
But take heart. I’m not actually here to make us feel small and remind us of our limitedness. To me, the real miracle isn’t that God can use this wisdom and the rest of creation can’t. The real miracle is that creation just keeps being beautiful and amazing in spite of our limitedness. Think about it. With all the things that could go wrong in creation, there’s far more that’s gone right. Accidents are rarely as bad as they could be. Wars are avoided at the last minute. Children are born into love every minute. Relationships are formed and make us more than we were. All this beauty is swirling around us and the only real explanation for why such a limited creation could make more beauty than destruction is that most of us are always being drawn to the light.
Since God’s first utterance of light, we seem to have this little voice inside of us that keeps us moving forward in search of more light, more beauty, more love… a fuller view of God. That’s the whole meaning of Advent. I’ve heard lots of folks talk about Advent as a time of waiting and expectancy. I guess that’s true. But the word Advent comes from the Latin word adventus meaning “coming.” Coming is a progressive verb… which means that it is currently happening and will continue to happen.
Now you don’t need some star giving you a grammar lesson but the point I want to make is that Advent, the coming, is a journey. Much like how creation is always moving toward the light, Advent is about our journey toward a light being born. We’re not waiting… we’re on our way.
You know what else I always like? Even as we’re drawn to the light of God, God is with and amongst us. Read your bible. Talk to your friends and neighbors. You can even talk to many of the people you might call enemies. What you’ll find from listening to their stories is that God never gives up on us and never leaves us. God didn’t give up on Adam and Eve after their mistake in the garden. Instead, God made it clear what the consequences were and helped them know how to prepare to live life differently. God didn’t abandon Paul as he took the gospel to new places. Instead, Paul found that God made provision for him through the ever growing & ever working body of Christ. And today, when we feel lost in the darkness, we are not abandoned by God. We need only be faithful and soon we’ll be able to see God working for our support and help during those times.
I’m always amazed at how God keeps reaching to us. It’s like watching that prodigal son come home over and over again. Trust me, I’ve been watching this go on for more time than humans have existed. Because you see, God is just so full of love and grace. God’s love keeps drawing us all toward God and to each other. And God’s grace keeps us seeking to find more light even when we’ve stumbled into darkness.
God loves us as we are and for who we are. God won’t ask the dandelion to stop being so fuzzy or the rose to not be so thorny. God loves and joins us in all our beauty, our defenses, our darkness, and our light. God knows that our rights and our wrongs have a story. They have a reason. God knows that we have deeply rooted fears. God also knows that we have a huge heart made for love. God knows every part of us. God knows all of creation and still reaches out to us every single time offering love, redemption, transformation, growth, nurture, and relationship. God loves us for who we are but knows that in the light, it is our beauty that will grow and flourish.
I’ve been watching you and will continue to watch you. You are a beautiful people. Trust in God’s presence and that calling from the dawn of creation to walk toward light. When you let God dispel the darkness, you’ll be amazed at just how beautiful you become. Amen.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
I, You, and We
I, You, and We <-- audio file of sermon based upon Jeremiah 29:1,4-7
Good morning. Last week we studied a pastoral letter from Paul to Timothy and his church. It was a letter of encouragement and a calling to stay connected with their core gifts and faith. This week we have a letter from Jeremiah which is also a pastoral letter but one that is prophetic. Paul’s letter was telling people how to cultivate faith here and now. Jeremiah’s letter is looking toward the future and setting out the vision of how to still be a thriving people in the future.
Even though we only read a small piece of this letter, it’s part of a larger letter that to the Jewish people while they were in exile. See, to really get the most out of this passage, we need to understand what was going on that Jeremiah was sending this letter. It’s a very painful time for the Jewish people. The Kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians and now the Jewish people have literally been deported to live in exile. Their homes have been taken, their religious center in Jerusalem has been destroyed, and everything they ever knew and trusted was turned upside down.
So here they are, living in Babylon amongst people and customs unknown to them but things aren’t safe and secure here either. This was a period of deep unrest throughout the fertile crescent. Empires had and would continue to rise and fall, taking lots of innocent people with them. The Jewish people were probably living amongst lots of people away from their homelands and the Babylonians could fall at any time uprooting them all once again.
This is a time of unrest, fear, and deep concern for their future. And it’s in this moment that Jeremiah writes to them saying,
Now, we need to be clear that this was a very different time and place than where we live now. Relationships were usually not about love. Marriages in that time were more like contract law, trade agreements, and alliance building for the safety of people. Few people in the bible or any ancient texts are said to have married for love or even come to love their spouses because this is a very different time of desperation. But what is clear is that in land full of danger and a time when babies and mothers died 50% of the time, having children was absolutely essential for people to survive so Jeremiah was clear that they needed to increase, not decrease.
Which all this leads us to what I think is the most important verse in the passage where Jeremiah tells them, “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” “For in its welfare you will find your welfare”… That must have been pretty hard to hear as a Jew in exile. I imagine it was hard for Jeremiah to say. I mean, here’s this prophet who is usually offering messages of revolution and thundering power who is telling people to pray for and work for the betterment of the community they find themselves in. This must have seemed offensive to people who had been deported and robbed of the homes they once knew. But it is God’s message to them through the prophet Jeremiah nevertheless.
Just like Jeremiah knew their survival was wrapped up in continuing to have children he also knew that their future was now intertwined in the safety of the Babylonians. To work for peace in Babylon was to work for peace in their own homes and vice versa.
Now this is a pretty hefty message in just a few short verses. A good summary of this passage might be, to truly prosper, we need to take care of our own house as well as the house of others by working for peace and safety. But what does this mean to us? In this country, babies and mothers survive nearly all of the time. Instead of dying at a rate of better than 50%, they survive over 99.5% of the time. And we have the privilege of entering into relationships for reasons of love, not just survival. So what does Jeremiah’s message of I take care of my house, you take care of yours, and we take care of each other’s houses mean here and now?
Well, I think it means quite a bit actually. It is true that we are a far more privileged people than what the Jewish exiles were. But we still experience our own sense of exile and if we don’t personally, I guarantee you that others around us do. Look around… there are people out of work and living in economic exile. Sometimes that exile even means moving to a new place that take away all that is familiar just to find work. There are others of us that make moves to accommodate family needs like caring for an aging parent or being near schools that are good for our children. But while these moves are the right thing to do, they uproot us from home and force distance between us and what is familiar. Still others experience emotional and literal exile of being marginalized because of race, class, relationships, age, violent neighborhoods, and so much more. We need only read the headlines of bullying and the sorrow of isolation to know that many are living in exile among us.
This passage offers us a key piece of wisdom in the face of all our life circumstances. Safety and peace are the pathway to the future. Our own homes are at their best when we make a place of peace and safety in which to grow, love, and live. Our neighbor’s homes are at their best when they are safe to be who they were created to be. Our communities are at their best when we know we’ve got each other’s backs.
On this day, it’s Domestic Violence awareness Sunday in the Presbyterian Church and I believe this passage most definitely has a message to us on that subject too. If safety and peace are the pathway to the future, then they are the pathway to the future for us all. It can’t be that only some of us are safe while others are not. That’s the whole thrust of this passage. “For in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
Domestic violence has staggering statistics.
The statistics and the reality are so staggering that it’s hard to get our footing and figure out what to do about it. But this passage offers the key… safety and peace. Our own homes should be safe havens. If our homes currently have violence or relationships that aren’t loving and life filled, there is hope in redemptive love. Reach out for help. Reach to your neighbors. There is help and support. We can journey together and find strength as a community we didn’t know was there before.
If our homes are safe and loving places, make them available to others. Be the listening ear to our friends. Make it safe for our children to come talk with us as well as our children’s friends. We know that the first outcry for help usually comes to friends or to the parents of friends.
And don’t be afraid to do something. The effect of early and loving intervention in people’s lives cannot fully be accounted for. We are called to be in community… their welfare is ours. It is our job to offer support and be a safe haven. It is also our job to report crimes and seek professional intervention. But we are not called to be the saviors of others. We are not the police and therapist to our loved ones. We are their loved ones. But our community is large enough that we have professional organizations to offer help such as domestic violence shelters. If you are ever unsure of what resources are available, reach out to the police department, a pastor, a therapist, or someone else well connected with resources to help.
Sisters and brothers, Jeremiah tells us to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” In making our own homes and relationships safe places for thriving, we find our own welfare. In reaching out to others to help them have a home of safety, they find their welfare. I, you, we… we’re all wrapped up in this together. Whether it’s the emotional exile of depression or the exile of a violent home, we are in this together.
Seek peace. Be a safe harbor for others. And pray and work for the betterment and peace of the community. It was God’s will for the exiles and it’s still God’s will for our lives today. Amen.
Good morning. Last week we studied a pastoral letter from Paul to Timothy and his church. It was a letter of encouragement and a calling to stay connected with their core gifts and faith. This week we have a letter from Jeremiah which is also a pastoral letter but one that is prophetic. Paul’s letter was telling people how to cultivate faith here and now. Jeremiah’s letter is looking toward the future and setting out the vision of how to still be a thriving people in the future.
Even though we only read a small piece of this letter, it’s part of a larger letter that to the Jewish people while they were in exile. See, to really get the most out of this passage, we need to understand what was going on that Jeremiah was sending this letter. It’s a very painful time for the Jewish people. The Kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians and now the Jewish people have literally been deported to live in exile. Their homes have been taken, their religious center in Jerusalem has been destroyed, and everything they ever knew and trusted was turned upside down.
So here they are, living in Babylon amongst people and customs unknown to them but things aren’t safe and secure here either. This was a period of deep unrest throughout the fertile crescent. Empires had and would continue to rise and fall, taking lots of innocent people with them. The Jewish people were probably living amongst lots of people away from their homelands and the Babylonians could fall at any time uprooting them all once again.
This is a time of unrest, fear, and deep concern for their future. And it’s in this moment that Jeremiah writes to them saying,
Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.You see Jeremiah was telling them to continue to do the everyday things that it not only takes to survive but to thrive. Continue to have children. Continue to cultivate relationships. Multiply.
Now, we need to be clear that this was a very different time and place than where we live now. Relationships were usually not about love. Marriages in that time were more like contract law, trade agreements, and alliance building for the safety of people. Few people in the bible or any ancient texts are said to have married for love or even come to love their spouses because this is a very different time of desperation. But what is clear is that in land full of danger and a time when babies and mothers died 50% of the time, having children was absolutely essential for people to survive so Jeremiah was clear that they needed to increase, not decrease.
Which all this leads us to what I think is the most important verse in the passage where Jeremiah tells them, “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” “For in its welfare you will find your welfare”… That must have been pretty hard to hear as a Jew in exile. I imagine it was hard for Jeremiah to say. I mean, here’s this prophet who is usually offering messages of revolution and thundering power who is telling people to pray for and work for the betterment of the community they find themselves in. This must have seemed offensive to people who had been deported and robbed of the homes they once knew. But it is God’s message to them through the prophet Jeremiah nevertheless.
Just like Jeremiah knew their survival was wrapped up in continuing to have children he also knew that their future was now intertwined in the safety of the Babylonians. To work for peace in Babylon was to work for peace in their own homes and vice versa.
Now this is a pretty hefty message in just a few short verses. A good summary of this passage might be, to truly prosper, we need to take care of our own house as well as the house of others by working for peace and safety. But what does this mean to us? In this country, babies and mothers survive nearly all of the time. Instead of dying at a rate of better than 50%, they survive over 99.5% of the time. And we have the privilege of entering into relationships for reasons of love, not just survival. So what does Jeremiah’s message of I take care of my house, you take care of yours, and we take care of each other’s houses mean here and now?
Well, I think it means quite a bit actually. It is true that we are a far more privileged people than what the Jewish exiles were. But we still experience our own sense of exile and if we don’t personally, I guarantee you that others around us do. Look around… there are people out of work and living in economic exile. Sometimes that exile even means moving to a new place that take away all that is familiar just to find work. There are others of us that make moves to accommodate family needs like caring for an aging parent or being near schools that are good for our children. But while these moves are the right thing to do, they uproot us from home and force distance between us and what is familiar. Still others experience emotional and literal exile of being marginalized because of race, class, relationships, age, violent neighborhoods, and so much more. We need only read the headlines of bullying and the sorrow of isolation to know that many are living in exile among us.
This passage offers us a key piece of wisdom in the face of all our life circumstances. Safety and peace are the pathway to the future. Our own homes are at their best when we make a place of peace and safety in which to grow, love, and live. Our neighbor’s homes are at their best when they are safe to be who they were created to be. Our communities are at their best when we know we’ve got each other’s backs.
On this day, it’s Domestic Violence awareness Sunday in the Presbyterian Church and I believe this passage most definitely has a message to us on that subject too. If safety and peace are the pathway to the future, then they are the pathway to the future for us all. It can’t be that only some of us are safe while others are not. That’s the whole thrust of this passage. “For in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
Domestic violence has staggering statistics.
- A woman is beaten every 15 seconds in this country.
- Domestic violence occurs at least once in two-thirds of all marriages.
- 600 people are victims of sexual violence each day in the US. Only 53% are reported to the police. Few are ever prosecuted.
- 40% of teenage girls age know someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.
- More than three million children witness acts of domestic violence each year.
The statistics and the reality are so staggering that it’s hard to get our footing and figure out what to do about it. But this passage offers the key… safety and peace. Our own homes should be safe havens. If our homes currently have violence or relationships that aren’t loving and life filled, there is hope in redemptive love. Reach out for help. Reach to your neighbors. There is help and support. We can journey together and find strength as a community we didn’t know was there before.
If our homes are safe and loving places, make them available to others. Be the listening ear to our friends. Make it safe for our children to come talk with us as well as our children’s friends. We know that the first outcry for help usually comes to friends or to the parents of friends.
And don’t be afraid to do something. The effect of early and loving intervention in people’s lives cannot fully be accounted for. We are called to be in community… their welfare is ours. It is our job to offer support and be a safe haven. It is also our job to report crimes and seek professional intervention. But we are not called to be the saviors of others. We are not the police and therapist to our loved ones. We are their loved ones. But our community is large enough that we have professional organizations to offer help such as domestic violence shelters. If you are ever unsure of what resources are available, reach out to the police department, a pastor, a therapist, or someone else well connected with resources to help.
Sisters and brothers, Jeremiah tells us to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” In making our own homes and relationships safe places for thriving, we find our own welfare. In reaching out to others to help them have a home of safety, they find their welfare. I, you, we… we’re all wrapped up in this together. Whether it’s the emotional exile of depression or the exile of a violent home, we are in this together.
Seek peace. Be a safe harbor for others. And pray and work for the betterment and peace of the community. It was God’s will for the exiles and it’s still God’s will for our lives today. Amen.
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