The Blessing of Being More than Just "Us"

“Now to the One who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us, to that One be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3: 20-21.

This is the scripture that forms the basis for the theme of the 2010 General Conference.  MCC folks are gathering as we are meeting here today.  I invite you to hear the highlights of the report of Rev. Nancy Wilson, Moderator of our denomination.  She begins:

I pray that our passion for the radically inclusive gospel of Jesus Christ will be evident and will guide our experience together.  The years since we last met for a General Conference have been filled with many joys and challenges. Together we have faced an unprecedented global economic crisis, organizational change, and increasing demand for our ministry in communities where MCC has been established for a long time as well as in many parts of the world where MCC is just beginning to make an impact.

I have abridged her summary of the achievements of the denomination since the last conference as this:

MCC now has churches, missions, centers and groups in formation in 37 countries

In Latin America (including the Spanish speaking Caribbean), we went from 13 worshipping communities in 10 countries in 2007, to 42 worshipping communities in 14 countries

We weathered the worst global economic downturn in decades, took action, right sized our global structure, cut our budget, made strategic changes

The Elders have realigned their work to bring you the best expertise and support for church growth at all sizes,

We have trained 97 local church leaders for “Creating a Life that Matters” since 2007, 121 since 2006.

The Elders have innovated with a new Network system, in which 30 networks now cooperate around the globe to provide care and connection for MCC pastors and congregations.  We are a part of the Central Florida Network and I am blessed to have been chosen as the Leader for that Network.

MCC has emerged more than ever as a visible, global leader in the struggle for LGBT and human rights; helping people around the world in dire circumstances achieve safely, human rights, and spiritual community

We raised and spent most of $44,000 for direct relief in Haiti, including helping the LGBT and HIV/AIDS communities

We have begun to re-invent church planting in MCC

Would Jesus Discriminate? campaigns were a great success in five countries, 44 cities and 46 churches.

Rev. Nancy then asks us to join her in FACING THE BRUTAL FACTS:

As for so many, this has not been an easy time for MCC. Among other things we face:

The economy: even as we have lowered the tithe requirement, our churches have struggled to pay tithes consistently. Our churches have wealth, property, and net worth, which they do not often leverage, and which we have not leveraged globally. Nevertheless, many churches have purchased property, bought land, improved their facilities, even in this economy, and expanded their ministries.

We experienced a flatness or decline in number of churches, membership and attendance. We see evidence that this is now changing, not only outside of North America, but in North America as well. There is renewed interest in churches and networks in multi-site growth, and in church planting. In the latter years of the worst of AIDS in North America, we lost some of our urgency and passion for church planting, and maybe our confidence. It is time to re-engage, as some churches are already doing.

We struggled for years to live within our means, and have never done that very well. It is time for us to do that, and to focus on long term health and sustainability, and to look to additional funding for expansion from foundations, and donors. We are beginning to make progress in this area, and a lot more can be done.

Rev. Nancy is hopeful and invites us to hear WHAT she BELIEVEs ABOUT MCC’S FUTURE AND DESTINY:

We are still an “Unfinished Church in an Unfinished World.” There is not a day that I do not receive a message from someone who is searching for MCC, just finding MCC, or asking for such a ministry in their location. The global need for partners in justice, in fighting religious homophobia, in supporting emerging Christian LGBT-friendly churches is so clear, and so much a part of our destiny as a denomination.  There are some that wonder, in the US in particular, if MCC is no longer needed because some churches have opened their doors. I can tell you that there are MCC’s that thrive in places where LGBT people have many choices. There are places where we have not sustained a healthy church, and we need to try again! MCC’s thrive when they have good leadership and a clear vision and mission, a clear sense of what God is calling them to be and do in their place and time! It is all about servant leadership, and God’s calling.

MCC is still needed in our largest cities – to be a diverse, open, and queer-friendly spiritual home, to be a place that dares challenge the status quo, the religious right. In smaller cities and towns, MCC can be the hub of the community, perhaps one of the few or only gathering places, a place where people can hear about the radically inclusive gospel of Jesus, a place where many can meet. I see this everywhere I travel. I see a maturity in our lay leadership, and in the deepening of hospitality and community connection that can only come with years of service.

I was at one of our most successful churches, in a smaller city in the Northeast – a young woman who grew up in the church, with two lesbian Moms, now teaches the kids. Her husband told me that he loves MCC, which gave him his first spiritual path, and he leads the “green” ministry at the church with a group of young adults who are as diverse as you can imagine, and not so much into “LGBT.” This is also our future and destiny!

And, I see MCC’s emerging in places like “The Villages,” a retirement [community] in Florida, where the need is great for LGBT folks, their friends and families, and for a strong identity and community. Or a place like Asheville, North Carolina, where we had a church years ago, but where a new MCC church, that serves a very LGBT-friendly community is emerging with excellence.

Rev. Nancy reminds us that God is calling us – can we respond with imagination, faith and courage to that call? She says:  When we started, in 1968 with 12 people and $3.12, no one could have imagined where we are today. Believe with me that MCC is a church of the 21st century, of the intersections of so many needs, cultures and ministries, and a powerful witness in a world hungry for God and for justice.

                And so, now I ask you, where do we fit into all of this?  We were blessed to have been mentioned by name in Rev. Nancy’s report.  She is planning a visit with us and I will announce the date the minute I know and we can begin our plans for a great celebration.  I and many of you come from a tradition where re-dedication of your life to Christ or God was practiced.…perhaps we need to adapt that tradition and rededicate ourselves to looking beyond these walls to the bigger things that are transpiring in the world, a world where people can still be imprisoned for having an engagement party, a world where churches and ministers are still threatened with harm merely for holding services.  It is so easy to think that our concerns and struggles are ‘all there is’; MCC invites us to look at the big picture—to see the world as a whole, not just our little paradise corner of it. 

                And herein lies the blessing!  It is a blessing to know that we are a part of this larger ministry—that right now, clergy and lay leaders from MCC churches, literally, from all over the world, are gathering in a place where they will spend the week not only in the business of MCC, but also in worship, in learning, in celebrating and, even consoling.  We will soon learn of the location for the Conference in 2013.  I invite us to begin even now to put aside funds so that as many of us who want to go, will be able to travel to the next Conference as we become fully participating in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.  In the meantime, your Board of Directors has voted to begin to pay a small tithe to MCC, so that we can truly say that we are joining in this wonderful, larger global ministry.  And so, now I invite you to invite others.  We have work to do, it is a blessing for me to lead you in this work.  And while this work is bigger than all of us, it needs each and every one of us to succeed.  Welcome to this blessing!  Welcome to this blessed work!  Amen and amen. 

                

The Blessing of Being Found--Sermon preached 6-20-10

Scripture:  Luke 15: 1-7  

                I remember it well, even though it happened over 45 years ago.  My mother, my aunt, and my grandmother decided to take all seven of us kids (ranging in age from 2-13) to a little town called Nashville, IN.  It’s a little artsy tourist spot and remains much the same to today.  Well, we were all going along and with 7 children made the obvious restroom stop.  There were three of us who were past 12 and we were supposed to keep an eye on our 3 year old cousin—well, we got distracted by something or another and when everyone came together outside the restroom door, Denise was lost.  I shall never forget the feeling of panic that spread through every one of us except, perhaps, her two-year-old brother.  Denise was the cutest little rolly polly curly blond, blue eyed little girl.   I realized much later why the adults in the group were terrified, she was a walking target for a predator.  After we split up, with screaming directions from our usually quite staid and dignified grandmother about how not to get further lost, we all scrambled down the crowded streets to find her.  I saw her first—several blocks away holding the hand of a nice looking young man who fortunately intended her no harm.   I was with one of her sisters and we both ran for her at the same time.  The horribleness of the feeling when she was lost was matched only by the gratitude and relief we all felt when she was found.  It’s a family story now, one which I am sure Denise is tired of hearing, but one which reminds us, even 45 years later, of the joy that we felt when she was ‘found”.  This is the joy of which Jesus speaks when the shepherd finds the lost sheep.  And the joy that I felt when my little cousin was retrieved is magnified one hundred-fold in the joy that Jesus is speaking of when one of God’s own is found. 

                Now many of us come from traditions where being lost equates in some theological way or another to being a “sinner”, “in sin” or however your earlier tradition may have described it.  And the older translations of today’s story seem to support just that.  But, today, I want to expand our idea of what it means to be lost and, much more importantly, what it means to be found.  If we look specifically at Jesus’ story of the lost sheep, it is easy to get a second read (an expanded read, if you will) about this story.  Ninety-nine sheep in this story are safely milling around together in the field.  The shepherd realizes that one sheep has become separated from the rest of the herd and from the shepherd herself or himself.  This separated sheep is who the shepherd goes to find.  And I ask you, have there not been times when you felt separated, different from everyone else in your world?   I think not many of us have made it to this place without some sense of being ‘lost’ from our world or ourselves, and maybe even our God. 

                We use the word lost in just this way—when a friend seems hopeless, alone, in despair—we say “she seems lost”.  “A lost soul” causes us to look on in compassion.  And so, lost makes more sense for many of us when we look at the separation from God, from each other, and even from ourselves that places us in a ‘lost’ place.  For those of you for whom the opposite of lost seems rightly to be saved, please do not hear me trivializing God’s act of salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I am merely expanding upon our understanding of lost, there is no necessity to choose one over the other.  For that is the very meaning of the Gospel, that Jesus brings us to a place where all our needs are met in Him, and through Him. 

                It is always important to look at the context of Jesus’ teachings and in this chapter it is crucial.  There were a lot of people who were not ‘socially acceptable’ hanging around Jesus.  Charles H. Spurgeon, by all reputation, one of the greatest preachers who ever lived, in a sermon in 1894, interestingly described the crowd around Jesus like this:  “OUR Lord Jesus Christ while he was here below was continually in the pursuit of lost souls. He was seeking lost men and women, and it was for this reason that he went down among them, even among those who were most evidently lost, that he might find them. He took pains to put himself where he could come into communication with them, and he exhibited such kindliness toward them that in crowds they drew near to hear him. I dare say it was a queer-looking assembly, a disreputable rabble, which made the Lord Jesus its centre.” 

It was an assembly indeed in which many of us would have been quite at home—Spurgeon suggests that these were the lostest of the lost—so lost that Jesus had to associate with folks he might otherwise would not just to be in the same place as they were so they could be found.  The religious scholars were criticizing Jesus for being seen with these unfortunate social outcasts.  It is in response to their criticism that Jesus tells the three stories that follow in Luke, Chapter 15.  He uses an interesting kind of argument—a “what would you do” argument which brought at least silence to their complaints if not agreement.  He started with an obvious argument that anyone living in the community could understand—sheep were considered to be one of the most significant signs of a family’s wealth.  So losing even one sheep would warrant the shepherd leaving the other sheep safely behind to go search for the one.  And indeed one might have called the neighbors to let them know that it was found.  The next two parables in His response illustrate with increasing value in each story just how much God rejoices over one of us when we are found.  In fact, Jesus didn’t much care about what the religious scholars thought of His ministry—He dismisses their concerns by saying “I am where I am supposed to be”. 

Let’s look at my family lost and found story one more time—I imagine many of you have similar stories—found children, found pets, found things.  The bottom line is that the story stayed active with my family for almost 50 years because of the joy that we experienced when she was found.  Had she not been found or been harmed in some way, the story would, at least in my fairly dysfunctional family, have become a dark secret that no one spoke about.  But in the finding, comes rejoicing and in rejoicing comes telling.  This is how we pass on the blessing of being found.  Many of us here today, have an “I was found” story.  If you are still waiting for God to find you, I pray that Open Circle is where you allow God to reach out and pick you up.  For we have no need to be lost to God, to each other and to ourselves.  Jesus tells us that God wants to find us; that God comes and associates with us, no matter who we are or how badly we feel.  Jesus is clear—let those who believe that they have no need for God or God’s people go their own way—Jesus wants to walk and talk and sit with those of us who have experienced great pain, who have been lost, separated from God’s people and, more importantly, separated from who God made us to be.  This is the Gospel we hear today—no matter what you have been told before, God made you to be who you are and God loves you—and when you lose your way, God comes looking for you. 

I invite you in the following weeks to see yourself more in the role of the shepherd that God is sending out to find those who have not yet heard the message of God’s complete and loving acceptance of all of us.  I think you do not have to look far to find someone so scarred by what the Pharisees and religious leaders of today have told them that they are lost to the family of God—for God’s sake, for their sake and for your sake—go find them.  Leave this open field where God’s sheep are gathered today and seek out the one who is lost.  We have been blessed by being found—may we find the compassion, commitment and fire inside us to go out and seek those who are waiting for this good news—those who are waiting to be found.  May we be the ones to welcome them home.  Amen and amen.  

The Blessing of Hope--Sermon Preached at Open Circle at The Villages MCC-6-13-10

        

Luke 11:9-10  

 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened.

Romans 5:5 

 And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 12:11-13 

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Romans 15:13 

 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

            Christopher Reeve once said, “Once you choose hope, anything's possible.”  He said this from a wheel chair while a respirator was enabling his body to breathe.  I know that the irony of this former superman being reduced to dependence on medical apparatus and physicians was not lost on any of us—I also know that his truly heroic life was lived in his profound commitment to hope and the cause of life after spinal cord injuries.  Christopher Reeve never gave up and his hope that paralysis from spinal cord injuries would one day be a thing of the past lives on in his foundation which continues to fund research and treatment.   

Hope is one of those words that is both a verb and a noun.  Here are two examples:  When in college, my son, David, would hope to pass a test, when, in fact, a few more hours of study would have given him the hope of passing with no problem.  I, looking down at my gas gauge, somewhere in the middle of nowhere on the Turnpike, hope that I will not have to call Terri and tell her that I am on the side of the road, when, remembering to stop at the gas station would have given me the sure hope of getting home on time.  As we think about hope, the blessing of hope, and what it means in our lives, I believe that we often confuse the verb with the noun.  And so, today, I want to speak with you for a brief moment about what hope can mean in our lives and the blessing of passing on our hope to others. 

You may have wondered how the gospel reading fits today with talking about hope.  My hope comes from knowing that every time I knock, God answers.  Now notice that I did not say, every time I knock, God answers and gives me exactly what I want, when I want it, how I want it…but God answers and I continue to learn that God’s ways will truly bless me with hope when my ways will often give me only more to hope for.   Claiming and rejoicing in hope means that we must embrace those sad times, those painful times, those seemingly hopeless times. 

 Christian writer Mary Lou Redding says:  “Our hope in God pulls us into the future. Hope allows us to affirm the reality of the abundant life that is ours in Christ. Hope allows us to stand with those in pain and to hold them until they are able to feel the love of God for themselves again. Hope allows us to work to bring God's reign upon the earth even when we see no results. Our hope begins and ends in God, the source of all hope.”  Her beliefs in the power of hope must surely come from scripture such as St. Paul’s benediction to the Roman Christians found in Romans 15:  “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” 

Now before some of you begin to politely turn me off, thinking that this is just another sermon on some spiritual concept that doesn’t truly play well in the real world—let me ask you to give me a few more moments to show you that this is not the case.  I, like many of you, have suffered at times in my life from depression.  As an adolescent, I had more than my share of hopelessness and spent most of my junior year in high school holed up in my house believing that there was something terribly wrong with me—(an actually quite common occurrence among gay adolescents who don’t have the support or even the vocabulary to express how differently they feel).  My mother probably believed that it was the well-meaning, though totally out of touch psychiatrist that put me back on my feet.  I know that it was a 75-year-old voice teacher who told me that if I would just keep singing, I had the gift to make a lot of people happy.  And so I sang, mostly about God and Jesus, the more I sang, the more I believed the words I was singing—those beliefs held me through some really, really bad times and I won’t try to tell you that I was never depressed again, but I was never depressed again like that.  In those turbulent adolescent days of discovery, the most valuable thing I discovered was the presence of a God who did not give up on me even when I did.  Ann Lamott sums it up for me.  She says, “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.”  And so there have been many times when I have shown up in the dark, and just kept singing—either figuratively or literally. 

Many of you will remember Norman Cousins, of “Anatomy of an Illness” fame.  He said this about hope:  “Hope is independent of the apparatus of logic.”  Now, if you do remember Norman Cousins, you know that he did not take the concept of hope or the need for hope lightly, he simply understood that hope cannot be explained, it must be experienced.  In his 1980 autobiography he says this about living well and for me, sums up his feelings about hope even thought the word does not appear.  This is his statement:  "I can imagine no greater satisfaction for a person, in looking back on his [or her] life and work, than to have been able to give some people, however few, a feeling of genuine pride in belonging to the human species and, beyond that, a zestful yen to justify that pride."  Norman Cousins, writer and social activist knew that hope springs up when we go about the business of making things better in this world for our sisters and brothers, for those we know and, just as importantly, for those we do not know. 

Listen then to my spiritual friend, Henri Nouwen when he says:  “When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”  I believe that the opposite of hope is not depression, but is, rather, fear—the fear that if we step out of our despair, hope will not be waiting—alas, there is only one way to find out and that is to step.  But despair is comfortable and safe—we know what despair and fear feel like.  And so often we do not step out of our fear, and knock on God’s door.  Charles L. Allen, one-time Pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Altanta, called us to remember that:  “When we [you] say a situation or a person is hopeless, we are [you're] slamming the door in the face of God.”
            Paul says to us in Romans 5, you just heard it, please hear it again, in light of my previous words:  “And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”  So, since hope will not put me to shame, I will step boldly up to God’s door and ask loudly. 

 But how do we pass this blessing of hope on to others?  Look  again at Paul’s, Nouwen’s and Cousins’ words.  Let me combine them into a single briefer sentence:  When we allow our despair to be changed through God’s Holy Spirit into a common celebration of hope, we give others a genuine gladness for being human along with us.  In so doing, we thereby pass along our hope. 

If you feel hopeless today, I pray that you do not walk away from this time together feeling alone.  This is the place where we come together to open the circle to bring each and every one into a place of shared journey.  And this is where we come together to refuel, to refresh, to form ministries, and to celebrate where we will take this shared journey of hope.  What greater gift do you have to give to someone who is hopeless than to give them your hope—to reach out and say “there is plenty to go around” for as we give from our own wells of hope they are wonderfully, and more surely refilled with the gift of hope from the Holy Spirit.  This is a place to come in despair and know that someone will meet your eyes and say, “I love you and I will hope with you as you step up to God’s door.”  This is a place to find and give the blessing of hope.  Amen and amen.

The Blessing of Being the Body--Sermon preached at Open Circle at The Villages 6-6-10

                Most of the time we do not consciously think about how our bodies work—well, that is until something that we take for granted suddenly stops working the way it should—all of a sudden the ways of a healthy body fascinate us.  Many of you may have seen the exhibit that was travelling around in the past few years that portrayed all the miniscule functions of our bones, muscles, organs, and skin.  Everyone who saw it was blown away by the detail and exquisite genius of how all the ‘parts’ work together to form a perfect whole.  Paul, in his writings to the baby Christians in Ephesus and Corinth, is calling them to understand that the body of Christ—the church—works in the same mysterious way as a human body—each part carrying its own load, yet depending on the other parts to function. 

                Much of the time when we think about growing in Christ, or spiritual formation, we think individually.  We ask ourselves if we are becoming the person that God wants us to be.  It is good for us to evaluate our own spiritual growth and to provide opportunities for others to grow spiritually, but Paul is calling us to look at the spiritual growth of entire congregations or churches.  John Ortberg, Pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian contrasts membership in a church with membership in a fitness center.  He says, “If I’m a member of a gym, it may not matter much to me what kind of shape other people are in.  I’m interested in my fitness.  I don’t have a strong investment in the fitness of other people.  In fact, I don’t mind a little flab in the bodies working out around me.  It makes me feel better by comparison.  I use the fitness center to get my body in shape.  The fitness center is a tool for individuals. “  But, he continues, “The church is not a spiritual fitness center.  The church is not a tool.  The church is a body.  It is the body.   It is Christ’s body.” 

                It has always interested me to note that Jesus ministered in community.  He was not a hermit, bequeathing an occasional visitation with a pilgrim every now and then.  Jesus lived in the very midst of the community to whom he ministered.  We don’t have much record of where He slept or how he and His disciples were fed.  His friends, his family, his followers were all present with him except on those rare occasions when he withdrew to spend some precious time alone with God.  Jesus shows us firsthand that He is indeed present “when two or three are gathered” in His name and it has been so from the time he first called James and John and turned those fishers of fish into fishers of people.  And so community began in the crowds who surrounded Jesus as He taught and continued into the
churches” of the first century. 

                Our scripture passages are taken from two of Paul’s letters—one to the Ephesians, and one to the Corinthians.  We do not find Paul exhorting individuals to go off and study and become highly learned individuals to lead the church.  No, what we find is Paul exhorting the churches to work it out among themselves, to recognize that when one part of the community suffers we all suffer, and when one is lifted up we are all lifted up.  He uses the same metaphor of the Body, the same Body that Jesus refers to in His celebration of what we now know of as communion the night before He submitted His earthly body to great pain and torture.  As He raises the bread, he says—this is my body, given for you.  Paul and the other early Christian writers continue this “Body-talk” and utilize the metaphor of the church as “the body of Christ” in both mystical and pragmatic ways. 

                If we, then, continue with the same metaphor, what does it reveal about the blessing we enjoy of being the “body” of Christ here in this place and in this time?  Let’s start with breathing—we have just finished celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit often referred to as the Breath of Life or of God.   But how do we know if the Spirit is breathing in our congregation.  It is not, as some would suspect dependent on the mood or feeling of our worship services.  No, the presence of the Holy Spirit is a particular expression of the Body of Christ is seen in the fruit of the Spirit.  Does gentleness and love abound? 

                John Orteg says this about the energy that comes into a congregation when the Spirit is breathing: “With vitality comes the willingness to try to walk, even if it means falling.  How strong is the impulse for new ventures in our church?”  How willing are people to take ministry risks?  To trust?  To forgive?  Do we celebrate first steps and fall-downs and getting back up...?”

                Circulation is almost as vital as breathing.  In fact, without the blood moving the oxygen that you are breathing in, into the tiniest crevices of your body, breathing would not be beneficial at all.  When blood fails to circulate properly usually because of a blockage of some sort, the oxygen of the Spirit is stifled and energy ceases to exist in the community.

                Muscles are what holds our bones together and makes a body able to work.  Muscles do the work of the body.  Therefore, muscles are about serving.  Great muscle tone is the same indicator of good health in a physical body as willingness to serve others is an indicator of spiritual health in a communal body.   Muscles surround the bones and give them the ability to stand or sit tall.  Without muscles, we are simply a ‘pile of bones’.   Our bones give us the ability to act, to build, to reach, to hold.  When we are the body, we will hold, we will touch, we will carry.  Just as is true in our physical health, muscles and bones must work together to share what we have experienced and even what we long to experience.  We all know that working apart, we cannot lift that beam, a team of 20 people working together lifts it almost effortlessly. 

            Two senses emerge as especially important—vision and hearing…This metaphor is obvious—do we know where we are going as the Body of Christ?  We see who God is, we see what great gifts God has given us and how wonderful God is to us.  Vision, different from mission, must precede any planning in the Body of Christ.  To begin walking without the vision of God’s goodness and greatness is much like tying a blindfold around your head and trying to navigate through a forest full of brush and undergrowth.  Having a mission without experiencing the vision, is a recipe for the emphasis to move from the reign of God’s justice to focus on programs and people, numbers and buildings.  When our eyes stay focused on God, and our steps will follow.   Not far behind is the importance of hearing—together we hear as a body, and we translate for each other what we hear God saying. 

                There is a wonderful little book, called Listening Hearts .  It was written in the context of the Christian Vocation Project.  It is intended for those who think that God might be calling them to work in the church, either as lay or ordained ministers.  These four authors, themselves demonstrating the power and energy that comes from working as a group in Jesus’ name, say this about the value of seeking God’s will within an active faith community:   “Something happens to us when we consult one another in Christian community.  In sharing our thoughts with others, surprising insights often emerge—opening our eyes to what we have not seen and our ears to what we have not heard.  This can transform and liberate us beyond our own narrow expectations…Although God calls each of us personally, as individuals we see only partially.  Individual perception, reasoning, and understanding are always limited…Because God often reveals part of the picture to one person and another part to another person, it is prudent to consult one another…”

                Indeed, Christ calls us together to be His body.  Paul reminds us when he reminds the Ephesians:  “In Christ the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in our God; in Christ you are being built into this temple, to become a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”  As we are being built into this temple, let us welcome and celebrate all the hands, and eyes, and ears, and hearts—all different in experience and perspective—all similar in purpose.  Today, we thank God for the blessing of being the Body of Christ.  Amen and amen.76

What's a Blessing--Sermon Preached 5-30-10

    

Today, we begin our series on Becoming a Blessing Church—I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the word “blessing”.  We use it a lot, throw it around some--Well, bless my soul…bless your little heart…bless God.  God bless you…

My spiritual mentor on my pathway through blessings is Fr. John O’Donohue—I’ve quoted from his works once before--, the late Irish priest who has done some phenomenal work on the nature and necessity of blessing.  He says:  “What is a blessing?  A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal and strengthen.  Life is a constant flow of emergence.  The beauty of blessing is its belief that it can affect what unfolds.”   Kinda stops you dead in your tracks—imagine believing that we can affect what unfolds in this constant flow of life. 

And he then continues:  “Our longing for the eternal kindles our imagination to bless.  Regardless of how we configure (or think about) the eternal, the human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, a place where everything comes together, where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise, where the travails of a life’s journey will enjoy a homecoming, to invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.”  When we combine these words, especially that part about calling wholeness upon a person with today’s scripture passage from Ephesians we are sent on our way to discuss the very depth and breadth of our understanding of the role that “blessing” plays in our lives. 

              The passage in Ephesians is a mini-study on the New Testament concept of blessing.   There are three New Testament Greek words related directly to the English word "blessing".  Eulogeitos is an adjective meaning "well spoken of; praised" and we can all identify a word that comes directly from this word.  Secondly, eulogew is a verb: "to speak well of; to praise; to call down God's gracious power".  Finally eulogia is the noun form, meaning "praise; fine speaking".  Because these concepts are basically Hebrew in origin, these words show up very seldom in Greek classical writing.   When one searches through a concordance or topical index under the word ‘blessing’ 85% of the results come from the Old Testament.  The New Testament Greek words are literal translations for the Hebrew words.  It is important to note that blessing must be defined as a description, the adjective; an act, the verb, and a thing, the noun.  Blessing is so powerful that it will not do to assign only one figure of speech to define it.  We will, over the summer weeks, look at blessing from these three perspectives as well as others—describing, being, and praising.

         Old Testament Jews believed that all blessings were owned by God and, therefore, dispensed by God.  The patriarchs such as, Adam, Noah, and Moses were all blessed by God.  For his part, Moses passed on a parting blessing to the Twelve Tribes of Israel in Deuteronomy.  In the Old Testament, the idea of "blessing" was also closely related to the question of inheritance, passing blessing from parent to child. Jacob blessed Joseph in Gen. 48:15, and Joseph's two sons. We must also remember that Old Testament Jews had a very sophisticated understanding of the sacred.  God was so sacred that you dare not speak the name aloud.  Places became sacred when God was encountered there.  Names were given to commemorate God’s visitation.  You may remember that Jacob names the place where he encounters the sacred “Bethel”.  This naming, the blessing of sacred space is consistent with our need to speak the blessing.  
         Unfortunately, when we attempt to understand passages such as the one from Ephesians, we English-speaking folks have a problem with defining the word ‘blessing’ for many reasons, but also because it is not a direct translation from the Greek.  Our word "blessing" is a borrowed word which finds its meaning because it has been used a long time, not because it is accurate.  We may wonder why the English word “blessing” was chosen to represent (eulogeitos).  Some believe that the English word is related to the German blestian which comes to us by way of heathen blood sacrifices.  More modern German renders the word das Blut which in turn becomes the English word blood.  Now, early Latin writers used the verb form (benedicere) to translate the Greek, preferring to offer the literal sense of the Greek.  Whatever the exact path, there is a long history--Jewish, pagan, Christian – that blends into the English use of the word "bless".  This diversion, more interesting to the English teachers among us, than others, nevertheless, leaves us in the challenging place of not knowing exactly what Paul was speaking of when he penned that passage to the new Christians in Ephesus.  
       One thought provoking study on the passage points us to the Spanish translation of in the Spanish, the word (bendito) is the past participle of the verb (bendecir).   Bendito means "to say good things or good words".  And so, we have come full circle.  The English equivalent to bendición is "benediction", also from the Greek by way of Latin.  To pronounce a benediction is to call upon God to send grace, peace, and mercy.  And we, and every other Christian church around does this almost every time we meet.  I suspect that most of the time we fail to grasp the significance of the act of proclaiming a benediction—coming at the end of the service as it tends to do.  I know for myself that my study of blessing has caused me to look squarely at my former willingness to pronounce a benediction upon a congregation while failing to step fully into the power of claiming that blessing from God. 

                Today’s conversation is one of several where we will look at the role of blessing in becoming a mature faith community.    If we are to spend the next several weeks talking about blessing, it is helpful for us to understand something of the journey one must traverse to reach our current understanding of blessing.  And so we have it:  from eulogeitos => benedicere => bendición => benediction => and, even to "praise"
       If we begin in today’s scripture, the word "blessing"—this “speaking well, this praise” recognizes the existence and deity of God. It suggests that our blessings, inner happiness and peace come from knowing who and what God is. It also tell us, from the Greek, that God views us in favorable terms, and that this positive attitude of love, grace, and mercy is extended toward us from before the beginning of time.  God blesses because God loves.  The spiritual gifts spoken of in Ephesians 1 are given because of God’s grace, the gift of salvation, and all other manifestations of God’s love towards us.  These are, in some sense, the good words, the blessings that God sends our way.  
         This passage deals with God's initiation and our response.  With our “good words” we in turn bless God.  You remember Fr. John O’Donohue from the beginning of this conversation.  He states this about blessings:  “The Bible is full of blessings.  They are seen as a communication of life from God.  Once the blessing is spoken, it cannot be annulled or recalled.” 

              Think of the impact on our lives if we begin to view God’s blessings as a “communication of life from God.”  If every time we meet and share the good news of God’s radical love and acceptance of us, we bless each other and ourselves, we begin to open up a floodgate of God’s gracious gifts that we best be ready to accept and pass on.  If every time we meet, we remember to bless the God who created and first blessed us, we begin to live into a place of constant communication of life from God and to God.  As we mature into a fuller understanding of the role of being blessed, accepting and living into God’s richest blessings, and desiring to reach out into the lives of others to bless them similarly, we will experience the grace of God to a depth, heighth, and breadth formerly unknown to us.  And this blessing transcends our meeting together, and becomes part and parcel of our walk in the world.  I leave you with one last word from Fr. O’Donohue:  “The beauty of blessing is that it recognizes no barriers—and no distances.”  Let’s walk together into this beauty of blessing—let’s discover what God really wants Open Circle to become.  Let’s welcome the moving of the Holy Spirit in our midst—releasing the blessings of God beyond our wildest imagination. 

              May the blessings of God be with us all.  Amen and amen.

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