First Reading—Titus 3: 3-8
At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, we were saved, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of Divine mercy. God saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, who was poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
Gospel Reading—Matthew 1: 18-25
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel” (which means “God with us”).
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
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They Will Call Him Emmanuel 12-25-11
God, our creator and redeemer, speak to us this day. Bring us to stand at the stable and worship. Let us hear what you have prepared for us to hear. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be a gift to you. Amen
I’m going to let you in on a little ministerial secret. When the holidays come around, whether it be Christmas or Easter, many preachers put a lot more work into their sermons—either because it just sort of goes along with our ideas that holidays are somehow special set-apart days or because we believe the myth—that some people only come to church on those days and if you are going to reach them, you’re going to have to reach them then. Not completely immune to those kinds of thoughts, I found myself struggling a bit to somehow give you what I thought would be an unforgettable Christmas Message this morning. Well, by Friday morning, I was still waiting for the inspiration for those words and as I prayed, a still small voice said to me, “why don’t you tell them what Christmas means to you?” Now, one of the things I have learned to do in my spiritual pilgrimage, although it took decades to happen—is not to argue with that still small voice. So here I am, my friends, brothers, and sisters, with simple words, telling you a little bit about what Christmas means to me.
Like many of you, I have many childhood memories, some wonderful, some not. I had the kind of childhood that social workers describe as difficult. And so some Christmases are filled with good memories, some not so good. For the first dozen or so years of my life, those negative memories are counter-balanced with the memories of the gatherings of my mother’s extended family. Every year, on Christmas Eve, the cousins of all ages would gather in the living room of the house my grandfather built and perform our own Christmas pageant. It will not surprise you to discover that I was the organizer of these pageants while my sister did all the stage work and costume gathering. I wrote the script or narration and assigned the various parts and acts into an orderly presentation. My Catholic cousins brought the music they had learned from the nuns and I will simply never forget my cousin Teresa’s yearly version of “Winds Through the Olive Trees” in an octave so high that it made my grandmother’s dogs run for cover. It was the annual event where the cousins who had grown old enough to walk, talk, and follow simple directions, made their theatrical and musical debut. We were very inclusive, everybody had a part, whether they wanted one or not, and in the end, it was a show that made these country-folk proud. And in retrospect, I can recount the ways the simple family gatherings began to affirm my vocation, long before I knew that I had one.
I have later memories as well, of course. I still curse the day I decided to buy a specific must-have ride-on toy for my son’s first Christmas. I thought the stories about staying up all night putting together toys were myths—made up by my mother to make me more grateful for Christmas. After that night, I knew the truth, and selected toys the next year that either came assembled or appeared much easier to handle. There are Christmas pictures of David as a two-year-old, shunning the toys to play in the boxes, Christmases when he wanted to be mature and hide the fact that he hoped very much that Santa was real, and one very special memory of my son at 20 agreeing to sing a duet with his mother at the Christmas Candlelight Vigil at the Episcopal Church we attended.
And, what about now—our thoughts and feelings are rooted in the past, but they find inspiration in the insight that comes with living life just a little bit longer than the last time we gave the meaning of Christmas serious thought. In all honesty, I sometimes grow as weary of “Jesus is the reason for the season” as I do of Santa Claus so close to Halloween, that we practically hear Christmas carols in the stores while the pumpkins are being carved. For if we are going to claim Jesus as the reason for the season, we need to be ready to tell people why. And the why is revealed succinctly and precisely in the holy name, given to the baby in today’s Gospel Reading—“Emmanuel”—God with us—Emmanuel! In the moment of a baby’s birth, humankind’s relationship to God was changed forever. God, incarnate in the tiny baby in the straw, eliminated the former distance between God, the creator and us, the creation. Though God had always been present in the creation, we were unable to grasp it. So God, incarnate in a tiny baby, became one of us, taking on the form of the very creation. Creation and Creator become a sacred oneness—turning the world’s idea of God inside out. No longer separate from our Creator, we act, not as mere agents for God; no, we act as men and women who are inhabited by the very God who made us and breathed life into our being.
This is why Jesus is the reason for the season—because through Divine Mercy, says our scripture, God saved us—not because of anything we have done but because God chose to bridge the gap between Creator and Creation. And in the bridging of the gap—Emmanuel, God with us, changes who all of us would be—then, now, and forever. For you see, with the incoming of God into the world, with God incarnate in a tiny human being who would grow up to teach and heal and preach—and suffer and die, we would never be the same. God made, for all to see, the sacred connection between us and the Holy by coming to earth in the person of Jesus. And those who sought to follow Jesus, began the journey of learning to live as changed persons, not just in the moment, but for the long haul. Here was God, our Creator accessible in everyday life. This revolution of God was so radical that some could not believe; some still tried to find what was required of us.
This seeking—this inability to believe that God has reached out with arms wide open and welcomed all of creation into the Divine Reign of Justice, has led humankind to try some pretty wild things at times. Our Church history books are full of folks who refused to accept the simplicity of the gospel and sometimes went a long way in the opposite of simple trying to justify themselves before God. But our scripture is clear: “…when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, we were saved, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of Divine mercy.” We know, then, that humankind was made one with God, through grace. Through God’s action we are “heirs having the hope of eternal life”.
Now lest you think I have wandered off into some not very useful theological gobbledy-gook—let me answer the question one more time. What does Christmas mean to me? Christmas means that God has welcomed me and shown me the way into the divine exceeding abundance that we have spoken of off and on for almost a year.
Christmas means that no matter what, God has issued the invitation to live in Divine Grace and nothing I can do can nullify that fact. God loves me whether or not I love God back, or even love myself. God’s promise, made real, in the walking and talking Jesus, shows me how much I am loved. And I am loved, exactly the way I am, sometimes saintly, most of the time quite a collection of starts and stops along the way. Christmas means that God’s will for the creation is, indeed, peace and sacred harmony; and that God’s will for me is to live in the peace that passes understanding and to encourage others to do the same. Christmas means that I am incapable of making this gift unavailable to me. I can refuse to accept it, I can stand outside the door and fail to knock; but it will always be there for me. This is Christmas—the wonder of it all. Christmas doesn’t end with the baby Jesus; it begins there. And Silent Night comes anywhere where God’s people renounce their hatred and greed, and turn an open heart toward God. Christmas means that I will never be alone again; that God is here, present in the Holy Spirit who fills my heart with peace and love. As we worship together for the last time in this year, may our hearts be made glad by the light of the star that still shines, leading us to the fullness of the spirit, now and forever. Amen and amen.
Welcome!
Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011 --Christmas Musical
Gospel Lesson 1—John 1:1-5, 9-14 --In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has
been made. In him was life, and that life was the Light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness has not overcome it.
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from God, full of grace and truth.
Gospel Lesson 2—Luke 2: 8-19
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Advent Reflection 1
Our songs today lead us in the path towards Christmas Eve—that night of all nights when Jesus was born in a stable with only his mother and earthly father present in the midst of God’s creatures. We don’t really know what animals were there. The stable likely held the innkeeper’s camel—not a really delightful animal at all. There were probably oxen, cows, and lambs, and even chickens—animals that either served as beasts of burden or as a future food source. There was no nurse or mid-wife, save the angelic kind, and Joseph was left to tend to the rather messiness of a human baby’s birth all by himself.
Artists and theologians cleaned that scene up as soon as they were able. Even the Gospel writers failed to record the actual birthing of Jesus; a baby simply appears and is wrapped in swaddling clothes. We see lovely paintings and statues from early centuries with a wonderfully bright star and angel floating overhead. Theologians moved rather quickly to argue only the meaning of the child’s birth and, even now, no one thinks that it is polite to mention that most women scream when they are in labor, and human babies and their mothers need a good deal of cleaning up before they are ready to receive company. What is it about this birth that makes us so queasy to talk about the actuality of it as we move rather quickly to singing angels in the heavens, cute little shepherd boys, and majestic royal kings bringing lovely packaged gifts of the highest treasure?
It seems to me that once we acknowledge that Mary probably moaned in labor, that Jesus cried like any other infant when he was hungry and that the new earthly father, Joseph, more than likely was scared to death when left to handle this birth alone, we come to terms with the fact that Jesus truly was one of us. Unfortunately, the theologians began rather early to formulate a saintly, sanitized version of the birth of the savior, which pointed more to halos then to the helplessness of a newborn. This begins, at least subconsciously, a long road of denial that the God of all Creation, became not only one of us; but, in the person of Jesus Christ, was like us in every way. It is in this identification of Jesus as fully God, fully human—that we lose our excuses that God cannot possibly understand all the pain, confusion and rejection that we have experienced in our lives. Only when we embrace the divinity AND humanity of Jesus, can we respond to this Jesus who stands in front of us this day with outstretched arms, welcoming us into a shared sacred journey—a journey of daily walking in the presence of the One who has walked this way before.
Advent Reflection 2
And so we celebrate the birth of our savior; we join in the songs and speak our praise aloud. We rejoice with the joy of God’s exceeding abundance. Is this not the time for us to let go of all that darkens the light of the Christ-child and walk gladly into that stable. Why not imagine with me, just for a second, that you are standing in front of the stall? See the smile of the proud parents, who are protectively, yet proudly, holding their child for you to see. Why here, why now? You have come to this place because of a call that would not let you go—a summons from somewhere deep in your heart that you had to see for yourself. And here you stand, reveling in the knowledge that you have followed the call this time, no excuses, no detours, nothing standing in the way. This time you kneel in worship because you listened with your spirit and followed your heart to the source of the goodness and hope that rises up within you. This time, you open your heart to the True Light, the light that brings focus and clarity to our understanding.
So many other times you have felt the call but have not followed. Why this time? So many other things could have called you away; but you listened and then you took the chance that God would be waiting for you—God in a manger, with straw for a bed. So very simple, and yet so many of us wait—feeling unworthy, unable to come. And, yet, you came. A miracle occurrs. You hear the revelation that God is coming to earth; you open your heart to transformation, and you experience a sacred redemption. In the incarnation of the Holy Child, we come to know that we are welcome, that, like the baby in the manger, we are included as children of God. We come to know this when others come with us, those who have welcomed us into a place where we can feel the sweet touch of God’s love—that transforming love that allows us to know that we are accepted as we are—that we are held in the loving embrace of God because of who we are, not in spite of who we are. You come and we stand together in the light of the star, gazing at a baby, a baby not just like us, but a baby who is one of us—who will grow and hear the taunts and jeers one day and will have to answer the same question that we answer. “Am I a child of God?” And, so God declares to Jesus and to us—“This is my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased”. This is our promise today as we stand here, God lovingly lifts us up with a divine wellspring of mercy and grace. This is our promise today, that we know we are loved. And, we are finally home. Amen and Amen.
God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has
been made. In him was life, and that life was the Light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness has not overcome it.
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from God, full of grace and truth.
Gospel Lesson 2—Luke 2: 8-19
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Advent Reflection 1
Our songs today lead us in the path towards Christmas Eve—that night of all nights when Jesus was born in a stable with only his mother and earthly father present in the midst of God’s creatures. We don’t really know what animals were there. The stable likely held the innkeeper’s camel—not a really delightful animal at all. There were probably oxen, cows, and lambs, and even chickens—animals that either served as beasts of burden or as a future food source. There was no nurse or mid-wife, save the angelic kind, and Joseph was left to tend to the rather messiness of a human baby’s birth all by himself.
Artists and theologians cleaned that scene up as soon as they were able. Even the Gospel writers failed to record the actual birthing of Jesus; a baby simply appears and is wrapped in swaddling clothes. We see lovely paintings and statues from early centuries with a wonderfully bright star and angel floating overhead. Theologians moved rather quickly to argue only the meaning of the child’s birth and, even now, no one thinks that it is polite to mention that most women scream when they are in labor, and human babies and their mothers need a good deal of cleaning up before they are ready to receive company. What is it about this birth that makes us so queasy to talk about the actuality of it as we move rather quickly to singing angels in the heavens, cute little shepherd boys, and majestic royal kings bringing lovely packaged gifts of the highest treasure?
It seems to me that once we acknowledge that Mary probably moaned in labor, that Jesus cried like any other infant when he was hungry and that the new earthly father, Joseph, more than likely was scared to death when left to handle this birth alone, we come to terms with the fact that Jesus truly was one of us. Unfortunately, the theologians began rather early to formulate a saintly, sanitized version of the birth of the savior, which pointed more to halos then to the helplessness of a newborn. This begins, at least subconsciously, a long road of denial that the God of all Creation, became not only one of us; but, in the person of Jesus Christ, was like us in every way. It is in this identification of Jesus as fully God, fully human—that we lose our excuses that God cannot possibly understand all the pain, confusion and rejection that we have experienced in our lives. Only when we embrace the divinity AND humanity of Jesus, can we respond to this Jesus who stands in front of us this day with outstretched arms, welcoming us into a shared sacred journey—a journey of daily walking in the presence of the One who has walked this way before.
Advent Reflection 2
And so we celebrate the birth of our savior; we join in the songs and speak our praise aloud. We rejoice with the joy of God’s exceeding abundance. Is this not the time for us to let go of all that darkens the light of the Christ-child and walk gladly into that stable. Why not imagine with me, just for a second, that you are standing in front of the stall? See the smile of the proud parents, who are protectively, yet proudly, holding their child for you to see. Why here, why now? You have come to this place because of a call that would not let you go—a summons from somewhere deep in your heart that you had to see for yourself. And here you stand, reveling in the knowledge that you have followed the call this time, no excuses, no detours, nothing standing in the way. This time you kneel in worship because you listened with your spirit and followed your heart to the source of the goodness and hope that rises up within you. This time, you open your heart to the True Light, the light that brings focus and clarity to our understanding.
So many other times you have felt the call but have not followed. Why this time? So many other things could have called you away; but you listened and then you took the chance that God would be waiting for you—God in a manger, with straw for a bed. So very simple, and yet so many of us wait—feeling unworthy, unable to come. And, yet, you came. A miracle occurrs. You hear the revelation that God is coming to earth; you open your heart to transformation, and you experience a sacred redemption. In the incarnation of the Holy Child, we come to know that we are welcome, that, like the baby in the manger, we are included as children of God. We come to know this when others come with us, those who have welcomed us into a place where we can feel the sweet touch of God’s love—that transforming love that allows us to know that we are accepted as we are—that we are held in the loving embrace of God because of who we are, not in spite of who we are. You come and we stand together in the light of the star, gazing at a baby, a baby not just like us, but a baby who is one of us—who will grow and hear the taunts and jeers one day and will have to answer the same question that we answer. “Am I a child of God?” And, so God declares to Jesus and to us—“This is my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased”. This is our promise today as we stand here, God lovingly lifts us up with a divine wellspring of mercy and grace. This is our promise today, that we know we are loved. And, we are finally home. Amen and Amen.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Holy and Whole 12-11-11
FIRST READING— First Thessalonians, Chapter 5, vs. 16-24
Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.
Don't suppress the Spirit, and don't stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don't be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what's good. Throw out anything tainted with evil. May God, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he'll do it!
Gospel Reading –John 3: 16-21
"This is how much God loved the world: God gave the one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending the Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the only-begotten Son of God.
"This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is."
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God, you call us to walk with you and talk with you. You promise us your peace and we live in your grace. Transform our lives. May your sacred redemption teach us new ways to love you and care for others. Take the words of my mouth and meditation of all our hearts and bring us new truth this day. Amen
Last week we talked about the relationship between revelation and transformation. We concluded that the so-called “proof” or validity of the revelation could be seen in the transformation of those to whom the revelation is given. There are examples of this recorded throughout Jesus’ life. True encounters with the Son of God resulted in changed people: a Samaritan women finds the reality of true worship when she engages Jesus at the well and she runs off to the entire village telling what she has just learned; sick people are healed and cannot be quieted as they rejoice with their friends and neighbors; the Gerasene demoniac becomes a new man, free from the demons of mental illness and schizophrenia. The disciples, upon hearing his revelational call on their lives, stop what they are doing and become his trusted followers and friends.
In our own lives, we know of transformation after transformation when people meet the real Jesus and learn to journey through life with that same Jesus at their side. We have seen people lost in grief and depression find hope again in the healing words of God through Christ Jesus. We have seen alcoholics become sober, and people lost in doubt and self-hatred transformed into people who are content in this world. We have seen our very own congregation transformed into a warm and loving place by the revelation that God loves us just as we are.
This week, I want to expand our conversation and talk about the relationship between transformation and redemption. I believe that God is in the business of redemption—no fact is clearer in our Gospel reading than that. John 3:16 is a verse of scripture that many of us learned practically before we could read. For God so loved the world, that the only begotten Son was sent to redeem the world and give everlasting life to those who believe. The scripture continues and says to us, that this only begotten Son was not sent to the world to condemn the world, but to bring redemption and salvation to us all. Our translation this morning says, “He came to help, to put the world right again.” Listen to this sentence again, with a spirit that is free from all the condemnation we learned to heap upon ourselves when we were mere children. “He, Jesus came to help us, to put our world right again.” Now there are those who would argue that this passage is only about redemption when it is linked to the hereafter—and while the passage does point to eternal life; that is only half of the meaning of this very important passage, and it is the other half that we will look at today. Our Gospel reading tells us that anyone who seeks the God who loves us abundantly, can have a whole and lasting life. And from this encounter with God through Jesus, the reality of a changed life is revealed. The transformation that is promised in this passage is simple—“Anyone working and living in truth and reality (through the revelation of God’s love) welcomes the light of God, so that their work can be “seen for the God-work it is.”
Everything about this revelation, transformation and redemption reinforces our knowledge of God as a loving Creator, who not only blew the breath of life into the creation, but also continues to love the creation despite our very real difficulty to stay focused on our relationship with God. It always amazes me that many preachers and teachers speak only on the negative aspects of this scripture—you know, the whole damnation part. I think you know me better. I believe that God is much more interested in offering redemption, than in proclaiming the ‘lostness’ of those who choose not to walk this journey. Our God is an inviting God. I believe that God intends for us to gratefully embrace and learn of the great love that we are offered when we walk the sacred walk with God (now and forever), through the welcoming of Jesus into our mind, bodies, and spirits. Less you think that I am preaching an “easy” Gospel, let me assure you that I am not.
This revelation, transformation, redemption journey requires us to spend time learning to walk with God. There is a cute story about a little six-year-old. This little boy was very bright, way beyond his peers in understanding. His mother, knowing that he understood many things about God and Jesus , decided that it was time for her to talk to her son about inviting Jesus into his heart. She found just the right time and softly asked, “Ethan, would you like to have Jesus in your heart?” Ethan thought for a few moments and then said, “No, I don’t think I want that responsibility.” We chuckle at little Ethan and, yet, it is not so different for many of us.
Ethan is right, of course. Even those of us who are well beyond childhood, sometimes tremble at what God’s great love causes us to do in our response. Listen to the words of Paul in our first reading today: “May God, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body…” Here is where sacred redemption enters the story. A very long time ago, I realized that there are many places in my heart that needed God’s redemption. Now, I am still learning what all those places are. We hear the words of the Gospel—that God loves us exactly as we are and welcomes us, through Christ Jesus, into the God’s kingdom. We begin the transformation process the moment we open our hearts to hear the words of Christ—“come unto me”. And as we walk the way of transformation, we open our hearts deeper and wider and we begin the journey of transformation that will lead to redemption.
I believe that the God who makes us holy and whole is a God who will begin, as we are able, to show us those places in our spirits, souls, and bodies that, when healed, will lead us into a realm of redemption that we rarely believe is possible. For me, this process of redemption looks like this—as I travel the roads with Jesus and allow God to continuously reveal the gift of divine love, more and more places in my heart become visible—more and more places that need redemption. I offer those places up to our loving God, and when I am willing to let go of that particular pain or regret, it is redeemed by God’s love. God longs for us to be holy and whole—this means that as we grow in the Spirit, we see a gradual realignment in our heart. The dark and lonely places are slowly replaced with redeemed joyful places. This is our journey this Advent Season—to recognize our responsibility to become the holy and whole people that God calls us to be. And, in a wonderful miracle of transformation and release, we become new.
Now, like many of you, I learned that “being saved” was a one-time isolated event. That does not, however, fit with my experience of the day-in and day-out ‘saving’ of these troubled places in my heart. And the older I grow, the more I see the wisdom of 8-year-old Ethan. We do have a responsibility when we see, hear, and touch the revelation of God’s great love. Our responsibility is to open our hearts to allow God to show us all those harmful thoughts, feelings, and events that we carry around in our spirits, hearts, and minds, and allow the redemption of God to lovingly exchange them, as we allow ourselves to be transformed, into redeemed places of celebration on our shared journey with God. The more we, day after day, open our hearts to God’s grace and forgiveness, the more whole we become. Becoming whole is rarely a one-time event. Becoming whole comes as we struggle and believe, doubt and commit.
As we become whole, we are growing in holiness. Our three-fold process of revelation, transformation, and redemption, allows us to revel in God’s sacred wholeness, Because God has put us back together—spirit, soul, and body—we experience the presence of the holy in our lives. Is this not, indeed, the joy that will fill our spirits to overflowing as we celebrate the redemption of our hearts and the transformation of our lives, through the revelation of God to us? As Christ comes again this Christmas, may we be found ready, may we be found listening, and may we be found longing for the revelation of God ‘s wholeness and holiness prepared for each and every one of us. Amen and Amen.
Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.
Don't suppress the Spirit, and don't stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don't be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what's good. Throw out anything tainted with evil. May God, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he'll do it!
Gospel Reading –John 3: 16-21
"This is how much God loved the world: God gave the one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending the Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the only-begotten Son of God.
"This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God, you call us to walk with you and talk with you. You promise us your peace and we live in your grace. Transform our lives. May your sacred redemption teach us new ways to love you and care for others. Take the words of my mouth and meditation of all our hearts and bring us new truth this day. Amen
Last week we talked about the relationship between revelation and transformation. We concluded that the so-called “proof” or validity of the revelation could be seen in the transformation of those to whom the revelation is given. There are examples of this recorded throughout Jesus’ life. True encounters with the Son of God resulted in changed people: a Samaritan women finds the reality of true worship when she engages Jesus at the well and she runs off to the entire village telling what she has just learned; sick people are healed and cannot be quieted as they rejoice with their friends and neighbors; the Gerasene demoniac becomes a new man, free from the demons of mental illness and schizophrenia. The disciples, upon hearing his revelational call on their lives, stop what they are doing and become his trusted followers and friends.
In our own lives, we know of transformation after transformation when people meet the real Jesus and learn to journey through life with that same Jesus at their side. We have seen people lost in grief and depression find hope again in the healing words of God through Christ Jesus. We have seen alcoholics become sober, and people lost in doubt and self-hatred transformed into people who are content in this world. We have seen our very own congregation transformed into a warm and loving place by the revelation that God loves us just as we are.
This week, I want to expand our conversation and talk about the relationship between transformation and redemption. I believe that God is in the business of redemption—no fact is clearer in our Gospel reading than that. John 3:16 is a verse of scripture that many of us learned practically before we could read. For God so loved the world, that the only begotten Son was sent to redeem the world and give everlasting life to those who believe. The scripture continues and says to us, that this only begotten Son was not sent to the world to condemn the world, but to bring redemption and salvation to us all. Our translation this morning says, “He came to help, to put the world right again.” Listen to this sentence again, with a spirit that is free from all the condemnation we learned to heap upon ourselves when we were mere children. “He, Jesus came to help us, to put our world right again.” Now there are those who would argue that this passage is only about redemption when it is linked to the hereafter—and while the passage does point to eternal life; that is only half of the meaning of this very important passage, and it is the other half that we will look at today. Our Gospel reading tells us that anyone who seeks the God who loves us abundantly, can have a whole and lasting life. And from this encounter with God through Jesus, the reality of a changed life is revealed. The transformation that is promised in this passage is simple—“Anyone working and living in truth and reality (through the revelation of God’s love) welcomes the light of God, so that their work can be “seen for the God-work it is.”
Everything about this revelation, transformation and redemption reinforces our knowledge of God as a loving Creator, who not only blew the breath of life into the creation, but also continues to love the creation despite our very real difficulty to stay focused on our relationship with God. It always amazes me that many preachers and teachers speak only on the negative aspects of this scripture—you know, the whole damnation part. I think you know me better. I believe that God is much more interested in offering redemption, than in proclaiming the ‘lostness’ of those who choose not to walk this journey. Our God is an inviting God. I believe that God intends for us to gratefully embrace and learn of the great love that we are offered when we walk the sacred walk with God (now and forever), through the welcoming of Jesus into our mind, bodies, and spirits. Less you think that I am preaching an “easy” Gospel, let me assure you that I am not.
This revelation, transformation, redemption journey requires us to spend time learning to walk with God. There is a cute story about a little six-year-old. This little boy was very bright, way beyond his peers in understanding. His mother, knowing that he understood many things about God and Jesus , decided that it was time for her to talk to her son about inviting Jesus into his heart. She found just the right time and softly asked, “Ethan, would you like to have Jesus in your heart?” Ethan thought for a few moments and then said, “No, I don’t think I want that responsibility.” We chuckle at little Ethan and, yet, it is not so different for many of us.
Ethan is right, of course. Even those of us who are well beyond childhood, sometimes tremble at what God’s great love causes us to do in our response. Listen to the words of Paul in our first reading today: “May God, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body…” Here is where sacred redemption enters the story. A very long time ago, I realized that there are many places in my heart that needed God’s redemption. Now, I am still learning what all those places are. We hear the words of the Gospel—that God loves us exactly as we are and welcomes us, through Christ Jesus, into the God’s kingdom. We begin the transformation process the moment we open our hearts to hear the words of Christ—“come unto me”. And as we walk the way of transformation, we open our hearts deeper and wider and we begin the journey of transformation that will lead to redemption.
I believe that the God who makes us holy and whole is a God who will begin, as we are able, to show us those places in our spirits, souls, and bodies that, when healed, will lead us into a realm of redemption that we rarely believe is possible. For me, this process of redemption looks like this—as I travel the roads with Jesus and allow God to continuously reveal the gift of divine love, more and more places in my heart become visible—more and more places that need redemption. I offer those places up to our loving God, and when I am willing to let go of that particular pain or regret, it is redeemed by God’s love. God longs for us to be holy and whole—this means that as we grow in the Spirit, we see a gradual realignment in our heart. The dark and lonely places are slowly replaced with redeemed joyful places. This is our journey this Advent Season—to recognize our responsibility to become the holy and whole people that God calls us to be. And, in a wonderful miracle of transformation and release, we become new.
Now, like many of you, I learned that “being saved” was a one-time isolated event. That does not, however, fit with my experience of the day-in and day-out ‘saving’ of these troubled places in my heart. And the older I grow, the more I see the wisdom of 8-year-old Ethan. We do have a responsibility when we see, hear, and touch the revelation of God’s great love. Our responsibility is to open our hearts to allow God to show us all those harmful thoughts, feelings, and events that we carry around in our spirits, hearts, and minds, and allow the redemption of God to lovingly exchange them, as we allow ourselves to be transformed, into redeemed places of celebration on our shared journey with God. The more we, day after day, open our hearts to God’s grace and forgiveness, the more whole we become. Becoming whole is rarely a one-time event. Becoming whole comes as we struggle and believe, doubt and commit.
As we become whole, we are growing in holiness. Our three-fold process of revelation, transformation, and redemption, allows us to revel in God’s sacred wholeness, Because God has put us back together—spirit, soul, and body—we experience the presence of the holy in our lives. Is this not, indeed, the joy that will fill our spirits to overflowing as we celebrate the redemption of our hearts and the transformation of our lives, through the revelation of God to us? As Christ comes again this Christmas, may we be found ready, may we be found listening, and may we be found longing for the revelation of God ‘s wholeness and holiness prepared for each and every one of us. Amen and Amen.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Mystery in a Nutshell
FIRST READING—Colossians 1: 26-29 and 2: 2, 3
This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.
I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery!
SECOND READING—Luke 1: 46-55
Mary said:
“My soul proclaims your greatness, O God,
And my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior.
For you have looked with favor
Upon your lowly servant,
And from this day forward
All generations will call me blessed.
For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me,
And holy is your Name.
Your mercy reaches from age to age
For those who fear you.
You have shown strength with your arm;
You have scattered the proud in their conceit;
You have deposed the mighty from their thrones
And raised the lowly to high places.
You have filled the hungry with good things,
While you have sent the rich away empty.
You have come to the aid of Israel your servant,
Mindful of your mercy—
The promise you made to our ancestors—
To Sarah and Abraham
And their descendants forever.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God, you call us to a very special place—a place where you walk with us and make known your love for us. God, teach us what you would have us know and give us the courage to embrace all that is mystery. May the words of my mouth and the reflections of all our hearts honor you. Amen
When I was a kid, I liked to sit and crack open the walnuts to get to the meat of the nut that I would then eat or put them in a jar for my mother to use in her baking. You, see, the walnuts grew in our front yard. It was a fun game of sorts. I guess I was easily entertained as a child. It will not surprise most of you, that I tried with walnut after walnut to crack the shell and leave the nut untouched, completely in one piece—a wonderful prize for my careful work. Perfectionism starts early and runs deep. If my sister was also doing this, we had grand contests as to who could crack the most whole, half, and quarters. As I think of it now, I must admit that my mother had quite a scheme going to get those walnuts shelled at Christmas time. Of course, today, I wouldn’t think of spending time cracking walnuts and looking for perfection. Instead, I buy them by the pound, shelled, and I must admit, that although I still love their taste, something of the wonder has been lost in the process.
And so today, we come to hear and understand the mystery that we call Christmas. I believe that the words of Paul to the young Christian Colossians, is one of the most powerful descriptions of the divine mystery written. Paul says: “This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple” —lovely indeed, but challenging as well. From the very beginning God’s Word calls us to consider the relationship between revelation and transformation. The linchpin of the mystery itself, the proof of the mystery is in the transformation of the ones to whom it is revealed.
Now, while the mystery itself is simple, it remains hidden from a good many folks, perhaps because the actual Christmas story does not line up with their preconceived and deeply treasured vision of God or perhaps because of their inability to see the correlation between revelation and transformation. If one sees God as a Judge, handing out sentences for our spiritual crimes, or if one sees God as the magical genie who is waiting to pour out worldly prosperity upon a demanding world, or if one sees God as a God who takes sides in battles, both physical and liturgical, one will miss the simplicity of the message. If one believes that some are worthy to receive the message, and some are not, one will most certainly miss the message. And it is clear that if one sees God as an aloof divine being who merely controls the creation as puppets or metes out rewards and punishments and expects nothing in return, one will have missed the mystery as well.
To understand the mystery of Christmas, we must be able to sacrifice the expectations of a needy world. Though long expected to come in glory and majesty, God, the creator of the world, came not in glorious triumph; but rather through the moans of childbirth as a tiny baby crying for his mother. And this mother is but a young girl, a young girl who first hears the mystery in the words of the angel and then responds with her complete willingness to be transformed. As seekers together we marvel at Mary’s ability to believe and be transformed. We know that this transformation will be expensive for Mary—some will fail to understand and she will be condemned. Presented with a dangerous and costly mystery, Mary chooses to follow God—“I am the servant of God. Let these things happen exactly as you have said.”
Are we willing to be transformed and blessed as the mystery unfolds? Will we surrender to the divine mystery? Do we even know how? We hear Mary’s longer response in the beautiful song she sings at the home of her cousin, Elizabeth—a song that reveals her complete surrender to God and her willingness to be changed by the unfolding mystery. Mary said: “My soul proclaims your greatness, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior.” Mary knows that she cannot understand what God is doing by human reasoning. Her sacred agreement comes from her soul—the spiritual places deep inside her, Mary, the young girl, knows instinctively that the mystery can only be known by the Spirit of God who resides in her. Acknowledging the divine blessing she has received, she says, “For you have looked with favor upon your lowly servant; and from this day forward, all generations will call me blessed.”
Now, quite obviously, we are not all called to be the Mother of God. We are, however, all are called to be vessels who are willing to be changed through a blessed transformation—a conversion of heart that God will use to reveal the mystery to others. And we become the transformed agent of God bringing the message of revolution and change. Seeking worldly understanding, we will all necessarily fail. Patiently awaiting divine revelation, our spirits ready themselves for the visit of the Christ-child again. Paul, knowing that we would struggle, assures us that we have already received the mystery because God has made it so. It is up to each one of us to recognize the mystery and be transformed or to travel on looking for something else. Paul gives us a beautiful description of the outcome of transformation. He says, “I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery!”
One can see that what appears simple to Paul does not always seem so simple to the church universal. Two thousand years later, we are still fighting among ourselves over the content and context of this mystery. Not only what it means to have Christ in you, but also, who is allowed access to the mystery and, more importantly, who isn’t. We’ve come a long way from simple—and somewhere in the mire of creeds and doctrines, rules and policies, we may have substituted complexity for simplicity and lost quite a few folks along the way. Perhaps you are one of the folks we lost along the way. If so, I invite you as I invite all of us, to return to the simple message of Advent—that the Christ-child is coming and we have all been called to welcome him into our hearts and spirits. And rebirth occurs. The ones to whom the mystery is revealed become the ones transformed.
Paul seemed to know, well ahead of the Councils or Conventions or Conferences that we would not do so well with simple. Hear what he said, “We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less.”
There are those of you sitting here today who are celebrating this Christmas season in a community of faith for the first time in years. And you, like all of us, bring wounded hearts and spirits to this time and place. Perhaps you are afraid to let go of the past; perhaps you are still not sure that this mystery and spirit-talk is for you. Today, I ask you, with love in my heart for each and everyone, won’t you open your hearts to the possibility of a mystery so simple, that all can receive.
Some of us may have lost our way while looking for a complex theology or philosophy that answers all our questions. Some of us are seeking a new experience of God. Wherever we are on this day, I invite all of us, to return to spiritual maturity which is basic—that the Christ-child is coming and we have all been called to welcome him into our hearts and spirits—that we are all called to look in the face of a tiny baby and know that God, the Creator of the world is coming to redeem the world again, and again, and again, until the end of time. Hallelujah! Amen and amen.
This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.
I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery!
SECOND READING—Luke 1: 46-55
Mary said:
“My soul proclaims your greatness, O God,
And my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior.
For you have looked with favor
Upon your lowly servant,
And from this day forward
All generations will call me blessed.
For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me,
And holy is your Name.
Your mercy reaches from age to age
For those who fear you.
You have shown strength with your arm;
You have scattered the proud in their conceit;
You have deposed the mighty from their thrones
And raised the lowly to high places.
You have filled the hungry with good things,
While you have sent the rich away empty.
You have come to the aid of Israel your servant,
Mindful of your mercy—
The promise you made to our ancestors—
To Sarah and Abraham
And their descendants forever.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God, you call us to a very special place—a place where you walk with us and make known your love for us. God, teach us what you would have us know and give us the courage to embrace all that is mystery. May the words of my mouth and the reflections of all our hearts honor you. Amen
When I was a kid, I liked to sit and crack open the walnuts to get to the meat of the nut that I would then eat or put them in a jar for my mother to use in her baking. You, see, the walnuts grew in our front yard. It was a fun game of sorts. I guess I was easily entertained as a child. It will not surprise most of you, that I tried with walnut after walnut to crack the shell and leave the nut untouched, completely in one piece—a wonderful prize for my careful work. Perfectionism starts early and runs deep. If my sister was also doing this, we had grand contests as to who could crack the most whole, half, and quarters. As I think of it now, I must admit that my mother had quite a scheme going to get those walnuts shelled at Christmas time. Of course, today, I wouldn’t think of spending time cracking walnuts and looking for perfection. Instead, I buy them by the pound, shelled, and I must admit, that although I still love their taste, something of the wonder has been lost in the process.
And so today, we come to hear and understand the mystery that we call Christmas. I believe that the words of Paul to the young Christian Colossians, is one of the most powerful descriptions of the divine mystery written. Paul says: “This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple” —lovely indeed, but challenging as well. From the very beginning God’s Word calls us to consider the relationship between revelation and transformation. The linchpin of the mystery itself, the proof of the mystery is in the transformation of the ones to whom it is revealed.
Now, while the mystery itself is simple, it remains hidden from a good many folks, perhaps because the actual Christmas story does not line up with their preconceived and deeply treasured vision of God or perhaps because of their inability to see the correlation between revelation and transformation. If one sees God as a Judge, handing out sentences for our spiritual crimes, or if one sees God as the magical genie who is waiting to pour out worldly prosperity upon a demanding world, or if one sees God as a God who takes sides in battles, both physical and liturgical, one will miss the simplicity of the message. If one believes that some are worthy to receive the message, and some are not, one will most certainly miss the message. And it is clear that if one sees God as an aloof divine being who merely controls the creation as puppets or metes out rewards and punishments and expects nothing in return, one will have missed the mystery as well.
To understand the mystery of Christmas, we must be able to sacrifice the expectations of a needy world. Though long expected to come in glory and majesty, God, the creator of the world, came not in glorious triumph; but rather through the moans of childbirth as a tiny baby crying for his mother. And this mother is but a young girl, a young girl who first hears the mystery in the words of the angel and then responds with her complete willingness to be transformed. As seekers together we marvel at Mary’s ability to believe and be transformed. We know that this transformation will be expensive for Mary—some will fail to understand and she will be condemned. Presented with a dangerous and costly mystery, Mary chooses to follow God—“I am the servant of God. Let these things happen exactly as you have said.”
Are we willing to be transformed and blessed as the mystery unfolds? Will we surrender to the divine mystery? Do we even know how? We hear Mary’s longer response in the beautiful song she sings at the home of her cousin, Elizabeth—a song that reveals her complete surrender to God and her willingness to be changed by the unfolding mystery. Mary said: “My soul proclaims your greatness, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior.” Mary knows that she cannot understand what God is doing by human reasoning. Her sacred agreement comes from her soul—the spiritual places deep inside her, Mary, the young girl, knows instinctively that the mystery can only be known by the Spirit of God who resides in her. Acknowledging the divine blessing she has received, she says, “For you have looked with favor upon your lowly servant; and from this day forward, all generations will call me blessed.”
Now, quite obviously, we are not all called to be the Mother of God. We are, however, all are called to be vessels who are willing to be changed through a blessed transformation—a conversion of heart that God will use to reveal the mystery to others. And we become the transformed agent of God bringing the message of revolution and change. Seeking worldly understanding, we will all necessarily fail. Patiently awaiting divine revelation, our spirits ready themselves for the visit of the Christ-child again. Paul, knowing that we would struggle, assures us that we have already received the mystery because God has made it so. It is up to each one of us to recognize the mystery and be transformed or to travel on looking for something else. Paul gives us a beautiful description of the outcome of transformation. He says, “I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery!”
One can see that what appears simple to Paul does not always seem so simple to the church universal. Two thousand years later, we are still fighting among ourselves over the content and context of this mystery. Not only what it means to have Christ in you, but also, who is allowed access to the mystery and, more importantly, who isn’t. We’ve come a long way from simple—and somewhere in the mire of creeds and doctrines, rules and policies, we may have substituted complexity for simplicity and lost quite a few folks along the way. Perhaps you are one of the folks we lost along the way. If so, I invite you as I invite all of us, to return to the simple message of Advent—that the Christ-child is coming and we have all been called to welcome him into our hearts and spirits. And rebirth occurs. The ones to whom the mystery is revealed become the ones transformed.
Paul seemed to know, well ahead of the Councils or Conventions or Conferences that we would not do so well with simple. Hear what he said, “We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less.”
There are those of you sitting here today who are celebrating this Christmas season in a community of faith for the first time in years. And you, like all of us, bring wounded hearts and spirits to this time and place. Perhaps you are afraid to let go of the past; perhaps you are still not sure that this mystery and spirit-talk is for you. Today, I ask you, with love in my heart for each and everyone, won’t you open your hearts to the possibility of a mystery so simple, that all can receive.
Some of us may have lost our way while looking for a complex theology or philosophy that answers all our questions. Some of us are seeking a new experience of God. Wherever we are on this day, I invite all of us, to return to spiritual maturity which is basic—that the Christ-child is coming and we have all been called to welcome him into our hearts and spirits—that we are all called to look in the face of a tiny baby and know that God, the Creator of the world is coming to redeem the world again, and again, and again, until the end of time. Hallelujah! Amen and amen.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Advent 1-Thunder in the Desert
FIRST READING—Psalm 130, often called A Pilgrim Song.
Help, GOD—the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help!
Listen hard! Open your ears!
Listen to my cries for mercy.
If you, GOD, kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit, and that's why you're worshiped.
I pray to GOD—my life a prayer— and wait for what he'll say and do.
My life's on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning,
waiting and watching till morning.
O Israel, wait and watch for GOD— with GOD's arrival comes love,
with GOD's arrival comes generous redemption.
No doubt about it—he'll redeem Israel, buy back Israel from captivity to sin.
SECOND READING—Luke 2: 1-6, 16,17
In the fifteenth year of the rule of Caesar Tiberius,…John, Zachariah's son, out in the desert at the time, received a message from God. He went all through the country around the Jordan River preaching a baptism of life-change leading to forgiveness of sins, as described in the words of Isaiah the prophet:
Thunder in the desert! "Prepare God's arrival!
Make the road smooth and straight!
Every ditch will be filled in, every bump smoothed out,
The detours straightened out, all the ruts paved over.
Everyone will be there to see the parade of God's salvation."
But John intervened: "I'm baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I'm a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He's going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God, we start our season of preparation in hope. Teach us to listen to the thunder in the desert. Show us how to recognize your voice in storm and in silence. God, Emmanuel, take the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts and fill them with your Holy Spirit. Amen
Welcome to Advent, that time of year filled with promise and hope, busyness and celebrations, happiness and, for some, if we are being honest, even despair. But we are called to pause and listen, to prepare and hope. Welcome to a different kind of Advent this year, an Advent of watching and waiting with expectant hearts, of seeking and learning with eyes that see, and of gratitude and exultation with hearts full of praise.
Now, like many of you, I grew up in traditions that never spoke of Advent. We went directly from “We Gather Together to ask the Lord’s blessings” to “The First Noel”, with barely a missed beat. Then, when I entered what I call my Episcopalian years, I made the marvelous discovery of a season when I could take the time to deliberately “change gears” if you will, and move gracefully from the fall season poignant with gratitude to a season of anticipation and surprise. This is truly reading the story with new eyes. For we know not only how the story begins but how it ends as well. But I promise you, God has more to teach us during this time and so I make a pledge to those of you who are reluctant to join us on the road to Bethlehem—if you will put aside what you thought you knew about the wonderful passages relating to the conception and birth of Jesus, our Savior, I will do my very best, with God’s help, to give us new ways to look at a very, very, very old story. For this is what Advent calls us to do, so put on your sandals, it’s a long dusty walk to Bethlehem.
Our first reading today is one of the Pilgrim Songs in the Book of Psalms. You can see why they are called such, they are full of the ponderings of a Pilgrim, a pilgrim such as we may be this day—tired, confused, and looking for answers—lamentation is mixed with praise, but what emerges, most of all, is hope. This Psalm, in its simple language shows us why we wait for the coming of our Lord, listen again—in honest words more like the way we are apt to approach God when our hopelessness and need overwhelm us. No long, theological words, here—just our hearts to God’s heart who hears us like this:
God, help us, our lives are not what they should be, God, we’re talking to you, are you listening?
We need you to really listen, stop what you are doing and listen to us. We need your mercy.
We know, God, that if you kept track of all the times we’ve have turned our backs on you, all the times we have not cared about living for you, we wouldn’t stand a chance of having you hear us.
But, we believe you when you say that you are a forgiving God, that you don’t count the times we have fallen short of your will for us. And we are grateful.
That is why, when things are not what we want them to be, we come to you again. We’re trying to keep you in the forefront in everything we do, and make everything about our lives a prayer to you.
Our lives, what you want us to be, are on the line this time; we’re watching and waiting all night for something better in the morning.
Wait! We hear your promise. You are coming again and you are bringing your redemption to the world in new ways, ways we haven’t experienced. There’s no doubt about it, you have something new and wonderful waiting for us to find.
And so we wait. And as we wait, we find ourselves in the exact same place as the Jewish people right before Jesus arrives. Like many of us, the Jews were waiting for something big—something royal, with loud parades escorting in the new ruler. We are not so different—we count on politics or the economy or a charismatic teacher and preacher to make the difference in our lives. We, quite frankly, not only want it all, we want it all in a Triple X-large portion.
And God knows all about us, knows that it is not likely a baby could come and make a difference, or even warrant a glimpse from us folk so busy with other things. So, we along with our ancient Jewish friends need something to grab our attention. Along comes John the Baptizer, a cousin to Jesus, and, as the story has it, was first to recognize Jesus as the Lord while both babies were still in the womb.
However, at the start of today’s story, John is grown and in the desert. A mysterious and odd sort of person, he is waiting for a word from God. And, then, with little warning, he not only receives a message from God, he immediately begins preaching of all that is to come. So we have John, a rather uncivilized fellow, having spent years in the desert preparing for this day, beginning his rather short ministry in a powerful, straightforward way, calling people to prepare, to repent, and to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.
His ministry echoes a very important prophesy from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah:
Thunder in the desert! "Prepare God's arrival!
Make the road smooth and straight!
Every ditch will be filled in, every bump smoothed out,
The detours straightened out, all the ruts paved over.
Everyone will be there to see the parade of God's salvation."
The crowd goes wild. Here is what they believe they have been waiting for. Not quite a king, at least not in the way they envisioned, but what he says makes sense and, most importantly, he gives them hope. John, the Baptizer doesn’t take up much space in the New Testament—a fact he would find fitting—so thoroughly did he understand his place in the scheme of things. John had the opportunity to take credit for all that was happening, as he was drawing crowds of people—hundreds of them—all wanting to hear him and be baptized. They tried to worship him but, scripture says that he put a stop to it. He says, all I am doing is preparing you for an encounter with God, an encounter like you have never experienced before.
He wants, even demands that everyone understand that His baptism is secondary to the acts and salvation of Jesus, the one who is coming. Now we’ve all seen school children in a play or, perhaps, a Christmas drama at church. Invariably, one child wants to be the center of attraction, pushing another aside, sometimes subtlety, sometimes not so much. And, unless you are unlucky enough to be the parent or grandparent of the “it’s all about me kid”, it is quite humorous to watch one shepherd try to push the other shepherd out of the cattle stall and off to the side. However, it is to this secondary role that all of us, as believers, are called to anew at Advent. As ministers for and of Christ, we learn, and here is great hope, that the true encounter of Christ comes after our preparation work—not by our willing it to be so, but by God’s word. When telling the story anew, we have the role of John, speaking and acting, and most of all living, in such ways that others will want what we have in Christ. John’s promise is our promise as well—the gift that brings us a new kind of hope this year. He tells us that Jesus will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. Whether as John, standing knee deep in the river or the hundreds waiting on the bank, we watch and wait and keep the focus of the world on he who is to come. As we prepare our own hearts, we invite others to come along to join us on this dusty road to Bethlehem.
And, herein, lies our hope. We do not have to manufacture this encounter with God, through Jesus Christ. No, we need only be ready. We don’t have to drum up some sort of magnificent festival. We merely listen for the thunder in the desert, telling us to be ready—can you hear it? The proclamation sounds—Jesus is coming again this year, not only as a baby, but as the one who changes our hearts and lives from the inside out. And hope arrives in simple words, “O, come Lord Jesus, come”! Amen and amen.
Help, GOD—the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help!
Listen hard! Open your ears!
Listen to my cries for mercy.
If you, GOD, kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit, and that's why you're worshiped.
I pray to GOD—my life a prayer— and wait for what he'll say and do.
My life's on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning,
waiting and watching till morning.
O Israel, wait and watch for GOD— with GOD's arrival comes love,
with GOD's arrival comes generous redemption.
No doubt about it—he'll redeem Israel, buy back Israel from captivity to sin.
SECOND READING—Luke 2: 1-6, 16,17
In the fifteenth year of the rule of Caesar Tiberius,…John, Zachariah's son, out in the desert at the time, received a message from God. He went all through the country around the Jordan River preaching a baptism of life-change leading to forgiveness of sins, as described in the words of Isaiah the prophet:
Thunder in the desert! "Prepare God's arrival!
Make the road smooth and straight!
Every ditch will be filled in, every bump smoothed out,
The detours straightened out, all the ruts paved over.
Everyone will be there to see the parade of God's salvation."
But John intervened: "I'm baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I'm a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He's going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God, we start our season of preparation in hope. Teach us to listen to the thunder in the desert. Show us how to recognize your voice in storm and in silence. God, Emmanuel, take the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts and fill them with your Holy Spirit. Amen
Welcome to Advent, that time of year filled with promise and hope, busyness and celebrations, happiness and, for some, if we are being honest, even despair. But we are called to pause and listen, to prepare and hope. Welcome to a different kind of Advent this year, an Advent of watching and waiting with expectant hearts, of seeking and learning with eyes that see, and of gratitude and exultation with hearts full of praise.
Now, like many of you, I grew up in traditions that never spoke of Advent. We went directly from “We Gather Together to ask the Lord’s blessings” to “The First Noel”, with barely a missed beat. Then, when I entered what I call my Episcopalian years, I made the marvelous discovery of a season when I could take the time to deliberately “change gears” if you will, and move gracefully from the fall season poignant with gratitude to a season of anticipation and surprise. This is truly reading the story with new eyes. For we know not only how the story begins but how it ends as well. But I promise you, God has more to teach us during this time and so I make a pledge to those of you who are reluctant to join us on the road to Bethlehem—if you will put aside what you thought you knew about the wonderful passages relating to the conception and birth of Jesus, our Savior, I will do my very best, with God’s help, to give us new ways to look at a very, very, very old story. For this is what Advent calls us to do, so put on your sandals, it’s a long dusty walk to Bethlehem.
Our first reading today is one of the Pilgrim Songs in the Book of Psalms. You can see why they are called such, they are full of the ponderings of a Pilgrim, a pilgrim such as we may be this day—tired, confused, and looking for answers—lamentation is mixed with praise, but what emerges, most of all, is hope. This Psalm, in its simple language shows us why we wait for the coming of our Lord, listen again—in honest words more like the way we are apt to approach God when our hopelessness and need overwhelm us. No long, theological words, here—just our hearts to God’s heart who hears us like this:
God, help us, our lives are not what they should be, God, we’re talking to you, are you listening?
We need you to really listen, stop what you are doing and listen to us. We need your mercy.
We know, God, that if you kept track of all the times we’ve have turned our backs on you, all the times we have not cared about living for you, we wouldn’t stand a chance of having you hear us.
But, we believe you when you say that you are a forgiving God, that you don’t count the times we have fallen short of your will for us. And we are grateful.
That is why, when things are not what we want them to be, we come to you again. We’re trying to keep you in the forefront in everything we do, and make everything about our lives a prayer to you.
Our lives, what you want us to be, are on the line this time; we’re watching and waiting all night for something better in the morning.
Wait! We hear your promise. You are coming again and you are bringing your redemption to the world in new ways, ways we haven’t experienced. There’s no doubt about it, you have something new and wonderful waiting for us to find.
And so we wait. And as we wait, we find ourselves in the exact same place as the Jewish people right before Jesus arrives. Like many of us, the Jews were waiting for something big—something royal, with loud parades escorting in the new ruler. We are not so different—we count on politics or the economy or a charismatic teacher and preacher to make the difference in our lives. We, quite frankly, not only want it all, we want it all in a Triple X-large portion.
And God knows all about us, knows that it is not likely a baby could come and make a difference, or even warrant a glimpse from us folk so busy with other things. So, we along with our ancient Jewish friends need something to grab our attention. Along comes John the Baptizer, a cousin to Jesus, and, as the story has it, was first to recognize Jesus as the Lord while both babies were still in the womb.
However, at the start of today’s story, John is grown and in the desert. A mysterious and odd sort of person, he is waiting for a word from God. And, then, with little warning, he not only receives a message from God, he immediately begins preaching of all that is to come. So we have John, a rather uncivilized fellow, having spent years in the desert preparing for this day, beginning his rather short ministry in a powerful, straightforward way, calling people to prepare, to repent, and to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.
His ministry echoes a very important prophesy from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah:
Thunder in the desert! "Prepare God's arrival!
Make the road smooth and straight!
Every ditch will be filled in, every bump smoothed out,
The detours straightened out, all the ruts paved over.
Everyone will be there to see the parade of God's salvation."
The crowd goes wild. Here is what they believe they have been waiting for. Not quite a king, at least not in the way they envisioned, but what he says makes sense and, most importantly, he gives them hope. John, the Baptizer doesn’t take up much space in the New Testament—a fact he would find fitting—so thoroughly did he understand his place in the scheme of things. John had the opportunity to take credit for all that was happening, as he was drawing crowds of people—hundreds of them—all wanting to hear him and be baptized. They tried to worship him but, scripture says that he put a stop to it. He says, all I am doing is preparing you for an encounter with God, an encounter like you have never experienced before.
He wants, even demands that everyone understand that His baptism is secondary to the acts and salvation of Jesus, the one who is coming. Now we’ve all seen school children in a play or, perhaps, a Christmas drama at church. Invariably, one child wants to be the center of attraction, pushing another aside, sometimes subtlety, sometimes not so much. And, unless you are unlucky enough to be the parent or grandparent of the “it’s all about me kid”, it is quite humorous to watch one shepherd try to push the other shepherd out of the cattle stall and off to the side. However, it is to this secondary role that all of us, as believers, are called to anew at Advent. As ministers for and of Christ, we learn, and here is great hope, that the true encounter of Christ comes after our preparation work—not by our willing it to be so, but by God’s word. When telling the story anew, we have the role of John, speaking and acting, and most of all living, in such ways that others will want what we have in Christ. John’s promise is our promise as well—the gift that brings us a new kind of hope this year. He tells us that Jesus will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. Whether as John, standing knee deep in the river or the hundreds waiting on the bank, we watch and wait and keep the focus of the world on he who is to come. As we prepare our own hearts, we invite others to come along to join us on this dusty road to Bethlehem.
And, herein, lies our hope. We do not have to manufacture this encounter with God, through Jesus Christ. No, we need only be ready. We don’t have to drum up some sort of magnificent festival. We merely listen for the thunder in the desert, telling us to be ready—can you hear it? The proclamation sounds—Jesus is coming again this year, not only as a baby, but as the one who changes our hearts and lives from the inside out. And hope arrives in simple words, “O, come Lord Jesus, come”! Amen and amen.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Graces and Gifts--Open Circle MCC 11-20-11
FIRST READING—Romans 12: 3-13
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 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.
SECOND READING—Matthew 9: 35-38
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God of many names, remind us that we are all welcome in your sight. Teach us to banish prior thoughts of unworthiness and bring us to the blessed place of knowing ourselves as Children of God. May the thoughts that I bring to You today in reverent humility and all the sincere reflections of our hearts, bring us closer to You. Amen.
One more time I ask your indulgence by pondering for just a few moments the pseudo-word—diversynergy. Now I’m not sure that this word will ever have a large following, but for one more time I want us to think about how this word profoundly speaks to the composition of true ministry and the make-up of all of our ministries here in Open Circle and in the Church universal. For those of you who may have missed some of what we were doing along the way, let me summarize for you and remind those who don’t remember. We have been studying what Pastor Ronald C. Williams calls “Faith styles”. We have looked at the four major faith styles and their characteristics—the action oriented, the purpose oriented, the creative oriented and the growth oriented. Implicit in that conversation is a deeper exploration, an exploration that we undertake every time a team meeting or planning team of any sort, meet together to do God’s work.
It’s not too far off base to ask, “Why didn’t God just make us all alike, so that we, at least spoke the same language?” Wouldn’t it be easier if complete harmony and consensus pervaded our meetings, and even our emails.? Wouldn’t we get more things done with a set of people who all thought alike and, most of all, always agreed? Wouldn’t our meetings be shorter (yeah) and misunderstandings that can both challenge and hurt us be eliminated if we never disagreed? Of course, this is a silly idea when we spell it all out like this. And almost a little too much like the books we used to read that predicted the eradication of human will and uniqueness in any form. George Orwell showed us what that would look like—and most of us wanted no part of it.
But strangely, when we get to discussing things relevant to the church, its theology, teachings, dogma and tradition, we, not so inadvertently, find ourselves asking “Can’t we all just get along?” And of course, the desired end is that no one gets hurt along the way, or feels inconsequential, or becomes like the lone ranger riding into the sunset. But to grow as a church means that we gain along the way those tools that we utilize in order to seek a mutually satisfying consensus—when we are spiritually young, we may still come to a decision-making place with a lack of appreciation for perspectives unlike our own. Or we may come to those times of decision still feeling the need to be right, powerful, or at least not ignored. These are the predictable stumbling blocks as we sincerely seek a place that we can all be honored and treasured. I believe that God has called Open Circle MCC to be a unique faith family—a faith family where we won’t just talk about ministry by all for all, but a faith family where we will honor each other and our God enough that we will be willing to do the hard work until we welcome all strangers, not just visitors, but those who seem ‘strange’ to us as cherished friends—friends sent directly by God to have a positive impact on our family. And, perhaps just as important, we will honor every member as equally precious in the sight of God and in our own perspective. Now, I’m not saying that we don’t already try, because we do; but as a young and committed church we can benefit from constant reflection and learning on subjects such as these.
I hope that as we continue to grow in our understanding of each others’ perspectives and come to appreciate and recognize those things that others hold dear, that all of us will grow together into an even more blessed place to call home and, individually, we will grow in faith and grace. Paul wrote often of humility and grace and our reading from Romans is no different. His words speak loudly to us this day. After reminding all to remain in humility and remember that all the gifts we have are from God, he speaks eloquently to this notion of ministry by all for all. Allowing for crucial differences between each member of the body, Paul says: “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.” He then calls us to practice our gifts with generosity, diligence and cheerfulness.
And, finally, again from Paul, we have a wonderful description of what the church family should look like: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 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.” Please indulge me in touching on these crucial high points once again—sincere love, devoted to one another in love, honoring each other more than ourselves, living with spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Joyful hope, patience, faithful prayer, sharing with those in need and an active practice of hospitality make up the rest of the description. It struck me as one of the greatest mission statements ever written for a church and we might want to keep it in mind as we work on our own statement and plan for ministry.
Jesus, the great Teacher and Missionary, calls us to our mission field. Jesus is going through all the towns, preaching about the good news of the kingdom and healing all who needed healing. There were so many people that Jesus was moved with compassion, knowing that he could never get to each one personally. He turns to God for the answer and calls his disciples to intercessory prayer. He calls the disciples to pray to God for more workers—more people to share the work of spreading the good news. Taken together, these two passages are a perfect description of the concept of diversynergy.
The Gospel, the good news of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, calls us to do more than merely welcome diverse peoples into our midst, it calls us to actively seek those people who are different from us. Let me slow down a little so that we all, including me, have time to really comprehend what that means, because it is so crucial for our ministry together. We are called to go out and find not only those people who need to hear the good news, but also those people who are completely different from us. This means that it is not enough for a church to say, “we welcome everyone”. A church, this church, must be engaged in actively seeking those who look, act, and speak nothing like us at all. Paul tells us in no uncertain terms, “we cannot all be hands or elbows”. And building a body of Christ takes hundreds of parts as varied as the ear drum from the ankle and as similar as the finger to the toe. What an exciting ministry of intentional diversity comes from this understanding.
And then, there is synergy. Looking at Paul’s analogy again: when all those parts come together engaged in the doing of the work of the church, an explosion of energy takes place that results in walking and talking, building and reflecting, welcoming and feeding all those who come our way. Some will have been invited; some will be blessed to find this faith family on their own—however folks come, they are welcomed into this diverse, wildly energetic family of followers of God. Wildly energetic because we are not all the same. Hallelujah! We are not all the same.
Traditionally, in churches that follow a liturgical calendar, next week begins a new church year. The beginning of Advent signifies seeking for newness in the midst of a story we know so well. And as a way to celebrate where we are, we are challenged to put what we have learned throughout this past year into practice. The newness is at hand! We are called to a revolutionary way of being the family of God as we seek intentional diversity and make way for the synergy that will surely burst forth from our answering the call. Diversynergy—ministry for all by all—means taking our own spiritual life and the spiritual life of this special expression of the family of God to places we’ve never been before. God has blessed us with this once-in-a-lifetime journey and we are blessed to say, “here I am”! Amen and amen!
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 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.
SECOND READING—Matthew 9: 35-38
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God of many names, remind us that we are all welcome in your sight. Teach us to banish prior thoughts of unworthiness and bring us to the blessed place of knowing ourselves as Children of God. May the thoughts that I bring to You today in reverent humility and all the sincere reflections of our hearts, bring us closer to You. Amen.
One more time I ask your indulgence by pondering for just a few moments the pseudo-word—diversynergy. Now I’m not sure that this word will ever have a large following, but for one more time I want us to think about how this word profoundly speaks to the composition of true ministry and the make-up of all of our ministries here in Open Circle and in the Church universal. For those of you who may have missed some of what we were doing along the way, let me summarize for you and remind those who don’t remember. We have been studying what Pastor Ronald C. Williams calls “Faith styles”. We have looked at the four major faith styles and their characteristics—the action oriented, the purpose oriented, the creative oriented and the growth oriented. Implicit in that conversation is a deeper exploration, an exploration that we undertake every time a team meeting or planning team of any sort, meet together to do God’s work.
It’s not too far off base to ask, “Why didn’t God just make us all alike, so that we, at least spoke the same language?” Wouldn’t it be easier if complete harmony and consensus pervaded our meetings, and even our emails.? Wouldn’t we get more things done with a set of people who all thought alike and, most of all, always agreed? Wouldn’t our meetings be shorter (yeah) and misunderstandings that can both challenge and hurt us be eliminated if we never disagreed? Of course, this is a silly idea when we spell it all out like this. And almost a little too much like the books we used to read that predicted the eradication of human will and uniqueness in any form. George Orwell showed us what that would look like—and most of us wanted no part of it.
But strangely, when we get to discussing things relevant to the church, its theology, teachings, dogma and tradition, we, not so inadvertently, find ourselves asking “Can’t we all just get along?” And of course, the desired end is that no one gets hurt along the way, or feels inconsequential, or becomes like the lone ranger riding into the sunset. But to grow as a church means that we gain along the way those tools that we utilize in order to seek a mutually satisfying consensus—when we are spiritually young, we may still come to a decision-making place with a lack of appreciation for perspectives unlike our own. Or we may come to those times of decision still feeling the need to be right, powerful, or at least not ignored. These are the predictable stumbling blocks as we sincerely seek a place that we can all be honored and treasured. I believe that God has called Open Circle MCC to be a unique faith family—a faith family where we won’t just talk about ministry by all for all, but a faith family where we will honor each other and our God enough that we will be willing to do the hard work until we welcome all strangers, not just visitors, but those who seem ‘strange’ to us as cherished friends—friends sent directly by God to have a positive impact on our family. And, perhaps just as important, we will honor every member as equally precious in the sight of God and in our own perspective. Now, I’m not saying that we don’t already try, because we do; but as a young and committed church we can benefit from constant reflection and learning on subjects such as these.
I hope that as we continue to grow in our understanding of each others’ perspectives and come to appreciate and recognize those things that others hold dear, that all of us will grow together into an even more blessed place to call home and, individually, we will grow in faith and grace. Paul wrote often of humility and grace and our reading from Romans is no different. His words speak loudly to us this day. After reminding all to remain in humility and remember that all the gifts we have are from God, he speaks eloquently to this notion of ministry by all for all. Allowing for crucial differences between each member of the body, Paul says: “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.” He then calls us to practice our gifts with generosity, diligence and cheerfulness.
And, finally, again from Paul, we have a wonderful description of what the church family should look like: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 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.” Please indulge me in touching on these crucial high points once again—sincere love, devoted to one another in love, honoring each other more than ourselves, living with spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Joyful hope, patience, faithful prayer, sharing with those in need and an active practice of hospitality make up the rest of the description. It struck me as one of the greatest mission statements ever written for a church and we might want to keep it in mind as we work on our own statement and plan for ministry.
Jesus, the great Teacher and Missionary, calls us to our mission field. Jesus is going through all the towns, preaching about the good news of the kingdom and healing all who needed healing. There were so many people that Jesus was moved with compassion, knowing that he could never get to each one personally. He turns to God for the answer and calls his disciples to intercessory prayer. He calls the disciples to pray to God for more workers—more people to share the work of spreading the good news. Taken together, these two passages are a perfect description of the concept of diversynergy.
The Gospel, the good news of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, calls us to do more than merely welcome diverse peoples into our midst, it calls us to actively seek those people who are different from us. Let me slow down a little so that we all, including me, have time to really comprehend what that means, because it is so crucial for our ministry together. We are called to go out and find not only those people who need to hear the good news, but also those people who are completely different from us. This means that it is not enough for a church to say, “we welcome everyone”. A church, this church, must be engaged in actively seeking those who look, act, and speak nothing like us at all. Paul tells us in no uncertain terms, “we cannot all be hands or elbows”. And building a body of Christ takes hundreds of parts as varied as the ear drum from the ankle and as similar as the finger to the toe. What an exciting ministry of intentional diversity comes from this understanding.
And then, there is synergy. Looking at Paul’s analogy again: when all those parts come together engaged in the doing of the work of the church, an explosion of energy takes place that results in walking and talking, building and reflecting, welcoming and feeding all those who come our way. Some will have been invited; some will be blessed to find this faith family on their own—however folks come, they are welcomed into this diverse, wildly energetic family of followers of God. Wildly energetic because we are not all the same. Hallelujah! We are not all the same.
Traditionally, in churches that follow a liturgical calendar, next week begins a new church year. The beginning of Advent signifies seeking for newness in the midst of a story we know so well. And as a way to celebrate where we are, we are challenged to put what we have learned throughout this past year into practice. The newness is at hand! We are called to a revolutionary way of being the family of God as we seek intentional diversity and make way for the synergy that will surely burst forth from our answering the call. Diversynergy—ministry for all by all—means taking our own spiritual life and the spiritual life of this special expression of the family of God to places we’ve never been before. God has blessed us with this once-in-a-lifetime journey and we are blessed to say, “here I am”! Amen and amen!
Say “Yes” to Thanksgiving 11-21-2010--Community Thanksgiving Service
Say “Yes” to Thanksgiving 11-21-2010
Holy God, God of our fathers and mothers, we know that you have blessed us with every good thing. We offer you our gratitude and our lives. Amen
Let’s face it—Thanksgiving is a bit of a hard sell these days. Sandwiched in between the money makers of Halloween on one end and Hanukah and Christmas on the other, it is mostly relegated to the bottom two shelves right under the witches’ hats and goblins’ ghost faces. Walking past the ceramic turkeys doing their best to snag some attention, I find myself wondering, “Surely there’s more…”
Living for years in Snow and Ice Country, I well remember that “Happy Thanksgiving” had a bittersweet ring, to most except for the downhill skiers. For, in snow country, Thanksgiving really meant the ending of any hope that we would still have days warm enough to make do without a coat. And the glorious leaves were more than gone, with some years, such as this one, already making way for the lovely white snow that is most often remembered for the back-breaking work of shoveling. I’m just sayin…it’s a holiday fraught with the tension of family and worldly claims upon our time, and we must choose to seek again the real meaning of giving thanks on this day. So, I wonder, “surely there’s more…”
Thanks be to God, there is more. And it is the MORE that calls us to this time, here tonight, in this beautiful place, with warm and loving friends and neighbors who came together to celebrate the MORE. So, I say, Happy Thanksgiving! Welcome to that delightful time of the year when the winter holidays are almost upon us, but not yet, the air is cooling, and, when we take the time, we may find ourselves in a particularly reflective moment—just the right time to celebrate the goodness of our God. Welcome to an attitude of gratitude that looks both behind and ahead—welcome to a time when we can meditate on all that God has given and all we have yet to give.
We are, all of us, in the greater scheme of things, relatively new congregations—we are still figuring out just what our own communities will bring to this larger community. For all of us, it is a great time to stop and say ‘thank you’ to the God who called us, all in different, yet similar ways, to be in this place at this time—being about the work of our Creator God. The passage I have chosen for reflection tonight comes from Deuteronomy, chapter 8. Now I know that the Hebrew scholars among us could take a considerably more thorough look at this passage, and so to them, I apologize ahead of time. This passage speaks volumes to all of us who sincerely seek to remember our God at this specific time in our lives and in the lives of our congregations.
The writer of Deuteronomy begins like this, and I am paraphrasing, “The most important thing you can do is keep the commandments of God, the God who claims you for his own. Travel the paths that your God chooses for you and walk those paths with a reverent heart. God is bringing you to a good and beautiful place...The harvest is plentiful there, you’ll never go hungry. The splendor of this place cannot even be described—it is that wonderful, full of endless resources and food for all.”
Now let me stop us for a minute right here. In this breathtaking, beautiful passage we are promised all things, both physical and spiritual—a wondrous land, where we will never want for anything. God, though, knowing our difficulty to understand and follow through at times, has a few simple requirements that we are called to observe: “After you finish eating and are fully satisfied, bless the God who has given you all that you enjoy.” In other words, say ‘thank you’.
You’d think that would be a simple request, wouldn’t you? But we need help, all of us, to explore and receive the depth of this attitude of gratitude. So our writer continues: “Make sure you don’t forget this generous God by failing to keep the commandments given to you. And, make sure that when you sit in your lovely houses and survey all that you have—watching life become better and better, make sure that you don’t get the idea that you did all this yourself. If you pat yourself on the back too many times, it will become a habit and you will lose sight of what God has done for you—that God that both formed this beautiful land and chosen you to reside in it”.
There are many things for these wanderers to remember about God’s miraculous “doings”—things like deliverance from slavery in Egypt, divine leadership in the wilderness, water and manna, sustenance at every turn. We know that they suffered many hard times, times that our writer says, believe it or not, should be accepted as a gift. What kind of gift is that? Doesn’t seem quite fair that we are called to be grateful for those times, too. But God used those difficult times to prepare the wanderers for the promised land. Can we see the parallel for today? As relatively young congregations, we experience both good and hard times—and in all those times God graces us with ways to shape our growth and refine our attitude of constant gratitude. And so, like those in the desert, we are called to celebrate both—the good with the hard, the lean with the plenty.
And in one final warning, lest we fail to grasp its significance the first time, we are reminded: “If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!"—well, think again. Remember that GOD, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that He promised to your ancestors—as it is today.”
So today we celebrate again God’s outpouring of goodness in accordance with the covenant God made with his people. Funny thing about a covenant—it requires two sides. As beneficiaries of God’s covenant with us, we are called to think upon our end of the covenant. And so we ask, what does this have to do with me or with my community here and now? Ah…here is where we come face to face with the “more” of gratitude. God’s gifts so generously given to us, calls us to put actions to our gratitude. To put walk to the talk, if you will.
Sincere thanksgiving will call us to see that the gifts so freely given, when taken into our hearts, will get us thinking in ways that challenge and convict us. God’s merciful love to us when received in humility and gratitude calls us to rectify our own indifference to the rest of the world. Authentic receptivity to God’s gracious goodness includes our commitment to grasp and fulfill our responsibility for those who are easy to forget. And so, with humble hearts, we follow in the paths given to us by God with gratitude and generosity.
We listen for a call to this special life of giving and receiving. Hear what the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold said: For all that has been -- thanks! For all that will be -- yes! Gratitude, then, is the gift of the eternal “yes”—a sacred yes to what we have been given and what we have to give. Gratitude, born of the knowledge that we are all interdependent, teaches us that what we do here in this place has the ability to touch those in need in places close at hand and far away.
Our interdependence in gratitude also calls us to recognize the importance of all those who have come before. We do not walk these ways as lone explorers—we walk them in the shadow of those who have gone before.
One such person who has gone before is medical missionary, Albert Schweitzer. His words remind us to look back as well as forward when we give our thanks. Schweitzer notes our dependence on others as we seek God’s will for our lives. Here is what he said: “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
Say “yes” to gratitude this Thanksgiving! Say “yes” and be the light of the world! Say “yes” and reach out to kindle or re-kindle the light of every person with whom you come in contact. This year at Thanksgiving, become the sacred ‘yes’ that brings God’s love into the world! With thanks and amen and yes!
Holy God, God of our fathers and mothers, we know that you have blessed us with every good thing. We offer you our gratitude and our lives. Amen
Let’s face it—Thanksgiving is a bit of a hard sell these days. Sandwiched in between the money makers of Halloween on one end and Hanukah and Christmas on the other, it is mostly relegated to the bottom two shelves right under the witches’ hats and goblins’ ghost faces. Walking past the ceramic turkeys doing their best to snag some attention, I find myself wondering, “Surely there’s more…”
Living for years in Snow and Ice Country, I well remember that “Happy Thanksgiving” had a bittersweet ring, to most except for the downhill skiers. For, in snow country, Thanksgiving really meant the ending of any hope that we would still have days warm enough to make do without a coat. And the glorious leaves were more than gone, with some years, such as this one, already making way for the lovely white snow that is most often remembered for the back-breaking work of shoveling. I’m just sayin…it’s a holiday fraught with the tension of family and worldly claims upon our time, and we must choose to seek again the real meaning of giving thanks on this day. So, I wonder, “surely there’s more…”
Thanks be to God, there is more. And it is the MORE that calls us to this time, here tonight, in this beautiful place, with warm and loving friends and neighbors who came together to celebrate the MORE. So, I say, Happy Thanksgiving! Welcome to that delightful time of the year when the winter holidays are almost upon us, but not yet, the air is cooling, and, when we take the time, we may find ourselves in a particularly reflective moment—just the right time to celebrate the goodness of our God. Welcome to an attitude of gratitude that looks both behind and ahead—welcome to a time when we can meditate on all that God has given and all we have yet to give.
We are, all of us, in the greater scheme of things, relatively new congregations—we are still figuring out just what our own communities will bring to this larger community. For all of us, it is a great time to stop and say ‘thank you’ to the God who called us, all in different, yet similar ways, to be in this place at this time—being about the work of our Creator God. The passage I have chosen for reflection tonight comes from Deuteronomy, chapter 8. Now I know that the Hebrew scholars among us could take a considerably more thorough look at this passage, and so to them, I apologize ahead of time. This passage speaks volumes to all of us who sincerely seek to remember our God at this specific time in our lives and in the lives of our congregations.
The writer of Deuteronomy begins like this, and I am paraphrasing, “The most important thing you can do is keep the commandments of God, the God who claims you for his own. Travel the paths that your God chooses for you and walk those paths with a reverent heart. God is bringing you to a good and beautiful place...The harvest is plentiful there, you’ll never go hungry. The splendor of this place cannot even be described—it is that wonderful, full of endless resources and food for all.”
Now let me stop us for a minute right here. In this breathtaking, beautiful passage we are promised all things, both physical and spiritual—a wondrous land, where we will never want for anything. God, though, knowing our difficulty to understand and follow through at times, has a few simple requirements that we are called to observe: “After you finish eating and are fully satisfied, bless the God who has given you all that you enjoy.” In other words, say ‘thank you’.
You’d think that would be a simple request, wouldn’t you? But we need help, all of us, to explore and receive the depth of this attitude of gratitude. So our writer continues: “Make sure you don’t forget this generous God by failing to keep the commandments given to you. And, make sure that when you sit in your lovely houses and survey all that you have—watching life become better and better, make sure that you don’t get the idea that you did all this yourself. If you pat yourself on the back too many times, it will become a habit and you will lose sight of what God has done for you—that God that both formed this beautiful land and chosen you to reside in it”.
There are many things for these wanderers to remember about God’s miraculous “doings”—things like deliverance from slavery in Egypt, divine leadership in the wilderness, water and manna, sustenance at every turn. We know that they suffered many hard times, times that our writer says, believe it or not, should be accepted as a gift. What kind of gift is that? Doesn’t seem quite fair that we are called to be grateful for those times, too. But God used those difficult times to prepare the wanderers for the promised land. Can we see the parallel for today? As relatively young congregations, we experience both good and hard times—and in all those times God graces us with ways to shape our growth and refine our attitude of constant gratitude. And so, like those in the desert, we are called to celebrate both—the good with the hard, the lean with the plenty.
And in one final warning, lest we fail to grasp its significance the first time, we are reminded: “If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!"—well, think again. Remember that GOD, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that He promised to your ancestors—as it is today.”
So today we celebrate again God’s outpouring of goodness in accordance with the covenant God made with his people. Funny thing about a covenant—it requires two sides. As beneficiaries of God’s covenant with us, we are called to think upon our end of the covenant. And so we ask, what does this have to do with me or with my community here and now? Ah…here is where we come face to face with the “more” of gratitude. God’s gifts so generously given to us, calls us to put actions to our gratitude. To put walk to the talk, if you will.
Sincere thanksgiving will call us to see that the gifts so freely given, when taken into our hearts, will get us thinking in ways that challenge and convict us. God’s merciful love to us when received in humility and gratitude calls us to rectify our own indifference to the rest of the world. Authentic receptivity to God’s gracious goodness includes our commitment to grasp and fulfill our responsibility for those who are easy to forget. And so, with humble hearts, we follow in the paths given to us by God with gratitude and generosity.
We listen for a call to this special life of giving and receiving. Hear what the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold said: For all that has been -- thanks! For all that will be -- yes! Gratitude, then, is the gift of the eternal “yes”—a sacred yes to what we have been given and what we have to give. Gratitude, born of the knowledge that we are all interdependent, teaches us that what we do here in this place has the ability to touch those in need in places close at hand and far away.
Our interdependence in gratitude also calls us to recognize the importance of all those who have come before. We do not walk these ways as lone explorers—we walk them in the shadow of those who have gone before.
One such person who has gone before is medical missionary, Albert Schweitzer. His words remind us to look back as well as forward when we give our thanks. Schweitzer notes our dependence on others as we seek God’s will for our lives. Here is what he said: “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
Say “yes” to gratitude this Thanksgiving! Say “yes” and be the light of the world! Say “yes” and reach out to kindle or re-kindle the light of every person with whom you come in contact. This year at Thanksgiving, become the sacred ‘yes’ that brings God’s love into the world! With thanks and amen and yes!
Monday, November 14, 2011
God, the Divine Landscaper 11-13-11
FIRST READING— James 1: 19b-27
In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.
But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.
Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God our Creator, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.
SECOND READING—Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23
At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach. In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories.
"What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams. "Are you listening to this? Really listening?"
"Study this story of the farmer planting seed. When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road.
"The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.
"The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.
"The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God, the Divine Landscaper 11-13-11
God, Giver of all blessings, Giver of Life, grant that we might open ourselves to the possibility of knowing your perfect peace. Lead us in Your ways of knowledge; send us wisdom from your very heart. Bless us as we speak and as we hear. In Jesus’ Name, Amen
We got back yesterday evening from a wonderful time away, rested and ready—ready for the wonderful seasons that lie ahead of us and all that is to come in the life of this amazing church. In some of my reflecting time, I did some thinking about the sermon series that we take up this morning. I had almost overlooked one very important aspect of this study. Initially, I believed that the most important outcome of this particular sermon series would be the likelihood of greater understanding and cooperation as we work together in this still young church to build a community where we really mean all those nice words that we say. As I was working on this sermon, the one where we talk about the final piece of the diversynergy pie described as Growth-oriented, I realized that the unexpected benefit for myself and I hope for many of you, is that I am discovering new ways to express my faith. The more I know about the way I currently practice and demonstrate my faith coupled with the more I learn about other faith approaches, the more I realize that I am ready to try some of those other pieces of the pie—a rather nice surprise. I hope that by the end of this study we will all both understand our basic approaches to faith and experience new faith styles about which we would like to know more. With today’s slice, we will have completed our pie populated with those who work from an action perspective, those who lead us in vision and purpose, those who challenge us in creativity, and those who, by their example, urge us to dig deeper in growth.
My initial take on the final slice—the growth perspective lead me to basically dismiss it as only interested in growth in numbers, programs and money—the more I studied, the more I realized how truly wrong I was. Those whose faith style is centered in growth have much to teach us. Not just numbers and statistics for these folks, they are also focused on spiritual growth, personal and communal. So to these multifaceted faithful folks, we look for inspiration about all kinds of spiritual and community growth.
We often think of growth as an upward and outward thing—bigger, broader, better. Spiritual growth however, grows deeper. Wanting to know and understand all that she can, the growth-oriented person digs deeper into scripture, theology, and seeks to learn from as many different perspectives as possible. Our first reading written by the apostle James gives us a wonderful metaphor for allowing God to work in our lives.
James writes: “In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.” A salvation garden of our lives tended by no other than God—the divine gardener. And then, in a wonderful call to put what we have learned in the salvation gardens of our lives, James points out that when we even “catch a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life” we will begin to act. Our deepest spiritual growth—when we have been landscaped by no other than the Word—moves us seamlessly into the sphere of action. As we understand the connection, James predicts that we will find “delight and affirmation in the action. “ And from such a connection as this comes “real religion”—those practices which are pleasing to God—include a physical response to spiritual truths. James calls us to simple work—we are to reach out to the homeless and loveless and guard against the corruption of a world—that which does not know of this divine landscaping plan.
I invite all of us, whether we are experienced in spiritual growth or not, to try a simple experiment this morning. Envision the garden where God is working with you. Are the gates open or closed? Are the paths cleared and marked for easy travel or do you have to pick your way through the brambles of distraction? Are the plants lovingly pruned and protected from predators or do you have to search through the underbrush for each flower and plant in turn. Do some trees majestically reach toward the sky? Are there saplings as well as trees just now beginning to bear fruit and blossom? God, the divine landscaper, invites us to enter this garden often and to partake of the spiritual growth and deepening, that results when we yield the landscaping to the Divine Gardener at work in us.
Lest we lose ourselves in some vision of an inner garden of ease and complacency, Jesus comes along in our passage for today and calls us to accept as ours the responsibility for the preparation of the ground—the readiness we bring to God’s divine purpose.
We catch up with Jesus on the beach. There are so many people pressing against him that he gets into a boat to place a little distance between himself and the noisy crowd. Using the boat as a floating pulpit, he preaches to those who would hear, often by using stories to illustrate his deeper teachings. And so, along with the crowd on the beach, we listen as he asks, "What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.”
Jesus says to them and I say to you, “Are you listening to this? Really listening?" Have you figured out what your responsibility is in this creating a salvation garden about which James speaks? Jesus, in his parable, makes it clear for us. “When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road. The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it. The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it”
Alas, that’s a lot of stuff getting in the way of planting, sprouting, and growing. Thankfully, there is one more kind of earth—the good earth and Jesus explains, "The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams." What seems clear as we study both of these passages, is that Jesus is telling us that we choose the kind of soil where the farmer (known to us as God) will plant the seeds—and begin the process of divine landscaping. If our interior garden is made of less than ready and able soil, we can make that change. We can eliminate the brambles of distraction and the rocks of guilt and shame. We can open the gates and invite the Divine Gardener to have Creation’s divine way with us. We can give ourselves over to re-creation in desire and will. If we do not, by nature, long to grow deeper into knowledge and faith in God, we can choose to do so anyway.
Is this not true for all faith styles? While it is good for us to know and understand each other’s leanings in faith styles, we can also encourage each other’s longings and learnings in becoming all that God intends for us to be.
Next week we will take one last look, at least for now at diversynergy—that principle that says: together we are more than we could ever hope to be as merely the sum of us as individuals. Together we will rise to the challenge to be about ministry by all for all. We will touch once again, the longing to belong to a righteous community—one that is planted in the good soil of receptivity and reaction. We will act, plan, dream, create and learn as a community—God’s community firmly rooted in the belief that there is so much to come that like the seed cast on good earth—we will be the people who hear and take in the good news of God’s radical acceptance and we will produce a “harvest beyond our wildest dreams”. Amen and amen.
In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.
But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.
Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God our Creator, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.
SECOND READING—Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23
At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach. In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories.
"What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams. "Are you listening to this? Really listening?"
"Study this story of the farmer planting seed. When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road.
"The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.
"The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.
"The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God, the Divine Landscaper 11-13-11
God, Giver of all blessings, Giver of Life, grant that we might open ourselves to the possibility of knowing your perfect peace. Lead us in Your ways of knowledge; send us wisdom from your very heart. Bless us as we speak and as we hear. In Jesus’ Name, Amen
We got back yesterday evening from a wonderful time away, rested and ready—ready for the wonderful seasons that lie ahead of us and all that is to come in the life of this amazing church. In some of my reflecting time, I did some thinking about the sermon series that we take up this morning. I had almost overlooked one very important aspect of this study. Initially, I believed that the most important outcome of this particular sermon series would be the likelihood of greater understanding and cooperation as we work together in this still young church to build a community where we really mean all those nice words that we say. As I was working on this sermon, the one where we talk about the final piece of the diversynergy pie described as Growth-oriented, I realized that the unexpected benefit for myself and I hope for many of you, is that I am discovering new ways to express my faith. The more I know about the way I currently practice and demonstrate my faith coupled with the more I learn about other faith approaches, the more I realize that I am ready to try some of those other pieces of the pie—a rather nice surprise. I hope that by the end of this study we will all both understand our basic approaches to faith and experience new faith styles about which we would like to know more. With today’s slice, we will have completed our pie populated with those who work from an action perspective, those who lead us in vision and purpose, those who challenge us in creativity, and those who, by their example, urge us to dig deeper in growth.
My initial take on the final slice—the growth perspective lead me to basically dismiss it as only interested in growth in numbers, programs and money—the more I studied, the more I realized how truly wrong I was. Those whose faith style is centered in growth have much to teach us. Not just numbers and statistics for these folks, they are also focused on spiritual growth, personal and communal. So to these multifaceted faithful folks, we look for inspiration about all kinds of spiritual and community growth.
We often think of growth as an upward and outward thing—bigger, broader, better. Spiritual growth however, grows deeper. Wanting to know and understand all that she can, the growth-oriented person digs deeper into scripture, theology, and seeks to learn from as many different perspectives as possible. Our first reading written by the apostle James gives us a wonderful metaphor for allowing God to work in our lives.
James writes: “In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.” A salvation garden of our lives tended by no other than God—the divine gardener. And then, in a wonderful call to put what we have learned in the salvation gardens of our lives, James points out that when we even “catch a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life” we will begin to act. Our deepest spiritual growth—when we have been landscaped by no other than the Word—moves us seamlessly into the sphere of action. As we understand the connection, James predicts that we will find “delight and affirmation in the action. “ And from such a connection as this comes “real religion”—those practices which are pleasing to God—include a physical response to spiritual truths. James calls us to simple work—we are to reach out to the homeless and loveless and guard against the corruption of a world—that which does not know of this divine landscaping plan.
I invite all of us, whether we are experienced in spiritual growth or not, to try a simple experiment this morning. Envision the garden where God is working with you. Are the gates open or closed? Are the paths cleared and marked for easy travel or do you have to pick your way through the brambles of distraction? Are the plants lovingly pruned and protected from predators or do you have to search through the underbrush for each flower and plant in turn. Do some trees majestically reach toward the sky? Are there saplings as well as trees just now beginning to bear fruit and blossom? God, the divine landscaper, invites us to enter this garden often and to partake of the spiritual growth and deepening, that results when we yield the landscaping to the Divine Gardener at work in us.
Lest we lose ourselves in some vision of an inner garden of ease and complacency, Jesus comes along in our passage for today and calls us to accept as ours the responsibility for the preparation of the ground—the readiness we bring to God’s divine purpose.
We catch up with Jesus on the beach. There are so many people pressing against him that he gets into a boat to place a little distance between himself and the noisy crowd. Using the boat as a floating pulpit, he preaches to those who would hear, often by using stories to illustrate his deeper teachings. And so, along with the crowd on the beach, we listen as he asks, "What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.”
Jesus says to them and I say to you, “Are you listening to this? Really listening?" Have you figured out what your responsibility is in this creating a salvation garden about which James speaks? Jesus, in his parable, makes it clear for us. “When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road. The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it. The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it”
Alas, that’s a lot of stuff getting in the way of planting, sprouting, and growing. Thankfully, there is one more kind of earth—the good earth and Jesus explains, "The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams." What seems clear as we study both of these passages, is that Jesus is telling us that we choose the kind of soil where the farmer (known to us as God) will plant the seeds—and begin the process of divine landscaping. If our interior garden is made of less than ready and able soil, we can make that change. We can eliminate the brambles of distraction and the rocks of guilt and shame. We can open the gates and invite the Divine Gardener to have Creation’s divine way with us. We can give ourselves over to re-creation in desire and will. If we do not, by nature, long to grow deeper into knowledge and faith in God, we can choose to do so anyway.
Is this not true for all faith styles? While it is good for us to know and understand each other’s leanings in faith styles, we can also encourage each other’s longings and learnings in becoming all that God intends for us to be.
Next week we will take one last look, at least for now at diversynergy—that principle that says: together we are more than we could ever hope to be as merely the sum of us as individuals. Together we will rise to the challenge to be about ministry by all for all. We will touch once again, the longing to belong to a righteous community—one that is planted in the good soil of receptivity and reaction. We will act, plan, dream, create and learn as a community—God’s community firmly rooted in the belief that there is so much to come that like the seed cast on good earth—we will be the people who hear and take in the good news of God’s radical acceptance and we will produce a “harvest beyond our wildest dreams”. Amen and amen.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
That's the Way It Is 10-30-11
FIRST READING—Hebrews 3: 5-8
The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd. By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.
SECOND READING—John 3: 5-8
Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the 'wind-hovering-over-the-water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.
"So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."
~~~~~~~~~
God, who spoke the world into being and who listens to our every cry, remind us that we are your treasured creations. Open our hearts and minds to you this day. Amen
I used to wonder why the New Testament shows Jesus interacting with so many people who have such difficulty comprehending what Jesus is saying. From our perspective, and, of course, we are reading from the end of the story; it seems much easier to understand. It would seem that the writers of the New Testament not only recorded what they saw, they also did it in such a way as make it possible for all of us through-out the centuries to come to have a way to experience Jesus’ teachings in our own lives exactly as they impacted this myriad group of ‘not so smart’ folks. I, for one, take great comfort in all of that—that we each learn and respond to the teachings of Jesus in unique ways depending on where we are in our own lives at the time. God’s Word touches us as a precious gift, created by God to speak in ways that we cannot help but hear. What a gift we have!
Today we continue in the third of five sermons relating to the various ways we live into and live out of our faith. Borrowing from Ronald C. Williams, we have called those “faith-styles”. In our first week, we focused on action-oriented folks—those who bring an attitude of “let’s do it” to our community. Those same people make good planners as long as those plans get put into action without too much delay. They bring an active, energetic spirit to our community, and, quite frankly, those folks are the ones we depend on to keep us moving. Secondly, there are the purpose-oriented folks. They are the people who keep us focused, keep us moving toward a common goal or purpose. They are the planners of programs and missions—constantly asking the rest of us if our activities are in alignment with our purpose. They are the “where are we going?” folks who help keep the rest of us on stable ground pursuing our vision.
Today, we come to the somewhat elusive faith-style called the “creative” faith style. They are the dreamers, and the ones we turn to when we’ve run out of ideas or find ourselves stuck in the same-old-same-old. But they do so within the framework of faith; so, I want to spend some time today looking at what scripture has to say to us about creativity and faith. You don’t have to look far.
The writer of Hebrews had much to say about faith. In fact, Hebrews 11 gives us the most-often quoted definition of faith: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” It is good, on this day when we celebrate All Saints’ Day, to note that the ancients, the saints that preceded us are commended for their faith. And so we start on solid ground. In Hebrews 3, our first reading for today, the relationship between faith and creativity become obvious. Here the writer tells us that the ‘fundamental fact of existence” (you can’t go deeper than that), “the fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see.” Our ancestors, these saints who we celebrate today were set apart from the crowd by their very acts of faith. And then we hear, “ By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see. “ So we affirm, in language both comforting and awe-inspiring just this—the creative power of God—the word of God—which resulted in the existence of the world, illustrates for us what it means to believe even when we cannot see exactly how God’s act of creation occurred. But our affirmation falters sometimes and we are not alone.
Listen to Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus. What precedes our passage is the story that Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a learned teacher of Jewish law, comes to see Jesus. Nicodemus is sincere, telling Jesus that he knows that Jesus must be from God because of all the things he knows Jesus has done. Jesus’ response is supportive. He acknowledges that Nicodemus understands these things because he has been born again. Just when we sit back and think that, at last, someone got it the first time around, Nicodemus loses his grasp on spiritual understanding and asks the very physical question about having to re-enter a mother’s womb in order to be born again. So close and so far away.
“Jesus said, ‘You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the 'wind-hovering-over-the-water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.’” Jesus takes us to a spiritual place of understanding in this answer. We cannot hope to understand the fullness of this event is we have not experienced the “wind-hovering-over-the-water” creation. Jesus continues, “So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."
This is God’s creativity at work and those who have some portion of the creative style of faith work, seem to be able to work in this ‘creative space’, this spiritual place where ideas can be explored, risks can be taken, and comfort gained in the connection between divine creativity and ours. These are usually our “think-outside–the-box folks—those who challenge us to try not just newish things, but completely new and untried things in our worship and ministries.
The creative process in the context of ministry and worship gives us the opportunity to bring order to disorder. The chaotic free-floating creativity allowing us to experiment and take great risks is brought into order by those who are willing to suspend the search for simple answers, however briefly, and allow themselves to encounter the every-which-away blowing of the spirit. Most of us are far more creative in our approach to faith than we realize. By relegating the creative style to artists, musicians, and poets among us, we cut ourselves short of the amazing energy and imagination that comes when we align ourselves with the free-flowing wind of the Holy Spirit.
When we find our worship going stale or our ideas losing their punch, it is to those most in touch with the creative spirit of God to whom we turn. The key to staying vibrant as a Christian community and alive and awake to the possibilities that lie ahead is to maintain a close working relationship with those who most thoroughly understand God’s creative process and open our hearts to learn both from them and from God’s Spirit, the great creator of all of us and all that it around us.
It is hard for some of us task-oriented and purpose-oriented folks to welcome those who think in what appears to be chaotic, difficult to follow ways. And it is just for that reason, that creative faith is just one of the quarters of the pie that develop into the diversynergy that calls to all of us to become more than we thought we could be as mere individuals working on our separate paths. We are three fourths of the way through the pie of diversynergy—what waits for us to explore in the next sermon is the faith style that is about growth—not only simple growth in terms of numbers and ministries, but also the more important growth in spiritual formation. I trust that somewhere in the process of what we are learning that many of you have already identified a faith-style that resonates with your own.
Our final sermon in this series will walk us through the central ideas of diversynergy—that is, God’s spirit calling to work for the greater good of all of God’s wonderful creation and giving us the great gift of being an integral part of a joint work that far exceeds our expectations. Here, in God’s divine diversynergy, we find ourselves clearly in the midst of God’s exceeding abundance. And, here, in God’s plenteous diversynergy, we locate our personal calls and understand how each of us brings an individual and unique faith style to place on the altar of all our work together. It is a mighty and grand experience to witness God’s exceeding abundance in the myriad of gifts God sets before us again and again! And to that we say, Amen and Amen.
The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd. By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.
SECOND READING—John 3: 5-8
Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the 'wind-hovering-over-the-water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.
"So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."
~~~~~~~~~
God, who spoke the world into being and who listens to our every cry, remind us that we are your treasured creations. Open our hearts and minds to you this day. Amen
I used to wonder why the New Testament shows Jesus interacting with so many people who have such difficulty comprehending what Jesus is saying. From our perspective, and, of course, we are reading from the end of the story; it seems much easier to understand. It would seem that the writers of the New Testament not only recorded what they saw, they also did it in such a way as make it possible for all of us through-out the centuries to come to have a way to experience Jesus’ teachings in our own lives exactly as they impacted this myriad group of ‘not so smart’ folks. I, for one, take great comfort in all of that—that we each learn and respond to the teachings of Jesus in unique ways depending on where we are in our own lives at the time. God’s Word touches us as a precious gift, created by God to speak in ways that we cannot help but hear. What a gift we have!
Today we continue in the third of five sermons relating to the various ways we live into and live out of our faith. Borrowing from Ronald C. Williams, we have called those “faith-styles”. In our first week, we focused on action-oriented folks—those who bring an attitude of “let’s do it” to our community. Those same people make good planners as long as those plans get put into action without too much delay. They bring an active, energetic spirit to our community, and, quite frankly, those folks are the ones we depend on to keep us moving. Secondly, there are the purpose-oriented folks. They are the people who keep us focused, keep us moving toward a common goal or purpose. They are the planners of programs and missions—constantly asking the rest of us if our activities are in alignment with our purpose. They are the “where are we going?” folks who help keep the rest of us on stable ground pursuing our vision.
Today, we come to the somewhat elusive faith-style called the “creative” faith style. They are the dreamers, and the ones we turn to when we’ve run out of ideas or find ourselves stuck in the same-old-same-old. But they do so within the framework of faith; so, I want to spend some time today looking at what scripture has to say to us about creativity and faith. You don’t have to look far.
The writer of Hebrews had much to say about faith. In fact, Hebrews 11 gives us the most-often quoted definition of faith: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” It is good, on this day when we celebrate All Saints’ Day, to note that the ancients, the saints that preceded us are commended for their faith. And so we start on solid ground. In Hebrews 3, our first reading for today, the relationship between faith and creativity become obvious. Here the writer tells us that the ‘fundamental fact of existence” (you can’t go deeper than that), “the fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see.” Our ancestors, these saints who we celebrate today were set apart from the crowd by their very acts of faith. And then we hear, “ By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see. “ So we affirm, in language both comforting and awe-inspiring just this—the creative power of God—the word of God—which resulted in the existence of the world, illustrates for us what it means to believe even when we cannot see exactly how God’s act of creation occurred. But our affirmation falters sometimes and we are not alone.
Listen to Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus. What precedes our passage is the story that Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a learned teacher of Jewish law, comes to see Jesus. Nicodemus is sincere, telling Jesus that he knows that Jesus must be from God because of all the things he knows Jesus has done. Jesus’ response is supportive. He acknowledges that Nicodemus understands these things because he has been born again. Just when we sit back and think that, at last, someone got it the first time around, Nicodemus loses his grasp on spiritual understanding and asks the very physical question about having to re-enter a mother’s womb in order to be born again. So close and so far away.
“Jesus said, ‘You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the 'wind-hovering-over-the-water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.’” Jesus takes us to a spiritual place of understanding in this answer. We cannot hope to understand the fullness of this event is we have not experienced the “wind-hovering-over-the-water” creation. Jesus continues, “So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."
This is God’s creativity at work and those who have some portion of the creative style of faith work, seem to be able to work in this ‘creative space’, this spiritual place where ideas can be explored, risks can be taken, and comfort gained in the connection between divine creativity and ours. These are usually our “think-outside–the-box folks—those who challenge us to try not just newish things, but completely new and untried things in our worship and ministries.
The creative process in the context of ministry and worship gives us the opportunity to bring order to disorder. The chaotic free-floating creativity allowing us to experiment and take great risks is brought into order by those who are willing to suspend the search for simple answers, however briefly, and allow themselves to encounter the every-which-away blowing of the spirit. Most of us are far more creative in our approach to faith than we realize. By relegating the creative style to artists, musicians, and poets among us, we cut ourselves short of the amazing energy and imagination that comes when we align ourselves with the free-flowing wind of the Holy Spirit.
When we find our worship going stale or our ideas losing their punch, it is to those most in touch with the creative spirit of God to whom we turn. The key to staying vibrant as a Christian community and alive and awake to the possibilities that lie ahead is to maintain a close working relationship with those who most thoroughly understand God’s creative process and open our hearts to learn both from them and from God’s Spirit, the great creator of all of us and all that it around us.
It is hard for some of us task-oriented and purpose-oriented folks to welcome those who think in what appears to be chaotic, difficult to follow ways. And it is just for that reason, that creative faith is just one of the quarters of the pie that develop into the diversynergy that calls to all of us to become more than we thought we could be as mere individuals working on our separate paths. We are three fourths of the way through the pie of diversynergy—what waits for us to explore in the next sermon is the faith style that is about growth—not only simple growth in terms of numbers and ministries, but also the more important growth in spiritual formation. I trust that somewhere in the process of what we are learning that many of you have already identified a faith-style that resonates with your own.
Our final sermon in this series will walk us through the central ideas of diversynergy—that is, God’s spirit calling to work for the greater good of all of God’s wonderful creation and giving us the great gift of being an integral part of a joint work that far exceeds our expectations. Here, in God’s divine diversynergy, we find ourselves clearly in the midst of God’s exceeding abundance. And, here, in God’s plenteous diversynergy, we locate our personal calls and understand how each of us brings an individual and unique faith style to place on the altar of all our work together. It is a mighty and grand experience to witness God’s exceeding abundance in the myriad of gifts God sets before us again and again! And to that we say, Amen and Amen.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Don't Forget the Root Command 10-23-11
FIRST READING— Philippians 3: 12-20a
I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.
So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you'll see it yet! Now that we're on the right track, let's stay on it.
Stick with me, friends. Keep track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal. There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I've warned you of them many times; sadly, I'm having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ's Cross. But easy street is a dead-end street. Those who live there make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites. But there's far more to life for us. We're citizens of high heaven!
SECOND READING—John 15: 9-17
"I've loved you the way my Holy Parent has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.
"I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Eternal Parent. “You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask God in relation to me, will be given to you.
"But remember the root command: Love one another.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Let us pray—God of unchanging love and grace, we thank you for sending so many people into our lives to challenge us and to grow with us. May our thoughts and my words bring you honor and glory. Amen.
Well, folks, it’s been quite a couple of weeks. But, I am oh so glad to be back even if on a limited basis. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the calls, emails, cards, and food that you have sent my way. The pain is still there, but I told God that nothing was going to keep me away from you all for a second week and so, here I am refreshing my heart and soul by being in God’s presence here, in the presence of all my friends. It’s a fine place to be.
Let me remind you of what we are doing for the next few weeks. Many churches utilize teaching on the so-called spiritual gifts and, more than likely, we will too at some point in the future. In our study of diversesynergy, however, I wanted us to take a look at the different ways we ‘do’ faith or our faith ‘styles’, if you will. Now this is an MCC church, so I can assure you that we all have “STYLE”, but we don’t all have the same style; nor do we all ‘act upon’ or ‘act out’ our faith in the same ways. This is where Ronald C. Williams’ work comes in so handy. He describes four ‘faith styles’. Last week, Terri led us through the one that we can identify most easily—the action faith style—just look around, you can point to the ones of us who are the go-getters, the ones always present to lend a hand. And bless you all for it. There are three other faith styles that are similarly important. The ‘purpose’ or ‘goal’ oriented faith style which we will look at today and the growth-oriented and creativity-focused styles which will occupy our study next week. Finally, we will look at how these styles come together in this diversynergistic model and how to determine our personal faith styles . It’s like a pie—with all four quarters you have a whole pie of faith, with anything less than four, your pie has holes in it—no quarter slice is more important that the others—it takes all four.
By understanding in detail, these four styles, we will begin to understand who we are as we bring our gifts in faith to the community that God is building here in these walls and far beyond. Let me be a little clearer, none of us belongs completely in one quarter or another and to be too strict about the descriptions of each quarter negates the value we can learn about the diversynergy that grows among our joint and mutual efforts. So we must first understand the four descriptions, and then understand how our particular combination of faith styles influences our faith work, and, just as importantly, how it impacts our interactions with folks who have similar or distinctly different styles from ours. So on to the purpose oriented style.
It is a perfect Sunday for us to study the purpose or goal oriented style of faith. Rev. Troy Perry began the MCC church 43 years ago this month and this is the Sunday we have chosen to celebrate his gift of MCC to all of us and to the world. Had it not been for Rev. Troy’s unfailing dedication to expanding the teaching and preaching about the kingdom of God’s reign of justice to include all the marginalized peoples in the world, it is unlikely that UFMCC would be the presence that it currently is in the work of God’s kingdom. Rev. Troy, while certainly embodying more than one faith style, falls most clearly into the purpose-oriented style of doing faith work. He was unquestionably committed to creating a church where everyone knew themselves to be children of God. Ken Blanchard, in his book, Lead Like Jesus, says this about Jesus’ ability to keep the purpose of his disciples on track. “Jesus stayed personally focused on what He was sent to accomplish in His season of leadership…Jesus stayed on point. He did not seek to take on other tasks or the agenda others hoped He would fulfill. One of the greatest services a leader can provide to his or her followers is constancy of purpose. When the going gets rough or temptations and distractions come with short-term success or setbacks, people will look to the leaders to see how they will respond. Will they stay on course and remain true to their mission and values, or will they give up and give in to the pressures of the moment? Jesus took accountability for going beyond proclamation in equipping His followers with a full understanding of what they needed to know to carry out their mission.
Jesus says, "I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you.” This is Jesus’ purpose to bring the love of God to the world. Everything else is part and parcel of that—we have been chosen by Jesus to bear fruit in the world, and to act in the world in a way according to this purpose. Jesus ends our passage with, "But remember the root command: Love one another. “
How many times did it look like Rev. Troy might get de-railed in his purpose for a new kind of church? There was hatred, people were getting hurt, churches burned down; discrimination threatened to tear down the celebration of God’s love for all. Then there was the HIV/AIDS crisis which threatened, in a very real way, to kill the movement. It is evident to this day that MCC lost many leaders and members during that first wave of death and dying. Just as much as real, physical loss was the theological set-back—the questioning and confusion. But Troy Perry was a purpose-driven leader and he never lost sight of this new vision being given to him by the same One—Jesus—who gave the purpose to the newly formed band of disciples. Rev. Troy then focused his energy in bringing the love of God to everyone on marriage equality.
Paul shares his truth on living by purpose. In his own honest way, he tells us: “I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back. So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us.”
People whose faithwork is defined by purpose are known by the ability to transcend the familiar for the sake of fulfilling a higher or divine purpose. While trusting in God, one’s commitment to God makes it possible for the believer to venture far beyond daily, ‘comfortable’ routines to a mature leadership that serves as a catalyst for spiritual expression, learning and depth. And this is all for the following of God’s divine purpose for our lives. Both Jesus and Paul point to that with which we have been entrusted—loving God and loving each other. All other purpose and goals come from this, the supreme goal.
While action, our faithstyle from last week may be the easiest to identify, the purpose-filled faith work may be the easiest to evaluate. Is our purpose consistent with the over-riding purpose—that purpose Jesus and Paul relate to the in-bringing of the royal kingdom complete with love for each other and love for God. Committing to this larger picture, this in-breaking of God’s kingdom into our earthly home allow us, maybe even forces us, to keep our eyes constantly looking beyond the small set-backs, squabbles, illnesses, mis-understandings and confusion. Our purpose-oriented faithwork friends help keep the rest of us focused on the great good and call. Those who bring a purpose-oriented faithwork to practice at Open Circle will encourage the rest of us to constantly ask the question: “Is this plan, program, idea, or change consistent with the overall goal of spreading the love of God?” Just as our action-oriented faith workers or servants ask us: “What are we going go DO about it?”
And so we continue in our journey to the whole pie. Already half full with action and intent, we will soon add the two remaining styles of faithwork—commitment to growth, and creativity. And here we are on Fellowship Sunday where we celebrate the growth and productivity of the founding of an entire denomination. May we take with us today, inspiration and commitment from Rev. Troy Perry and to every person looking today for an MCC community, may we offer hope. Amen and amen.
I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.
So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you'll see it yet! Now that we're on the right track, let's stay on it.
Stick with me, friends. Keep track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal. There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I've warned you of them many times; sadly, I'm having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ's Cross. But easy street is a dead-end street. Those who live there make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites. But there's far more to life for us. We're citizens of high heaven!
SECOND READING—John 15: 9-17
"I've loved you the way my Holy Parent has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.
"I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Eternal Parent. “You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask God in relation to me, will be given to you.
"But remember the root command: Love one another.
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Let us pray—God of unchanging love and grace, we thank you for sending so many people into our lives to challenge us and to grow with us. May our thoughts and my words bring you honor and glory. Amen.
Well, folks, it’s been quite a couple of weeks. But, I am oh so glad to be back even if on a limited basis. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the calls, emails, cards, and food that you have sent my way. The pain is still there, but I told God that nothing was going to keep me away from you all for a second week and so, here I am refreshing my heart and soul by being in God’s presence here, in the presence of all my friends. It’s a fine place to be.
Let me remind you of what we are doing for the next few weeks. Many churches utilize teaching on the so-called spiritual gifts and, more than likely, we will too at some point in the future. In our study of diversesynergy, however, I wanted us to take a look at the different ways we ‘do’ faith or our faith ‘styles’, if you will. Now this is an MCC church, so I can assure you that we all have “STYLE”, but we don’t all have the same style; nor do we all ‘act upon’ or ‘act out’ our faith in the same ways. This is where Ronald C. Williams’ work comes in so handy. He describes four ‘faith styles’. Last week, Terri led us through the one that we can identify most easily—the action faith style—just look around, you can point to the ones of us who are the go-getters, the ones always present to lend a hand. And bless you all for it. There are three other faith styles that are similarly important. The ‘purpose’ or ‘goal’ oriented faith style which we will look at today and the growth-oriented and creativity-focused styles which will occupy our study next week. Finally, we will look at how these styles come together in this diversynergistic model and how to determine our personal faith styles . It’s like a pie—with all four quarters you have a whole pie of faith, with anything less than four, your pie has holes in it—no quarter slice is more important that the others—it takes all four.
By understanding in detail, these four styles, we will begin to understand who we are as we bring our gifts in faith to the community that God is building here in these walls and far beyond. Let me be a little clearer, none of us belongs completely in one quarter or another and to be too strict about the descriptions of each quarter negates the value we can learn about the diversynergy that grows among our joint and mutual efforts. So we must first understand the four descriptions, and then understand how our particular combination of faith styles influences our faith work, and, just as importantly, how it impacts our interactions with folks who have similar or distinctly different styles from ours. So on to the purpose oriented style.
It is a perfect Sunday for us to study the purpose or goal oriented style of faith. Rev. Troy Perry began the MCC church 43 years ago this month and this is the Sunday we have chosen to celebrate his gift of MCC to all of us and to the world. Had it not been for Rev. Troy’s unfailing dedication to expanding the teaching and preaching about the kingdom of God’s reign of justice to include all the marginalized peoples in the world, it is unlikely that UFMCC would be the presence that it currently is in the work of God’s kingdom. Rev. Troy, while certainly embodying more than one faith style, falls most clearly into the purpose-oriented style of doing faith work. He was unquestionably committed to creating a church where everyone knew themselves to be children of God. Ken Blanchard, in his book, Lead Like Jesus, says this about Jesus’ ability to keep the purpose of his disciples on track. “Jesus stayed personally focused on what He was sent to accomplish in His season of leadership…Jesus stayed on point. He did not seek to take on other tasks or the agenda others hoped He would fulfill. One of the greatest services a leader can provide to his or her followers is constancy of purpose. When the going gets rough or temptations and distractions come with short-term success or setbacks, people will look to the leaders to see how they will respond. Will they stay on course and remain true to their mission and values, or will they give up and give in to the pressures of the moment? Jesus took accountability for going beyond proclamation in equipping His followers with a full understanding of what they needed to know to carry out their mission.
Jesus says, "I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you.” This is Jesus’ purpose to bring the love of God to the world. Everything else is part and parcel of that—we have been chosen by Jesus to bear fruit in the world, and to act in the world in a way according to this purpose. Jesus ends our passage with, "But remember the root command: Love one another. “
How many times did it look like Rev. Troy might get de-railed in his purpose for a new kind of church? There was hatred, people were getting hurt, churches burned down; discrimination threatened to tear down the celebration of God’s love for all. Then there was the HIV/AIDS crisis which threatened, in a very real way, to kill the movement. It is evident to this day that MCC lost many leaders and members during that first wave of death and dying. Just as much as real, physical loss was the theological set-back—the questioning and confusion. But Troy Perry was a purpose-driven leader and he never lost sight of this new vision being given to him by the same One—Jesus—who gave the purpose to the newly formed band of disciples. Rev. Troy then focused his energy in bringing the love of God to everyone on marriage equality.
Paul shares his truth on living by purpose. In his own honest way, he tells us: “I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back. So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us.”
People whose faithwork is defined by purpose are known by the ability to transcend the familiar for the sake of fulfilling a higher or divine purpose. While trusting in God, one’s commitment to God makes it possible for the believer to venture far beyond daily, ‘comfortable’ routines to a mature leadership that serves as a catalyst for spiritual expression, learning and depth. And this is all for the following of God’s divine purpose for our lives. Both Jesus and Paul point to that with which we have been entrusted—loving God and loving each other. All other purpose and goals come from this, the supreme goal.
While action, our faithstyle from last week may be the easiest to identify, the purpose-filled faith work may be the easiest to evaluate. Is our purpose consistent with the over-riding purpose—that purpose Jesus and Paul relate to the in-bringing of the royal kingdom complete with love for each other and love for God. Committing to this larger picture, this in-breaking of God’s kingdom into our earthly home allow us, maybe even forces us, to keep our eyes constantly looking beyond the small set-backs, squabbles, illnesses, mis-understandings and confusion. Our purpose-oriented faithwork friends help keep the rest of us focused on the great good and call. Those who bring a purpose-oriented faithwork to practice at Open Circle will encourage the rest of us to constantly ask the question: “Is this plan, program, idea, or change consistent with the overall goal of spreading the love of God?” Just as our action-oriented faith workers or servants ask us: “What are we going go DO about it?”
And so we continue in our journey to the whole pie. Already half full with action and intent, we will soon add the two remaining styles of faithwork—commitment to growth, and creativity. And here we are on Fellowship Sunday where we celebrate the growth and productivity of the founding of an entire denomination. May we take with us today, inspiration and commitment from Rev. Troy Perry and to every person looking today for an MCC community, may we offer hope. Amen and amen.
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