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."
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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.
Welcome!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
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.
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