Don't Lose a Minute 9-23-12

The Reading— 2 Peter 1:5-9 So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books. THE OTHER READING— from The Way of Perfection by Teresa of Avila Let us imagine that within us is an extremely rich place, built entirely of gold and precious stones…within us lies something incomparably more precsious than what we see outside ourselves. Let’s not imagine that we are hollow inside. A prayer by Mary Ruth Broz, A Religious Sister of Mercy: O Spirit of Life, You call us to be more than we can ask or even imagine. Help us to uncover the rich inner life that is ours. Surprise us with hidden treasures we never knew we had. Give us the courage to uncover a mystic and prophet within ourselves. And show us the way to bring their wisdom with us as we struggle to leave this world a better place. The Gospel Reading: John 17: 18-23 Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth; Your word is consecrating truth. In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world. I’m consecrating myself for their sakes so they’ll be truth-consecrated in their mission. I’m praying not only for them but also for those who will believe in me because of them and their witness about me. The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind— Just as you, my Creator, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me. The same glory you gave me, I gave them, so they’ll be as unified and together as we are—I in them and you in me. Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that you’ve sent me and loved them in the same way you’ve loved me. Don’t Lose A Minute 9-23-12 God, we turn to You in troubled times and when others ask us to pray for them. Teach us to pray continually that we might learn more of You and grow into the people You intend us to be. God, turn our hearts toward You in the words that I speak and the reflections that we share together. Amen How many of you remember being measured as you grew up by marks or notches in some door. Now I was always excited to see where my next mark would be. I was, as you can clearly see, often disappointed, but, nevertheless, I would wait with excited anticipation to see if I had indeed grown any since the last 6 month measurement. Our passage from the apostle Peter today, gives us a list of the elements of spiritual growth and we could easily draw up a measurement stick using these qualities instead of numbers. Seems that Peter is pretty clear about the elements of spiritual growth that he believes should be on every Christian’s measuring stick. Our contemporary translation gives us some very good meanings of each of these elements. First, Peter lists “good character” which others have described as virtue or having spiritual energy. Second on the list is spiritual understanding with knowledge in scripture and spiritual practices. Third, we find a call to alert discipline closely linked to self-control. In the fourth place, Peter lists passionate patience or steadfastness, faithfulness, and consistency. The fifth element is reverent wonder, Godliness, or worshipping well. Peter’s last two elements are closely connected, warm friendliness or the desire to be a blessing to others, and, finally, generous love—a love for serving Christ and others without self-regard. I don’t know about you, but this would take me a lifetime or two to be able to mark a notch for all six of those characteristics of spiritual maturity. Fortunately, Peter is not writing to us as completely mature followers of Christ. He says that if we are actively cultivating these characteristics, we will mature and complement what Peter calls our “basic faith” with the more mature, but desirable attributes that he names for us. The urgency of the journey is evident—“Don’t lose a minute”. Begin immediately on the building and maturing process. This increasing maturing is the way we grow in our experience of God’s forgiveness and grace. Urgency, though, does not necessarily mean that we rush out and tackle all these growth areas at once. Now I love the Peanuts gang. I must admit that I used to picture myself in the Lucy character—always with a quick comeback, dispensing wisdom and knowledge from behind a counter for a very small charge. The longer I am in the ministry, the more I see myself as Linus, perhaps, or even PigPen. Snoopy’s wonderfully creative imagination has always played just a little part in my alter ego. Anyway, there is a Peanuts story that fits here. Charlie Brown is at bat. STRIKE THREE. He has struck out again and slumps over to the bench. "Rats! I’ll never be a big-league player. I just don’t have it! All my life I’ve dreamed of playing in the big leagues, but I know I’ll never make it." Lucy turns to console him. "Charlie Brown, you’re thinking too far ahead. What you need to do is set yourself more immediate goals." He looks up. "Immediate goals?" Lucy says, "Yes. Start with this next inning when you go out to pitch. See if you can walk out on the mound without falling down!" Every time I walk up here and stand in front of you, I feel just a little like Charlie Brown trying so hard to just get to the mound without falling down. What would Lucy’s advice be to us, right here, right now? With just a glance back to Peter (no that’s not a cartoon character, I mean Peter, the apostle), we will notice that he is not advocating that we focus on only one attribute at a time. He is clear that “each dimension” fits into and develops the others. So what if we merely started with a vision of loving one another and loving this particular expression of Christ’s body? We have talked much about worship in the last 5 weeks. It would seem that if our focus during worship is to bring glory to God and share the love of Christ for us all, will not love for each other and for this church not be a natural outgrowth of our worship? I rarely take illustrations from the business world, but this one seems to fit the odd and particular place in growth in which we find ourselves. It seems that we may be able to learn something from Domino’s Pizza. Thomas Monaghan was founder, president, and chief executive officer of Domino’s Pizza, Inc. From 1970 to 1985, Domino’s grew from a small debt-ridden chain to the second largest pizza company in America. When asked to account for the phenomenal growth of the company, Monaghan explained, "I programmed everything for growth." And how did he plan for growth? "Every day we develop people-the key to growth is developing people." Not special cheese, not a tasty crust, not fast delivery schedules, but people! Dominos has the slogan, "Our most important ingredient is our people!" Taken completely out of context, we might answer a similar question the same way. How do we account for the phenomenal growth of Open Circle in it first 18 months as a fully affiliated MCC church? Our answer must be the same as Mr. Monaghan’s—it is the people—only this time it is the people allowing God’s Spirit to work through them and in them that makes Open Circle what it is and is becoming today. It isn’t fancy robes or the liturgy or even the choir—it’s the people involved in all of those things. Of course, the other side of this is that we really are people and as truly alive human beings living our lives in the context of this community we sometimes run into events and circumstances that we do not like and do not want to embrace. And that is where our true maturity is either present or it is noticeably absent. Let me ask you a question and I hope you will think about it before you answer it for yourself. Why do you come to church? One of you sent me an email this past week and I couldn’t believe how perfectly it fit into our discussion today. A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all." This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: "I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!" Here at Open Circle, we acknowledge that we are real, sometimes tired, cranky and suffering human beings. Things don’t always go the way we want them to. But what sets us apart from many churches that I have attended is that we are real with each other. Real with our support, real with our challenges and real with our love. We may disagree, we may even fight every once in a while, but our relationships, established and nourished in God’s love, will always emerge stronger giving us more inspired to walk beside each other no matter what. Now, of course, it is the “no matter what” that sometimes gets the better of us. But I trust that no matter who it is who is experiencing some of life’s ups and downs, from the newest member, to the oldest to your pastor herself, that we will recall the spiritual maturity that we are called to again and again by the Gospel writers, the apostles, and Jesus himself. For those who have difficulty traversing this sometimes bumpy terrain we call Christian community, this can be a challenge, but Peter is clear when he says, “Don’t lose a minute, be about your own Christian maturing and utilize it to help bring others to a better understanding of this call that we are following to ‘share the unconditional love of God and, to call us, through the grace of Jesus Christ, to ministry by all for all.’ A little paraphrasing goes a long way, but keeps us focused on our mission and call. You may, along the way—make that, you will—along the way run into people who simply cannot grasp the notion of loving and forgiving, forgiving and supporting and loving again. This is what you must do, invite them into this warm and loving circle and provide them with the context in which to place their misunderstandings, disappointments, and confusion. Most of all, be true to what you have experienced here and welcome, again and again if need be, those who have not yet discovered that which we hold so precious in our fellowship and care for each other. Perfect, no—growing, oh, my, yes. And we find comfort in the words of Jesus Himself. Jesus is praying for us! Can you hear him? Calling us to be united in Him—shining forth with the possibility that people can experience this union with God through their unity with Christ Jesus. Jesus calls us to understand that this oneness is for only one reason: to give the world evidence that is behind all this loving—both for each other and for God. Let us be about the process of maturing in Christ in worship and in other activities where we come together as God’s children. Let us stand together, united in the knowledge that God loves us, that Jesus shows us new ways to live, and that the world is dying for the unconditional love of God. Don’t lose a minute. Stand with us and allow the Holy Spirit to use you and fill you as you are used. And, we say, yes, Lord, yes. Amen and amen Yes, Lord, Yes