Text: Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
Philippians 4: 10-17 (portions)
I'm glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.
You can be sure that God will take care of everything you need, God’s generosity exceeding even yours in the glory that pours from Jesus. Our God and Creator abounds in glory that just pours out into eternity. Yes.
Receive and experience the amazing grace of the Savior, Jesus Christ, deep, deep within yourselves.
God, we are so often a tired people! We know that you want rest and peace for us and yet we fail to find our way into Your blessed Sabbath rest. Lead us this day into Your waiting arms! Amen
I don’t know about your yard, but ours was starting to seriously need a good long rain and it just didn’t seem like we were going to get one any time soon. And then, it happened—rain, a good soaking rain for a good long while on Friday night. I’m telling you, not only were we grateful to hear that rain coming down, but I’m pretty sure I heard the grass sending up multitudes of “thank you, thank you” as the rain came down. So often, our lives are like the parched, dry grass and we wait for God to send the rain. And so, we wait for God’s Holy Spirit to rain down—we know that God’s Spirit comes into our lives just as the rain comes into our world, why then do we get so dry?
Fatigue—probably not a soul sitting here today who hasn’t experienced it in some form or another. There are two kinds of fatigue—physical and spiritual. Physical fatigue happens when you play golf in the heat of the day, or add an extra game of pickleball in at the end of practice. Physical fatigue happens when we finally get out to do yard work and decide to do the whole kit and caboodle at once. Your muscles get tired and they need rest. Usually, we respond appropriately to the demands of our bodies for a little rest.
The other type of fatigue often doesn’t get such good attention. That’s spiritual fatigue. Spiritual fatigue comes from tired emotions. When we get frustrated, or grow weary of other’s expectations, when we get embroiled in conflict, worry, or anger, we are spiritually fatigued.
The good news is that when you are physically tired, all you need to do is get some rest—you take a nap, you “lay low” for a day and you feel better. Spiritual fatigue—not quite so easy. While physical rest is vital to repair your body AND soul, it takes more than rest to be refilled and refueled emotionally and spiritually.
Jesus knows this well: Hear what he is saying to us today: "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
The old translations record that Jesus says: “take my yoke upon you and learn of me”. That doesn’t quite make sense until we think about what a yoke is used for.
The yoke was used to connect a team of two oxen to a cart. It was the only way to get the work accomplished. If one ox had tried to do it alone, it could have not been done. The rows would be crooked, the ox exhausted. With two oxen, the work is shared and completed perfectly. Jesus is calling us to partner with Him as we go about our life’s work. Jesus says, that if we walk with Him and work with Him instead of trying to do it on our own, He will show us how to take a real rest. There is a line in translation from The Message that is wildly beautiful to me—I don’t think I had read it before: “Learn the unforced rhythms of grace!” --The unforced rhythms of grace—now this is true rest—living in grace, with a rhythm all her own—unable to be forced or molded into what we think she should be. Jesus further assures us, “I won’t lay anything on you that is too heavy or doesn’t fit who you are—stay in my presence and you will learn to live ‘freely and lightly’”.
I want you to ask yourself this question, as I have been asking myself all week—no need for hands, this is a personal, self –assessment. Do you feel as if you are living “freely and lightly”? Do those words apply to your daily life? Have you experienced the “unforced rhythms of grace”? I suspect that most of us have not yet arrived at that place, but what a calling Jesus has given to us!
Like many of you, probably, I have spent some considerable time exploring other faith and spiritual traditions. The one that I truly love the most outside of Christianity is Taoism. Taoism is a spiritual philosophy that says that the Tao is the principle of life and that getting in tune with the Tao is true peace. It’s like singing in a choir or tuning the guitars—out of tune, the sound is not pleasant at all, just a small adjustment and the sound is glorious. Taoism first taught me the concept of what Jesus is calling “the unforced rhythms of grace”. The notion that the principle of life is not to be controlled by us—that it is greater than us—just as we learn that the Holy Spirit blows where it will—not “the Holy Spirit blows where we want it to blow”. Jesus, as Jesus always does, expands our understanding—gives us a path to get to the place where we can experience this true rest promised to us. And so, what does this path look like?
For this we turn to our other scripture—the one from Paul, who tells us how to experience the “amazing grace of the Savior, Jesus Christ, deep, deep within yourselves”. Paul says it like this: “I'm glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. “ I have broken down Paul’s declaration into 3 steps.
First, be glad in God: rejoice in our source of life who gives us all that we need! As we heard in our centering meditation today, “Be still and know that I am God”! The “be still” part—not always so easy, we learn as we grow. Second, learn to be content—stop striving for more, take in what you have in the present—Paul says, full hands or empty, contentment is possible with his special recipe—which just happens to be step 3.
So, third, know that whatever you have, wherever you are, you can make it through anything in the One who makes you who you are. Remember that Jesus tells us that the yoke is with Him—not too heavy or fitting poorly so that it rubs a blister, designed with you in mind as he yokes Himeself to you and you to Him.
Nevertheless, if we fail to come away with Jesus, if we refuse to give ourselves the time with Him that we so badly need, we simply will not find the blessed peace and rest that he promises. Let me say that again, because it is the most important thing I am saying today. If we do not give ourselves the time and space to renew our spiritual hearts and souls, this peace that Jesus promised will elude us for all time. There is no magic wand—no pill—no secret formula—just the willingness to care for our bodies, our hearts, AND our minds.
There are a set of commercials, apparently very popular, about how brilliant we are now because of the internet. I’m here to tell you—search all you want on the world wide web and you will not find as simple an answer as Jesus gives us this day in this passage. And so, today, we are challenged by the words of Jesus and Paul. First, Jesus invites us to come away—to walk in the land aptly described by Paul as contentment without conditions.
Perhaps, the greatest example of this unconditional contentment comes in our experience of nature—Rachel Carson said this in The Sense of Wonder: “There is something definitely healing in these repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.”
I believe that we are least able to find that healing and peace when we seek to understand it on our terms—when we refuse to let God be God, so to speak— when we cannot give ourselves permission to rest in the arms of God. An so my challenge to you this week is simple—find some short time, every day, to listen to the unforced rhythms of grace—to find contentment wherever you are, hands full, hands empty—hands uplifted to received the simple, unadorned blessing of peace. Amen and amen!
Welcome!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
If God is For Us: Letting Life's Hurt Speak
Reading: Romans 8:31-39 (GOD’S WORD Translation)
31What can we say about all of this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32God didn’t spare his own Son but handed him over to death for all of us. So he will also give us everything along with him. 33Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? God has approved of them. 34Who will condemn them? Christ has died, and more importantly, he was brought back to life. Christ has the highest position in heaven. Christ also intercedes for us. 35What will separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or violent death separate us from his love? 36As Scripture says:
“We are being killed all day long because of you.
We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37The one who loves us gives us an overwhelming victory in all these difficulties. 38I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us.[a] We can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces 39or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation.
God, we know that You walk beside us through all of life. Sometimes we wonder why it gets so hard. Show us what you want us to learn; heal us with Your Holy Spirit. And we will praise You now and forever. Amen
I stand before you today as a wounded healer—it would not always have been so—for many years, I was only wounded. I have learned over the years to engage in a daily walk to allow God to transform my pain to a healing walk that includes everyone of you here and many who are no longer with me either physically or geographically. I believe that God calls us to this journey of spiritual transformation and healing for one reason only—and that is to use our woundedness to heal others.
We all have wounds—it is not possible to go through life without accumulating quite a collection of hurts, both psychic and physical. Many of us are getting to the point where the doctor starts using the dreaded phrase “age related”. The first time I heard it, it was like the first time someone told me they loved the way my hair had grayed. I turned around to see who was standing behind me to see whom she was talking to—seeing no one, I suddenly realized that it was my gray hair she was admiring—funny how it didn’t look gray to me.
I believe for most of us, the challenge is not in identifying or even accepting life’s wounds, the challenge is in allowing God to transform both our wounds and us to change our perspective from wounded people who are hurt and hurting to wounded people who heal others. Now transformation does not always come easy—most of us have not been taught to embrace our woundedness. Even as children we are expected to hop right up and start playing again.
And our children learn that message well. There was a time when my son and I were out riding bikes through the streets not far from where we lived. He, for who knows what reason, suddenly cut in front of me, causing my front tire to hit his rear tire. That sent me flying over the handlebars and I landed on my helmet, my knees and my ribcage. Yes, it was a mess! He rushed back to untangle me from my bike and then proceeded to tell me, “Come on, Mom, walk it off!” Thinking how inappropriate it would be for me to strangle my six foot tall son in front of the crowd that had now grown, I said, through gritted teeth, “Go get the car!” A week later, I went back to work, and ten years later, I still won’t ride bikes with my now 31-year-old son. I think it may be time for me to let that wound heal…
Real transformation of our truly significant wounds only comes from doing the hard work of understanding and embracing our hurt, being willing—let me say that again—being willing to allow God to transform us and then getting on with our ministry to bring God’s healing to a broken world. What we know for sure is that there are more broken people in this world than there are healed ones and that it is up to us to do our part to change the percentages. This reminds us of the very, very old story, one which I know every one of you knows of the little boy walking on the beach throwing back the starfish that had washed up on the shore—hundreds and hundreds of them were being washed ashore from the agitated sea. An adult (leave it to an adult to trivialize what a child is doing) comes along and says, “little boy, what are you doing, what difference can you make? You can’t possibly save them all!” Barely missing a beat, the little boy throws another starfish towards the deeper water, and says, “I made a difference to that one!”
And so, how can God use us as wounded healers to make a difference in the lives of those we touch every day? We need look no farther than to the life of Jesus and the life of His apostle, Paul. For these two men were both wounded and healers. They both experienced life as full human beings, with pain and suffering and hardship. And yet, in their vulnerability came their greatest strength. Henri Nouwen, one of my spiritual mentors wrote this: “When we think about the people who have given us hope and have increased the strength of our soul, we might discover that they were not the advice givers, warners or moralists, but the few who were able to articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encourage us to face the realities of life.” Does this not describe both Jesus and Paul as well as some of the folks who have given you hope. Nouwen wrote these words in a book called Reaching Out: Three Movements of the Spiritual Life. It is one of the books that we would do well to include in our study of significant spiritual books.
For those of you who have experience with 12 step programs, this has been determined to be the reason they are so effective. When a fellow human being shares their “experience, strength, and hope”, it touches the hearts and lives of others because their story could be my story—I am not alone.
Support groups—groups of folks who struggle with the same illness, circumstance or history as others in the group—lend a “been right where you are and done just what you did” element to the friendship and listening that is so vital to our very beings. Celtic spirituality, an increasing interest of mine, talks of a “soul friend”—an anamchara—who is our spiritual “best friend” and guide—someone who knows our soul well because they know their own soul well. What if Open Circle MCC became a circle of “soul friends” to each other—where spiritual journeys abound in a safety net of sister and fellow travelers.
We know and we celebrate every week that Jesus is our “soul friend” as no other can be our soul friend—that He knows intimately what it feels like to be tempted, to be betrayed, to be injured, to be wounded beyond human comprehension. And yet, Jesus shows us in every way that not only did He survive and thrive but that we, His followers will as well. And we all want to stand up and sing with Gloria Gaynor “I will survive!”
Paul says it in our reading for today: What will separate us from the love Christ has for us?...I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. We can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation.
The older translations say: “In all these things we are MORE than conquerors!” More than conquerors indeed. But lest you think that I am glossing over the pain and struggle involved in moving from wounded to wounded healer—let me return to the story of my son and the bicycle accident. Is it not true that most of the time we tell ourselves to “walk it off”, to shake off the fear and anxiety or even the real physical pain that seemingly strikes us from nowhere? I believe that if we truly follow the way of Jesus, we will allow ourselves the necessary time in Gethsemane and beyond in order to allow God to transform our woundedness into healing and a source of life for others. It is not wise to “shake off” or to hide our pain and struggles, not from each other and certainly not from ourselves. Because to do so has at least two negative consequences—first, we will simply never heal ourselves—secondly, because we cannot afford to let anyone know of our pain, we will wall ourselves off from our hurting sister and brother, lest their pain re-ignite our own. We cannot be a source of healing unless we have at least opened ourselves to the prospect of being healed ourselves.
And so we are vulnerable, vulnerable to ourselves, vulnerable to each other and vulnerable to God. There are times when I go home after preaching and wonder if I have shared too much, showed you too much of who I am—and yet, I believe that the best of what I have to give to you, just as the best of what you have to give to each other comes from the willingness to reveal the truth about our own struggles and journeys and “come clean” as it were. This is, indeed, the difficult work of growing in a faith community. We have not always been safe just because we found ourselves in “church” and some of you may struggle to feel safe here. But my prayer for all of us is that we will grow together as “more than conquerors” as we lovingly hold those among us each week who seek the loving, healing arms of God. Amen and amen!
31What can we say about all of this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32God didn’t spare his own Son but handed him over to death for all of us. So he will also give us everything along with him. 33Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? God has approved of them. 34Who will condemn them? Christ has died, and more importantly, he was brought back to life. Christ has the highest position in heaven. Christ also intercedes for us. 35What will separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or violent death separate us from his love? 36As Scripture says:
“We are being killed all day long because of you.
We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37The one who loves us gives us an overwhelming victory in all these difficulties. 38I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us.[a] We can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces 39or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation.
God, we know that You walk beside us through all of life. Sometimes we wonder why it gets so hard. Show us what you want us to learn; heal us with Your Holy Spirit. And we will praise You now and forever. Amen
I stand before you today as a wounded healer—it would not always have been so—for many years, I was only wounded. I have learned over the years to engage in a daily walk to allow God to transform my pain to a healing walk that includes everyone of you here and many who are no longer with me either physically or geographically. I believe that God calls us to this journey of spiritual transformation and healing for one reason only—and that is to use our woundedness to heal others.
We all have wounds—it is not possible to go through life without accumulating quite a collection of hurts, both psychic and physical. Many of us are getting to the point where the doctor starts using the dreaded phrase “age related”. The first time I heard it, it was like the first time someone told me they loved the way my hair had grayed. I turned around to see who was standing behind me to see whom she was talking to—seeing no one, I suddenly realized that it was my gray hair she was admiring—funny how it didn’t look gray to me.
I believe for most of us, the challenge is not in identifying or even accepting life’s wounds, the challenge is in allowing God to transform both our wounds and us to change our perspective from wounded people who are hurt and hurting to wounded people who heal others. Now transformation does not always come easy—most of us have not been taught to embrace our woundedness. Even as children we are expected to hop right up and start playing again.
And our children learn that message well. There was a time when my son and I were out riding bikes through the streets not far from where we lived. He, for who knows what reason, suddenly cut in front of me, causing my front tire to hit his rear tire. That sent me flying over the handlebars and I landed on my helmet, my knees and my ribcage. Yes, it was a mess! He rushed back to untangle me from my bike and then proceeded to tell me, “Come on, Mom, walk it off!” Thinking how inappropriate it would be for me to strangle my six foot tall son in front of the crowd that had now grown, I said, through gritted teeth, “Go get the car!” A week later, I went back to work, and ten years later, I still won’t ride bikes with my now 31-year-old son. I think it may be time for me to let that wound heal…
Real transformation of our truly significant wounds only comes from doing the hard work of understanding and embracing our hurt, being willing—let me say that again—being willing to allow God to transform us and then getting on with our ministry to bring God’s healing to a broken world. What we know for sure is that there are more broken people in this world than there are healed ones and that it is up to us to do our part to change the percentages. This reminds us of the very, very old story, one which I know every one of you knows of the little boy walking on the beach throwing back the starfish that had washed up on the shore—hundreds and hundreds of them were being washed ashore from the agitated sea. An adult (leave it to an adult to trivialize what a child is doing) comes along and says, “little boy, what are you doing, what difference can you make? You can’t possibly save them all!” Barely missing a beat, the little boy throws another starfish towards the deeper water, and says, “I made a difference to that one!”
And so, how can God use us as wounded healers to make a difference in the lives of those we touch every day? We need look no farther than to the life of Jesus and the life of His apostle, Paul. For these two men were both wounded and healers. They both experienced life as full human beings, with pain and suffering and hardship. And yet, in their vulnerability came their greatest strength. Henri Nouwen, one of my spiritual mentors wrote this: “When we think about the people who have given us hope and have increased the strength of our soul, we might discover that they were not the advice givers, warners or moralists, but the few who were able to articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encourage us to face the realities of life.” Does this not describe both Jesus and Paul as well as some of the folks who have given you hope. Nouwen wrote these words in a book called Reaching Out: Three Movements of the Spiritual Life. It is one of the books that we would do well to include in our study of significant spiritual books.
For those of you who have experience with 12 step programs, this has been determined to be the reason they are so effective. When a fellow human being shares their “experience, strength, and hope”, it touches the hearts and lives of others because their story could be my story—I am not alone.
Support groups—groups of folks who struggle with the same illness, circumstance or history as others in the group—lend a “been right where you are and done just what you did” element to the friendship and listening that is so vital to our very beings. Celtic spirituality, an increasing interest of mine, talks of a “soul friend”—an anamchara—who is our spiritual “best friend” and guide—someone who knows our soul well because they know their own soul well. What if Open Circle MCC became a circle of “soul friends” to each other—where spiritual journeys abound in a safety net of sister and fellow travelers.
We know and we celebrate every week that Jesus is our “soul friend” as no other can be our soul friend—that He knows intimately what it feels like to be tempted, to be betrayed, to be injured, to be wounded beyond human comprehension. And yet, Jesus shows us in every way that not only did He survive and thrive but that we, His followers will as well. And we all want to stand up and sing with Gloria Gaynor “I will survive!”
Paul says it in our reading for today: What will separate us from the love Christ has for us?...I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. We can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation.
The older translations say: “In all these things we are MORE than conquerors!” More than conquerors indeed. But lest you think that I am glossing over the pain and struggle involved in moving from wounded to wounded healer—let me return to the story of my son and the bicycle accident. Is it not true that most of the time we tell ourselves to “walk it off”, to shake off the fear and anxiety or even the real physical pain that seemingly strikes us from nowhere? I believe that if we truly follow the way of Jesus, we will allow ourselves the necessary time in Gethsemane and beyond in order to allow God to transform our woundedness into healing and a source of life for others. It is not wise to “shake off” or to hide our pain and struggles, not from each other and certainly not from ourselves. Because to do so has at least two negative consequences—first, we will simply never heal ourselves—secondly, because we cannot afford to let anyone know of our pain, we will wall ourselves off from our hurting sister and brother, lest their pain re-ignite our own. We cannot be a source of healing unless we have at least opened ourselves to the prospect of being healed ourselves.
And so we are vulnerable, vulnerable to ourselves, vulnerable to each other and vulnerable to God. There are times when I go home after preaching and wonder if I have shared too much, showed you too much of who I am—and yet, I believe that the best of what I have to give to you, just as the best of what you have to give to each other comes from the willingness to reveal the truth about our own struggles and journeys and “come clean” as it were. This is, indeed, the difficult work of growing in a faith community. We have not always been safe just because we found ourselves in “church” and some of you may struggle to feel safe here. But my prayer for all of us is that we will grow together as “more than conquerors” as we lovingly hold those among us each week who seek the loving, healing arms of God. Amen and amen!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Can You Speak Louder?: Discerning God's Will for My Life 9-12-2010
Philippians 1:3-11 (Today's New International Version)
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
God, we want to do Your will—we just have trouble sometimes figuring out what that is—open our hearts to hear You in the soft whispers and the crashes of thunder—and our eyes to see You in the leaves blowing gently in the breeze and the waves generated by the storm crashing to the shore. Lead us in Your way everlasting. Amen.
For those of us who are trying to get a deeper understanding of God’s will for our lives, I have some bad news—there have been no burning bushes spotted in the last three thousand years—no writing on any temple walls, and most of those who gain the media spotlight for even a brief moment by claiming to know God’s will for, well, whomever, tend to find themselves exposed as opportunists at best and deliberate deceivers at worst. So where does that leave us—average, well-intentioned, committed believers engaged in personal and communal journeys that we pray are directed by God?
Many of you are or were teachers and so this story may resonate with your experience. There was this teacher at a private school—a Mr. Jones who taught math. It was the custom at that school, just as it is the custom at many schools for children to give their teachers gifts at the end of the year. Mr. Jones had gotten so many gifts, most of them in boxes that appeared to hold one arithmetic-themed tie after another that he eventually quit even opening all the tie boxes. Eventually Mr. Jones retired and decided to rid himself of all those ties—he began opening the ties one by one and sure enough, most of them were animals doing equations, numbers dancing in circles, geometric drawings, you get the point. He came to one box which was definitely a tie box, but when he opened it, it held a rare antique watch. He immediately felt terrible that not only had he never opened it, he had never thanked the student who gave him such a wonderful and precious gift. He wondered how the student felt at never having his wonderful gift acknowledged—did he feel rejected, taken for granted. Mr. Jones immediately wrote a thank you note and wore the watch every day during his retirement. When asked about the watch, Mr. Jones replied, “All those years I had a wonderful gift waiting for me and I never even realized it.”
It seems likely that, just like Mr. Jones, we may overlook some of God’s most precious gifts to us that we could utilize in discerning of God’s will for our lives—particularly talents left unexplored, dreams we left behind in some other portion of our life, skills and aptitudes that we never try on for size because we fail to open all the gifts that come our way. We have all of God’s resources that we need at hand to discern God’s will, and yet, we fail to realize it. We’re still out there looking for something more—perhaps something fantastic and unmistakable, but Paul points us back to our journey and calls us to use all the gifts bestowed upon us by a loving God to discern “what is best.”
If the hidden antique watch becomes a story we can use to illuminate our own struggle to understand the process of discernment—that is, seeking and recognizing God’s will for our lives, we might decide that the answers we seek when we seek God’s will are there for us, just as they are there for all of God’s creation. The fact that we are unaware of the gifts, does not mean that they are not available for us to utilize when we seek to discern what God would have us do. Discern, a difficult word to grasp, at least for me. Mostly we think that one discerns or perceives something that is apparently concealed from our general knowledge. And, indeed, the specific ins and outs of the will of God may very well be hidden from us at least at first.
Take a look at the final paragraph of our scripture—Paul prays first for our love to grow in knowledge and in depth of insight—depth of insight—suggesting that as we grow we gain insight into spiritual things that we do not currently understand. The point of this insight is quite clearly to be able to determine or discern what is best—this discernment enables us to be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, whenever that may come to pass. Paul calls us to be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—peace, faith, hope, joy, love—all that God intends us to be.
Paul says elsewhere that we hold our treasures in earthen vessels. Just as Mr. Jones believed that a tie box must surely hold a tie, we often feel that what we have thus far in our lives been able to do determines all that we are able to do. Meister Eckhart, a mystic in thirteenth-century Germany, said it this way: “We own a vintage wine cellar, but we never drink from it.”
Marianne Williamson, author and lecturer says it in words that force us to re-consider how we envision our gifts and our future. She states, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
And so, before we seek to understand how to discern God’s will for our lives, it becomes imperative for us to agree to find out that God may have much more in store for us than we ever had in mind for ourselves. Many of us are more than halfway through our lives, but I daresay, that few of us are halfway through all of God’s gifts to us, given in love and abundance. But, nevertheless, we look for some kind of sign—we pray for it—I know I do: “God, give me a sign!”—I’ll take a lightning bolt, a cloud shaped like the answer, a message in a bottle, a still small voice—something, anything—that keeps me from doing the hard work of spending time in the company of a God who is happy to show me the way when I truly look and listen.
But we are human and need guidance in seeking God’s face. Several faith traditions do practice specific methods that may help or at least suggest our next steps. Quakers practice communal spiritual discernment by sitting in silence as a community—sometimes for hours at a time. Jesuit priests believe that discernment comes in the actual doing of the work of God—a simple and elemental idea. But, neither of these practices is easy or without sacrifice.
Uh-oh. Brick wall--I usually need my sign from God now, immediately or at least before I spend another night tossing and turning. I need a burning bush by tomorrow, thank you. But rarely is that the case and if it were, discernment wouldn’t be a spiritual practice which enriched our lives, it would be a capricious, unpredictable event which we would never see coming and, most likely, would miss. However, discernment is a practice-- and one that is built on and builds upon the other practices that likewise enrich our lives. Worship, study, prayer, communion, all enable us to be transformed and makes it easier to see the gifts we thought were hidden and bring them into the light.
What tie boxes do you hold deep inside yourselves—afraid to unwrap—uncertain about finding the untapped talent or creativity that God has waiting for you? What dreams do you hold in some closed off part of your heart—assuming that God could not possibly use you in those ways? When we insist against reason that a tie box must surely hold only a tie, and fail to give God the chance to lead us in new and exciting ways, we shortchange ourselves, we shortchange our world, and we shortchange our God. Let us take the risk of uncovering all that God has for us and in that discovery find a renewed passion to love and serve the Lord. Amen and amen!
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
God, we want to do Your will—we just have trouble sometimes figuring out what that is—open our hearts to hear You in the soft whispers and the crashes of thunder—and our eyes to see You in the leaves blowing gently in the breeze and the waves generated by the storm crashing to the shore. Lead us in Your way everlasting. Amen.
For those of us who are trying to get a deeper understanding of God’s will for our lives, I have some bad news—there have been no burning bushes spotted in the last three thousand years—no writing on any temple walls, and most of those who gain the media spotlight for even a brief moment by claiming to know God’s will for, well, whomever, tend to find themselves exposed as opportunists at best and deliberate deceivers at worst. So where does that leave us—average, well-intentioned, committed believers engaged in personal and communal journeys that we pray are directed by God?
Many of you are or were teachers and so this story may resonate with your experience. There was this teacher at a private school—a Mr. Jones who taught math. It was the custom at that school, just as it is the custom at many schools for children to give their teachers gifts at the end of the year. Mr. Jones had gotten so many gifts, most of them in boxes that appeared to hold one arithmetic-themed tie after another that he eventually quit even opening all the tie boxes. Eventually Mr. Jones retired and decided to rid himself of all those ties—he began opening the ties one by one and sure enough, most of them were animals doing equations, numbers dancing in circles, geometric drawings, you get the point. He came to one box which was definitely a tie box, but when he opened it, it held a rare antique watch. He immediately felt terrible that not only had he never opened it, he had never thanked the student who gave him such a wonderful and precious gift. He wondered how the student felt at never having his wonderful gift acknowledged—did he feel rejected, taken for granted. Mr. Jones immediately wrote a thank you note and wore the watch every day during his retirement. When asked about the watch, Mr. Jones replied, “All those years I had a wonderful gift waiting for me and I never even realized it.”
It seems likely that, just like Mr. Jones, we may overlook some of God’s most precious gifts to us that we could utilize in discerning of God’s will for our lives—particularly talents left unexplored, dreams we left behind in some other portion of our life, skills and aptitudes that we never try on for size because we fail to open all the gifts that come our way. We have all of God’s resources that we need at hand to discern God’s will, and yet, we fail to realize it. We’re still out there looking for something more—perhaps something fantastic and unmistakable, but Paul points us back to our journey and calls us to use all the gifts bestowed upon us by a loving God to discern “what is best.”
If the hidden antique watch becomes a story we can use to illuminate our own struggle to understand the process of discernment—that is, seeking and recognizing God’s will for our lives, we might decide that the answers we seek when we seek God’s will are there for us, just as they are there for all of God’s creation. The fact that we are unaware of the gifts, does not mean that they are not available for us to utilize when we seek to discern what God would have us do. Discern, a difficult word to grasp, at least for me. Mostly we think that one discerns or perceives something that is apparently concealed from our general knowledge. And, indeed, the specific ins and outs of the will of God may very well be hidden from us at least at first.
Take a look at the final paragraph of our scripture—Paul prays first for our love to grow in knowledge and in depth of insight—depth of insight—suggesting that as we grow we gain insight into spiritual things that we do not currently understand. The point of this insight is quite clearly to be able to determine or discern what is best—this discernment enables us to be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, whenever that may come to pass. Paul calls us to be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—peace, faith, hope, joy, love—all that God intends us to be.
Paul says elsewhere that we hold our treasures in earthen vessels. Just as Mr. Jones believed that a tie box must surely hold a tie, we often feel that what we have thus far in our lives been able to do determines all that we are able to do. Meister Eckhart, a mystic in thirteenth-century Germany, said it this way: “We own a vintage wine cellar, but we never drink from it.”
Marianne Williamson, author and lecturer says it in words that force us to re-consider how we envision our gifts and our future. She states, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
And so, before we seek to understand how to discern God’s will for our lives, it becomes imperative for us to agree to find out that God may have much more in store for us than we ever had in mind for ourselves. Many of us are more than halfway through our lives, but I daresay, that few of us are halfway through all of God’s gifts to us, given in love and abundance. But, nevertheless, we look for some kind of sign—we pray for it—I know I do: “God, give me a sign!”—I’ll take a lightning bolt, a cloud shaped like the answer, a message in a bottle, a still small voice—something, anything—that keeps me from doing the hard work of spending time in the company of a God who is happy to show me the way when I truly look and listen.
But we are human and need guidance in seeking God’s face. Several faith traditions do practice specific methods that may help or at least suggest our next steps. Quakers practice communal spiritual discernment by sitting in silence as a community—sometimes for hours at a time. Jesuit priests believe that discernment comes in the actual doing of the work of God—a simple and elemental idea. But, neither of these practices is easy or without sacrifice.
Uh-oh. Brick wall--I usually need my sign from God now, immediately or at least before I spend another night tossing and turning. I need a burning bush by tomorrow, thank you. But rarely is that the case and if it were, discernment wouldn’t be a spiritual practice which enriched our lives, it would be a capricious, unpredictable event which we would never see coming and, most likely, would miss. However, discernment is a practice-- and one that is built on and builds upon the other practices that likewise enrich our lives. Worship, study, prayer, communion, all enable us to be transformed and makes it easier to see the gifts we thought were hidden and bring them into the light.
What tie boxes do you hold deep inside yourselves—afraid to unwrap—uncertain about finding the untapped talent or creativity that God has waiting for you? What dreams do you hold in some closed off part of your heart—assuming that God could not possibly use you in those ways? When we insist against reason that a tie box must surely hold only a tie, and fail to give God the chance to lead us in new and exciting ways, we shortchange ourselves, we shortchange our world, and we shortchange our God. Let us take the risk of uncovering all that God has for us and in that discovery find a renewed passion to love and serve the Lord. Amen and amen!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
A Sanctuary--Vibrant with Life 9-5-2010
Scripture: 1 Peter 2: 4-10
God, you have called! We listen with expectation and longing. Give us strength for the journey and ears to hear Your word! Amen
Welcome to the Living Stone! How good can it get? This is how good it can get—we are being called to present ourselves to be building stones for a sanctuary vibrant with life. And here we are—in our first morning worship service, surrounded by a circle of friends that is unending. Seven months and 19 days after our first service as a new worshipping community, we are thriving and growing—making new friends each week and enjoying worship in this beautiful building! We come together rejoicing in all things new and good! And we give thanks to the God who leads us on this journey, blessing us along the way.
The recipients of Peter’s letter did not have it so good! He was writing to folks who had been devastated by tragic historical and social events—the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Roman army in 70 C.E.—that destruction meant for both Jewish and Christian people that the dwelling place of Yahweh had been destroyed and they were outsiders—both socially and politically. Into this setting comes a simple, yet profound invitation to come to Jesus and rebuild the temple—this time as a spiritual temple built upon the cornerstone of Jesus Christ with a universal holy priesthood. Peter gives his readers a choice—they do not have to stay in this scattered, exile place any longer—they can choose to be themselves the place where God dwells and to extend this spiritual temple to all who seek God. Let me say that again, they can choose to become the place where God dwells…
And I believe, my friends, that we stand on similar ground as we continue to build this faith community that we call Open Circle. We come to the “living stone”—the One the builders rejected and that “living stone” is the one around which we construct ourselves as a “sanctuary—vibrant with life”! Peter calls this living stone who is Jesus—the source of life—the source of the building of something new—the cornerstone—not just a replacement of the old physical Temple, but a new kind of spiritual sanctuary into which you and I are called to serve as holy priests!
We have such sophisticated construction tools in the 21st Century that a cornerstone has pretty much turned into the pretty carved stone on a corner of a building with the date of construction. This was not the case in Peter’s time. The cornerstone was a large stone laid at the base of a building around which every other stone was plumbed and squared. There was no such thing as mortar, so gravity held these interlocking stones together—the importance of the perfection of the cornerstone cannot be overstated. And Peter is quick to point out that even though the builders of the world rejected Jesus as the cornerstone, God had chosen Him around which to build this great spiritual temple. As a living cornerstone, Jesus IS the spiritual temple. And we are united with Christ as we become living, building stones in this holy calling. We are all a part of this community building—we all have a job to do as a part of this living vibrant sanctuary.
I want to tell you about one of the most spiritual experiences I ever had. Many of you have been to Martha’s Vineyard and the little island was just in the news as Hurricane Earl passed by. One summer I had the opportunity to spend a week exploring the grounds and cottages of the Camp Meeting Association. Begun in the 19th Century as a Methodist Summer Campground, it gradually grew into what it is today—home to the hundreds of tiny little cottages that replaced the tents that originally made up the campground. In the middle of this circular community is the Tabernacle—an outdoor “sanctuary” that can seat up to 4000 people. Built in the late 1800’s, it has been renovated several times. Every Wednesday night in the summer, hundreds of people come to a community sing. The night I was present, there must have been about 1200 people. Everyone sings and the 4 and 6 part harmony is incredible. At one point, we were singing “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder” in what sounded like 10 part harmony to me. It seemed as if the earth grew still--all you could hear was singing—just singing rising up into the skies. You could almost see the air quiver and sparkle with the energy coming from that many voices all singing one song. As we sang, “every round goes higher, higher” I’m sure I could see the stairway to heaven ascending on the very sound of the music. This is what a sanctuary vibrant with life must indeed feel like.
While we may not sing in 10-part harmony, the principle still holds. The beautiful, vibrant energy that flows from a united community all serving God and singing God’s praise will produce that same quality of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst—inviting us to rise higher and higher to reach the place of sanctuary and service that God has called us to.
What about this “holy Priesthood” calling? Peter says towards the end of our passage: “…But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do the work of God and speak out for God, to tell others of the night-and-day difference that God made in your lives—from feeling like nothing to knowing you are something, from feeling rejected to knowing you are accepted.” And this is what makes our sanctuary “vibrant with life”!
What does all this have to do with us, here, in this circle of friends—some old—some new—some waiting to be found? Remember The Color Purple—Alice Walker’s wonderful book that we devoured in the mid-80’s before it was a movie and then a Broadway play. Shug Avery, the not-so-repentant prostitute and later lover to Celie, was the social critic in the plot. She says to Celie: “Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did, I just found a bunch of folks hoping for [him] to show.” I believe that what keeps us from being a bunch of folks sitting around hoping that God will show up is our grateful affirmation of our high calling—this priestly work chosen for us—a holy people—chosen to be God’s instruments to do the work of God and the voice of God—to tell others how different our lives are now that we know that we are not nothing, but rather everything in God’s eyes and in the eyes of God’s people—that we are not rejected as so many would have us believe, but rather accepted and included as precious children of God.
This temple, this Living Stone, this church is to be cared for—a sanctuary where we come to take rest and comfort from the everyday stresses of life—recharge—regroup, if you will, and learn to take the message back out to those who have not yet heard! We catch hold of a vibrancy in life that stays with us long after we leave this place. For as we participate as a holy people, we become the very sanctuary that we seek. Peter’s words suggest that we no longer need to simply observe life’s tragedies and sigh; nor do we have any reason to let others’ opinions keep us from being all that God created and called us to be. We have no need to search for a home—we can choose to be “home” and a family to others who need us. We do not need to wonder where God’s presence is in the midst of hatred, bigotry, and tragedy. We can choose to be God’s presence in the world—to be the people of God—God’s holy priesthood—chosen people.
Chosen people—chosen to be God’s presence in the world. And so, we live in ways that show forth what God is doing in our lives—the night and day difference God has made in who we are. To take healing to those who are hurting, we allow our own woundedness to be healed—to take joy to those who grieve, we allow our own mourning to be shared with others. To take peace to those who are anxious, we give over our own fears to be loved into holy courage. And in the sharing, life-giving energy through the Holy Spirit is present for all of us!
Welcome to the Living Stone! Welcome to the building of a sanctuary—vibrant with life! Today is a milestone on our journey! Let us rejoice and be glad in it! Amen and amen!
God, you have called! We listen with expectation and longing. Give us strength for the journey and ears to hear Your word! Amen
Welcome to the Living Stone! How good can it get? This is how good it can get—we are being called to present ourselves to be building stones for a sanctuary vibrant with life. And here we are—in our first morning worship service, surrounded by a circle of friends that is unending. Seven months and 19 days after our first service as a new worshipping community, we are thriving and growing—making new friends each week and enjoying worship in this beautiful building! We come together rejoicing in all things new and good! And we give thanks to the God who leads us on this journey, blessing us along the way.
The recipients of Peter’s letter did not have it so good! He was writing to folks who had been devastated by tragic historical and social events—the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Roman army in 70 C.E.—that destruction meant for both Jewish and Christian people that the dwelling place of Yahweh had been destroyed and they were outsiders—both socially and politically. Into this setting comes a simple, yet profound invitation to come to Jesus and rebuild the temple—this time as a spiritual temple built upon the cornerstone of Jesus Christ with a universal holy priesthood. Peter gives his readers a choice—they do not have to stay in this scattered, exile place any longer—they can choose to be themselves the place where God dwells and to extend this spiritual temple to all who seek God. Let me say that again, they can choose to become the place where God dwells…
And I believe, my friends, that we stand on similar ground as we continue to build this faith community that we call Open Circle. We come to the “living stone”—the One the builders rejected and that “living stone” is the one around which we construct ourselves as a “sanctuary—vibrant with life”! Peter calls this living stone who is Jesus—the source of life—the source of the building of something new—the cornerstone—not just a replacement of the old physical Temple, but a new kind of spiritual sanctuary into which you and I are called to serve as holy priests!
We have such sophisticated construction tools in the 21st Century that a cornerstone has pretty much turned into the pretty carved stone on a corner of a building with the date of construction. This was not the case in Peter’s time. The cornerstone was a large stone laid at the base of a building around which every other stone was plumbed and squared. There was no such thing as mortar, so gravity held these interlocking stones together—the importance of the perfection of the cornerstone cannot be overstated. And Peter is quick to point out that even though the builders of the world rejected Jesus as the cornerstone, God had chosen Him around which to build this great spiritual temple. As a living cornerstone, Jesus IS the spiritual temple. And we are united with Christ as we become living, building stones in this holy calling. We are all a part of this community building—we all have a job to do as a part of this living vibrant sanctuary.
I want to tell you about one of the most spiritual experiences I ever had. Many of you have been to Martha’s Vineyard and the little island was just in the news as Hurricane Earl passed by. One summer I had the opportunity to spend a week exploring the grounds and cottages of the Camp Meeting Association. Begun in the 19th Century as a Methodist Summer Campground, it gradually grew into what it is today—home to the hundreds of tiny little cottages that replaced the tents that originally made up the campground. In the middle of this circular community is the Tabernacle—an outdoor “sanctuary” that can seat up to 4000 people. Built in the late 1800’s, it has been renovated several times. Every Wednesday night in the summer, hundreds of people come to a community sing. The night I was present, there must have been about 1200 people. Everyone sings and the 4 and 6 part harmony is incredible. At one point, we were singing “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder” in what sounded like 10 part harmony to me. It seemed as if the earth grew still--all you could hear was singing—just singing rising up into the skies. You could almost see the air quiver and sparkle with the energy coming from that many voices all singing one song. As we sang, “every round goes higher, higher” I’m sure I could see the stairway to heaven ascending on the very sound of the music. This is what a sanctuary vibrant with life must indeed feel like.
While we may not sing in 10-part harmony, the principle still holds. The beautiful, vibrant energy that flows from a united community all serving God and singing God’s praise will produce that same quality of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst—inviting us to rise higher and higher to reach the place of sanctuary and service that God has called us to.
What about this “holy Priesthood” calling? Peter says towards the end of our passage: “…But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do the work of God and speak out for God, to tell others of the night-and-day difference that God made in your lives—from feeling like nothing to knowing you are something, from feeling rejected to knowing you are accepted.” And this is what makes our sanctuary “vibrant with life”!
What does all this have to do with us, here, in this circle of friends—some old—some new—some waiting to be found? Remember The Color Purple—Alice Walker’s wonderful book that we devoured in the mid-80’s before it was a movie and then a Broadway play. Shug Avery, the not-so-repentant prostitute and later lover to Celie, was the social critic in the plot. She says to Celie: “Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did, I just found a bunch of folks hoping for [him] to show.” I believe that what keeps us from being a bunch of folks sitting around hoping that God will show up is our grateful affirmation of our high calling—this priestly work chosen for us—a holy people—chosen to be God’s instruments to do the work of God and the voice of God—to tell others how different our lives are now that we know that we are not nothing, but rather everything in God’s eyes and in the eyes of God’s people—that we are not rejected as so many would have us believe, but rather accepted and included as precious children of God.
This temple, this Living Stone, this church is to be cared for—a sanctuary where we come to take rest and comfort from the everyday stresses of life—recharge—regroup, if you will, and learn to take the message back out to those who have not yet heard! We catch hold of a vibrancy in life that stays with us long after we leave this place. For as we participate as a holy people, we become the very sanctuary that we seek. Peter’s words suggest that we no longer need to simply observe life’s tragedies and sigh; nor do we have any reason to let others’ opinions keep us from being all that God created and called us to be. We have no need to search for a home—we can choose to be “home” and a family to others who need us. We do not need to wonder where God’s presence is in the midst of hatred, bigotry, and tragedy. We can choose to be God’s presence in the world—to be the people of God—God’s holy priesthood—chosen people.
Chosen people—chosen to be God’s presence in the world. And so, we live in ways that show forth what God is doing in our lives—the night and day difference God has made in who we are. To take healing to those who are hurting, we allow our own woundedness to be healed—to take joy to those who grieve, we allow our own mourning to be shared with others. To take peace to those who are anxious, we give over our own fears to be loved into holy courage. And in the sharing, life-giving energy through the Holy Spirit is present for all of us!
Welcome to the Living Stone! Welcome to the building of a sanctuary—vibrant with life! Today is a milestone on our journey! Let us rejoice and be glad in it! Amen and amen!
Monday, August 30, 2010
Who's Coming to Dinner at Our House? August 29, 2010
Luke 14: 1, 7-14
Who’s Coming for Dinner at Our House? August 29, 2010
God, lead us in the way of welcome. May we be as welcoming to the stranger in our midst as you are welcoming to us. Give us ears to listen and eyes to see. Amen!
When I was in the sixth grade I was an outsider. During lunchtime, we sat at long tables with benches. Each table held six children. At the far end of the line of tables—closest to where the next class came in to line up for food—thus providing the best opportunity to be seen and envied—at the end of that line of tables was THAT TABLE. At THAT TABLE sat all the cool girls—the ones already wearing makeup and getting their hair done. I wanted, more than anything, to sit at THAT TABLE. But, alas, I was never, never, never invited. This so upset me that my mother had me talk to the school counselor—she did her best to convince me that the really cool kids sat elsewhere, but when you are 12—those kinds of arguments go nowhere. I knew then and I know now, that if I had ever ventured to sit at THAT TABLE, I would have been asked to leave, there was no room for me with the elite.
I survived, of course, probably not too much the worse for wear, but I never forgot what it felt like to be excluded from those most popular. Jesus is calling us today to stay away from tables that are only open to the elite and powerful and we are challenged to look at what this means for us as Christians and as a church. Just as in my sixth grade lunchroom, there was much meaning attached to where one sat to eat. Whom you ate with, where you sat at the table, and how you behaved were all judged critically in the society of Jesus’ day. Your place at the table was a symbol for your place in society. If you ate with less than desirable people, you were deemed less than desirable. At a banquet such as the one Jesus was attending, you could tell who was important by who sat the closest to the host. But Jesus, as he often did, took a common assumption and turned it on its head in order to get his point across. He not only ate with people who were shunned by others, he encouraged his followers to do the same. Invite the poor, the crippled, the sinners, to your banquet he tells us.
Just like I refused to believe the 6th grade counselor that life was better among the less than elite, most of us, and many churches stumble over Jesus’ words in this passage. In the midst of a bit of commotion at this dinner when Jesus has healed again on the Sabbath, people are trying to decide where to sit. Now this may seem unimportant to us, but it was not unimportant during Jesus’ time. Where you sat was who you were. Jesus, seizing the teachable moment, commences a brief homily on proper table etiquette at least as far as where one sits. But as Jesus always does, his talk goes far beyond mere table manners or the dinner at hand. He applies this simple advice to how we are to act when we are in God’s presence—with humility and thought for others.
Notice then that Jesus takes it a step further. He informs us that if our banquets are to reflect the values inherent in God’s reign of justice, we will invite the very folks that the religious leaders didn’t even want Jesus to heal—much less invite to the table. Jesus tells us twice in this passage that we are to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. We must not lose sight of the fact that Jesus was turning everything they knew upside down—for physical infirmity was equated with sin and sinners were not welcome at the tables of these righteous religious bigots. Any of this begin to sound familiar?
And here is how our summer of our study of blessings ends: Jesus says that when we invite these people, the very people who the religious leaders hate and scorn, the people who have no way to repay our kindness, we will be “blessed”. Blessed because we have opened wide the doors to God’s reign of justice on earth. Blessed because offering kindness to folks who have no visible way to repay us sets our relationship with God on a right path. And so, who’s coming to dinner at our house?
Jesus calls us to re-evaluate who the guest of honor is every time we sit down to partake of God’s banquet, which most often for us is expressed in our gathering together to partake of communion. Jesus calls us to engage in a spiritual understanding that the person who needs us the most is our guest of honor at each banquet. Beyond that Jesus reminds us that it is our assignment to reach out and find those who need what God, and we have to offer. “Invite some people who never get invited out” are the words in our modern translation. We had a phrase that we used to use to refer to children in the foster care system who were hard to place—we called them “hard to love”. These “hard to love” folks are the ones Jesus calls us to embrace and invite into our gatherings.
Jesus calls us to turn our celebrations upside down—to challenge the prevailing standards and invite everyone into our banquet hall. Who’s coming to dinner at our house? This might not seem radical to most of us. After all, inclusion is one of the core values of our denomination—I can’t help but wonder though, if we’ve figured out how to be inclusive of all of us—rich, poor, educated, not so much education, white, black, Pentecostal, catholic, conservative, liberal, single, married, gay and even straight—what’s the clue that we’re missing to have a truly and completely inclusive congregation? I believe that we might find it in the word “honor”. Jesus tells us to give the place of honor away—let’s think about that for a minute as we ponder who’s coming to dinner at our house.
Jesus reminds us that when we throw a party, we shouldn’t invite just those that somehow look, think, and act like us. We should invite the isolated, the poor, the marginalized. And then, the double whammy appears—lest we think that we get by with simply having outreach and mission programs, He tells us that we are to honor others more than seek the place of honor for ourselves. Now I will be the first to admit that “honor” has lost some of its meaning when compared to the culture in which Jesus lived, so it’s important for us to look beyond the way we use the word today. Though we use the word today in titles such as “your honor” or “the honorable so-and-so”, it had a much broader sense when Jesus spoke about it in first-century Palestine. Honor referred to the esteem in which the community held not only you, but your entire family and was necessary not only for social interaction, but, in some cases, for economic survival.
And so Jesus calls us to seek out those who have been dishonored—to invite them in—to dine with us at the banquet of life and to give them a place of honor. That would bring big changes in our world and in our church—simply to model this one behavior that Jesus showed us so plainly in His life, ministry, and even death on the cross. We do not need to look far to find people who need this radical respect to turn their lives upside down and call them into a place of healing and love. There may be some of us, sitting here tonight, who need reminding that we are loved and cared for by the God who created us and that we are honored by God’s people.
As we walk through these next exciting days, and my friends, I believe that we are entering into a new stage on this wonderful journey, we will be talking about vision—what we want this church to be. My friends, we already are a living, breathing, creation of God, reaching out to love and be loved, to touch and be touched. And so we worship in loving, caring, yes, even accepting ways, that encourage us to follow the ways of Jesus—to give honor to the stranger, or to the one whose ideas differ from ours—to come together to the banquet of life as one body—with many very different parts. And so we come, with excitement, with expectation with joy! Let us move boldly forward resting in the promise of Jesus: “you will be blessed!”
Amen and amen.
Who’s Coming for Dinner at Our House? August 29, 2010
God, lead us in the way of welcome. May we be as welcoming to the stranger in our midst as you are welcoming to us. Give us ears to listen and eyes to see. Amen!
When I was in the sixth grade I was an outsider. During lunchtime, we sat at long tables with benches. Each table held six children. At the far end of the line of tables—closest to where the next class came in to line up for food—thus providing the best opportunity to be seen and envied—at the end of that line of tables was THAT TABLE. At THAT TABLE sat all the cool girls—the ones already wearing makeup and getting their hair done. I wanted, more than anything, to sit at THAT TABLE. But, alas, I was never, never, never invited. This so upset me that my mother had me talk to the school counselor—she did her best to convince me that the really cool kids sat elsewhere, but when you are 12—those kinds of arguments go nowhere. I knew then and I know now, that if I had ever ventured to sit at THAT TABLE, I would have been asked to leave, there was no room for me with the elite.
I survived, of course, probably not too much the worse for wear, but I never forgot what it felt like to be excluded from those most popular. Jesus is calling us today to stay away from tables that are only open to the elite and powerful and we are challenged to look at what this means for us as Christians and as a church. Just as in my sixth grade lunchroom, there was much meaning attached to where one sat to eat. Whom you ate with, where you sat at the table, and how you behaved were all judged critically in the society of Jesus’ day. Your place at the table was a symbol for your place in society. If you ate with less than desirable people, you were deemed less than desirable. At a banquet such as the one Jesus was attending, you could tell who was important by who sat the closest to the host. But Jesus, as he often did, took a common assumption and turned it on its head in order to get his point across. He not only ate with people who were shunned by others, he encouraged his followers to do the same. Invite the poor, the crippled, the sinners, to your banquet he tells us.
Just like I refused to believe the 6th grade counselor that life was better among the less than elite, most of us, and many churches stumble over Jesus’ words in this passage. In the midst of a bit of commotion at this dinner when Jesus has healed again on the Sabbath, people are trying to decide where to sit. Now this may seem unimportant to us, but it was not unimportant during Jesus’ time. Where you sat was who you were. Jesus, seizing the teachable moment, commences a brief homily on proper table etiquette at least as far as where one sits. But as Jesus always does, his talk goes far beyond mere table manners or the dinner at hand. He applies this simple advice to how we are to act when we are in God’s presence—with humility and thought for others.
Notice then that Jesus takes it a step further. He informs us that if our banquets are to reflect the values inherent in God’s reign of justice, we will invite the very folks that the religious leaders didn’t even want Jesus to heal—much less invite to the table. Jesus tells us twice in this passage that we are to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. We must not lose sight of the fact that Jesus was turning everything they knew upside down—for physical infirmity was equated with sin and sinners were not welcome at the tables of these righteous religious bigots. Any of this begin to sound familiar?
And here is how our summer of our study of blessings ends: Jesus says that when we invite these people, the very people who the religious leaders hate and scorn, the people who have no way to repay our kindness, we will be “blessed”. Blessed because we have opened wide the doors to God’s reign of justice on earth. Blessed because offering kindness to folks who have no visible way to repay us sets our relationship with God on a right path. And so, who’s coming to dinner at our house?
Jesus calls us to re-evaluate who the guest of honor is every time we sit down to partake of God’s banquet, which most often for us is expressed in our gathering together to partake of communion. Jesus calls us to engage in a spiritual understanding that the person who needs us the most is our guest of honor at each banquet. Beyond that Jesus reminds us that it is our assignment to reach out and find those who need what God, and we have to offer. “Invite some people who never get invited out” are the words in our modern translation. We had a phrase that we used to use to refer to children in the foster care system who were hard to place—we called them “hard to love”. These “hard to love” folks are the ones Jesus calls us to embrace and invite into our gatherings.
Jesus calls us to turn our celebrations upside down—to challenge the prevailing standards and invite everyone into our banquet hall. Who’s coming to dinner at our house? This might not seem radical to most of us. After all, inclusion is one of the core values of our denomination—I can’t help but wonder though, if we’ve figured out how to be inclusive of all of us—rich, poor, educated, not so much education, white, black, Pentecostal, catholic, conservative, liberal, single, married, gay and even straight—what’s the clue that we’re missing to have a truly and completely inclusive congregation? I believe that we might find it in the word “honor”. Jesus tells us to give the place of honor away—let’s think about that for a minute as we ponder who’s coming to dinner at our house.
Jesus reminds us that when we throw a party, we shouldn’t invite just those that somehow look, think, and act like us. We should invite the isolated, the poor, the marginalized. And then, the double whammy appears—lest we think that we get by with simply having outreach and mission programs, He tells us that we are to honor others more than seek the place of honor for ourselves. Now I will be the first to admit that “honor” has lost some of its meaning when compared to the culture in which Jesus lived, so it’s important for us to look beyond the way we use the word today. Though we use the word today in titles such as “your honor” or “the honorable so-and-so”, it had a much broader sense when Jesus spoke about it in first-century Palestine. Honor referred to the esteem in which the community held not only you, but your entire family and was necessary not only for social interaction, but, in some cases, for economic survival.
And so Jesus calls us to seek out those who have been dishonored—to invite them in—to dine with us at the banquet of life and to give them a place of honor. That would bring big changes in our world and in our church—simply to model this one behavior that Jesus showed us so plainly in His life, ministry, and even death on the cross. We do not need to look far to find people who need this radical respect to turn their lives upside down and call them into a place of healing and love. There may be some of us, sitting here tonight, who need reminding that we are loved and cared for by the God who created us and that we are honored by God’s people.
As we walk through these next exciting days, and my friends, I believe that we are entering into a new stage on this wonderful journey, we will be talking about vision—what we want this church to be. My friends, we already are a living, breathing, creation of God, reaching out to love and be loved, to touch and be touched. And so we worship in loving, caring, yes, even accepting ways, that encourage us to follow the ways of Jesus—to give honor to the stranger, or to the one whose ideas differ from ours—to come together to the banquet of life as one body—with many very different parts. And so we come, with excitement, with expectation with joy! Let us move boldly forward resting in the promise of Jesus: “you will be blessed!”
Amen and amen.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
God's Outrageous Love August 22
God, we know that you love us in ways that we can barely imagine—help us begin to let our imaginations run wild with experiencing your great love for us. Amen!
Outrageous! Breaking the bonds of everything that is expected—not anything you could imagine. But God invites us every day to imagine just how broad and high, deep and wide God’s love for us truly is. Some of you might remember this song from your childhood days: Deep and wide, deep and wide: there's a fountain flowing deep and wide. You notice that it comes with arm motions—always a challenge for me—that’s why you will never see me dancing to “YMCA”—just can’t get those motions right! Isn’t it great that it doesn’t matter to God whether we do wide and deep or deep and wide as long as we get the concept that God’s love is bigger than the places in which we tend to live. And so the question is obvious—what if we lived into the full, the deep, the wide love of God? What would our lives look like? What would we look like?
I’ll tell you the truth—some sermons are easier to write than others—some seem to flow easily and then, there are weeks like this one, where the words struggled to find their place on the page and in my speech. I’ll tell you a second truth—I have come to know that the harder the sermon is to write, the more it needs to be preached and the more I need to listen to God’s words. And so, I invite us all to venture into this land of healing and redemption.
The woman in our simple gospel story learned all of this in one brief moment—but the living of it went long past the flash of grace in the synagogue. Jesus was in the synagogue—teaching—as was his practice. Picture the scene—the crowd is there—probably standing—the synagogues of Jesus’ time didn’t come with nice comfy chairs like we have here. So over the crowd, he spies her. She was unwell, fragile, and had enough sense to stay out of the way. Nevertheless, Jesus’ compassion looks beyond the front row to the very back of the synagogue. He calls her forward—you can imagine how long it took her to get to him—bent over that she was, the scripture says she “could not straighten up at all”. But Jesus can see her, feels her need for healing and calls her out of that dark corner. When she gets in front of him, he says, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." And then he did something that no one had done for years. He touched her, and immediately she stood tall and responded by praising God. And here is our clue for what our life would look like if we allowed the love of God to fully and completely inhabit our bodies. If you think about it, this is what every single person did who Jesus healed or set free—the Geresene demoniac, the woman with the issue of blood, the man born blind from birth, the leper—every single one of them responded to the miracle of healing with praising God…there’s a theme here.
Picture yourselves in that scene—Imagine the hush that must have passed over that group of regular temple goers—I would venture a guess that most of them had never even noticed this quiet, bent over women—imagine the torturous stillness that must have fallen as she shuffled forward—what do you think they were thinking? What do you think you would be thinking if Jesus were here and called her forth in our presence? I can imagine her fear mixed with tentative anticipation—coupled with the pain that wracked her body as she walked slowly forward—could she possibly have known that her life was about to change forever? And then, He touched her and she stood tall for the first time in years.
And what about us? I would be bold enough to suggest that there are not many of us here who have not been healed in one way or another—perhaps not in some miraculous physical way, but at least in a quiet, mindful way—Jesus has touched our hearts in some small or large way—and called us into a life of praising God. To those of you who may have come this evening seeking healing, you have come to the best place—to the place where Jesus walks and talks among us—when we let the love of God touch us with great healing and joy!
Hear again the Psalm for today—from her perspective--this formerly old, tired woman, now freshly healed by Jesus. She shouts: Praise God, my soul—everything, even that which is deep inside me praises God for this healing. I will praise God and not forget all that God has done—giving me a new outlook on life, changing who I am, and healing me from this horrible disease that forced me to look down all the time—why look! I’m standing tall—I’m no longer depressed and afraid—I want everybody to know the goodness of God—I feel young again—God is so good!
This, my friends is what it means to praise God—to allow God to work the miracle in our lives—changing our perspectives, touching us in ways that defy our limited understanding of who we can be. We are, many of us, bent over in some form or another—most of us gather every week desiring the touch of God—how do I know this? Because we are here, gathered together to experience this healing touch of God in our lives. And so we do! And so we worship! Here in the presence of God, waiting the touch of God…
One of my favorite children’s stories is Beauty and the Beast—it’s a theme that runs throughout many stories and fables. The thing of ugliness is transformed by the touch of the beautiful—kisses and frog-princes, comatose princesses and the kiss of a prince that awakens her—we could add many more. Somehow we all know that pain is transformed by grace and sadness is overcome by joy. Does it not make sense that we would want to stay in this healing place with God—to enjoy the constant companionship of the one who reaches in and touches us for good?
Why then, is every day worship so hard for us? Why do we get distracted and wander away from the miracles that God has done in our lives? Last week we talked about worship—corporate worship—worship like that in which we are engaged this very moment and I told you that this week I would talk about private worship and so I am. No one sums up for me the essence of private worship than Brother Lawrence. The little book “Practicing the Presence of God” was written after his death and contains bits and pieces of conversations between the author and Lawrence. Did I forget to tell you that Brother Lawrence lived in the 1600’s—no matter, his call to us is as current today as it was then. As a lay brother in the monastery where he worked, he did not have the complex theological training that the monks had—perhaps the very reason why he was so comfortable just spending time in God’s presence—no need to question, just be. Here is his call to come into the presence of God: "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it." And so, he challenges us to be always in the presence of God—to be at all times in that delightful, healing place—where God in continual conversation reaches out to us, touches us, restores us.
If you have come today seeking healing, I invite you to spend much time in conversation with God—for our God is a loving God, reaching out to us—spying us back in the back of the room, bent over with physical or emotional pain. There are no fancy riddles to answer or convoluted explanations to ponder—there is only the loving touch of God, always ready, wanting to seek us out, call us forward, and make us whole.
Father John O’Donohue, one of my mentors in my journey towards living the full life that embraces all that God wants for me and for us, gives us a blessing for such a day as this. He offers these words and I offer them to you: May all that is unforgiven in you be released. May your fears yield their deepest tranquilities. May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love. Amen and amen.
Outrageous! Breaking the bonds of everything that is expected—not anything you could imagine. But God invites us every day to imagine just how broad and high, deep and wide God’s love for us truly is. Some of you might remember this song from your childhood days: Deep and wide, deep and wide: there's a fountain flowing deep and wide. You notice that it comes with arm motions—always a challenge for me—that’s why you will never see me dancing to “YMCA”—just can’t get those motions right! Isn’t it great that it doesn’t matter to God whether we do wide and deep or deep and wide as long as we get the concept that God’s love is bigger than the places in which we tend to live. And so the question is obvious—what if we lived into the full, the deep, the wide love of God? What would our lives look like? What would we look like?
I’ll tell you the truth—some sermons are easier to write than others—some seem to flow easily and then, there are weeks like this one, where the words struggled to find their place on the page and in my speech. I’ll tell you a second truth—I have come to know that the harder the sermon is to write, the more it needs to be preached and the more I need to listen to God’s words. And so, I invite us all to venture into this land of healing and redemption.
The woman in our simple gospel story learned all of this in one brief moment—but the living of it went long past the flash of grace in the synagogue. Jesus was in the synagogue—teaching—as was his practice. Picture the scene—the crowd is there—probably standing—the synagogues of Jesus’ time didn’t come with nice comfy chairs like we have here. So over the crowd, he spies her. She was unwell, fragile, and had enough sense to stay out of the way. Nevertheless, Jesus’ compassion looks beyond the front row to the very back of the synagogue. He calls her forward—you can imagine how long it took her to get to him—bent over that she was, the scripture says she “could not straighten up at all”. But Jesus can see her, feels her need for healing and calls her out of that dark corner. When she gets in front of him, he says, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." And then he did something that no one had done for years. He touched her, and immediately she stood tall and responded by praising God. And here is our clue for what our life would look like if we allowed the love of God to fully and completely inhabit our bodies. If you think about it, this is what every single person did who Jesus healed or set free—the Geresene demoniac, the woman with the issue of blood, the man born blind from birth, the leper—every single one of them responded to the miracle of healing with praising God…there’s a theme here.
Picture yourselves in that scene—Imagine the hush that must have passed over that group of regular temple goers—I would venture a guess that most of them had never even noticed this quiet, bent over women—imagine the torturous stillness that must have fallen as she shuffled forward—what do you think they were thinking? What do you think you would be thinking if Jesus were here and called her forth in our presence? I can imagine her fear mixed with tentative anticipation—coupled with the pain that wracked her body as she walked slowly forward—could she possibly have known that her life was about to change forever? And then, He touched her and she stood tall for the first time in years.
And what about us? I would be bold enough to suggest that there are not many of us here who have not been healed in one way or another—perhaps not in some miraculous physical way, but at least in a quiet, mindful way—Jesus has touched our hearts in some small or large way—and called us into a life of praising God. To those of you who may have come this evening seeking healing, you have come to the best place—to the place where Jesus walks and talks among us—when we let the love of God touch us with great healing and joy!
Hear again the Psalm for today—from her perspective--this formerly old, tired woman, now freshly healed by Jesus. She shouts: Praise God, my soul—everything, even that which is deep inside me praises God for this healing. I will praise God and not forget all that God has done—giving me a new outlook on life, changing who I am, and healing me from this horrible disease that forced me to look down all the time—why look! I’m standing tall—I’m no longer depressed and afraid—I want everybody to know the goodness of God—I feel young again—God is so good!
This, my friends is what it means to praise God—to allow God to work the miracle in our lives—changing our perspectives, touching us in ways that defy our limited understanding of who we can be. We are, many of us, bent over in some form or another—most of us gather every week desiring the touch of God—how do I know this? Because we are here, gathered together to experience this healing touch of God in our lives. And so we do! And so we worship! Here in the presence of God, waiting the touch of God…
One of my favorite children’s stories is Beauty and the Beast—it’s a theme that runs throughout many stories and fables. The thing of ugliness is transformed by the touch of the beautiful—kisses and frog-princes, comatose princesses and the kiss of a prince that awakens her—we could add many more. Somehow we all know that pain is transformed by grace and sadness is overcome by joy. Does it not make sense that we would want to stay in this healing place with God—to enjoy the constant companionship of the one who reaches in and touches us for good?
Why then, is every day worship so hard for us? Why do we get distracted and wander away from the miracles that God has done in our lives? Last week we talked about worship—corporate worship—worship like that in which we are engaged this very moment and I told you that this week I would talk about private worship and so I am. No one sums up for me the essence of private worship than Brother Lawrence. The little book “Practicing the Presence of God” was written after his death and contains bits and pieces of conversations between the author and Lawrence. Did I forget to tell you that Brother Lawrence lived in the 1600’s—no matter, his call to us is as current today as it was then. As a lay brother in the monastery where he worked, he did not have the complex theological training that the monks had—perhaps the very reason why he was so comfortable just spending time in God’s presence—no need to question, just be. Here is his call to come into the presence of God: "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it." And so, he challenges us to be always in the presence of God—to be at all times in that delightful, healing place—where God in continual conversation reaches out to us, touches us, restores us.
If you have come today seeking healing, I invite you to spend much time in conversation with God—for our God is a loving God, reaching out to us—spying us back in the back of the room, bent over with physical or emotional pain. There are no fancy riddles to answer or convoluted explanations to ponder—there is only the loving touch of God, always ready, wanting to seek us out, call us forward, and make us whole.
Father John O’Donohue, one of my mentors in my journey towards living the full life that embraces all that God wants for me and for us, gives us a blessing for such a day as this. He offers these words and I offer them to you: May all that is unforgiven in you be released. May your fears yield their deepest tranquilities. May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love. Amen and amen.
Monday, August 16, 2010
We Are the People of God! 8-15-2010
The Reading for Today: Psalm 100—a modern translation
Shout for joy to God, all the earth.
Worship God with gladness; and with singing joyful songs.
Know that God is God alone.
We are made by God—we certainly did not make ourselves!
We are the people of God, the sheep of the pasture of God.
We are the people of God, the sheep of the pasture of God.
Here, we come into this place with thanksgiving--
and we flood God’s place of worship with honor;
saying “thank you” and giving God praise.
and we flood God’s place of worship with honor;
saying “thank you” and giving God praise.
For God is good with a love that endures forever;
God is faithful to all generations.
God is faithful to all generations.
God, teach us to worship you in spirit and in truth! Amen
Worship—that sometimes elusive process, that somehow, try as hard as we might—we don’t just seem to get there. There are at least two ways we worship the God that made us—corporately—that is in communion with other folks and privately—alone with God. This week I’m going to talk about the worship we do as a group of folks, a circle if you will, and next week I will talk about our private response to the love of God. Here’s my favorite story about worship—seems like there was this rather large church—well, big enough to have a separate children’s church—one Sunday, the leader decided it was time to take a “field trip” and visit the morning adult worship. She gave the children all kinds of tips and rules and then they tippy-toed across the courtyard and over to the door. Just before opening the door—she turned to them and said, “Does anybody know why we need to be quiet and reverent when we go through that door?” One bright little lad replied, “So we don’t wake up the ones that are sleeping!” May it never be said that there are folks sleeping at Open Circle MCC.
In the beginning of this adventure, before we had permission to refer to ourselves as an MCC church, we called ourselves “Open Circle Worship.” It was a brief phase and many of you missed it, but it says to me that we knew from the jump that we wanted to be about the joy of worship. Since then, we have worshipped together every single week—sometimes different places and sometimes different people—but we have stayed the course on being about worship.
We’ve begun a bit of a tradition here at Open Circle and you may wonder why. We greet each other in love at the beginning of the service and then the choir begins to sing: “As we gather may Your Spirit work within us…As we gather, may we glorify Your name.” Have you listened to the words yet—we chose this song for particular reasons—“Knowing well that as our hearts begin to worship, we’ll be blessed because we came.” And in our summer of blessings, even as it draws to a close, we claim the blessing of worship each and every time we meet. We’ll change the song from time to time, from season to season, but I trust that we always have a song that calls us into this time of worship—this time we set apart each week to worship as a community.
I do a lot of reading about worship—seems like a good thing for a pastor to do. Ron Rienstra, one of those worship “specialists” lists 7 characteristics of worship and I was fascinated to see how well these characteristics are reflected in the words of our reading today—Psalm 100.
Shout for joy to God, all the earth. Rienstra says that worship should be Participative. Seems right, don’t you think? Makes sense that this time of worship is a time when all of us should participate and want to participate—if the only folks who are worshipping are the ones of us at the front—we have a problem. God is God of all of us and all of us come together to worship. But that is sometimes easier said then done—we come as we are—some of us comfortable with worshipping—how shall I say?—“out loud”. Some of us are not—God nevertheless, call us, as “all the earth” to shout for joy—and so we work together to make our corporate worship a place of safety and comfort for all of us to enjoy—stretching ourselves beyond our comfort zones whether in the quiet, meditative times or the noisy, clapping, hallelujah times.
Worship God with gladness; and with singing joyful songs. Two of Reinstra’s characteristics fit here. He says that worship is both expectant and Spirit-directed. Many of us, having gone to “Worship” with a capital “W” for years, no longer come expecting much of anything—thankfully, we’re in the process of changing that for many, many people who walk through this beautiful doors. The energy that permeates through our service does not and cannot come from me or from our singers, reader, or altar ministers. It comes from the expectation that God has called us here and so God will meet us here. Rienstra reminds us that the Spirit blows where it will and so he suggests that we worship with our “sails raised” ready to catch the spiritual energy that happens to, with, and among us as we worship together. I guess he has a point—a sailboat with its sails tightly tied around its mast is not likely to go anywhere at all—and so we come, ready and eager to encounter God here, God now!
Know that God is God alone. We are made by God—we certainly did not make ourselves! We are the people of God, the sheep of the pasture of God. Rienstra’s next two characteristics fit well here. Reverence—we know that God is God and we are God’s creations—now some worship leaders I have encountered want to talk about how we need to know our “place” before God, and by that they mean our “unworthy, undeserving place”. To that I say, not here, not now! We are made by God and we are made for God. We are the people of God, we belong to God as sheep belong to their shepherd. And we worship as whole people—Holistic worship is what Rienstra calls it—worshipping by bringing all of ourselves to worship—our bodies, including our sexuality, our past and present, our heart, soul, and mind—we bring our fears and dreams, and our doubt and belief—for we—all of us—are made by God exactly according to plan—our worship must embrace and celebrate not only who God is but who God made us to be!
Here, we come into this place with thanksgiving-- and we flood God’s place of worship with honor; saying “thank you” and giving God praise. Rienstra’s sixth characteristic is expansive. He says, and this time I’m quoting him, “ We make creative use of words, music—and more!—from many times, places, peoples, and cultures to enlarge our vision of God’s kingdom and situate ourselves properly within it.” And I say, we are called by the psalmist to come with thanksgiving—to literally flood this place of worship with honor and praise. We do this in the many ways we both bring to this place and discover along the way. God is not limited by our limitations and we are encouraged by the very God who made us to discover more ways to bring praise and celebrate—both God and ourselves. This is why we focus on the grace-full and loving working of God in our midst and the joy that we experience as God’s people gathered together to praise and worship. This does not always mean that we will agree. As one pastor told me about her church—the congregation decided that it had so many differences that one worship service just wouldn’t do, so they decided to have four worship services each Sunday. There was one for those new to the faith. Another for those who liked traditional worship. One for those who had lost their faith and would like to get it back. And another for those who had a bad experience with church and were complaining about it. They have names for each of the services: FINDERS, KEEPERS, LOSERS, WEEPERS. Think about it!!!
And finally, For God is good with a love that endures forever; God is faithful to all generations. Rienstra calls this final characteristic covenantal. This implies that worship is both a part of and a celebration of the covenant that exists between us and God. When we celebrate communion we often talk about the cup as representation of the new covenant—the covenant that God made with us through the sacrifice of Jesus—that we have no barriers between us and God. Jesus is the bridge that makes that covenant possible for all of us. Worship then is conversation without barriers between God and us and us and God—our praise, our petitions, and our celebrations!
These 7 characteristics lead us to one very important conclusion—genuine worship of God—free from the barriers that have been erected between us and God or that we have built ourselves—this kind of worship will change our lives—your lives and mine. And it is changing the life of this church. God calls us to this place of worship and we answer with our whole selves—with our whole lives—with all that we are singing songs of joy—going forward, now and forever. Amen and amen.
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