Valentine’s ideas that support the world

Check this out..
countdown-to-valentines-day

In particular, the author suggests buying your children’s valentine cards using the Save the Child web-site. This provides aid and support to the kids in Haiti. Since I have three kids, I bought three sets, and would encourage you to also buy from them, since buying valentines has become a mandatory part of one’s child’s school life. This is a way, therefore, to be part of supporting your children’s school activities while also opting out of the whole overwhelming “buy, buy, buy” thing that seems to be more and more part of “education” at our schools. I know, I’m still buying something, but the money goes for a good cause at least!

But, you have to act fast for them to be here in time for Valentine’s Day!!

Happy V-day to you all!

God’s Gifts Extending Beyond Imagination

Isaiah 62:1-5

1 Corinthians 12:1-26

John 2:1-11

1/17/2010

During the French Revolution, there were three Christians who were sentenced to die by the guillotine. One Christian had the gift of faith, the other had the gift of prophecy, the third had the gift of helping.

The Christian with the gift of faith was to be executed first. He said he was not afraid to die. “I have faith that God will deliver me!” he shouted bravely. He said a short prayer and waited confidently. The rope was pulled, but nothing happened. His executioners were amazed and, believing that this must have been an act of God, they freed the man.

The Christian with the gift of prophecy was next. “I predict that God will deliver me from this guillotine!” At that, the rope was pulled and again, nothing happened. Once, again the puzzled executioners assumed this must be a miracle of God, and they freed the man.

The third Christian, with the gift of helping, was next. The executioners were about to pull the rope when the man stopped them. “Hey wait a minute,” he said. “I think I just found the problem with your guillotine.”

I would like to invite you to think for a moment about what gifts God has given to you.  By gifts I am meaning talents or abilities.  In a moment I’m going to ask you to share what some of your gifts are.  I know this can be uncomfortable because we are also called to be humble.  But as Paul described today, we are as different parts of one body.  And as such, it is important for each of us to know the gifts/talents/purposes/functions that God has given to us.  If we do not know we have a gift for sight, how can we help the body see?  If we do not know we have the gift of hearing, how can we help the body to hear?  Being humble, walking humbly with God, is not about denying God’s gifts to you.  Instead it is about recognizing that all talents are gifts from God and that one talent is not more worthy or more honored by God than another.  My gifts are not more valuable than yours, the gifts God has given me do not make me a better or more beloved person than anyone else’s.  Each of our gifts are gifts God has given us for the purpose of serving God in the world.  As Paul explains, the feet are not less important than the eyes.  All jobs are needed, all gifts are needed.  That is humility.  When we deny God’s gifts to us we are being ungrateful to the God who has gifted us with our talents. With that in mind, I invite you to share for a moment what gifts/talents/abilities God has given to you.  To make this a little easier, I ask you to turn to someone near you and share a gift that you have that your neighbor may not know about…

What did you hear?  Did people share with you obvious or safe gifts?  Or did you learn something new about the person next to you?  Did anybody say anything surprising?  Now what I’d like you to do is to think for a minute at a different level.  Think about something about yourself that you don’t usually think of as a gift- it may be something that you don’t like about yourself such as stubbornness, or it may be something you’ve worked to change about yourself such as sensitivity – getting hurt by others easily.  I want you to think about something about yourself that you don’t usually think of as a gift and consider for a moment whether or not that, too, might not be a gift from God.

While you are doing that, I want to share with you about a person who was one of the members of another church in which I worked.  This is a person who was – well, annoying.  Some might have said he was abrasive.  But whatever you want to call it, he was a difficult person in the church.  He always questioned every idea that came forward, never satisfied with simple answers, never just saying “let’s do it!”  He spoke his mind and when he didn’t like something, he spoke out, which was often.  When he heard someone say something with which he disagreed, he challenged it right away.  He also came with his own ideas, but these ideas challenged the norm, challenged the status quo at every level.  “Let’s try this kind of music.”  “Hey, I’m going to start an anti-gang program here at the church.  Anyone want to join me?”  “I think we should go out every Friday evening with a big sign about our church and stand on the street corner at the mall talking to anyone who passes by about what we do here.”  He didn’t go through the right channels and he was always a pain in everyone’s life.  Do you know people like that?  People who are part of your communities who irritate and cause your life to be difficult?

Eventually “Jason” got called away to a job out of the area and he had to leave the church.  It was only after he had left that we realized the huge hole he had left in his leaving.  He had brought so many gifts to our congregation.  He had challenged us to grow and to expand our thinking.  He had challenged us to be clear in our explanations of the visions and ideas that we had.  He had called us to think through our positions and to be open to differences.  He had challenged us to be open to the movement of the Spirit in a new way, one that didn’t go through the long chain of committees, but instead moved into ministry and action without fear and with a great deal of true and deep faith.  I don’t know if Jason was aware of his gifts.  I don’t know if he recognized that he was in so many ways the head of our body, thinking, dreaming, leading us forward.  I do know that he realized that for many of us he was a pill, he was a challenge.  I know he knew that he wasn’t the most popular guy and that people hid when they saw him coming.  I can only hope that he also came to see that the things we all struggled with the most in him were the deepest gifts he had been given by God.  And that his sharing of those gifts brought all of us spiritually, and faithfully deeper and more genuine in our relationships with each other and with God.

C.S. Lewis in the second book of his space Trilogy, Perelandra, wrote, “Don’t imagine I’ve been selected for …any task…because I’m anyone in particular.  One never can see, or not till long afterwards, why any one was selected for any calling.  And when one does, it is usually some reason that leaves no room for vanity.  Certainly it is never for what the …person…themself would have regarded as their chief qualifications.”

We don’t see all of the gifts God has given to each of us ourselves.  And we don’t see all of the gifts God has given to those around us.  Sometimes we fail so completely to see those gifts that we limit how they can be expressed by others, how much good God can bring out of them, how much we allow others to help us grow in our spiritual journeys.

Tomorrow we celebrate the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..  We look at the life of a man who had a big impact in helping to change our image of who African American persons are and what African American men and women can do in this world.  Not that the battle against prejudice is won.  We still deal with prejudice, racism and its affect on us, on our nation and on our world.  But Martin Luther King brought the conversation to a new level, to a more real level, to a more honest level.  While any people are enslaved, physically or metaphorically, while any people are seen as less than fully human, while any people are limited in their abilities to exercise fully their gifts and talents that God has given them; we, too are limited.

As Paul said in today’s passage, “If one member of the body suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”  We are limited in what we allow others to teach us, what we allow them to share with us, what we allow them to give us.  We are limited by what we allow others to teach the world, what we allow them to give the world.  We are all part of the same body.  But we bind our own feet when we say that some people are not allowed to do certain good and godly things in this world.  We blindfold our eyes when we say that certain types of people must be restricted from using the gifts God has given them.  We injure our own body, the body of Christ, when we fail to see that God has gifted us all with talents and abilities beyond what we can see or know or recognize.

We can see how this has played out throughout history.  People of different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures and races have all been given gifts, spiritual gifts, gifts to be used to the glory of God.  But when we limited their access to the world, we limited how they could use those gifts, and we were all lessened as a result.  For a long time women have been limited – and in many denominations and in many places they still are – with what they are allowed to do in the church and beyond.  And we continue to limit others for many reasons and in many ways.  As a result, we are injured.  But more than that.  When we limit what gifts God can use in others, when we decide what gifts God can or cannot give to certain people, when we limit what in ourselves we believe to be a talent or gift from God, we are also limiting God God-self.  We are limiting what God can teach us through these people, we are limiting how God can relate to us through different people, we are limiting how God can use us and our gifts, and we are limiting our very relationship with God.  God can do anything, and yet as a people, we insist that God can only do certain things with certain people.  We work hard to put boundaries around God’s gifts and God’s calling.  And we suffer as a result.

In today’s gospel reading Jesus changed water into wine.  Today would we find this an acceptable use of the gifts and talents God gave to Jesus?  Would we be offended that Jesus wasn’t using his gifts in that moment to heal or confront the system, but was instead only enabling people to party?  If we saw that some people became drunk on this wine, would it offend our sensibilities?  This was Jesus’ first miracle recorded in the gospel of John.  Would we shrug it off as a learning time for Jesus?  Or would we be open to hearing that God calls all of us to take time to celebrate as well as to care for others?  Was his ability to turn water into wine something that we would recognize as a gift from God?

I am not saying that we should ignore the obvious gifts we have and assume they aren’t the “real” gifts from God.  As I said at the beginning, an awareness of the gifts God has blessed us with can enable us to serve more effectively and more faithfully our God and God’s people.  But I’m also saying that we need to strive to be more open to what God does and can do with the things that we deny as gifts, in ourselves as well as in others.

Wind and Sun wanted to see who could be first to remove a man’s coat.  Wind blew hard, trying to force the coat off.  The cold man only pulled it tighter.  Sun smiled brightly to warm the air.  The hot man took off his coat.  “You see,” said the sun, “there is great strength in gentleness.”

The wind knew its own gift – but it could not see that the gift of the sun was just as strong, just as meaningful, just as necessary.  What gifts are you not seeing?

Amen.

What do you see?

Mal. 3:1-4

Luke 1:68-79

Luke 3:1-6

Advent week 2, year C

Dec. 6, 2009

Today we are going to do something a little different.  Today’s sermon will not be just me preaching at you, but all of us working together.  Because I believe that God makes God’s self known in community as well as through individuals.  Presbyterian creed states that all vocations are recognized in community, not just through individuals, and I would say that the call of the church, then, must also be recognized through community.  Last week you all filled out forms talking about where God is leading us in ministry.  I so appreciate your answers and I felt the Holy Spirit talking through your answers as I read them this last week.  The visioning committee will be working with your thoughts, and we will be inviting you to participate in leading your ministry ideas.  But today, on this second week of Advent, I want to talk to you about this New Thing that God is doing, and this new way that God is coming into the world.  And I want to start by asking you some questions.

Where do you see God lately?

What do you see happening in the Church, big C?

Where do you see God’s hand anew in the Church?  Where is God on the move?

In our Wednesday evening adult study we have been looking at the text of Handel’s Messiah and studying the scriptures that Handel and Charles Jennens use in the Messiah.  This last week we looked at the book of Malachi, among other sources, and I would like to tell you about the context of that prophet’s writing.  The Israelites had been conquered by the Babylonians and those that had survived had been sent into exile.  Then Babylonia had been conquered by the Persians.  Cyrus, the Persian king, told the exiled Israelites that they could return home.  They did return home, but they found, despite all the promises of the prophets such as Isaiah, that their return was a disappointment to them.  They had expected gates of gold, a triumphant return of their own autonomy and sense of God’s presence with them.  Instead, they were still under Persian control, the temple had been destroyed and they were still poor and struggling.  They rebuilt the temple, and again, the hopes had been high that after the temple was rebuilt that they would feel at home, settled, they would feel God’s presence with them.  But they didn’t.

Many said that this second temple lacked five key elements that the first temple had.  Included in those five was that God’s presence was missing and that the Holy Spirit no longer resided in the Temple.  The people did not, could not, feel God’s presence among them anymore.  Malachi is writing at this time and he is blaming much of this lack of connection to God on the behavior of the priests, which he says is unfaithful to God.  He writes to encourage a recommitment to God, a re-dedication to God’s ways, and he says that if the Israelites change their ways, that God will return, God will send a messenger and then God, God-self, will return to the temple.  But while this is good news, while this is a good promise of God’s return, at the same time, he warns that it will not be pleasant.  It will be good, but it will not be pleasant.  The way he phrases it, “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.”  A refiner’s fire is an extremely hot, intense fire used to purify metals like gold and silver.  Fuller’s soap is an extremely harsh soap: it cleans deeply and purely, but not without pain or without cost.  God’s coming will be good news – that is the promise.  But it will not be without pain or cost, according to Malachi.

The second passage from Luke is not any the less extreme in its promise of complete change.  “Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.”  This is not a conversation about geography.  This is about systems and about lives.  Those who have – the rich people in this world – the mountains of life, will be brought low.  Those who have not will find they have enough – enough food, enough shelter, enough care.  But where are we in this?  We are the mountains, we are the haves.  Even the poorest of us in this congregation are among the “haves.”  80% of the wealth in this world resides in the hands of 5% of the people, and we are among those five percent.  So when John, or rather John quoting Isaiah, talks to us about the valleys being made low, this is the same message as for those in Malachi’s time who were being told that the Lord’s coming will be like a refiner’s fire or fuller’s soap.  Our lives will be good, our lives will be cleansed, but not without pain.

What does this have to do with where we are as a people, and as a Church today?  What is the message in this passage for today?

I would say that in many ways we are in a similar time to that of Malachi.  The church has not always done a good job of caring for people or speaking to people, and as a result people are leaving the church.  Many of our “priests” of all denominations have been corrupt – and those are the stories about “the Church” that make the news.  The church has come across as judging, as self-righteous, as caring more about condemning others than loving others.  It has been an institution that has been thick with people quick to point out all the specks in others’ eyes, without taking the time to look at our own behavior, both as individuals and as communities.  Many churches have become nothing more than country clubs – social places devoid of any true spiritual growth.  They have become places where like-minded people can separate themselves off from the rest of the world.  We are all condemned in that.  But more, for many this has become a depressing time in the Church, a time when Christianity appears to be in fast decline in the United States.  Things have not gone as we expected forty or even twenty years ago.  And it may feel like God is no longer with the Church.

But as I said last week and in my sermon the time before that as well, I do not believe, in contrast to what Malachi spoke to his people in his time, that God has abandoned those of us who are in the church.  We have not been abandoned.  Instead, we look to the new coming of God in Advent not because God is absent, but simply because we can count on God’s coming every time and we can count on that looking different every time.  God’s promise is that God continues to come again and again.  But again, we have to keep our eyes open.  We have to look to see the new thing that is coming.  And we have to expect…..the unexpected.  We have to look to see the new thing that God is doing and the places where God is coming anew.

So today, I want to ask you to share with me and with this community – where do you see God working in a new way today, and what does that look like?  (encourage them to talk to their neighbors for a few minutes and then share).

Today’s passage in Luke tells us that we are to prepare for Christ’s coming anew.  And John tells us that we prepare for that by repenting.  Repentance does not mean being sorry for what you’ve done.  It means turning around, choosing a different way, a new direction.  But our God is amazing, and good and loves us with such faithfulness and such passion, that even when we fail to prepare, God does new things and brings us new life.

Friday evening we had our first Advent movie evening and so a group of us watched the movie “Leap of Faith.”  Without giving too much of the story away to those of you who haven’t yet seen it, the main character is not a good guy.  He is a professional con-man, selling Jesus to the masses, not because he has any faith of his own, but because he has found a way to make it pay.  He is a bitter and cynical man who cares about no-one but himself, or at least makes a good show of caring about no-one but himself.  But in the midst of his charade, in the midst of selling God to what he calls “the suckers”, God shows up.  A boy is healed, God does the unexpected for this man and in doing so opens his eyes to much more than just the healing.  After the event he sees with new eyes, he sees the community helping each other, he sees the love of poor people supporting other poor people in a community of care.  God changes him, and as a result, Jonas, the main character, is truly born again.  He then repents – leaving his whole life and his old ways behind and starting a fresh, with only God by his side.

This is the good news.  We are called to prepare for God’s coming.  But the truth is that whether or not we prepare enough or at all, God does come again, God will come again.  God is doing a new thing.  We have only to open our eyes to see God and to see the new thing.  Let us help one another along this Advent journey.

A Sisterhood of Support

Micah 5:1-5a

Luke 1:39-56

Dec. 20, 2009

Today is the last Sunday of Advent and the day that we focus on Mary and what her experience has to say to us in this place.  We are all familiar with the Magnificat, or Mary’s song of praise.  And as I’m sure you have heard by now, many of my sermons focus on our call to be part of doing exactly what the magnificat proclaims – turning the world of division and inequality into God’s realm here on earth  – “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” – a place where the poor are raised up and those who would oppress or stand on the heads of others in order to gain for themselves are brought down to a place of humility and equality.  But today I would like to invite you to take a different look at this passage and at Mary’s experience.

Mary speaks in this passage not in the future tense, not about what will come about after Jesus is born, or after God has come.  She is speaking in the present, about her experience of what has happened already, simply through the act of her pregnancy.  To remind you again, she says, “God has shown strength with God’s arm; scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.  God has helped servant Israel, in remembrance of God’s mercy, according to the promise made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

And while there is importance and value in hearing these words from a systemic perspective, seeing the complete and whole change that God makes among people, rich and poor alike; there is also meaning and power in looking at these words from the very personal, individual experience of Mary.

What was Mary’s experience like?  She was a child herself, in many ways – believed to be maybe 14 or 15 years of age.  She was poor.  And now she found herself pregnant, threatening the relationship she had with Joseph, threatening the little security she saw coming her way.  How would you feel in this situation?  Yes, an angel had promised her good things – had foretold that she would be the mother of the savior.  But how would you really feel in this situation?  I think about the movie we saw Friday evening here – George Burns and John Denver in “O God”.  The John Denver character’s reaction when God came to him and told him to deliver his message was what?  Terror and disbelief.  Similarly with our Biblical prophets.  When God told Jeremiah to speak, how did he react?  He said he was too young.  When God told Jonah to go to Ninevah, how did Jonah react?  He ran away.  Presbyterian theology tells us Mary, too, was just a human.  A human called by God to an amazing task.  So really, how do you think she felt?  She had to be terrified.  She had to be in disbelief at some level.  She had to be saying at some place in her being “why me?”

And so, according to Luke, she went to see her cousin Elizabeth.  Why did she go?  My guess is to seek the support of sisterhood.  And how did Elizabeth respond?

Renita Weems writes about this experience in her book “Unbegrudged Blessings.” She writes,

“Even before he was born, Jesus was changing people’s lives.  To begin with, two women – Jesus’ mother, Mary, and her kinswoman Elizabeth – specifically learned what it meant to be blessed women, women chosen by God to be instruments through whom perfect redemption would come into the world.

“To prepare for their blessings, Mary and Elizabeth first had to come to grips with the irony of blessedness: namely, that behind every blessing there is burden.

“Elizabeth had grown accustomed to barrenness.  Her praying for a child had yielded nothing and she had learned the most difficult lesson life had to teach:   how to live when a prayer is answered with a “no”.  But now she had to learn to live with a prayer answered with a “yes”.  She had to grow accustomed to the blessing growing inside her womb.  How do you look forward to something you’ve never had?

“Mary was poor and unmarried.  How could this have happened?  This was not the way Mary had planned her life.  “How do you defend a blessing you cannot explain?  How do you live with a blessing that creates more problems than it solves?”  Mary thought.  And besides, who would believe her?

“Mary went to Elizabeth, but there was no way she could have anticipated Elizabeth’s response, one of enthusiasm and, more, gratitude!  And while it might seem that Elizabeth had every right to be jealous of the young woman’s calling to carry the son of God, Elizabeth, in seeing the worry lines etched in Mary’s face, knew that she herself had a lot to be thankful for.  The older Elizabeth knew that   “to whom much is given, much is required.” (Luke 12:48).  The child whom Mary carried would bring Mary joy, but probably even more sadness.  Mary would be his mother, but he would never be her son…completely.  Elizabeth supported Mary, and out of gratitude, Mary stayed with Elizabeth until Elizabeth’s ninth month of pregnancy (Luke 1:56).  They were together three months and in their support for each other, and in their security with their own blessings, they passed on to their sons a mutual support and respect for each others’ ministry as well. Their mother’s examples taught them to build on the strengths of one another.  And like their mothers, Elizabeth and Mary, before them, in the end both men would learn that there is a price for being blessed.”

It is in this context.  The context of Elizabeth’s, probably unexpected response of gratitude and support that Mary sings the magnificat.  It is in this time and place that she responds with these words, “God has shown strength with God’s arm; scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.  God has helped servant Israel, in remembrance of God’s mercy, according to the promise made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”  It is Mary who has been poor but who now has been filled with good things.  It is Mary who was lowly and whom now God has lifted up.  It is Mary who has been helped according to God’s promise to Abraham.  And as she herself begins the magnificat, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.”  She is grateful, beyond belief that in her blessing she has found the support of sisterhood, to stand with her during this time, to support her.  From that place of support, she can both enjoy the blessing of her special and unique role of carrying Jesus, and the burden as well.

What does this have to do with us?  We know from study after study, that the poorest of the poor are not people who have simply lost jobs, homes, and livelihoods, or who have become engulfed by addictions or mental illness.  They are the people who, in the face of these tragedies, have no support system, no network of care, no family to uphold, love and see them through these disasters.  They are the people without safety nets of other people.  Again, in the movie “O God” that we saw on Friday, the character, Jerry, says to God, “Why do you allow all this suffering to take place?”  And God’s response is, “Why do I allow the suffering?  Why do you allow the suffering?  I’ve given you each other, and a world where everything can work if you only choose to take care of one another.”

We have been given each other.  We have the support networks, we have the resources, we have the people power that if we so chose, no one would be suffering.  We could support the entire world with all the world’s burdens if we only chose to do so.

Advent is a time when we wait for the miracle of Jesus’ birth.  But we are surrounded by miracles every day.  Today I want us to focus on the miracle of each other’s care, which can lift one another up, can support one another, can love one another, can, as Mary saw, help us to see the blessings in every burden, and to celebrate those blessings, relying on the love of one another to help us carry the challenges that attend each gift.  I am going to play a song for you and I invite you during this time to sit in the miracle of this community that loves each of you, cares for each of you, no matter your burden, no matter your blessings.  Amen.

A New Thing

1st Sunday in Advent, Nov. 29th, 2009
Isaiah 11:1-10
Isaiah 64:1-8

Two people met in heaven and fell madly in love.  So they went to Saint Peter and asked to be married.  He said he’d never had that request before and they’d have to wait a year.  The couple didn’t want to wait, but since they didn’t seem to have a choice about it, they agreed.  A year later, they returned, just as committed and interested in marrying as ever.  Saint Peter was surprised they came back and said he was sorry, they’d have to wait another five years.  The couple couldn’t believe it, but after much arguing with Saint Peter, they resigned themselves that once again they had no choice and would have to wait.  Five years passed and they returned to St. Peter excited and joyful at the prospect of finally being married.  Upon being told that they would have to wait another ten years, though, they became outraged.  “What is the problem?!”  they demanded.  “What is with all this waiting?”  To which St. Peter finally blurted out, “There’s no-one here to marry you.  We’re still waiting for a minister to arrive!”
Waiting.

Today is the first Sunday in Advent.  It is also the first Sunday of our church year.  We do not begin the church year with Christmas, or with Easter, or with anything that seems particularly remarkable.  Instead, we begin our church year with Advent.  Advent is the season of waiting, of stillness, of silence, of hope and anticipation.  It is the season of patience, of the expectancy of God’s coming to be among and with us.  We wait for God’s coming and we trust that our God will come as the embodiment of love, but we wait to see where and how God will show up this time.  Few expected the Messiah, Jesus, to be born poor, far from any home, in a stable.  And while we now know the Christmas story and know how it turns out, still we are called during this advent season to wait again for that unknown moment of God’s amazing coming into our world.  We wait.

In this fast-paced, instant gratification society, waiting does not come easily.  We use microwaves and fast food restaurants to feed ourselves, we zip off e-mails rather than writing letters, we can watch almost anything we want at almost any time of day, we can order whatever we want on the internet and have it delivered to us the next day.  We can instantly call or text our friends and family members no matter where they are at any time of day or night.  We no longer teach our children the value of waiting, and then we are surprised that when life becomes challenging or painful they turn to the “instant fixes” of drugs, sex, etc.  We don’t like to wait, we don’t teach our children to wait.  Waiting is hard.

Because of our discomfort with waiting, as a culture we do not have the season of Advent.  Christmas here began around Halloween with the ads to buy, the lights up in neighborhoods.  We just don’t wait.

And yet, we are called by our church calendar to take this time of waiting very seriously.  We are asked to be still for a moment, to watch and look for God’s new coming, for the new thing that God is to do.

The passage we read from Isaiah 64 was written after the Israelites had gone through a very difficult time.  They had been conquered by the Babylonians and those who had survived had been sent into exile.  Now, after all they had been through, the Persians had conquered the Babylonians and the Israelites did not know what to expect.  They had lost their land and their livelihoods, they had lost many of their friends and families, they had lost their homes.  They were shattered like a fragile pot that has been dashed to the ground.  There was nothing left for them to do but to wait.  They had survived the worst.  But now they simply had to wait to see what would come next.  Was it possible that the Israelites might be allowed to return home?  And even if they were, what would await them there?

Both passages that we heard today in Isaiah were hopeful.  They were written from a place of anticipating God’s renewed presence after the exile, God’s blessings returned.  God is a loving parent who fashions us like a potter fashions clay, and a God who would now take the broken pieces of clay, melt them down and make something new, something stronger and better and made again with God’s own hands, again in God’s image.  A God who would come again and again to care for God’s children.  Still, they had to wait.  They had to take time to reflect, to look, to anticipate, to watch anew for God’s coming among them.

It takes us time to “get it”, to see how God is moving anew, to experience God.  It takes time to open and prepare our hearts for God to come in.  Lawrence LeShan in his book, “How to Meditate” tells a story about a monk who prayed for many years to receive a vision from God.  He waited and waited and just as he was certain the vision would never come, God visited him in a remarkable vision.  As he was enjoying the rapturous moment, the monastery bell rang signaling his turn at the gate to feed the poor.  The monk was in a predicament.  He did not want to leave his treasured vision, and yet he had a job to do, a job that he deeply believed God called him to do.  He left his cell and did his job of bringing food to the poor who came to the gate.  After returning to his room, in prayer, he rediscovered the vision.  As he bowed in thanks and wonder, God’s voice came to him, “Had you not gone, I would not have stayed.”

Dorothy Day talks about the journey which led her to develop the Catholic Worker.  The Catholic Worker is a national organization that feeds and houses many poor, displaced and homeless people around the U.S..  It began with Dorothy Day opening her home to sleep and feed any who were in need.  Through the process of growing the Catholic Worker, there were many times in which it was unclear if they would be able to continue.  Money did not always pour in and while Dorothy Day and her helpers used their own resources to care for those who came, there were times when those resources ran very short.  One time in particular, there was a very difficult few months in which all money began to be used up.  Rent had not been paid in months and the day of eviction was fast approaching.  Dorothy worked hard to raise the funds, but in the end, she had nothing to do but wait and pray for God’s help and God’s appearance in this dark time.  The day for eviction came when they would have to pay up their rent by 5:00 or be moved out.  At 4:30, a woman came in with a check already made out.  The check was for $14 over the amount needed to cover the rent.  The next day the water bill came.  It was for exactly $14.  Dorothy, on reflecting, said, “God’s timing was not always to my liking.  Sometimes the tightness of our resources and the seeming encroaching end to our organization came a little too close for my comfort.  But God always came through.  My patience was tried, my faith was tested, but God always answered.”

As a gardener who plants the seeds must wait for the beautiful plants to take their time to sprout and grow, it takes time to see where God will next come into our lives, where God is leading, how God will enter the world next.  In those times of waiting, we must survive on faith alone.    God comes every time.  God came in Jesus, God comes in Christ, God will come again.  Will we be able to see when Christ comes?  Only if we take the time to wait, to anticipate, to look for Christ in, around and among us.  God will meet us in our hope, in our silence, in our faith, if we take the time to wait, watch and pray.

That doesn’t mean inaction.  As the Israelites in exile were called on to ask from the Persians the chance to return home, as the monk was called to continue serving the poor even as he waited for God, as Dorothy Day was called on to work hard and to ask for the money she needed, waiting does not mean being passive.  It requires time to pray, to reflect, to hope, to actively look for God’s coming.  It requires listening, looking with new eyes, watching as we wait for the new thing that God is doing now.

Two weeks ago I talked to you all about looking for the new thing that God is doing in the church.  And I asked you to keep your minds and hearts open to God’s stirring, to envision ministry anew in this place.  I am not talking about changes in Sunday morning worship.  I am talking about ministry – service to the larger community, interaction with the larger community, being in and doing ministry in the larger community.  In your bulletins today there is a blue insert that asks you to list ideas for ministry.  In a moment I will play some music on the piano and I invite you as I do so to take some time in quiet prayer and to write down any ideas that come to you.   If the ideas seem silly and absurd, write them down anyway, first because God works in wondrous and mysterious ways, and second because sometimes we need to get out and down the silly ideas before the serious ones can come into our hearts.  We will take the time as I play to write down your ideas, and then I invite you to put your papers, along with your offerings, into the offering plate at the appropriate time.

In exchange for our listening, our praying, our waiting, our watching, our dreaming and our talking to God we are given a chance to truly live supported by the faith alone that what we wait for will come.  We are given the chance to experience God’s living presence among us as God does come again and again in new and unexpected ways.  We are given the vision and the reality of God’s birth among us as God was born in Jesus, as God is born among us today, as we wait for God to come again.  Let us prepare for the coming of our God by preparing our heats, in our waiting, opening the space for Jesus to be born anew.  Amen.

Giving Our Institutional Lives

Luke 5:1-11

Mark 8:31-38

Nov. 15, 2009

The minister was preoccupied with thoughts of how he was going to, after the worship service, ask the congregation to come up with more money than they were expecting for repairs to the church building. Therefore, he was annoyed to remember that the church was now using a substitute organist who wouldn’t know what to play after this announcement.

“Here’s a copy of the service,” he said impatiently. “But you’ll have to think of something to play after I make the announcement about the finances.”

During the service, the minister paused and said, “Brothers and Sisters, we are in great difficulty; the roof repairs cost twice as much as we expected, and we need $4,000 more. Any of you who can pledge $100 or more, please stand up.”

At that moment, the substitute organist played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And that is how the substitute became the regular organist!

I spent part of last weekend at a conference called “The church we can see from here.”  And at that conference, we discussed what is happening in our churches.  When we look at our church – both on the small level and on the national level we have to admit, there is reason to be afraid.  As you’ve heard, St. Andrew’s is suffering from a financial deficit.  This year it may be close to $20,000 and next year appears to be similar.  We can’t survive like this.  Our endowment is diminishing and continuing to dig into that endowment may leave us, eventually, with some very difficult choices to make about St. Andrew’s.  This concern, this feeling of poverty, this feeling of decline in our churches, is mirrored at the National level.  Statistics from the Presbyterian News Service in Louisville indicate that in 2008, membership in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) fell by 70,000.   According to the Research Services office of the General Assembly Council (GAC), the 2008 decline was the PC(USA)’s largest numerical and percentage net membership loss since Presbyterian reunion in 1983.

The Report continues, “Almost 104,000 people joined the PC(USA) last year, but that good news was more than offset by the 34,101 Presbyterians who died, the 34,340 who were members of the 25 congregations that left the PC(USA) for other denominations, and the staggering 104,428 who were removed from the rolls by their sessions without apparently joining any other church.”  65 Presbyterian congregations were dissolved last year because they could not support themselves any longer.  There were 2555 less baptisms in the Presbyterian Church in 2008 than in 2007, and total giving to the church at all levels decreased by $24 million.  Current Presbyterian members give less, in terms of percentage of income, than they used to.

This year, the estimate of membership loss has jumped from 70,000 to 90,000, and as we know, churches continue to decline to the point of having to close their doors.  These are scary numbers.  This is a scary reality.  And it doesn’t give too much comfort to know that this is not only true in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A..  Our sister denominations are all experiencing this loss.  The Christian Church is on the decline in the United States.

These facts can be depressing.  And many of us who love our church, who love our God, who love Jesus and are faith filled people often find ourselves asking that hard question, “why?” again and again.  We find ourselves lost in the despair of this news.  And, typically, we choose one of two responses – we either move into a survival mode, in which we shut down every program that actually has the chance to reach out to folks because we are afraid of going bankrupt, or we throw up our hands in despair, pass the buck to others in the church, bury our heads and choose not to deal with it.

Are either of these responses what Jesus calls us to do?  I’m not asking what your heart or mind, your reason or your fear ask from you.  What does Jesus call us to do in the face of these numbers, these statistics and in the face of our own fear?

I want to tell you the story of a small congregation that faced these same challenges.  They struggled to stay alive, they cut staff, they cut programs, and instead of growing, of course, without their staff and programs their decline moved ever faster.  The church was located in a quickly changing urban community.  While the few members of the church were older and white, the neighborhood had become more and more inhabited by people of color and younger families.  It was a distressed neighborhood and gangs were active in the area.  The church members loved their church, but they also feared even coming to the building for their own safety.  Finally, this small church reached the point where it could only really claim about 10 elderly members, and they realized they just could not keep their doors open any longer.  But as they met and discussed the dissolution of the church, one of these faithful older members said, “Okay, we have surrendered.  We choose to give up the life of our institution.  But we will not do it for no purpose.  With the last money, and last energy we have, let’s serve this community with everything we have left.  Let’s truly give up our lives in order that the community might live.”  They began studies about gangs in the community and how other areas had dealt with them.  And after much prayer and research, they went to the school, asking for the names of troubled kids who could be part of a program that paired one of these elderly members of the church with a gang member.  They sold their idea to the school and these pairs were formed.  At first there was great fear on one side (the side of the church members), and great anger and boredom on the part of the kids.  But an amazing thing happened through their time together.  They got to know one another.  And these elderly folk gave these gang members the opportunity to serve them, to care for them, to help them with their grocery shopping and cleaning.  In exchange they helped these young people with their homework, with their studies, with tough decisions, presenting a different morality and a different vision of what their lives could be.  They believed in these young people, which in itself changed lives.  Mostly, they befriended these young people.  Can you guess the result?

These young people began to come to their church, and they brought their parents with them.  The church began to grow.  It is now self-sustaining. A church of several hundred faithful, committed, loving and dedicated Christians.  It is not a mega-church.  But it is a church that continues to do this ministry to the gangs, continues to reach out, a church that is relevant in the community and is doing the ministry of our God in the world.

Today’s passage from Luke talks about the disciples who joined Jesus and it says that they left everything to follow Jesus.  Everything.  But I would say that it is often the most faithful who find it hard to leave certain things, to give up certain things, in following Jesus.  Are we willing to take risks with our safety?  Are we willing to give up some time to spend studying our community and identifying the greatest needs around us?  Are we willing to give up our fixed vision of what church must be?  Are we willing to give up the institution of this church as we know it?   Are we willing to give all that we might receive the promise, the PROMISE, of life?

That may not sound like good news to you.  But I tell you, there are different ways of looking at things.  And I challenge you to listen for God’s voice as we strive to look at the current situation of our congregation and of the Church, catholic (which means universal).  What is God calling us to do?  What position is God calling us to have in what some may consider a deep and true crisis in this time and place?  Does God call us to look at our deficit with fear and to spend our energy struggling as a congregation to simply survive?  Or does God call us to risk, and to change, and to do ministry in our community, searching out the needs of the larger community and committing to serve them with everything we have?  Does God call us to look at the decline of the church as a travesty and a cause for great alarm?  Or does God call us to hear the words of Isaiah 43: 16-19 when he declares, “This is what the Lord says- he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters,… ‘Forget the former things; I do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.’”

Can you not perceive it?  While many would say this is a terrible time for the church, I ask you to see it in a new way.  This is an exciting time.  God is doing a new thing!  God has chosen us in this time and place to see a new thing.

That’s not to say that it isn’t hard or scary.  In many ways, we are facing a Good Friday.  We fear the death of the Christian Church, and we cannot see beyond it to what the resurrection will look like.  But our faith calls us, absolutely, to trust that the resurrection IS coming.  As we heard in Mark today, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

So what am I saying here?  That we should just be stupid and spend all our money and die off?  No.  I’m not saying we should be stupid.  We have to walk into the future with our eyes open.  We have to be smart.  And we will be working with Presbytery to develop a three year plan to help us balance our budget.  We will be working in this next year to bring financial health to the congregation.  But what I am saying is that at the same time, we cannot focus our attention so much on our survival that we fail to do the work of the church, which is ministry in the world and in the community, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, and loving our neighbors, all of them, as ourselves.  I am calling you, even as you keep your eyes open, to have faith that if we choose to serve God and God’s people, if we stop being afraid of death and instead really choose to live, that God will not forsake us, though our life as a church may look different as we seek to do God’s will and follow God’s lead.  I am calling you to pray to God for this church and for its ministry and to listen for where God is leading you in ministry.  I am asking you to search your heart for the visions you have of ministry in this place and to bring those ideas to our visioning committee so that we can help make those visions and dreams that God has given you a reality.  God has called every member of this church and every member has a vision for ministry from God.  Listen to that.  Dream about that.  In a couple weeks I’m going to ask you to write down any ideas you have for ministry in this place, so open yourself now to God’s call for you.

And finally, since this is stewardship month and this week you will receive your pledge cards in the mail, and you are invited to turn in your pledge cards next week, I ask you from your relationship with God, to seek in prayer what God is asking you to give.  I don’t want you to give to this church out of fear.  I want you to give because of your relationship with God.  Please, be in prayer this next week.  Listen for God’s call even in this time of economic hardship.  Give what God calls you to give to this ministry in this place.

We are called to live by faith.  And in doing so, we will find a God who is steadfast and faithful to us as well.

Sitting with the Pain

October 11, 2009
Hebrews 4:12-16
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Psalm 22: 1-15

Today’s lectionary passages, center around one theme.  Pain, despair, the bottom-less pit of human experience.  Job had everything taken from him – his wealth, his home, his living, his children, his health.  The only things that remained were his wife and several friends, but all of them told him he had done something to deserve his pain (an accusation which is confronted and overturned by the story itself), and so their remaining presence in his life was in itself an affliction.  Psalm 22 we recognize as the psalm that Jesus quoted on the cross – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”  These are our Good Friday passages – the passages that reflect our deepest despair, those moments when it is hard, so hard, to feel God’s presence, when we, too, might instead feel that God has somehow forsaken us, is somehow not there.
We’ve gone through hard times individually, as a church community, as a nation, as the world.  We have experienced the recent deaths of beloved church family members this last month.  We’ve seen our families and friends struggle to find or hold on to work, we’ve experienced pay cuts, we’ve experienced moves.  The world is experiencing wars and droughts and climate change.  Things are hard.  And sometimes we feel, each one of us, sometimes we feel that deep pain.
And yet, this is not a comfortable topic for us in the church.  We would rather not focus on feelings of abandonment by God, or despair, or overwhelming pain.  All of us want to move, and move quickly, into the resurrection, into the new life, into the comfort of God’s love.  We don’t just do this with our own pain, either.  We do this with one another, as well.  I meet with a lectionary group of pastors each week to discuss the week’s scriptures, and the person leading our group this last week wanted to include the end of Job (though it is not in this week’s lectionary) and the end of psalm 22 (also not in this week’s lectionary) because they end on a more positive note.  Her justification was that we cannot let our parishioners stay in the pain. But the reality was that this was more a reflection of her discomfort in sitting with the pain of those in her church.
All of us experience this discomfort with one another’s pain.  We have sayings, trite things, that we say to one another as a way to “help” that in fact are simply ways of avoiding sitting with one another in our pain.  Saying to someone in pain, “Remember, God never gives us more than we can handle” is a way of discounting the extreme pain a person is in.  When you are saying it, you may feel that you are offering comfort, but when someone is in pain, having a saying like that thrown at you instead often feels like “oh, you’re fine.  No big deal.  Get over it!”   “Everything happens for a reason” is also discounting.  It is a way of saying, “because this is part of a great plan, you shouldn’t be upset about this.”  You may believe that to be true.  But saying it to someone in pain does not honor or respect the feelings they are experiencing at that moment.  This may bring comfort to you, but to speak it to a person who is in the deepest pain does nothing more than make clear that you are not willing to be with a person in their pain.  It is a way of dismissing their experience rather than being with them in their experience of discomfort.
Henry Nouwen in his book, Out of Solitude wrote, “You might remember moments in which you were called to be with a friend who had lost a wife or husband, child or parent.  What can you say, do or propose at such a moment?  There is a strong inclination to say, ‘Don’t cry; the one you loved is in the hands of God.’  Or ‘Don’t be sad because there are so many good things left worth living for.’” …“Our tendency is to run away from the painful realities or to try to change them as soon as possible.  But cure without care makes us into rulers, controllers, manipulators, and prevents a real community from taking shape.  Cure without care makes us preoccupied with quick changes, impatient and unwilling to share each other’s burden.  And so cure can often become offending instead of liberating.  It is therefore not so strange than cure is not seldom refused by people in need…it is better to suffer than to lose self-respect by accepting a gift out of a non-caring hand.”
C.S. Lewis also wrote about his struggles after the death of his wife, Joy, in his book, A Grief Observed.  And he, too, wrote about these situations in which well meaning friends could not tolerate his pain.  They couldn’t tolerate it, and so they tried to shove it away with trite quips.  His favorite was “Well, she will live forever in your memory.”  And he found this created nothing less than an intense rage within him as he struggled to grasp, daily, that she was no longer alive, no longer with him in a way that he could recognize while he was in the midst of his deepest grief.  To tell him that she would live in his memory did nothing for him but make him feel completely alone in his grief – in other words, it had exactly the opposite effect of what was undoubtedly intended.  It did not make him feel better.  It made him feel alone.
But it is hard for us to be with one another in pain.  It is hard for us to experience our own pain and it is hard for us to be with others in their pain.  Pain hurts.  It is not comfortable.  And in this fast paced, instant gratification society, we don’t want to feel pain.  We want to make it go away, for everyone, right now.
We now know, from a psychological perspective, that grief that is not really felt, pain that is not really experienced does not go away.  If we really care about ourselves and one another, we have to allow the grief to be felt.  We cannot heal it by avoiding it or denying it. We know this from the perspective of psychology.  But that doesn’t make it any easier to take when we are in it up to our necks.
There are some cultures, however, that are better at living in the pain than others.  Early Israel was one such culture.  The people who wrote the scriptures and, later on, those who chose the books that would be part of our cannon recognized our profound need to feel the pain that life gives us, to experience our losses and to express them.  Job is an entire book in the Bible, and with 42 chapters, it is one of the longest Biblical books at that.  The book of Job is about being in the pain.  The book is a description of Job’s experience of hurt and despair and his feeling that God had abandoned and forsaken him.  Psalm 22 like Job ends with a recognition of God’s greatness, God’s comfort and God’s love.  But it does not start there.  Commentators who talk about Jesus quote of Psalm 22 on the cross are sometimes so uncomfortable with the idea of Jesus saying that God forsook him that they, too, discount Jesus’ pain and say that Jesus was just beginning a psalm that everyone knew ended with a declaration of God’s love and presence.  But Jesus wasn’t quoting the end of the psalm.  He was quoting the beginning.  He was in the pain.  He felt abandoned by God.  He felt the despair that all of us have felt at one time or another.  He felt it all.
And that is the good news for today.  That is the good news that we find in the Hebrew’s passage as well.  Our feelings of despair and pain are not blasphemy.  They are not un-holy.  They are mirrored and reflected in scripture itself.  Jesus, himself, felt all that we feel.  And therefore, as today’s passage in Hebrews tells us, he is not unsympathetic with our weaknesses and our pain.  Jesus felt our pain and he expressed that pain.  His expression likewise gives us permission to speak of it as well.  God can handle it, and God gives us the words to do it if we are uncomfortable using our own words.  We can read Job, we can pray the psalms, knowing that God has heard them before, and that Jesus felt they were worthy enough to be expressed that he himself said them too.  We therefore have been given the gift of being able to speak our feelings to God.  Knowing this can also give us the courage to stand with one another in each other’s pain, too.
As Henry Nouwen continued in Out of Solitude, “But are we ready to really experience our powerlessness in the face of death and say, ‘I do not understand.  I do not know what to do, but I am here with you.’  Are we willing to not run away from the pain, to not get busy when there is nothing to do and instead stand rather in the face of death together with those who grieve?” … “When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.  The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares.”
We can be the friends who care, not by our sayings that try to avoid or ignore each other’s pain, but by being willing to be with one another, in silence, in love, just to listen, until we can move through and beyond the pain.  Jesus knows our deepest pain – we see him on the cross, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”  And while we can stand in the sure knowledge that the other side of the pain is the resurrection, we have to truly experience the death first before we can get there.  Holding hands with one another and with our God, we can get through this together.  Amen.

Be Still and Know that I am God

Sept. 27, 2009

Psalm 46

Exodus 3:1-6

What are some of the ways that you get to know God?  Scripture, nature, other people, worship, prayer, meditation, fasting, spiritual disciplines such as lectio divina and clearness committee and ….  Do you have one or two ways that speak to you more than others?  That you tend to gravitate towards?  Are there other ways of knowing God that are less comfortable for you?  Or ways that you avoid?

There is a familiar story about blind men encountering an elephant.  And I found a poem form of this story that I thought I would share with you today:

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,
Who went to see the elephant (though all of them were blind),
That each by observation might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall
Against his broad and burly side, at once began to call:
“I see,” said he, “the elephant is very like a wall!”

The second, feeling of the tusk, cried, “Ho! What have we here?
So very round and smooth and sharp? To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an elephant is very like a spear!”

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands, thus boldly up and spake,
“I see,” said he, “the elephant is very like a snake!”

The fourth reached out his eager hand and felt about the knee:
“What most this wondrous beast is like is mighty plain,” said he,
“‘Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree!”

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, said, “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most. Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an elephant is very like a fan!”

The sixth no sooner had begun about the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail that fell within his scope,
“I see,” said he, “the elephant is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong,
though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So oft in group endeavors, the members of the team
Rail on in utter ignorance of what each other mean,
As if it were an elephant not one of them has seen.

So, too, I think we are all limited in our knowledge of God by many things.  For example, our circumstances in life limit what we see of God.  The limits of our experiences, the limits of the time that we can give over to our spiritual lives, these limit our understanding of God.  We are limited by our beliefs in seeing the whole picture of God.  As Mark shared, the really wise person is the one who recognizing he lacks knowledge because that is the person who is open to learning and experiencing more.  Our “knowledge” of God can often limit what we see of God, what we hear of God.  Let me give you a specific example – those who “know” that God is only male miss seeing the feminine aspects of God.  Those who “know” that people are a reflection of God may miss seeing the aspects of God that are far beyond human or that we see reflected in the rest of creation.

We also limit God by what we leave God out of in our lives, or what parts of our lives we keep separate from our faith.  Can you think of common areas from which people might exclude God?  Or areas of our lives in which it might be a challenge for some to include God?

Besides all of these things that limit our relationships with God, I would also say that spending time with God only in the ways that make us comfortable also limit our understanding of God.  We only see the part of God that we are touching, that we are exploring in those moments.  For example, when we only know God through prayer, we may come to see a God who listens, a God who loves, but we may miss that God also instructs, also guides, also has words to speak to us.  We have heard some people say they don’t come to church because they find God better on their own.  Well, I suggest that only finding God in church, and conversely, only finding God outside of church – both of these limit our vision and understanding of God.

The scriptures we heard today present two ways that people might meet God.  Moses met God in a burning bush.  The Psalmist tells us to meet God in silence.  Both are important.  Both give us information about God.  God appearing in the burning bush tells us that God is amazing, can do anything, can appear in any form, and that God does speak to us, does come to us, does have instruction for us.  God telling us to be still to know God tells us that God is also gentle, and at times is not dramatic, but calls us into stillness and into a place of listening and being present in the quiet and stillness.

In the book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert takes a year “sabbatical” or pilgrimage to explore her spirituality.  This was not always a comfortable experience for her.  She found herself confronting difficult parts of herself within her spiritual journey.  And some of the things she tried – extended periods of meditation for example, were downright frustrating and uncomfortable at first.  But she continued to try them, to work with them, to give them a chance.  It took time, it took commitment, it took a real desire to see God, to know God in a different way, in a fuller way, in a more complete way.  When we strive to know God in a different way, she discovered, we cannot just try something new for a minute or an hour, a day, or even a week.  It took months, but she was blessed with a deeper, broader, new look at God.  And she found that not only did she encounter God in new ways, but through her encounter with the Divine, she came to understand herself better, to heal some deep brokenness within and to find the courage to heal some brokenness outside of herself as well.

This is not surprising.  When we come to know God in a new way, we also come to understand ourselves more deeply, because we are made in God’s image, and perhaps, to understand those around us more deeply as well.  We can grow in our capacity to love and to care as we encounter Love itself, as we strive to know God better and in different ways.

And so, my challenge for all of us is that we take the risk, and take the time, to try to know God in a way we haven’t encountered God before.  I encourage us to try something that we may not have tried before.  We can try a classic spiritual discipline such as daily meditation for a month, or we can try a 24 hour fast.  You can renew your commitment to prayer partners that we asked you to make in January, or, if you haven’t done it, make a new commitment to a prayer partner – not necessarily someone you pray with, but someone you can check in with about your prayer life and that can help hold you accountable to daily personal prayer.  You might try coming to our Wednesday evening praise services and our SAFE programs for a period of time.  Or attend a Taize service, either here or at another church.  You could help serve a meal at Bethany on a Friday evening, or volunteer to help with the next IHN week that we host here.  You can commit to reading a part of the Bible with which you are unfamiliar, to study it, to discuss it with a small group.  I would be happy to help you form that group.  You might take the journey or pilgrimage with the group that will go to the Holy land next year.  You might talk to someone that you don’t think you like.  Or simply make a commitment to take the time to be still, even amidst the crazy business of our lives.  But the challenge is not to just try this new thing one time, but to really give time to whatever you are trying that is new.  Give it time, give it space, give God time to talk to you through your new experience and to reveal God-self to you in a new way.  Whatever it is, I invite you to seek to feel more of the elephant…or rather, to seek to see more of God and who God is in your life, and in the world.   God is waiting to be known more fully by you, and God promises that in return you will know more of yourself as well.  Amen.

Sermon, 9/06/09

That old controversy: Faith Vs. Works
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
James 2:1-17

When Mark and I were on vacation at Niagra Falls we learned about a famous acrobat who wanted to show the world the extent of his talents.  He decided he would push a wheelbarrow with a person inside across a tight rope that was strung over Niagra Falls.  He practiced often and early, working hard to make sure that it would be a success.  As he was practicing one day, an observer came by and said, “Wow!  This is such a wonderful idea.  And I have seen your talents and abilities and I have every confidence that you can do this!”

The acrobat replied, “Do you really?”

“Absolutely,” the observer countered, “There is no doubt in my mind that you will be successful at this.”

The acrobat pushed him a little harder, “You really think I can do this.  Even with a person in the wheelbarrow?”

“Yes!  I have complete faith in you.  Even with a person inside, your skill would overcome any danger!” came the quick reply.

The acrobat smiled a huge relieved smile as he replied, “Good!  Then tomorrow you will ride in the wheelbarrow!”

“Are you crazy?” the observer countered, “I could get myself killed!”

We believe, God.  Help our unbelief.

Faith.  We say that we are believers.  But do we really believe?  This joke points out to us that belief, that faith, is not just about declaring that we accept something as true.  Our actions show at a much deeper level what, in fact, we actually believe.

Historically we know that there has been a division in our church, between those who believe in salvation by faith, and those who believe in salvation by works.  This was one of the key issues that surrounded the Protestant Reformation.  Parishioners in the Roman Catholic church were told they needed to “buy” indulgences in order to get out of time in purgatory and into heaven.  And Martin Luther stood up against that and said we are not saved by the things we do, but by our very faith.  Salvation does not have to be bought with action or money or favors or anything other than our very faith.  His point was real, it was important and through it he began a movement which stopped the injustice of the practice of buying indulgences, not just for Protestants, but eventually, for those who remained Catholic as well.  But I would dare to say, that what began as an important point, what started as a stand against injustice, has in itself become a corrupted understanding that has now led once again to the creation of injustice in some of our churches.

I shared an example of this corruption a few months ago when I talked about what is happening in Central America – there are religious leaders there who would keep the people poor by proclaiming that since they are richer in their faith when they are materially poor, and since God promises their reward will be much greater because of that wealth of faith, that they should be grateful for their poverty and not try to raise themselves up.  This is a corruption of the doctrine of salvation by faith.  It is a misuse of biblical passages, including this passage from James – it is a mistaken declaration that future salvation means that the present life doesn’t matter and that it is okay for those who are wealthy to ignore the current suffering of the poor, because we believe that they will be saved after death by their faith.

I spent a summer in Brazil working as a volunteer in mission and I saw that there were two kinds of missionaries serving in Brazil, and often standing across the street from one another near an especially poor area.  On one side of the street were people handing out Bibles.  Brazil is mostly a catholic country and many Protestants in Brazil do not accept Catholicism as Christianity.  So these were people working hard to convert Catholics into “believers”.  Across the street from them would stand the other group, with a hot pot of soup, a truck full of good, second-hand clothing, a couple chairs for people to sit and rest for a minute.  These two groups of Christians were often at great odds with one another.  Those handing out Bibles told those serving soup that they just obviously did not care about the salvation of the people, the only thing that really mattered.  And those handing out soup stood on the passages of the Bible such as today’s that clearly state that if you aren’t taking care of the poor, you aren’t living your faith.  In the middle of the fighting, the faith itself, Christianity itself looked problematic to those they would serve, it seemed confused and corrupt, it looked like a faith that was lost.

The dichotomy which we have set up, between faith and works is a false one.  If we really, actively believe that Jesus is the divine incarnate, then we will believe what Jesus says.  And if we believe what Jesus says, then we must believe that the call of our lives is not only to love God with everything we’ve got, but also to love our neighbors, and yes, our enemies, as ourselves.  If we really believe, at our core, that we are to love everyone as ourselves, then we will live lives that try to make sure that all people, not just our family members, have enough to eat; we will live lives that work to make sure that all people, not just those close to us, have lives worth living; we will do everything in our power to make sure that all people, not just those who agree with us politically or are in the same economic class or even in the same country, find ways to live lives with dignity, with respect, with joy.  If we really believe, then we will have to take very seriously this epistle of James that points out that the poor are richer than we are because in their material lack, they are rich in faith.  And that our call to serve the poor is not just for them – it is for the growth of our own faith as well.

James makes really clear in this passage that we are asked to do this, we are asked to love our neighbors as ourselves, for our own sakes as well as for the sakes of the poor.  I am poorer in my faith because of my wealth.  It is only in giving that away, in being willing to risk and in living by that faith that my faith is built and increased.  We are called, by this passage, not just to help the poor because they are poor and in need of our help, but for our own salvation, for the increase of our own faith, for the living out of God’s kingdom for all.

Taking this to the next step, then, we have to recognize that this call is hard, hard, hard beyond anything.  The reality is that we are not just short in our works, it is not just that we all fail to earn our salvation, the reality is that we also don’t have enough faith for our salvation.  We just don’t have it.  Very few really do.  Very few are willing to get into the wheelbarrow when we are called to the test.  So where is the good news in this?  Where is the good news that we are promised in our faith when we fall short both in works and in faith?

I am reminded of a story in which a man who died was told by St. Peter outside the pearly gates that he had to have 200 points in order to get into heaven.  The man thought hard and finally said, “Well, let’s see.  I was a member of my church of 47 years, a deacon, and a Sunday School teacher for 32 years.”  St. Peter replied, “That’s very good.  That’s one point.”

The man looked scared but he continued, “Oh my.  Let me think again.  I was a good husband.  I never cheated on my wife.  My children loved me because I was a good father.  I tithed, and volunteered at the soup kitchen.  I was in the Lions Club…”  St. Peter responded, “That’s very good, too.  It sounds like you were a man of both great faith and great works.  One more point.”  The man began to sweat as he thought and thought, searching for something that could give him the last 198 points.  Finally he said, “Gosh, if I get in here, it will be by the grace of God.”  At this St. Peter exclaimed, “That’s worth 200 points.  Come on in!”

We fall short in our Christian actions because we fall short in our Christian faith.  We believe, God, Help our unbelief.

But the good news in this is that we aren’t saved by our works, and frankly, we aren’t saved by our faith either.  The good news is that God wants to make possible our impossibilities.  As Jesus said to the disciples when they asked, “who, then can be saved?”, Jesus said, “what is impossible for humans is possible for God.”  The good news is that God loves us despite our inadequacies of works and faith.  The Good news is that we are saved, not by works, not by faith, but by Grace.  God saves us through God’s grace which chooses us, forgives us, loves us, and calls us.  It is through that grace and only that grace that we are brought into eternal life.  It is through that love which gave its life for us that we are brought into God’s realm.  It is through that passion by which God overcame even death to be with us, even when we killed God’s son, that we, too, are brought into new life.  We have failed ourselves, each other and God.  But God still loves us more than life and still wants us to be part of God’s kingdom.

I’m not saying that faith and works don’t matter.  They do.  But they, too, are reflections of God’s grace.  Faith itself, Paul tells us, is a gift from God; not earned, but given.  Works are a living out of that faith, a grateful response to that grace freely given.  In other words, it is through God’s grace that we have faith and do works.  It is through God’s grace that we find our faith and have the courage to begin living it out.  Through God’s grace, God helps us to grow closer to God and to love more deeply.

Dear God, we pray that you would give us the faith to see your grace all around us, in every day, in every way.  We pray that You would help us to live out that grace through deeper faith and more generous works.  We believe God, help our unbelief.

Sunday’s Sermon

Unity, by the Grace of God
Romans 3:21-26
Ephesians 4:1-16

A man was walking on a bridge one day when he was a woman about to jump off. He immediately ran over and said, “Stop! Don’t do it!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” she replied.
“Well, there is so much to live for. Are you a person of faith?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Well, are you Christian?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“So am I! Are you Catholic or Protestant?”
“Protestant,” she said.
“Well, me, too!” he responded. “What denomination?”
“Oh, I’m Baptist” she said.
“Well, how wonderful! So am I! Are you a member of the Southern Baptist Church or another Baptist church?”
By this time the woman really was beginning to smile again as she thought in amazement of all their similarities and the providence of having met this man at this time. She replied therefore to his question with enthusiasm, “I’m a member of the American Baptist Church.”
The man looked horrified for a moment, then yelled “You heretic!” and pushed her off the bridge.

Today we cross denominational boundaries, as we do every year in this place to worship together and to celebrate the things that we share in common: a devotion to God, a dedication and commitment to our faith and to living that out, a love of fellowship and of worshiping God. Together we are representatives of the larger Church, a church filled with people of strong faith, committed to the truth and committed to living that out. We take God seriously in this place and we engage every part of ourselves, including our brains as we strive to understand God’s message for us. We take seriously our beliefs because we are a people who care about God’s will for us and how best to live that out.

And yet, simply because we are human, no two people in this room see things in exactly the same way or have the exact same beliefs, about anything. As we grow in our faiths we understand God differently, we relate to God differently, we are led in our spiritual journeys down slightly different paths. And because we are a people who care about our faith and what that faith means, when we get together to discuss our faith, sometimes really different opinions arise, different view points. These disagreements matter and sometimes they become heated. Sometimes they become so great that they divide the body of Christ, the Church universal and separate me from you, us from “them.”

We know this is true. Since the beginning of the church there have been disagreements that have divided us. Sometimes these disagreements have been over things we would still consider important, such as the disagreements that preceded the Protestant reformation. Other times we look back and are amazed at what things have divided our church. For example during prohibition, the Presbyterian church split because some pastors believed the church wasn’t taking a strong enough anti-alcohol stance. When we are in the midst of these differences, in the midst of these disagreements, they feel very, very important.

Sometimes the church has taken the bold step to try to stay in the tension of our diversity and our disagreements and to try to find ways to be in unity. For example, more and more of our denominations are saying that we can share communion together across denominations, more and more we are a people who gather and worship together across denominational distinctions.

But even while that is happening, within our denominations we continue to fight and struggle and divide over issues. Again, in the Presbyterian church we have recently had a number of congregations leave the denomination over issues, and I believe that no matter what the debate appears to be about, all of these rest in a larger disagreement, a larger division about the very authority of the Bible, about justice, about Biblical and theological interpretation, and ultimately about the very nature of humanity, of creation and of God. It is because these issues are so important that they threaten again and again the unity of Christians. How could we not fight for our deepest beliefs, for what we feel we know to be God’s will and call for our lives?

Paul’s letter to the Romans is a letter written in a time of such struggle within the church. The early Christian church was divided between the Gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians. The church in Rome especially embodied that struggle. The Jewish Christians had founded the church in Rome but these Jewish Christians were expelled from Rome by Emperor Claudius in CE 49. In 54 Claudius died and the exiled Jews returned to a Christian church in which the Gentiles were now in leadership. The gentiles were not anxious to give up their leadership positions but the Jewish Christians felt the leadership belonged to them. Paul is writing to a church that is struggling with internal division. And for whom a division might be the end of the church altogether. Christians were a great minority. They needed each other and they needed to stand together to survive.

Paul himself personified this struggle. For he was a Jewish Christian whose primary mission was to the Gentiles. Because of this Paul struggled at times to be accepted, especially by the Jewish Christians who saw him as a traitor who did not uphold the Jewish Law as central. Paul’s message to the church of Rome is therefore poignant and personal for Paul. His emphasis is on the importance, the necessity, of unity between Christians. And he begins that message with a difficult truth.

All of us, he said, all have fallen short. Not just the Jews, and not just the Gentiles. If God were to fairly judge people based on their merit, on their obedience, even on their beliefs about God’s law and will for their lives, no-one would be acceptable–not the most faithful Jewish leader, not the most committed Gentile in the land. None would be deemed worthy.

This is a hard message to hear. None of us are okay? None of us are worthy? At the same time I believe this is a message of hope. Whenever we feel separated from our brother or sister because we believe them to be wrong, we are called to remember this passage. All of us are wrong. Not one of us has got it completely right. This is a great equalizer. It is also a deep call for humility about our own thoughts and beliefs.

And Paul does not stop there. Paul’s message is one of Good News. He tells the Romans that although none are worthy on their own, God’s love and acceptance is given to all people. God is a God of love. And God’s love is amazing and overwhelming and beyond imagination. God’s love was not just for those who were born in the right country or right culture. It was not just for those who held a perfect understanding and acceptance of the law. It was not even just for those who were on the correct side of the fence when Jesus was crucified. God gave God’s own life in Jesus for all. And it was not simply that God now accepted all people. Through Jesus, God pronounced them righteous. They were made okay. God declared them to be good and worthy. God reached out to all people for reconciliation through Jesus. Through that act, sin was forgiven. Both Jews and Gentiles were offered wholeness.
The result of this profound grace was that for those who accepted the love and grace offered their very trust in that grace freed them from the bondage of sin, from guilt, from fear, from a broken relationship with God, from death. They were redeemed and delivered into right relationship with God. They were saved, in spite of themselves. That was Paul’s message to the Romans. But it applies to us as well.

We, too, have fallen short. None of us has the complete perfect understanding of God. None of us has the perfect interpretation of the Bible. None of us lives our life perfectly following Christ and living out our faith fully. But God loves and redeems all of us despite our shortcomings, and despite the fact that we don’t always see our own imperfections. God erases our lack of righteousness, our un-righteousness, our self-righteousness, and replaces them with God’s righteousness, God’s pronunciation of our worth. God erases our fear, guilt, shame, our death and replaces them with love, redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation and new life – all through our acceptance of the grace always being offered.

Does this mean God does not care what we believe? Or how we behave? That God does not care about our disagreements? For Paul’s time as well as for now, the law, the bible, the things we do or don’t do, the things we believe or don’t believe are important. But they are important to God because God wants wholeness for us, because God wants good for us, because God wants us to live in gratitude, in love, in the Good News!! They are not important because God will reject us when we don’t get it right, or when we fall short. They are important because God wants life for us and God wants that life for us to begin now.

Our errors and our limits also remind us of God’s amazing grace in the midst of our lack. As Christians both between and within denominations we have divergent view points along many issues and find ourselves divided in our beliefs. Our division shows our human limitations. But the point that Paul makes is that they aren’t the end-all-be-all. They aren’t the bottom line. The dogma debates that we hold as central are not enough to bring us salvation, only to point out our need for God to bring wholeness, healing and reconciliation.

15 years ago I attended a General Assembly which is when our National Presbyterian Church meets every couple years to work through issues and make decisions. That particular year was another banner year for infighting over issues. I went to General Assembly and spent most of my time in the chapel praying. The whole time I was there, there was only one other person who came into the chapel to pray, and she, too, came daily. The first day we met there we fell into discussion and it became very clear that we were on opposite sides of pretty much any theological debate and in particular those many issues that were on the floor of GA that particular year. For the first several days this successfully isolated us from each other. We no longer talked, no longer made eye contact. But rather we sat on our opposite sides of the chapel each praying earnestly for the other persons’ enlightenment and even redemption. It would have been easy for me to start seeing her as “the enemy” and as a prime example of a reason why I would have been perfectly fine with our church splitting over some of these issues. By the last day it was obvious that neither of us had been changed in our stances or opinions by the other person’s prayers.

And yet, at the same time, both of us were changed. Because, by the last day, we sat together and as were both about to leave the chapel to attend the GA session that would decide some of the issues we disagreed so strongly about, we decided instead to spend the time praying out loud together, each respectfully and earnestly caring for one another and for the whole General Assembly as sisters and brothers in faith. Afterwards we spent some time talking, getting to know one another more personally, hearing each other’s stories. We came to truly love each other, and in so doing, were able to have more compassion for all of those on the other sides of these issues. She could no longer be “the enemy”. She was family, and not someone I could or wanted to push out of “my” church.

Our calling as a church is to keep our focus on loving God and responding to God through love for each other. That means continuing to dialogue about the things we find important, our beliefs, and our actions. But it also means that we must do so out of a place of openness and acceptance just as God loves and accepts us despite our shortcomings. It means coming to discussion with one another from the faith and trust of a people who know they are united as sisters and brothers in Christ, and that dividing the family of God is not really an option. It means recognizing our own “fallen-ness” and God’s grace which is offered to all, ourselves not more or less than any other. And it means that in those times when there is a division in our churches, if we can not worship with integrity or live out our lives of faith within different world-views, that we strive to remember that those who disagree with us are our sisters and brothers even so, that they are still God’s children, no less or more held by grace than we ourselves.

By the grace of God may we continue to strive for wholeness through faith in the God who gave God’s life for us. May we continue to remember who we are, and more importantly whose we are. May we remember that our center is Christ and that in Christ we are one people: loved, accepted, justified and made whole.