saying graces

I've Moved

2011-02-09T10:57:00.002-06:00

It was time for a change, so Saying Graces has moved. Come on over to www.SayingGraces.com
Peace,
Ben

"Theirs is the Kingdom" - Matthew 5:1-12

2011-02-07T14:01:00.002-06:00

Sermon on January 30, 2011

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I have more books than I know what to do with. Last weekend during the overnight retreat for our confirmation class, we took the confirmands into my office and into Amy’s office, simply to say that they were welcome there - welcome to come and visit, to chat, to say what’s on their minds… I have hundreds of books in my office on the shelves. Some are neatly categorized according to subject matter, and quite a few more are just stuck somewhere. I told the confirmation class, “If you ever want to read an interesting book about God, I’ve probably got one here for you. And if you ever want to read a book that will bore you to absolute tears, I’ve unfortunately got a few of those too.”

There are a few books on my office shelves that have been with me for more than twelve years, but not many. It was about twelve years ago now that I applied to be a student at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, and thus began a book collection that my reading will likely struggle to keep up with for the rest of my life. But I have a few theological books, just a few, that predate any notion I ever had of seminary. Not long ago I became curious about those books - just personally curious about how they might have influenced me before I even considered being a pastor.

One of those books is called Theirs is the Kingdom: Celebrating the Gospel in Urban America, by Robert D. Lupton. I received that book when I was 19 years old. During my sophomore and junior years of college, I spent my spring breaks working with an organization called the Chicago Urban Project. Located in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago’s west side, the Urban Project works to empower families struggling in the midst of poverty. Theirs is the Kingdom was given to me by a man named John Hochevar, who was the project’s director.

John was a pretty amazing guy. He’s been ministering on the streets of the west side of Chicago for the better part of three decades now, reaching out to the poor, the homeless, the addicted, the lost… John was the first person I ever met who so clearly helped me understand the connection between our physical and spiritual salvations. God wants goodness and wholeness to be ours for all eternity, yes. But God also wants goodness and wholeness in our lives today, right now.

John was full of stories. Of course, working in a community where gangs ruled the streets and prostitutes strolled back and forth right in front of your church, you’d have to be full of stories, wouldn’t you? Once he told me about a time he got robbed. It was after dark, and he and one of his staff interns were coming home late from a meeting. They were driving through a horrible section of the neighborhood - a place known for continual violence and crime. In the middle of that neighborhood, the car broke down. Just sputtered to a stop. John coasted to the side of the road, put the car in park, and looked at his intern. “We’re in trouble,” he said, “so let’s pray.”

John and this intern began to pray, but not for long. A few men who had noticed the car dying surrounded the car, forced them out, and took everything they had, including their shoes. At one point, John said that he was frantically trying to pull his wedding band off of his finger because the robbers said that they would cut it off if he couldn’t. And they would have.

The robbers left, and there they were. No money, no shoes, (no cell phones, mind you, this was the 1980’s), stranded in the dark streets of this violent Chicago neighborhood. What would you do? I suppose instinct would tell you to get back in that car and hide. Maybe peek out from time to time and hope that a squad car came by. But John must have had Matthew 5:12 in his head: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,” because instead of hiding in the car, he climbed right up on top of it. He sat himself up there on the roof of his car and began singing. “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” “Amazing Grace,” at the top of his lungs, hymn after hymn after hymn, until help finally came. “They might think I’m crazy,” he said, “but at least they’ll see I’ve already been robbed, and they’ll also know why I’m here.”

As a young college kid from the safe suburbs, I was amazed by John’s commitment to God and to the city. So maybe it’s no surprise that I’m here, twenty-one years later with you in this city. I saw God’s heart for the city long before I ever saw myself in ministry.

It was just three years ago now that I began to have some conversation with others and a few of you about the possibility of ministry here at First Presbyterian in Racine. So many moments in that story confirmed that yes, this was where we needed to be, but I can remember one thing early on that drew me to you and to this church. I read in the material that the search committee had compiled that this congregation had made a conscious decision to remain here, in the city. On coming to Racine and seeing this building for the first time, I thought to myself, “Yes. This is where a church needs to be! In the city. Right next to downtown. Coffee shops and bars, the courthouse and a few abandoned storefronts. A neighborhood struggling with poverty. If you asked me where I’d put a church if I could, it would be here.” From the beginning I’ve been drawn to the fact that First Presbyterian Church is a church in the city.

During Jesus’ first sermon in Matthew’s gospel, he blesses so many of those who we see living in our cities.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted…
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth…
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…
Cities have a way of amplifying human brokenness. A church that would choose to situate itself in a city must be a church that is willing to confront that brokenness and, like Jesus, bless those who are meek, those who are poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst…

Today after worship, this congregation will hold its 172nd annual congregational meeting. During the past 172 years, the city around us has changed quite a bit, hasn’t it? At one time, we were pretty much on the edge of town. Now we’re in the middle of it. This church has seen the surrounding blocks go through change after change after change. Property values rising and falling. Businesses coming and going. People and families changing…

I’m glad we’re here. And when I say that, I don’t mean to just say that I’m glad we’re alive and awake. I mean that I’m glad we’re sitting here on the corner of 7th and College, here in this city where the need is great and where churches willing to face that need have an opportunity to embody God’s love in a unique way.

I know of churches in the suburbs and churches in rural areas that are struggling to figure out how they might reach out and care for others. But you and I - we can walk out any door of this church or look through any window and see the need around us.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which begins with our passage today, is a sermon to people who, like us, live and worship in the midst of a broken world. Jesus speaks to people who are perhaps tired of the way the world around them has defined what it means to “be blessed.”

To a world that says you’re blessed if you have a six-figure income, Jesus says you’re blessed if you’re poor in spirit. To a world that says you’re blessed if you’re happy, Jesus says you’re blessed even when you mourn. To a world that says you’re blessed if secure in your finances and insulated against a bad economy, Jesus says you’re blessed if you’re simply meek, and that the inheritance of the earth is yours.

Why is it important that we are a church in a city? For one thing, it’s in the city where we come face to face every day with those for whom Jesus says the kingdom awaits. “Blessed are they,” Jesus says, “for theirs is the Kingdom.”

This book that my friend John Hochevar gave me, Theirs is the Kingdom, still sits on my shelf. Its author, Robert Lupton, lived a life much like John’s. Lupton was a white, middle-class guy who cared for God’s people living in poverty, and so he moved into a high-crime area of Atlanta - right into a ghetto of that city - and there he began a ministry of outreach and love.

His book is just a collection of his stories and observations about that ministry. I want to close today by sharing just one of them with you. It’s a story about one cold January morning when Lupton walked out to his car to find a homeless man sleeping there. As you listen, may God soften your heart for our neighbors in this city, and may we find ourselves as a family of faith called more deeply into God’s love and service.

I hit the button on my alarm at 6:00 a.m. The whistling at the windows told me it was another cold January day. I’d slept restlessly: the thermostat was slightly high and I’d fluctuated between being too warm with two blankets and too cold with only one. No matter now. The hot steamy shower woke me up, and my thoughts turned ahead to a day of meetings and projects.

At 6:29 I walked out the front door, bundled in scarf and coat against the chill, thinking of my first meeting. As I opened the car door, my heart froze. A man sat behind the wheel.

I reacted instantly, defensively. No knowing whether the man was dead or dangerous, I drew my fist back to strike him before he recovered from his surprise. He slowly turned to meet my angry, startled face.

“What are you doing in my car?” I blurted out, my fist still clenched.

“I’m not in your car, sir,” the man slurred in a frightened, thick-tongued voice. “I’m not in your car, sir,” he buttered again and again as he slowly maneuvered his body out of my car and teetered off across the front lawn.

M heart was still pounding as I drove past him on the street. It wasn’t until I turned onto the expressway that my mind slowed down enough for me to reflect on what just had happened.

I remembered my thoughts in the shower about the thermostat. I had been glad our house was tight and well insulated. There were worse things than sleeping too warm. I remembered also how good it felt to shave and slip into freshly pressed clothes. And then I remembered how terribly frightened I was, how violated I felt that this stranger had intruded where he had no right to be.

I began to wonder where the man was headed. His dark silhouette stumbling down the street was vivid in my mind. I hoped that his dull mind was directing him to his home. I tried to avoid thoughts that he might have no home, that perhaps the temporary lodging in my car was all the home he possessed.

Why? Why should it be, I wondered, that I am so concerned about sleeping too warm when another human being equally loved by the Creator barely survives in a cold car outside my door? Why is it that I have a secure place to rest and be restored, when this man, and so many others like him, has no place to lay his head in peace?

The Christ, the despised one, the one from who we hid our faces, spoke softly, deeply in my spirit. It was the voice of one who himself claimed to have no place to lay his head. I began to weep. I remembered my clenched fist and my compassionless expulsion of this stranger from my life. I cried in sorrow for a broken man whom I had sent off into the cold—unshowered, unfed. And I sorrowed for the one whose heart is not yet sufficiently broken, whose heart hardens too quickly against the call of the Lord among the least of these.

“I am sorry, Lord, for turning you out into the cold. Thank you for using my car.”

"Born Again?" - Exodus 1:8-2:10

2011-01-24T09:28:00.002-06:00

Sermon on Sunday, January 23, 2011

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” (Exodus 1:15-19)

Well, this morning, I know what most of you are probably thinking. In spite of everything I say up here today — in spite of all the questions I might raise and in spite of all the insights we might contemplate this morning, I won’t pretend to ignore perhaps the most compelling and pressing question of the day today: “Who’s going to come out on top? The Steelers or the Jets?” Right? Oh, I’m sorry. Is there another game on today? I hadn’t realized…

According to Google Maps there are 211 miles between Lambeau Field and Soldier Field. And we in Racine are somewhere south of the half-way point. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that the Packers and the Bears are two really fine teams and it’s simply nice to know that one of them is sure to be in the Super Bowl in two weeks, right? Just trying to make a little peace up here.

It’s funny, exciting, and sometimes a little strange to see how football can manage to ignite our passions so vividly. This past week, Sports Illustrated has run a series online featuring Bear fans making fun of Packer fans and Packer fans making fun of Bear fans. Mainly, these articles feature pictures of the most ridiculously dressed on each side — people who come to the game in costume, dressed as bears or as giant blocks of cheese; shirtless men in sub-zero temperatures with their chests painted green and gold or blue and orange…

For some, there’s a religious zeal in their love for football. And I’m often amazed that while extreme displays of crazed loyalty seem accepted and even encouraged in our culture, we tend to be less accepting of other, more commonly held displays of public affection. Take our sermon title this morning. “Born Again.” That’s a phrase that makes some of us Christians a little uncomfortable.

Most of you know that before my family and I came here to Racine, I served as a campus pastor at a Presbyterian Church next to the University of Texas in Austin. Our church was right behind the university’s co-op bookstore, which was directly across the street from the student union, so it was a busy place to be.

On most days during the school year, one particular group of Christians stationed themselves right in front of the union building, and they took it upon themselves to see to the spiritual health of the college students, passing out brochures and confronting people passers-by with religiously-charged questions. I was stopped once and asked, “Are you a Christian?” Hoping to keep things brief, I simply said, “Yes.” But then this man, standing there in the hot, scorching sun under his wide-brimmed hat with his Bible and a stack of leaflets said, “Are you born again?”

What about you? Are you born again? I’m not sure how you feel about that question precisely. As Christians we have lots of ways of describing ourselves. Saying that you’re “born again” might not be one of them. Maybe you feel like you were born ok the first time. Maybe you’d describe yourself as “spiritually hungry but institutionally suspicious,” so you're not sure you’d adopt that particular religious language. Maybe you’re not comfortable being categorized by other Christians. Maybe you’d prefer to simply call yourself a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and leave it at that.

The man was still looking at me, waiting for an answer. “Are you born again?” “Yup,” I said. He seemed satisfied, I suppose, and I made my way along. The thought has occurred to me, though: “What if I had said more?”

The story that comes to us today from Exodus is a story about threat. Listen again to Pharaoh’s first two lines: "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land."

Can you sense his fear? Can you feel how Pharaoh has been threatened? Can you imagine a history of events that has brought Pharaoh to this moment in time

After all, what are we to picture here? Are we to think that Pharaoh, upon being appointed as king, took a stroll around his palace and while doing so happened to look out a large palace window when suddenly, to his great shock, he realized, "There are a lot of Israelites out there!" Are we to believe that this scenario of a growing Israelite population is one that neither Pharaoh nor his political advisors could have possibly foreseen, that the whole thing just sort of took Egypt completely by surprise?

No. Pharaoh is speaking here about something he's known about for a long, long time. Most likely, he has been raised in a culture that has received the immigration of Israelites into Egyptian lands. He and his people are more than aware of this rising tide of Israelites in their midst.

In fact, maybe we can imagine some of the things that were being said on the streets and in the marketplaces, in homes and in chatrooms: “The Israelites - there are too many of them! They’re taking our jobs. They're using all the water. They're sucking our resources dry. They're making our family lines impure. They've brought their own God with them. They're ruining Egyptian culture. Something needs to be done.”

Pharaoh has grown up in a climate of tense fear. Dogging him through his rise to power has been the threat of the growing Israelite population and what they might do. Is Pharaoh now coming up with a revolutionary plan - a way to deal with the rising Israelite population once and for all? Are his ideas really new? Or are they as much a part of him and his culture as anything else? And do they not flow from heart of his culture—from the core of a society struggling with what it does not understand - a culture diversified with the growing presence of out-of-towners - a culture that is threatened?

Pharaoh isn't just speaking from his own heart, but rather from the heart of a people living in fear for its cultural identity and sense of nationalism. "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land."

And the people said, "Yes! That's what it is!" They listened to Pharaoh and they followed him. They became taskmasters of their Israelite neighbors; they oppressed them with forced labor. And I wonder about Pharaoh's "in the event of war" line. "In the event of war," he tells the people, what to stop these Israelites form jumping ship and joining the other side? Nothing! Why, they're probably just waiting for the right time to take over! Pharaoh looks at his people and says, “Is that what you want? Is that the kind of fear you'll agree to live under?” And I can just picture Pharaoh's people listening to every word. In their hearts they've got their doubts about the Israelites, they carry the racism that's inherent in their culture. Now they hear their leader – who chooses his words ever so carefully: Those Israelites want to take us over! That's what they want! We can't let that happen! This spells doom for the society we've worked so hard to create!

And so the Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites. Ruthless: without compassion, without pity, without grief—ruthless. And of course, it's easier to behave ruthlessly when you believe that the people you're mistreating aren't really people at all.

Enter the story two people - the two most unlikely of characters: Shiphrah and Puah. Two Hebrew midwives. Pharaoh calls them in and instructs them, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” If it is a boy... If it is one who might grow up and resist Egypt, if it could become a soldier one day, if it has the power to carry Israelite names and Israelite blood to future generations, if it is a threat, kill it.

It’s ironic, though, that Pharaoh lets the girls live, isn’t it? “If it is a girl, let it live,” he says, completely unaware that the Hebrew women are strong and the Hebrew women who become midwives apparently know a thing or two about civil disobedience. Once Pharaoh realizes that plenty of healthy Hebrew boys are being born, he again summons Shiphrah and Puah and says, “What’s going on? Why are you letting these boys live?” I can just see Shiphrah and Puah exchanging a quick glance. They’re prepared for this: “You see, Pharaoh,” they respond, “the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”

And who knows how long this has been going on? Really, how long? Days? Weeks? Months? Who knows how many births these midwives have seen? Birth after birth after birth, again and again and again…

Born again to a Hebrew family, an infant, a boy who will grow longing for a better way of life.

Born again to a Hebrew mother and father, a girl who, throughout her childhood, will hear stories of Shiphrah and Puah, stories that will inspire resistance and courage.

Born again to a Hebrew mother, a boy, whose name will be Moses, who will rise up in Pharaoh’s very own house and lead the Israelites away from Egypt, away from oppression, away from bondage to freedom.

Born again and again and again. Threat to Pharaoh. Threat to Egypt. Threat to a culture whose national identity has been offended by the presence of outsiders. Born again: a threat that change is about to take place.

Born again and again and again… Are you born again? Are we born again? What do we do with threat? What do we do when our lives, pregnant with possibilities for change, for growth in new directions, for understanding God in a new way, pose a threat to us?

When working with integrity means changing jobs,
When a difficult conversation threatens to change a relationship,
When being healthy means admitting we need help,
When living an honest lifestyle threatens to isolate us from our friends and family,
When answering God’s call threatens to undo our sense of security,
When honest doubts threaten to change the way we understand our faith…

There is a bit of Pharaoh in us, I think. There’s a bit of that spirit that yells, “STOP!” every time our lives reach the birthing stage - every time when that which could be born to us represents a threat - a theological, political, action-oriented, relational, truth-telling threat… And in so many ways, we put that threat to death.

Yet there is a spirit of Christ in us too, isn’t there? That Spirit present with us when, like Shiphrah and Puah, we act as midwives for each other, present at the birthstools of life’s challenges and difficult choices - that Spirit that breathes life into our living and speaks to us in a myriad of ways, saying, “Life is too precious to spend it all on that which is non-threatening! Be born! Again and again! Be born!”

And so we are church. And so we gather. And so we are all pregnant, and so we are all one another’s midwives. And so we create safe community and say to one another and to the world:
“Be born!”
“Live into change!”
“Come out!”
“Go forth!”
“Live.”
And of course, we cannot help but wonder... If the Church is born again, what does it look like? What do we as a Church begin to look like when, despite the threats, we live in rebirth day after day after day? What happens when reborn people in a reborn Church long for a reborn world? What happens if they do it again and again and again?

Are we born again?

Evotional - A Thermostat that Transforms

2011-01-20T16:44:00.001-06:00

A Thermostat that Transforms

Still fresh in my mind is this past Sunday's wonderful worship service, when we invited Rev. Randy Bush back into the pulpit. Being Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Randy reflected on Dr. King's life, among other things. Our affirmation of faith that followed was a piece that I wrote based on King's 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Here's a bit of it:

Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world?
No. But so often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. And far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.
Rationally speaking, isn't there something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills?
Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.
What, then, shall we do?
We will not wait for a convenient season for justice. We will be a Church that is not merely a thermometer that records the ideas and principles of popular opinion, but a thermostat that transforms our culture and our world.

Those words continue to roll around in my mind as I think about our mission and purpose as a family of faith. What a prophetic, life-shaping task we have - to function as a thermostat in our culture, transforming out culture and our world. May Dr. King's words remind us of our calling as a church and may they compel us to courageous actions of transformation and love.

Peace,
Pastor Ben

"The God in Striped Pajamas" - Psalms 139:1-12; John 1:1-18

2011-01-03T09:21:00.002-06:00

Yesterday my friend and colleague Steve Fringer preached in worship. Steve serves First Presbyterian Church as our visitation pastor, but he is also an excellent crafter of sermons, so I'm excited to share his words here...

She climbed into her parents’ bed, whimpering. A bad dream. In five minutes she was asleep and her father carried her back into her bedroom, laying her in her own bed. She awoke as he pulled the blankets up. “Noooooo,” she whined. “You’ll be all right, sweetheart.” He knelt down beside the bed, his face close to hers in the dark. “I’ll put your night light on. It was only a dream.” “I know. I don’t like to be alone. I get scared.” “Well, mommy and daddy are just down the hall,” he said. “And you know God is always with you.” She was quiet, looking at him and then looking away. “I know, but…” The “but” hung in the dark quiet. “But what?” “Well,” she said, “I like somebody close to me with skin on.”

Our little theologian gives expression to what we all want at times, to what the evangelist says has happened: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. Emmanuel—God with us. So, heaven kisses earth; enter Jesus. In the birth of Jesus we see that there is no length to which God will not go to prove that we are loved. To show that God’s love has no bottom, no top, no sides, no end. Yes, we may be afraid to be alone or afraid of the dark, or of the boogie man in the closet or under our bed, or the boogie man of foreclosure or job loss or the diagnosis we dreaded to hear, but since God in Jesus has stepped into our skin we have the reassurance that God knows intimately the depths of our fears, the risk in trusting others, the pain of betrayal, the agony of grief, as well as the dangnabbit feeling of a stubbed toe, the joy of a good laugh, the deep satisfaction of loving others and being loved.

But as our little theologian bemoans--we do at times lose a sense of God’s presence with us. It’s easy to imagine God’s presence and goodness when things are going well and we’re cartwheeling across the sunny mountaintops of our lives. But when we’re scared or alone, trudging through the dark valleys, or wandering in the wilderness, we often wonder, Where are you, God? Even Jesus, in his most painful skin moment, cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And history on more than one occasion has pointed an accusing finger at the faithful and asked, Where was God?

Bruno is a young boy in John Boyne’s novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. His father is a high ranking officer in the German army of WWII and at the beginning of the book the family is being transferred to, as Bruno understands, Out-With. In his new home he finds little to like and cannot find any friends to play with. Soldiers now come in and out of his home, reporting to his father and calling him commandant.

One day Bruno goes exploring and finds a fence that stretches as far as he can see. He walks along the fence for a long time seeing nothing, but then he sees a little speck and coming closer he finds a boy, small, skinny, with large eyes in a thin, grey face, his head shaven. He is wearing striped pajamas, sitting on the ground with his back to the camp and looking through the fence. Bruno sits down in front of him and they talk through the fence. His name is Shmeul and they discover that they share the same birthday and are both nine years old.

Bruno returns day after day, sometimes sneaking food from the kitchen for his friend, who is always hungry, keeping his visits a secret from his family because they’ve forbidden him to go anywhere near the fence. What he learns from his new friend is often too hard for Bruno to believe—that he has no change of clothes, only the striped pajamas and cap he wears, that everyone on that side of the fence doesn’t have their own bedrooms, and the boys don’t have any toys.

One day Bruno contracts head lice and has his head shaven and when he sees Schmeul again, they joke how similar they look, only Bruno is fatter. Shortly thereafter Bruno’s mother decides she and Bruno and his sister will return to Berlin. It’s been almost a year since they arrived in Out-With. Bruno is deeply saddened and when he sees Shmeul he tells him he will be leaving. Shmeul is scared because he can’t find his father. The two boys hatch a plan to go looking for his father together the next day. Shmeul will bring pajamas and cap for Bruno to wear and he’ll crawl under the fence and change clothes; with his short hair he’ll appear no different than the others.

Their plan works. They do go looking for Shmeul’s father, but they get caught up in a large crowd of people who are being forced to march and the grey sky overhead grows darker and the rain falls harder and Bruno starts thinking he should return home because they were having roast beef that night and then he and Shmeul were out of the rain in a large, warm room packed with pajama people and the door closed and all seemed better and, quite out of character, Bruno took Shmuel’s tiny hand in his and told him he was the best friend he’d ever had and then the room went dark.

“Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? … if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” In the end, I believe, it comes down to making a stance, a stance of faith and trust, even when the evidence, be it historical or personal, the evidence of God’s absence or indifference seems overwhelming; evidence such as Bruno and Shmeul’s camp of Auschwitz, or the killing fields of Cambodia, or the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia or Rwanda. Even when we feel alone and lost and scared and God-abandoned in our hospital room or looking at the foreclosure notice. Can we see God, moving in our midst? In Jesus God has stepped into our skin and God is also in the striped pajamas entering the gas chambers, standing with the oppressed, the hurting, the dying. God dying over and over again. And then being born anew in our midst when we walk with someone through their wilderness, make the hard sacrifice, comfort the grieving, listen with our hearts, practice forgiveness, become hope for someone else, live love. Then we become the midwives for God’s birth. Then we make every day Christmas because every day and every moment in every day is sacramental. Then we become the light in the darkness that the darkness does not overcome.

Amen.

"Into the Wild" - Matthew 3:1-12

2010-12-13T10:25:00.003-06:00

Sermon on Sunday, December 5, 2010

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”

Growing up, I was a scout. First a cub scout and then a boy scout, I spent a good seven or eight years learning how to tie double bowlines and tourniquets—how to set up a basic shelter and cook over an open fire. I enjoyed scouting. My brother and my friends were all in it with me, and we had fun on all those camping trips and weeks at scout camp.

Our scoutmaster was a man named Del LaGow. Mr. LaGow was a loving man who made ample space in his life for 30-some-odd pre-teen and teenage boys. He was always interested in teaching us how to cook Cornish game hens in a Dutch oven buried in a pit of coals or how to splint an injured leg with the contents of our tent bag. Through it all, certain things were ingrained in us, the scouts of Troop 31: Always bring a first aid kit and a tarp, keep your matches dry, and there is no such thing as too much rope. That all goes with the old scouting motto: “Be Prepared.” As boy scouts, we were certainly prepared, and to this day, I always pack rope, usually a few too many bungee cords, and at least one extra tarp. Mr. LaGow would be proud, I suppose.

A word that usually shouts out from Scripture during the Advent season is “prepare.” John the Baptist would have made a good boy scout, out in the wild, earning merit badges in sewing clothes with camel hair and living off the fat of the land—if you can call locusts and wild honey the “fat” of the land. But he was out there—living beyond civilization in the wilderness, surviving. And his message to anyone who would listen was, “Prepare! Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!”

John the Baptist must have been an amazing presence—the kind of person you meet just once and then never ever forget—because he had crowds coming out in the wilderness to hear him and be baptized. John wasn’t doing miracles. We don’t know of any healings or turning water into wine. He wasn’t out in the wilderness multiplying fish and loaves or walking on water. He was just preaching the same sermon over and over again: Prepare the way of the Lord!

One of the reasons we know John the Baptist was popular was that the Pharisees and Sadducees themselves went out to see him. John must have been more than a blip on the radar screen—more than just some crazy prophet out in the wild eating bugs and preaching sermons—because these religious elites, even, ventured out there to see just what in God’s name he was doing. Did they feel threatened by John’s ministry? Were they out in the wilderness to keep an eye on him? Or were they, too, drawn to John’s charismatic personality?

In any case, the Pharisees and Sadducees serve as powerful reminders in the story of John the Baptist. They remind us that the announcement of Jesus’ ministry did not come from within the religious establishment. Jesus’ life was not a plan hatched and then signed off on by a committee of faith leaders. No one with any religious clout in Jesus’ day had a word to say about the scope and shape of his ministry.

If Jesus came today, we in the church might like to think that we could prepare a little reception for him—maybe a little meet-n-greet after church so that he could get to know people. Before he came, we’d probably make a couple lists: “What to do to get ready for Jesus’ coming” and then “What to do when Jesus gets here.” We’d like to think that we could invite him to preach during worship and then speak during our Sunday school class. We’d love to think that Jesus would linger near the church as long as we like, taking our questions and talking with us about God.

John the Baptist, however, reminds us vividly that Jesus’ ministry was not a church program. Jesus was not the brainchild of an institutionalized religion, sent to celebrate and reinforce the status quo. Rather, he was the child of a rambunctiously loving God, sent in part to turn religion on its head. So no, the announcement about Jesus’ coming did not appear in a Temple newsletter, and it was not in anyone’s Sunday morning bulletin. Knowledge of Jesus’ life did not begin with a select handful of pastor-types and then filter out into the congregations. It began with John the Baptist, out there in the wilderness, preaching to anyone who would listen.

Sometimes you have to be in the wilderness to get your message across, though, and truth be told, sometimes you have to be in the wilderness to hear what God is saying.

Mike was a man who went to church every Sunday, but it wasn’t until he went through the wilderness of cancer and chemotherapy that he learned to trust God through each moment and thank God for each breath.

Emily was a woman who’d grown up in church and Sunday school, but it wasn’t until she experienced the wilderness of a troubled marriage that she dug more deeply into her quest to find God’s direction for her life.

Jay and Helen met in a campus Christian fellowship and got married in the church, but it wasn’t until they trudged through the wilderness of a difficult pregnancy that they began to rely on God’s presence together.

Now let me be clear. I do not believe that God sets up “wilderness moments” in our lives. I do not believe that God shoves our lives into the wilderness—into cancer, into troubled marriages or into moments of anxiety and fear—so that we can become more able to hear God’s voice. But the trust is this: sometimes you and I, we find ourselves in the wilderness, don’t we? The wilderness of disappointment, the wilderness of loss, the wilderness of depression or sorrow, the wilderness of real financial trouble… Sometime’s life’s path takes us through the long, dark wilderness of slowly losing a parent or a spouse.

The loving gospel truth is that God will not leave us alone in the wilderness. And sometimes the wilderness is where we are more apt to listen for and receive news of Christ’s coming in our lives.

The invitation I would like to share with you this Advent season is for you to actually venture off into the wilderness. You can skip the part about eating locusts if you want, but you really should get out into the wild for a change.

Adam was a church-twice-a-month kind of guy. But then he started tutoring some middle school kids in a troubled school, and in the wilderness of those students’ lives he heard Christ calling him to new depths of faith and faithfulness.

Megan never really went to church at all—just never made the time. But in the wilderness of the local homeless shelter, she met men and women who trusted Jesus with each second of their lives, and she began to wonder…

Alex was a leader in the church—sang in the choir and served on the Session. But then his friends at work started getting laid off. Rather than avoid the awkward conversations, he kept calling, kept in touch. And guess what—in the wilderness of his friends’ struggles to find work and figure out what to do with themselves, Alex heard Christ’s voice in his own life, and began to wonder more fully if he was doing what he was called to do.

I suppose as a pastor I’d love the thought that the church is going to be the place where you can listen most attentively to God’s voice. And sometimes it is. But sometimes you’ve to get out into the wild, because it’s in the wilderness that you can most completely prepare for Christ’s coming in your own life.

Long before Fred Craddock was a well-known theologian and preacher in the church, he was a bright seminary student who was sometimes too smart for his own good. He’d written a paper on one of his heroes, a man by the name of Albert Schweizer. Schweizer was German doctor and a kind of “Mother Teresa” in his generation, as he’d spent much of his life serving the critically ill in Africa.

Fred Craddock earned an A+ on his Albert Schweizer paper, and considered himself something of an expert. About that same time Schweizer was coming to town to play a benefit concert (besides being a doctor, he was also an accomplished musician). So Craddock planted himself in the front row at that concert, hoping for a little Q and A afterwards, during which he would show of his brilliance.

The concert ended, but afterwards, Schweizer didn’t ask the audience, “Are there any questions?” Instead he simply said, “I thank you for your hospitality and your gracious reception of me, but I have to leave now to catch my plane back to my people in Africa. They are sick and hungry and dying. If any of you have in you the love of Jesus, come help me.”

Fred Craddock’s self-serving, smarty questions turned to ashes right then and there. And his life became pointed in a whole new direction. This was Fred Craddock’s invitation into the wilderness—the wilderness of sickness and struggle that so many human beings face—the wilderness that prepared him to make way for Christ in his own life and to be faithful.

Friends, I don’t think it’s any stretch of the imagination to say that there’s a wilderness out there waiting for you to come and prepare for Christ’s way in your own life. Somewhere out there, outside the city limits of your own comfort zone, God is calling you to listen and be faithful. May God grant you courage and strength for the journey there and the ministry that follows. Amen.

Evotional - "If Jesus was born today"

2010-12-02T16:47:00.001-06:00

I've been thinking lately about Advent and Christmas, of course, and I've been struck again this year by the overcommercialization of it all. So here's a Steve Turner poem for this week's evotional. In many of his poems, Turner has a knack for exposing the gulf that often exists between the gospel message and a comfortable, institutionalized religion. May his words find a place in your thinking and believing today!

"If Jesus was born today"
by Steve Turner

If Jesus was born today
it would be in a downtown motel
marked by a helicopter's flashing bulb.
A traffic warden, working late,
would be the first upon the scene.
Later, at the expense of a TV network,
an eminent sociologist,
the host of a chat show
and a controversial author
would arrive with their good wishes
-the whole occasion to be filmed as part of the
'Is This The Son Of God?' one hour special.
Childhood would be a blur of photographs and speculation
dwindling by his late teens into
'Where Is He Now?' features in Sunday magazines.

If Jesus was thirty today
they wouldn't really care about the public ministry,
they'd be too busy investigating His finances
and trying to prove He had Church or Mafia connections.
The miracles would be explained by
an eminent and controversial magician,
His claims to be God's Son recognised as
excellent examples of Spoken English
and immediately incorporated into
the O-Level syllabus,
His sinless perfection considered by moral philosophers
as, OK, but a bit repressive.

If Jesus was thirty-one today
He'd be the fly in everyone's ointment-
the sort of controversial person who
stands no chance of eminence.
Communists would expel Him, capitalists
would exploit Him or have Him
smeared by people who know a thing or two about God.
Doctors would accuse Him of quackery,
soldiers would accuse Him of cowardice,
theologians would take Him aside and try
to persuade Him of His non-existence.

If Jesus was thirty-two today we'd have to
end it all. Heretic, fundamentalist, literalist,
puritan, pacifist, non-conformist, we'd take Him
away and quietly end the argument.
But the argument would rumble in the ground
at the end of three days and would break out
and walk around as though death was some bug,
saying 'I am the resurrection and the life...
No man cometh to the Father but by me'.
While the magicians researched new explanations
and the semanticists wondered exactly what
He meant by 'I' and 'No man' there would be those
who stand around amused, asking for something
called proof.

"Best Wishes" - Isaiah 2:1-5

2010-11-29T12:22:00.003-06:00

Sermon on the first Sunday of Advent, November 28, 2010

"He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Like many of you, perhaps, I woke this morning eager and anxious for the latest news. At midnight our time—just ten hours ago—the United States and South Korea began military exercises in the Yellow Sea, just off the Korean peninsula, and so I braced myself when I opened my laptop for the most recent reports.

Global spotlights have shifted towards North and South Korea as tensions have mounted in that region, reminding the world that, technically speaking, the two nations have been at war for sixty years now.

For the past few weeks, I’ve contemplated preaching from the second chapter of Isaiah, basing this morning’s sermon largely on Isaiah’s vision of God’s reign, when the nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks”—when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” In light of wars raging on in our world and in light of a new war on the brink of ignition, it’s been strange to conceive a biblical message that feels largely out of touch with reality.

We might call Isaiah 2:1-5 wishful thinking at best, at least in this day and age. Swords and spears—tools of war melted into farming implements as nations commit never to fight again. Often our best wishes fall short of depicting such a wistful, far-flung scenario.

Our faith ancestors, however, clung to Isaiah’s vision of peace. The Assyrians had already conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. From the Sea of Galilee down to the cities of Samaria and Bethel, Assyrian armies had swept through from the north. Jerusalem was next, and with it, the rest of Judah. Each and every day, the question for the Judeans wasn’t if the war would come, but when.

But the land of Judah did have some time—time enough, perhaps, to make some attempt at a defense before the Assyrians invaded. And so do you know what the Judeans did to get ready? They were mostly farmers, of course—not soldiers. Eight weeks of boot camp was probably unrealistic. No time for drills or maneuvers or officer training. But they did have time to do one thing, and so they did what they could. They gathered together their tools—all their farming tools—and they took the metal from those tools and melted it down to make weapons. Plows and spades, scythes, pitchforks, and pruning hooks… All of it could be reshaped to make helmets and shields, swords and spears.

The Judeans couldn’t use sickles and plowshares to fight the Assyrians, but in a week or so, they could exchange them for tools of war. And that’s what they did.

But, of course, this came with a high price. You can’t till the soil with a spear and you can’t plant wheat with a broad sword. If you exchange your farming tools for weapons, basically you give up on an entire harvest season—you commit yourself to your immediate survival, but you essentially write off the year to come. And you hope that, should you survive the Assyrian assault, you’ll be able to scrounge enough to make it through to the next planting season with enough time to turn your swords back into plowshares and your spears back into pruning hooks.

This is where the Judeans found themselves. On the brink of war with no other option than to melt their livelihood into some semblance of a military stand. Bleak. Hopeless. Wishful.

Not much has changed. Well, ok—a lot has changed. But still today the nations scrounge their own resources to attack and defend. Close to a quarter of our own federal budget is currently assigned to defense spending, and for the past several years, China has increased its military spending by close to 10% annually. It’s estimated that worldwide, annual military expenditures come close to 1200 billion US dollars. That is, of course, a staggering amount of money to spend again and again, year after year.

A question to consider is this: what if Isaiah was right? And what if a day could come when the nations said, “We’re not going to ‘learn war any more’?” What if the United States and China and Iraq and Afghanistan and North and South Korea… What if we all melted down swords and spears and tanks and shell casings, and what if we committed those global resources to other things?

Well, for starters, it would only take 10 billion dollars to provide enough technology and infrastructure to present the entire world with access to safe drinking water. Just 10 billion! Currently, half the developing world—over 2 billion men, women, and children—suffer because their water isn’t clean. But we could solve that with just a fraction of one year’s worth of global military spending.

This may not be possible in this day and age, but it is nonetheless a biblical image that our faith ancestors clung to. They longed for the day they could melt down their swords and spears and turn them into the things they needed to feed their children and build a life for themselves. But of course, in spite of their best wishes, they sharpened their swords and braced themselves for the day they’d have to use them.

Now as I move on, let me be clear. This morning I do not mean to oversimplify globally complex issues of military conflict. I do not mean to nurture a naïve vision of soldiers and drug lords and members of the Taliban merrily dancing around a bonfire of melting weaponry.

I do mean to say this, however: the world we have is not the world for which God wishes.

So then, it can be with renewed hope and possibility that we as Christians enter once again into this time of year we call “Advent.” “Advent” means “coming,” and in this spiritual season, friends, we commit our thinking and believing to Christ’s coming in our world and in our lives.

What does this mean? It means that no matter how damaged, worn, or broken our lives become—no matter how destructive our world may be and no matter how far we fall from God’s wishes, Christ is coming to make all things new.

Once there was this preacher who’d just graduated from seminary. She was installed in a small church and, eager to begin her ministry, she set a goal of personally visiting every family in the church within her first six months.

At the end of six months, she almost had it done. Only one family remained, but people said, “Don’t bother. They’re not coming back.” Ignoring those words, this young minister drove out to the couple’s house. The wife was home and she invited her in, made some coffee.

The conversation rolled from one thing to the next. They talked about this. They talked about that. And then, they talked about it.

Two years ago, the wife was home with their young son. She was vacuuming in the back bedroom and hadn’t checked on him in a little while, so she went into the den—and did not find him. She looked through the rest of the house—no sign of him. And then in a panic she followed his trail—through the back patio door, across the patio, to the swimming pool… and then she found him.

“At the funeral, our friends from church were very kind,” she said. “They told us it was God’s will.”

The minister put her coffee cup down on the table. Should she touch it? Should she touch it? She touched it. “Your friends meant well, but they were wrong. God does not will the death of children.”

The woman’s face reddened, and her jaw got firm. “They who do you blame? I guess you blame me.”

“No, I don’t blame you. I don’t blame God… I can’t explain it. I only know that God’s heart broke when yours did.”

The woman sat there with her arms crossed. It was clear that the conversation was over. On the way home, the pastor kept kicking herself. “Why didn’t I leave it alone?”

Several days later the phone rang. It was the wife. “We don’t know where this is going, but would you come out and talk with my husband and me? We assumed that God was angry with us; but maybe it’s the other way around.” (1)

Sometimes life feels beyond repair. The wound is too deep. The odds of recovery, insurmountable. Sometimes the pain of life is too great to bear. Too many swords, not enough plowshares. Too many bombs, not enough fresh water wells.

Our hope this Advent season is not simple wishful thinking. It is our hope in the Christ—the one who transforms the broken places in our lives—the one who transformed even the cross, that instrument of death, and made it a symbol of life and new life.

Our hope is in Christ, the one who melts our suspicions and fears,and reshapes them into new images of promise and possibility. It is in Christ, then, that all our best hopes, our best dreams, and our best wishes lie. Amen.

(1) A story from the sermons of the Rev. Tom Long.

"Upside Down Kingdom" - Luke 23:33-43

2010-11-22T13:24:00.005-06:00

Sermon on Sunday, November 21, 2010

There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

Reading near the end of the gospel of Luke can feel like visiting a museum for the fiftieth time. We’ve seen it before—walked by this particular display on countless occasions. It’s the gruesome scene—Jesus’ final moments.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t found too many museums that can hold my attention for much more than an hour, or maybe two. After that, I get glazed over and then it doesn’t matter what I’m looking at—a sixth century sword from the Byzantine Empire? An ancient Roman urn? One of Van Gogh’s finest? It’s not that I don’t appreciate great art and culture—I do. I’ve simply found that I can appreciate it more when I’ve liberated myself from having to appreciate it all at once. Give me one hour to find three or four things that I can truly stop and study any day, but please don’t ask me to try to see it all. I know myself—I’ll lose focus. I’ll get tired and crabby.

Sometimes the twenty-third chapter of Luke can feel like that tableau at the natural history museum that you’ve passed by dozens and dozens of times. We’ve read it. We’ve seen it. The Bible story, the passion play, the TV drama, the movie version… The Good Friday sermons and the Sunday school lessons… We hear the line, “they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left,” and we’re in territory that is perhaps too familiar—familiar enough, at least, so that nothing in the scene is sufficiently jarring enough to stop us in our tracks and make us linger for awhile.

Sometimes just one detail, though, is enough. Just one tiny detail—the inscription on the hilt of that particular sword, a chip in mouth of that urn, the brushstrokes Van Gogh used to make that one sunflower near the top… Sometimes a small detail is enough to draw us in, wondering anew about what it is we’re really looking at. I may not be able to lose an entire day at the museum, but I can get wonderfully lost in the right detail.

So let’s zoom in on our story a bit… See Jesus there, on the cross. He’s between two criminals, and he’s asking for forgiveness for these people who don’t know what they’re doing. Others are there, too—people who came to watch, and they’re just standing there, looking. Picture it all. A few more are grabbing at the clothes that have been stripped from Jesus. The soldiers are mocking him, offering cheap, sour wine. Someone from the crowd, a leader, shouts out, “let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” And this catches on. A soldier yells, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” And then even one of the criminals hanging there with Jesus says, “Yes! Save yourself and us!”

Zoom in a little more, and focus on this one detail. See that above Jesus’ head there’s a little sign hanging there, and it says, “This is the King of the Jews.” Dwell on that detail for a minute. It was a joke, really—a cruel joke someone thought of, maybe at the last minute. Was it one of the soldiers? Did he say to his friends, “Hey, I got an idea. Let’s make a sign and hang it on the cross. What should it say?” Or was he one of those who had been in the room when Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” And maybe he heard Jesus respond: “You say so.” In any case, someone made that sign, the one that said, “This is the King of the Jews” and then attached it to the top of that cross.

Usually, when someone is crowned king, it doesn’t go like that. Recently, with Prince William’s engagement, the cameras have zoomed in on Britain’s royal family, and some of that attention has fallen on Prince Charles, who will assume the throne once Queen Elizabeth dies. When that happens, we can expect an uber-extravagant coronation ceremony—an international television event with all eyes on the crown as it is carefully lowered onto Prince Charles’ head. Then at some point, there will be a grand pronouncement: “This is the king.”

The pronouncement of Jesus’ kingship wasn’t quite so austere. No pomp, no circumstance. Just a soldier’s spur-of-the-moment joke, hand-written on a sign that got tacked to the cross: “This is the King of the Jews.” A cruel, sober reminder that Jesus isn’t like other kings—that Jesus’ kingdom isn’t like other kingdoms. It’s sort of the upside down kingdom—the kingdom where the first are in fact last and the last are first, the poor are rich and the rich are poor, where the meek inherit everything. It’s the kingdom where you love your enemies and pray for the people who persecute you—the kingdom where you are blessed if you mourn, blessed if you hunger, and blessed if you thirst. It’s all upside down. It’s the kingdom where the King refuses to force anyone to do anything, but instead behaves like a servant. It’s the kingdom where the King is mocked as he is crowned.

Now today is Christ the King Sunday. In the church year, it’s the Sunday before we do it all over again—Advent, then Christmas, then Epiphany, then Ash Wednesday, Lent, Easter… The message of any self-respecting Christ the King Sunday is, well, that Jesus Christ is King and Lord. It’s really sort of an everyday message, much like “Christ is born” and “Christ is risen,” but if nothing else, Christ the King Sunday gives us a shove towards saying it more intentionally: Jesus Christ is King.

But maybe then the question remains for you and for me: What does it mean to say that? What does it mean to say, “Jesus Christ is King and Lord”?

There’s a great story about George Buttrick, one of the absolute best preachers of all time. I recently came across a list of the top ten preachers of the twentieth century. Buttrick came in at number three, right behind Billy Graham and right ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. He was a force.

Well anyway, Buttrick was on a flight once, heading back to New York City, where he served as a pastor, and he was jotting down some notes for his sermon the following Sunday. The man sitting next to him on the plane looked over several times, and finally his curiosity got the best of him and he said to Buttrick: “I hate to bother you—but what in the world are you working on?”

“Oh, I’m a minister,” Buttrick explained, “and I’m working on my sermon for Sunday.”

“Oh, religion,” said the man, “I don’t like to get all caught up in the in’s and out’s and complexities of religion. I like to keep it simple. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ The Golden Rule—that’s my religion.”

“I see,” said Buttrick, “and what do you do?”

“I’m an astronomer,” said the man. “I teach at the university.”

“Oh yes,” said Buttrick, “Astronomy—I don’t like to get all caught up in the in’s and out’s and complexities of astronomy. Twinkle, twinkle little star—that’s my astronomy…” (1)

I suppose that in many ways, we tend to reduce Christianity to something we can manage. Maybe it’s the golden rule. Maybe it’s just trusting God and trying to be a good person. Maybe it’s showing up for church and looking for good advice to get you through the week.

But friends, we are citizens of the upside down kingdom. And central to our identity can be nothing other than this: Jesus Christ is King and Lord. Now maybe that language bothers you. Maybe you’re afraid of sounding like one of those crazy Christians on TV, or like that distant relative who shows up at family reunions and pesters everyone with his religious chatter.

But look at it this way: Someone is “Lord” in your life, or something is “Lord.” If there’s a throne in the kingdom of your life, it’s probably good to acknowledge that it seldom sits empty. Someone or something is always there, ruling over you. Now, in a self-reflective moment, you might say that that “someone” is you, actually. Oftentimes, we are the ones sitting on that throne, attempting to rule the life before us. Though even that is an oversimplification, because usually it’s just a part of us on the throne, calling the shots and attempting to be king.

Which part of you has been trying to rule your life lately?
Which part of your life is king and lord right now?
Is it the workaholic in you?
The voice in you that can’t imagine your life without your job?
Is it the part of you that thinks that a higher salary is your final ticket to joy?
What voice is ruling in your life?
The voice that says that if you could just lose ten pounds, you’d be happy?
Or are you being ruled by that inner voice that keeps telling you, over and over again that your job is to keep everybody happy, so don’t argue, don’t say what you really think, don’t make waves…
What is sitting on the throne of your life?
Is it a wound that you can’t let heal?
A past hurt that you can’t let go of?
Are you ruled by anger?
Or fear?
Is your king an attachment or an addiction?
Or is your “king” a certain belief you have, deep down, that the world would be a wonderful place if everybody could just see things your way?
Or in a strange way, is the king in your life your growing conviction that it just doesn’t matter anymore, so why try?

Today I want to encourage you to make room in the throne room of your soul for the One who turns all that stuff upside down.

If we were another church, I suppose this is where we’d stick the alter call. And if you wanted to publicly acknowledge Jesus as Lord, you could trot on up here and make it happen. But here’s the truth, friends—it already did happen. In Jesus Christ, God has already loved you with a love that you can’t do a darn thing about. You can’t make it more real by acknowledging it, just like you can’t make it less real by ignoring it. That's what grace is, by the way.

The real question is this: what does Christ as King mean for you today? Answering that question is not a once-in-a-lifetime moment, but rather a daily practice that we engage as we live forward in faith. God bless us as we do just that. Amen.

(1) This is a fairly well-known story, but I got it first from my friend Mark Ramsey, pastor of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Asheville, NC, in his sermon "Uncomfortable" on June 20, 2010. You can read it here.

"Busy" - Luke 10:38-42

2010-11-08T11:09:00.002-06:00

Sermon on November 7, 2010

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Daylight Savings Time has ended. You know this either because you remembered to set your clocks back last night, or because you showed up at church an hour early this morning and sat around waiting for the coffee to get done. That extra hour of sleep is always something to look forward to. Of course, if your family is like ours right now, you know that while you can set a clock back 60 minutes, you’ll have no such luck with a toddler, who cares nothing for daylight saved or spent.

We tried explaining all of this to Ezzy at bedtime last night, but to no avail. She is our consistent early riser, and Daylight Savings Time to her does not mean an extra hour of sleep, but rather an extra hour to run around the house at 4:30 in the morning. So she was up five hours ago, ready to get busy with her day—ready to keep us busy with her day…

I want to talk about being busy this morning. Are you busy? Have you been busy lately? Is that a good thing in your mind?

Maybe you’ve heard this one before. A man grows up in a small town, heads off to college and then to law school. He passes the bar, and then returns home, a new lawyer. He’s eager to get going, and perhaps to be a man of importance in this small town where he grew up. He opens a new law practice, but business is slow at first. In fact, he doesn’t have a single client yet.

But then one day, he sees a man coming up the sidewalk, and figures he should probably try to make a big impression on this prospective client. So as the man comes to the door, the young lawyer picks up the phone. He motions for the man to come in and sit down, all the while talking on the phone: “No. Absolutely not. You tell those clowns in New York that I won't settle this case for less than one million. Yes. Tell the DA that I'll meet with him next week to discuss the details.”

He goes on like this for almost five minutes, while the man sits there patiently. Finally, the lawyer puts down the phone and turns to the man. “I'm sorry for the delay, but as you can see, I'm very busy. What can I do for you?”

The man replies, “I'm from the phone company. I came to hook up your phone.”

We like being thought of as busy people.

On Wednesday night we had our monthly Taizé worship service here in the sanctuary. One of the things I’ve come to love about that service is its quiet, reflective mood. There’s no sermon at our Taizé service—instead we share ten minutes of absolute silence, sitting here in the dark with some candles burning up front. It’s a beautiful time to be mindful and prayerful with God.

This past Wednesday, though, I caught myself during that silent time struggling to actually be quiet. I was sitting still in one of the pews back there, and though I wasn’t making any noise, I certainly wasn’t “quiet.” My mind was racing with the things I still needed to get done—lists to take care of, issues to think about, phone calls to make… I think I spent five of my ten silent minutes just trying to be silent.

Maybe you’ve been there too. If not at Taizé worship, then perhaps here, on Sunday morning. It takes intentional time to shrug off the busy-ness of the week—the scheduling and rescheduling, mental notes and unfinished lists, and the weekly scrum of work, school, soccer practice, piano lessons, doctors’ visits, birthday parties, board meetings, and fundraisers—not to mention all the church stuff going on.

As a pastor, one thing I know for sure is that no one needs more stuff to do. Nobody shows up at church these days saying, “Please, help me max out my schedule this week—I’m not busy enough.”

If anything, we come to worship on Sunday morning looking for some shelter from it all—a chance to step away from the rush and the clutter—to be, perhaps, in one agenda-less moment with God and with our faith family.

And yet church life itself brings its own kind of busy into our lives. Let me remind you that none of you go to church; rather, you are the church. And being the church means more than the confines of a Sunday morning worship service.

In his gospel, Luke tells the story of two women, Mary and Martha, who welcome Jesus into their home. Martha does what a lot of us might do if the Son of God showed up at our place. She cleans, she sweeps, she fires up the stove and gets supper going. This isn’t just any houseguest, mind you, so she tackles that recipe she’s been saving, the one with the blanching and the braising and the mincing—the one that uses every pan in the kitchen.

She’s setting the table, getting the drinks ready, trying to keep the counter clean, thinking ahead to dessert, and wondering just where in God’s name her sister is! Mary is in the other room. She’s sitting at Jesus’ feet. Listening.

Can you hear what Martha is muttering under her breath? “Well, I guess in Mary’s world, food for Jesus just cooks itself!” She paces back and forth, getting more and more irritated with Mary for just sitting there, not helping out. Finally she can’t take it anymore, so she comes into the room. She doesn’t even talk to Mary—maybe she’s too mad. Instead she says to Jesus, “Don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?”

I wonder what Martha wanted to hear. I wonder if she wanted Jesus to say, “Yes, Martha! You’re right! Mary, don’t you see how hard your sister is working? Are you going to leave her to do it all alone? Oh, poor Martha—you’ve been slaving away in that kitchen. How can we help?”

That’s not what Martha heard. I’m sure she didn’t expect Jesus to say what he did. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

That’s where the story ends. And we’re left to wonder what happened next. Did Martha literally throw in the towel and join Mary at Jesus’ feet? Did she keep cooking? Did anybody eat anything that afternoon?

This morning I’d like to use this story of Mary and Martha to help us think about the busy-ness of our own lives.

Being a Christian might make you busy, but being busy does not necessarily make you a Christian. I think most of us would accept this to be true, and yet when we’re asked to describe our presence in the Christian faith, most of us most of the time lead with those things that make us busy. Choir, Sunday school, the mission committee, bells, buildings and grounds, youth group, potlucks, senior gems, fellowship… The list goes on and on of all those things that can keep a church busy for years and years.

For many of us, our busy-ness in the church mirrors our busy-ness in the rest of our lives. High-functioning, sometimes over-functioning… Scheduled, sometimes over-scheduled… Often not a minute to spare, sometimes not a second to spare… We look forward to a vacation, to a weekend, even, when we can unplug and enjoy some free time, but then we find that we tend to over-program and over-schedule our free time, too.

Now, let’s not completely discount busy-ness. Much of the time, we’re busy with things that we love. And being busy, we get things done—things that we’re passionate about, things that give us life and energy. The problem, of course, is this: we tend to define ourselves by what we do, and not by who we are.

Right? You meet someone for the first time.“What do you do?” they ask. It’s not just a conversation piece. It’s a basic assumption in our society that what we do defines us.

Jesus says to Martha, “Martha, dear, this isn’t about what you do. It’s about who you are.” And this is where Luke’s gospel becomes clear. Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet.This is where disciples sat—at their teacher’s feet. Sitting at Jesus’ feet, Mary isn’t shirking her responsibilities as a host; she’s claiming her identity as a follower of Jesus.

And Jesus says, “Martha, there is only need of one thing, and Mary has chosen it.”

This month we find ourselves in season of Stewardship. By now you’ve received a pledge card in mail. And for the last week, perhaps, you’ve been asking yourself, “What did we pledge this year?” “What can we afford to give next year?”

I want to warn you. Stewardship can become like all the other things that occupy our busy thoughts and anxieties and activities in the church. Filling out that pledge card may feel to you like “one more thing” to take care of in a busy week.

The first stewardship question I want to invite you all to ask is not, “How much can we spare?” or even “How much does the church need?”

The first question to consider is this: WHO AM I?

This was Mary’s first question when Jesus came into her home. Not “What should I do to get ready?” or even “What’s for supper?”

Her first question was this: WHO AM I? And answering that question, the busy-ness of the day faded away and she sat a Jesus’ feet to listen and learn.

I want to be clear about something this stewardship season. You are not a “giver.” You are not a “pledging unit.” You are a disciple of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And everything, everything, EVERYTHING—stewardship included— begins there.

Amen

"A Private Conversation" - Luke 19:1-10

2010-11-01T13:48:00.001-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, October 31, 2010

Jericho. Our story from Luke’s gospel takes place in the city of Jericho. But before we get to Zacchaeus climbing a tree to see Jesus, you should know something about Jericho. You see, in New Testament times, there were just two major highways in all of Israel, and one of them ran right through Jericho. This alone made Jericho a strategic city at the time, but there’s more.

To understand Jericho’s location in Jesus’ day, let’s picture ourselves traveling from Madison to Milwaukee. Obviously it makes sense to take I-94 straight across. Only in this case, the people living along the interstate are hostile enemies. Oconomowoc, Delafield, Waukesha—all full of people who are likely to mug us on our way.

So instead of traveling straight east, we’re going to dip south, almost to the Illinois border, then move east through Lake Geneva, and push on, all the way to Kenosha before heading back north along the lake. Inevitably, we’re going to come through Racine on our way to Milwaukee. But now here’s the rub—in order to travel through Racine, we’ve got to pay a toll. Racine is the customs station between Madison and Milwaukee. Are you riding a camel? There’s a fee for that. Got any cows? Any goats? There are fees for those too. Oxen pulling a cart? How many axles? There’s a fee for that.

This was Jericho during Jesus’ day. And folks didn’t have a choice. Coming to Jerusalem during the Passover, they didn’t want to travel through Samaria, for fear of what might happen to them, so they took the long way around—on a highway that took them straight through Jericho. During the Passover, Jerusalem swelled with at least several hundred thousand out-of-towners, so Jericho itself became a bit like Racine on a Fourth of July weekend—packed with people. And every single one of them had to pay.

Now where did all those tax dollars go? Jericho schools? The Jericho senior center? New recycling bins? No, the travel tax went to Rome. Keep in mind that the Roman Empire had control over Israel at this time in history. Caesar looked at Jericho and all those Jewish families passing through, year after year, and said to himself, I believe we can make some serious money off of this! So the taxes didn’t stay in Jericho—they went straight to Rome. Except…

Except that someone had to collect the tax, right? Someone had to be the one to make sure everybody paid—to make sure that every calf, ram, sheep, goat, donkey, and ox was charged on its way through town. After all, you can’t have taxes without a tax collector, right? This was Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector in all of Jericho, the most lucrative city for tax collectors in all of Israel. And here’s what Rome said to tax collectors like Zacchaeus: “We don’t care what you charge—just so long as we get our cut.” And so guys like Zacchaeus charged people though the nose, sent a portion to Rome, and pocketed the rest. Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector of Jericho, was filthy rich. Which is really quite ironic—the name, “Zacchaeus” means “clean” or “innocent.”

Jesus came to Jericho, and by this time he had true celebrity status. He’d raised the dead, healed the sick, restored sight to the blind… Already we had tens of thousands flocking through Jericho to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Once word got out that Jesus was among them, they all strained to catch a glimpse—to hear Jesus speak, to watch him heal, or to be healed themselves. Now this really was like Racine on the Fourth of July—a parade crowd waiting for Jesus to come by! And Zacchaeus couldn’t find a seat.

Luke says that Zacchaeus was short, and so that’s why he had to climb a sycamore tree to see Jesus. But I wonder if there wasn’t more to it than that. I wonder if Zacchaeus had any friends—anyone to sit with along the parade route while they waited for Jesus—anyone who’d make room for him on their blanket, maybe share a cheese sandwich and a drink. Anyone? No. You don’t make too many friends by gouging money from them, so Zacchaeus’ best seat was alone, up the tree.

It must have come as quite a shock when Jesus stopped by that tree and looked up. Clearly he was staring right at Zacchaeus. And you know what I think? I think that the crowd gathered around saw Jesus look up that tree, and they thought to themselves, “Oh this is going to be good. Zacchaeus, the “pure” and “innocent” one is going to get his now—and we get to watch!” Every vindictive bone in every single body there was twitching—ready to watch Jesus give Zacchaeus what he had coming: judgment for every dime he squeezed out of the people, judgment for lining his pockets and living the high life in a poor city, judgment for turning his back on Israel for the sake of Rome.

Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” And two things happened. One, the people went ballistic. “What?!? Are you kidding, Jesus? Obviously you have no idea who this guy is! He’s a sinner! The worst of the worst!” Someone might have yelled out, “Hey, Jesus—I thought you said, ‘Blessed are the meek.’” And in fact, I bet there were some who gave up on Jesus right then and there—“Well, forget it. No friend of Zacchaeus is a friend of mine”—and they walked away.

The second thing that happened was this: Zacchaeus got out of the tree. Luke says that Zacchaeus “hurried down and was happy to welcome Jesus,” but I picture him scrambling down out of that tree as fast as he possibly could. And you know what? Zacchaeus might have been thinking the same thing the people were: “What? Are you kidding, Jesus? Obviously you have no idea who I am. I’m a sinner. The worst of the worst.”

Jesus followed Zacchaeus to his home, and the two men went in. And what we have next in Luke’s gospel is a private conversation. We don’t know how it went. We don’t know what Jesus said or how Zacchaeus took it. What we do know is that when all was said and done, Zacchaeus was ready to give half his stuff to the poor and to pay four times back to anyone he’d ever cheated.

But what happened in Zacchaeus’ house? What went on in there? We’ll never know, except to say that a radical transformation occurred.

Now few of us here would easily identify ourselves with Zacchaeus. His extreme wealth, coupled with his extreme social isolation make him one with whom you might not have much in common. I do wonder, however, if there aren’t two moments in Zacchaeus’ story that might help us think about our faith lives.

The first is a private conversation with Jesus. A turn-off-the-cell-phone, sit-down-and-get-serious private conversation with Jesus. Sure, you go to church, you sing in the choir, you teach Sunday school, you read up on theology and read the Bible from time to time. Sure, you show up at church most Sundays, you hang out with church friends… you even act like a Christian most of the time! You help out at the food pantry, you volunteer at the shelter, you look for ways that you can “live out your faith.” All of that is great—just great! But sooner or later, and then hopefully often, you need to have a private conversation with Jesus.

No one else needs to know about it at that point. The whole city of Jericho might be loitering outside, but inside, it’s just you and Jesus. When’s the last time you had that private conversation? The one where you let Jesus in, skip the chit-chat, and get down to what’s real. This is the private conversation where you let Jesus have his say—the one where he says to you, “Zacchaeus, there’s a reason why I’m here in your life. I want you. Not just a part of you. I want all of you. Not just your Sunday best, or you on your best behavior—I want you. Follow me.”

Jesus says, “I know about the parts of you that you try to hide. The insecure you. The me-first you. The part of you that you keep hidden from your family and friends—the selfish you, the cruel you.” Keep in mind that Zacchaeus was selfish and cruel in a city where it paid handsomely to be selfish and cruel. Jesus says, “This isn’t about what you’ve done—it’s about what you’re going to do. And I want in.”

The second moment in the Zacchaeus story that can help us think about our own lives of faith is that moment when Zacchaeus goes public. We’re not sure how this went down. Maybe he said it just to Jesus, but I picture Zacchaeus running out onto the front porch of his house and announcing, “Hey world! I’m giving away half of everything! And to the people I’ve cheated: I’m paying you back times four!”

Faith, and the conversations we have with Jesus, are private, but at some point and in some way, we need to go public.

I recently stumbled across a website called “privatefaith.com.” Here’s what it says on their homepage: “Here there are no rules except those that you create for yourself with God. All people are accepted as you are. Please consider joining this new religion if you think it is right for you.” You can join the “church” at privatefaith.com by just telling them you’re “in.” And as its title would suggest, your presence there is completely private.

Now while I can appreciate and honor someone’s desire for privacy when it comes to his or her relationship with God, the simple truth of the matter is that Christianity is not a private religion! At some point we need to go public with our faith. The private commitments we make in our private conversations with Jesus must have public ramifications.

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.” (Matthew 5:14-15)

How will you “go public” today? This week? In what way will you allow Christ’s lordship in your life move you to act? Will it be an act of compassion? Will it be a radical act of commitment? Will you give away half of your wealth? Will you give anything away? You don’t have to answer yet. Have that private conversation with Jesus first. And listen to what he wants you to do. Amen.

Evotional - As long as ever you can

2010-10-27T08:48:00.000-05:00

We tend to simplify the complicated and complicate the simple. It's only human, I suppose. So when someone comes along and uses simple language to speak to the depths of our faithful existence, our ears perk up. Here's a bit of that today...

Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can.

- John Wesley

Yes. Please. Amen.

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen."

2010-10-25T09:19:00.004-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, October 24, 2010

Ephesians 1:3-14
Matthew 6:7-13

God doesn’t belong to us. We belong to God. That’s the sermon today, really, and I could stop there. God doesn’t belong to us. We belong to God. That would be an amazingly short sermon, though, wouldn’t it? So I suppose I’ll elaborate for at least a few more minutes…

This morning we find ourselves at the end of our sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer. And today I’m going to tackle that big chunk at the end: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, amen.”

Again and again during this series, it has occurred to me that a world of meaning lies behind each of these little phrases in this prayer that we say together so often. On more than a few occasions, I’ve been able to imagine preaching from the Lord’s Prayer indefinitely—long enough, perhaps, to make some of you wish it wasn’t in the Bible to begin with! But once again, my hope in preaching on the Lord’s Prayer is that we find ourselves praying through it with more intentionality than ever before—that each time we begin to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” we can resist the temptation to set our minds on auto-pilot—that we can summon deep connections and convictions within us, and that the words of the Lord’s Prayer become for us a continuous call to think and live more vividly in our faith.

Our section of the prayer today begins with the phrase, “Lead us not into temptation,” and I’ll confess to you that it’s the part of the prayer with which I have the most trouble. “Lead us not into temptation…” I tend to think that we do just fine leading ourselves into temptation, and so I’m not sure that God needs convincing in this department. But that’s an image of God that’s really out there, isn’t it? That notion of a God who’s got the whole world hanging on the puppet strings, and God’s up there, making it all happen. Stuff happens here on earth, and it looks random and unplanned, but really God’s got it all mapped out, and minute by minute, God’s up there pulling the strings, keeping it all going.

That’s an image of God we need to get rid of, by the way—a God who doesn’t love the world, but who operates the world.

Still, the truth is that in this world that is so loved by God, temptations exist. Sometimes daily. We’re tempted by simple things—a juicy piece of gossip or a convenient lie…

But we’re also tempted by more subtle and complicated forces. Greed, envy, lust, mistrust… temptations to be something less than who we are and temptations to think of ourselves as more than who we are… Temptations to believe the worst fears we have about the world… to believe, for example, that a mosque in our neighborhood somehow poses a threat and not an opportunity for greater understanding. Temptations to think of the world as “us and them”—Christian and non-Christian, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, black and white, rich and poor…

Susan Retik and Patti Quigley both lost their husbands in the attacks of 9/11. Susan was seven months pregnant and Patti eight months pregnant, when their husbands’ planes crashed that day.

In response to their loss, they created an organization called Beyond the 11th, and since its inception, they’ve helped more than 1,000 widows from Afghanistan start businesses, including one that makes soccer balls and one that raises chickens for selling eggs. Beyond the 11th also supports, among other projects, a literacy center for Afghan women. For the past nine years, their work has grown and flourished, but here’s an amazing statistic: all of it has cost less than keeping one American soldier in Afghanistan for just eight months. (1)

The temptation for Susan and Patti might have been to believe that the world was as evil and worthless as it felt the morning their husbands’ lives were taken. The temptation might have been to live with a pervasive sense of fear and mistrust for the Muslim world. The temptation might have been to give up on any possibility of change for a world broken with violence. But in the end, these women found themselves able to believe in and hope for a world that had been unkind to them.

Sometimes temptations are so real—so overwhelming, that it’s hard to imagine life without them. And so we pray, “Lord, deliver us! Deliver us from evil.” Deliver us from our shortsightedness. Deliver us from our mistrust of others. Deliver us from fear, from hopelessness. Deliver us from our mistaken impression that love and goodness are scarce in this world. Deliver us from evil.

And that’s actually where the Lord’s Prayer ends as it appears in Matthew’s gospel. That’s the last request: deliver us. Somewhere along the line, liturgists added the phrase, “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.” In that version of the Lord’s Prayer that we used last week in worship, we prayed, “For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever.”

I’d like to end our Lord’s Prayer series by simply wondering about that last word with you—forever.

Fred Craddock, a celebrated thinker and preacher in our tradition, tells this story from his own childhood. He and his father were lying in the grass in their backyard on a warm summer night. He was just a young boy then, and they were lying there, chewing on tender stems of grass, and looking up at the evening sky.

His father said to him, “Son how far can you think?”

The boy said, “What?”

“How far can you think?” his dad asked.

“Well, I don’t know what you mean,” the boy replied.

“Just think as far as you can think up towards the stars.”

The boy looked up, concentrating, and said, “I’m thinking… I’m thinking… I’m thinking…”

“Think as far as you can think,” said his dad.

“Ok. I’m thinking as far as I can think,” the boy said.

And then his dad said, “Well, drive down a stake out there now. In your mind, drive down a stake… Have you driven down the stake? That’s how far you can think.”

The young boy said, “Yes, sir.”

And then his dad said, “Now what’s on the other side of your stake?”

And the boy said, “Well, there’s more sky.”

And his dad said, “Move your stake.”

Fred Craddock says that that summer night, he and his father kept moving his stake further and further out into the night sky. “It was a crazy thing to do,” Craddock admits, “but I can never thank [my father] enough for doing it.” (2)

How far can you think? In a way, that’s the question that the Lord’s Prayer could leave us with each time we pray it. “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever…” Forever. And in some churches, they pray, “and the glory forever and ever…” Either way, forever’s quite a ways, isn’t it?

The Lord’s Prayer ends with an acknowledgement that God’s presence goes on and on and on—that a true endlessness exists when it comes to God’s power and glory.

“How good is God?” we might ask, or “How big is God’s love?”

Think about your answer to that question—“How big is God’s love?”—and put a stake there, and then ask yourself, “What’s on the other side of that stake?”

We will never get to the bottom of God’s love. It is and always will be beyond our ability to name, describe, or contain. So we could end the Lord’s prayer like this, really: “… for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, beyond our limits, beyond our perceptions, beyond our ability to fully comprehend—kingdom, power, and glory infinitely beyond all the words we can summon… amen.”

That’s the “forever” at the end of the Lord’s Prayer—a reminder of God’s nature beyond all we can name or describe.

Had Paul written the Lord’s Prayer, he might have ended it a little differently. In his letter to the Ephesians, he writes, “With all wisdom and insight, God has made known to us the mystery of his will… as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.”

That’s what we acknowledge and celebrate with our “forever” at the end of the Lord’s Prayer—our faith that at the end of it all, in the final forever, in the fullness of time, God is gathering up all things in Christ! All things! Not just the church things, not just the faithful things, certainly not just the Presbyterian things, and not even just the good things, but all things.

In the Lord’s Prayer, we acknowledge week after week that the kingdom and the power and the glory are God’s forever—and that we belong to God too—that we are infinitely part of God’s forever. Put a little more simply, the Lord’s Prayer sets forth a reminder each time we pray it. God doesn’t belong to us. We belong to God. Forever. Amen.

____________________________

1 I first read about Beyond the 11th in the 10/5/10 issue of The Christian Century, but the Century picked it up here.

2 Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories, Chalice Press, 2001

Evotional - Determined, Repeated, Leisurely

2010-10-20T08:57:00.001-05:00

I came across this quote from Eugene Peterson yesterday, and it's been on my mind. Our worship lately has drawn our thinking and believing toward the subject of prayer, and I'm particularly struck by the way he describes it as a "determined, repeated, leisurely" meeting with God. Here's the quote:

"Civilization is littered with unsolved problems, baffling impasses. The best minds of the world are at the end of their tether. The most knowledgeable observers of our condition are badly frightened. The most relevant contribution that Christians make at these points of impasse is the act of prayer -- determined, repeated, leisurely meetings with the personal and living God. New life is conceived in these meetings."
- Eugene H. Peterson, from his book Earth & Altar

I love those words...

Determined. Because we depend on God, because sometimes we have nowhere else to turn, because the "baffling impasses" of this world are beyond our ability to manage or understand, because we don't know what else to do, because ultimately our faith is in God...

Repeated. Because prayer is a practice, because prayer over time calls us more deeply into faithfulness, because prayer is for us, too, and we struggle to listen the first time...

Leisurely. Because prayer isn't about saying the "right" things the "right" way, because God listens openly, because talking with God can be like talking with a trusted friend, because it's never a bad time...

Blessings to you in your prayerful life!

"And Forgive Us Our Debts..."

2010-10-19T09:01:00.001-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, October 17, 2010

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
- Colossians 3:12-13

A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin 5, and Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a lesson, and so she said to her boys, “If Jesus were sitting here, he would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.’” Kevin thought fast, turned to his younger brother, and said, “Ryan, you be Jesus!”

Sometimes just because we’ve had the lesson doesn’t mean we have any idea what the lesson really means.

Today is the fourth Sunday in our sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer, and so we’ll spend some time with the phrase, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” And you could say that we’ve all had the lesson on this one. From an early age, most of us are indoctrinated into some sense of understanding about forgiveness.

In most cases, our early sense of forgiveness was thrust upon us. “Say you’re sorry,” we all heard our parents and teachers order as they tried to resolve conflicts at the breakfast table and on the playground. “You go and apologize right now!” Did you ever hear something like that? “You march over there and say you’re sorry this very instant.” I caught myself intervening the other day with two of my own daughters. There’d been an altercation involving some Polly Pockets, and it had required a time out, after which, in an effort to promote peace and reconciliation in the Johnston-Krase home, I ushered the offender back to the scene of the crime and, before play could resume, asked the offending daughter, “Now what do you say to your sister?”

In so doing, I joined the ranks and ranks of parents who have attempted to force forgiveness on their children, only to have it backfire. You see, my own children are learning, as I did at their age, that the purpose of an apology is often to get you off the hook, or even worse, that the purpose of an apology is to satisfy not the person to whom you’re apologizing, but rather the adult who’s managing the conflict.

Of course, when it comes to helping our children navigate conflict, much of our energy is put into helping them say the right things. Actual forgiveness is a deeper and more complicated issue, and as we grow into adulthood, we all discover that at one time or another.

Most people genuinely aspire to forgive in their daily lives. A while back, a Gallup Poll in this country shared that 94% of the people surveyed felt like it was important to forgive. In that same poll, however, only 48% said that they usually try to forgive. It’s always one thing to say the right things about forgiveness—it’s another to actually put forgiveness into practice. In the same poll, 85% of those surveyed said that they could not forgive on their own and needed outside help.

Sunday after Sunday, we pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Others pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Some Christian churches have found that “debts” and “trespasses” don’t make immediate sense to folks in our culture these days, and so they pray, simply, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” They’re all fine ways to pray a prayer that we struggle to follow.

The early Christian church must have found it difficult too. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul wrote, “Bear with one another and… forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive”—imploring the faithful to mirror God’s forgiveness in their own lives.

“So you also must forgive…” But what does that look like? Mother Theresa said “if we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.” And that’s just it. Forgiveness isn’t simply about accepting an apology, and it’s especially not about accepting an apology that’s been coached by an “adult” or some other authority figure.

In the daily and weekly scrum of living, practicing forgiveness is tough. In the midst of feelings damaged, when we find ourselves as victims, when hurtful words have been said, when we push through the troubled waters of separation and divorce… forgiving can be tough. And yet, as Paul Boese said, “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” And so it is good for us to name and honor the potential that forgiveness holds for us.

This morning I won’t pretend to make forgiveness easy. The fact that our need to forgive appears so frequently in Scripture reminds us that forgiveness has never been easy. I would like to take some time, however, to help us think a little more openly and perhaps hopefully about forgiveness in our own lives—about the power of forgiveness to “enlarge the future.”

An author I’m liking more and more these days, Lewis Smedes, lifts up four truths about forgiveness that I’d like to share with you today.

The first is that forgiving is the only way to be fair to yourself.

When we think about forgiveness, we’re often led to consider the issue of fairness. And it often can feel like forgiveness isn’t fair. Maybe you’ve been hurt or maybe your life has been changed forever because of someone else’s carelessness or meanness. And while forgiving may sound like the “Christian” thing to do, it still doesn’t seem fair, in light of the damage that’s been done. Smedes argues that offering forgiveness may not be about fairness to the other person, but rather fairness to yourself.

“Forgiving is the only way to be fair to yourself,” he writes. And so he argues that when someone hurts us, it’s not fair that the hurt goes on and on and on, for the rest of our lives. It’s not fair to us that the one who hurt us once can hurt us again and again in our memory. And so while forgiveness may be about fairness to another person, it’s also, and perhaps more importantly, about fairness to ourselves.

The second truth about forgiveness, according to Lewis Smedes, is that forgivers are not doormats.

That’s an image of forgivers that we need to shake—that image of someone offering forgiveness looking like a doormat, lying down and letting others walk all over him or her.

Smedes tells a story about a woman who learned about being a forgiver without being a doormat. This woman had a five year old son who was playing in the front yard near the curb when a drunk driver swerved off the road and killed him, right in front of the house. The absolute worst thing for a parent to imagine. For two years, she lived in a fog of rage and even fantasized about the most horrible things happening to the man who took her son’s life. She wanted him to somehow suffer more than he had made her suffer.

“Well,” says Smedes, “after living in the misery of her blind, unhealed rage for two years, she woke up to the fact that the drunk who killed her son was now killing her—inside—a day at a time, killing her soul. And she was helping him do it.” With the help of the woman’s priest, she began to forgive even this man, and to send a message to her community and prevent further misery, she began a local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk driving. These two acts went hand in hand. Forgivers are not doormats. They forgive others, but do not tolerate their wrong doing.

The third truth about forgiveness is that you don’t have to wait until someone says they’re sorry.

Sometimes we get to thinking that the beginning of forgiveness is an apology, but that’s not always the case. “I’m sorry” can be nice to hear, when it’s genuine, but sometimes it’s not, and sometimes it never comes.

If we wait for the other person to ask for forgiveness, we just might wait forever, and then we’re the ones stuck with the pain. “Why should you put your future happiness in the hands of an unrepentant person who had hurt you so unfairly to begin with?” Smedes asks. “If you refuse to forgive until he begs you to forgive, you are letting him decide for you when you may be healed of the memory of the rotten thing he did to you.” I can remember talking with Dee Talley, the interim minister in this church before me. We were talking about forgiveness, and Dee made this remark: “Not forgiving another person is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die.”

Waiting for an apology can result in you putting your happiness in the hands of the person who made you unhappy in the first place. Don’t let your forgiveness wait for an “I’m sorry.” Let the other person be responsible for that while you go on healing yourself.

The fourth truth about forgiveness is that forgiving is a journey.

Sometimes forgiveness is a lot like grief. It isn’t over in a day or a week, or even a year. Sometimes it’s part of life’s journey, and it takes time. It may help to remember, then, that forgiveness isn’t about letting someone else off the hook—it’s about healing and recovering in the midst of pain.

And so sometimes we find ourselves struggling to forgive the same person again and again and again. And that’s ok. And while we’re on the subject, let me simply say that sometimes the person we’re struggling to forgive is ourselves. You might hear someone say to you, “Oh, well, you just need to forgive yourself,” but sometimes that’s easier said than done. Forgiveness is a journey, and it can take time.

So, to recap some truths about forgiveness:
1. Forgiving is the only way to be fair to yourself.
2. Forgivers are not doormats.
3. You don’t have to wait until someone says they’re sorry.
4. Forgiveness is a journey.

My hope all along in this Lord’s Prayer sermon series is that we might pray the Lord’s Prayer with more hope and intentionality than ever before. I pray today that the prayer, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” might make new and gracious sense to you. I pray, too, that forgiving others and forgiving yourself, you might find your future enlarged with faith and love. Amen.

Evotional - Autumn Thoughts

2010-10-07T10:10:00.000-05:00

Two pieces to share today and then a thought of my own. First, a prayer/poem...

"Turn my Soil"

Turn over
Gently
My dry, cracked soil.
Just a little,
Let it breathe
In the cooling air of autumn
And then be watered
By Your life-giving rain.

- Kathy Keay, England

And a line from the Psalms...

"When you send forth your spirit, all is created;
and you renew the face of the ground."

- Psalm 104:30

These cooler fall days bring us to a time of harvest and, eventually, to a time of winter rest. But even the beginning signs of decay that we see these days - dry corn stalks, crackly leaves, frost-tinged tomato plants - all come as reminders of an ancient rhythm of life and death and new life. The smell of autum is the smell of creation slowly and graciously returning to the soil, where it will await the day it can energize the next generation of shoots and saplings.

As you consider the rhythms of your existence - rhythms of joy and grief, loss and birth - may you feel God's patient presence, gently turning over the patches of dry, cracked soil in your life, making room, perhaps for the promise of new growth.

Peace,
Pastor Ben

"Give us this day our daily bread"

2010-10-04T08:50:00.002-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, October 3, 2010

I Corinthians 10:16-17

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

Have you ever prayed for something you didn’t want? You can think about it for a moment. Have you ever prayed for something—anything—that you didn’t really want?

Maybe you thanked God for the rain when you really wanted to play a round of golf. Maybe you prayed for forgiveness when you really wanted revenge. Maybe you prayed for strength to get through the day when what you really wanted was permission to go back to bed.

Let me ask you: When you pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” are you praying for something you don’t really want? Keep that question in mind for a moment.

Today is Sunday number three in our series on the Lord’s Prayer, and so we’ll spend some time with “Give us this day our daily bread.” Given the fact that today is also World Communion Sunday, it makes sense for us to think about bread this morning. All over the world, Christians are breaking it together and remembering Christ in their communion. Today, all over the world, we’re coming together around bread as we break and share it.

All over the world, you know, there’s enough food to feed everybody. Every body. As of today, just fifteen minutes before worship, in fact, the world population is 6,872,695,540 (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html). And it’s amazing, but there is enough food on the planet to sustain all of us. Based on the amount of food produced globally, there’s enough to provide each and every person in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories a day. (World Hunger Education Service, www.worldhunger.org) That’s a staggering amount of food available on the globe, but of course the problem is that for too many, it’s simply not available. Roughly 925 million people in the world—most of them women and children—are hungry every single day.

Meanwhile, folks here in the United States throw away roughly 40% of their food. Statistics vary on this, but it’s estimated that every year, 38 billion dollars worth of food is thrown away in this country.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” Huh. Interesting request, given the fact that we’re likely to throw almost half of it away. So back to my initial question: When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” are we asking for something we don’t really want? Don’t we really mean to pray, “Give us this day and tomorrow and the next day and the next more food than we could possibly eat. Give us enough food to fill our stomachs and our refrigerators and our pantries and our basement shelves and our trashcans”? Well, that would be a ridiculous prayer to make, but judging by the amount of food we buy, store, consume, and waste, it might not be that out of line.

What if we got all we ever prayed for, but what if all we every prayed for was daily bread? That’s not really something we’re comfortable expecting. We’re a little too rattled by the prospect of scarcity to live that way.

Does anyone here remember Harold Froehlich? Froehlich was a US Congressman from Wisconsin back in the 1970’s. In 1973, his first year in office, he issued a report stating that the federal government was falling behind in getting bids to supply toilet paper. Froehlich claimed, therefore, that the United States could face a serious shortage of toilet tissue within months.

Without CSPAN or instant news on the internet, this announcement may have passed by unnoticed, except for the fact that that very night, during his opening monologue on the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson made it into a joke. “You know what's disappearing from the supermarket shelves?” Carson asked. “Toilet paper. There's an acute shortage of toilet paper in the United States.” The very next morning, millions of people across the country ran out and bought as much toilet paper as they could possibly carry. By noon, every store in America was out, and it took three long weeks to get it back in stock.

We’re not comfortable with scarcity. Whether it’s toilet paper or oil or energy or food, the possibility of a shortage seizes us and we respond with fearful behavior. I was living in Texas when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast, and during those weeks when the storms came, you could hardly find bottled water in stock on the shelves, and we were a good four hours from the ocean. In our comfortable abundance, we don’t like even the possibility of scarcity.

We’re closing in quickly on another election in this country, and so the political rhetoric is ratcheting up once again. As Americans continue to endure the recession, I’ve heard politicians talk about our standard of living. Mainly, they seem to prey on fears that it’s on the decline. “Let’s not give the next generation an inferior standard of living,” we hear them say. Or, “Our standard of living is in danger of decay for the first time in generations.”

Now it’s not that I’m not worried about the future at all, but I question just what “standards” we’re struggling to maintain here. Should it be “standard” that we throw away half of our food? Should it be “standard” that our closets are bursting with clothes? Should it be “standard” that on average, we each use 160 gallons of fresh water a day while the rest of the world lives on just 25? Should it be “standard” that though we make up just 5% of the world’s population, we use a fourth of its fuel? I’d love to hear a politician stand up and say, “Our standards, by and large, are ridiculous!” Because if we don’t get wise about our standard of living, we certainly will suffer.

Jesus teaches us to pray, simply, “Give us this day our daily bread.” That’s a standard of living we’re praying for…

Give us this day that which we need today.
Provide us today, God, with the food, the energy, the things that are necessary.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Give us not heaped-up stores for days and days come.
Give us not the false promise that nothing will go wrong.
Give us not more than we could possibly use.
Give us not sinfully more than we need.
Just our daily bread, God—that will be enough.

Enough. Sometimes “enough” can be a hard concept to pin down. So I’d like to issue a prayerful invitation for you today. I’d like for you to take a moment, right now, to think of a few things that sustain you each day. Just three or four things. Maybe five. These are the things that sustain you as a person each and every day. Food. Work. A place to live. Of course, we’re sustained by much more that food and shelter. Maybe other things are coming to mind for you. What sustains you each day? Family? Church family? Friends?

Another way of thinking about what sustains you is thinking about what you can’t imagine living without. People. Connections. Sources of love, hope, strength. When you get a chance, jot down those things—write down those three or four or seven things that sustain you each and every day. And then each morning from now until you start forgetting, I’d like to invite you to pray this prayer:

“Give me today my daily bread. In other words, God, help me receive as a gift that which sustains me. My family—help me receive it as a gift. My church—help me embrace it as a gift. My spouse, my children, my friends—help me receive them as gifts in my life, my daily bread that sustains me. My faith, my hope, my God—help me receive you as a gift each day that I live. Even my food—my literal daily bread—help me receive it as a daily gift that sustains me. God, give me today my daily bread. Help me be satisfied in that which will sustain me today. Help me not to worry about the bread I don’t have yet. Help me trust that you hold my entire life in your care. And while I’m praying for my daily bread, God, let me reach out to those who are not sustained in your world—those who go without food, without shelter, without love. May my daily bread give me strength to care for myself and for others, so that perhaps a part of your kingdom might come.”

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul reflects on Jesus sharing daily bread with his followers, and asks, “The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?” And then he makes this wonderful claim: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

Today we join sisters and brothers all over the world. All of us, coming together at the communion table, and in our bread-breaking, we declare an impossible and yet amazing truth—that we are one in Christ. One body of Christ, spread all over Wisconsin and North America and China and Pakistan…

In our bread-breaking today, and in our communion, let us be mindful of our global family of faith, and in so doing, let us be thankful for that which sustains us, mindful of that which we need, and generous with the rest. Amen.

Evotional - Rejoice!

2010-09-30T09:07:00.001-05:00

Two short pieces about joy and thanksgiving to pass along today. The first is a modern prayer from Hawaii:

We thank you, God, for the moments of fulfillment:
the end of a day's work,
the harvest of sugar cane,
the birth of a child,
for in these pauses, we feel the rhythm of the eternal.

Your moment of joy, whatever it is (a warm hug, a handwritten letter from a friend, a really good cup of coffee...), is more than a brief sense of satisfaction; rather, it is your fulfillment - a moment to feel the rhythm of the eternal. Maybe that's what Paul was thinking of when he wrote to the Thessalonians...

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,
give thanks in all circumstances;
or this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Do not quench the Spirit. (1 Thes. 5:16-19)

May today find you joyfully aware of all that connects you to the eternal - all that fulfills, all that warrants thanksgiving, brings light and love - and may your awareness of these things be your simple, unceasing prayer.

Peace!

"Thy Kingdom Come" - Matthew 5:1-12

2010-09-27T09:27:00.002-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, September 26

Today is the second Sunday in our sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer. Last week we looked at the opening to that prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” and today we will spend some time with, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Once again, a hope I have in presenting this series is that we will find ourselves praying the Lord’s Prayer with intentionality—that each time we begin the prayer together, we’ll find ourselves open to new connections and possibilities in our faith.

I can remember that from an early age, it always struck me as strange that we prayed to God, “Thy will be done.” “If it’s God’s will,” I thought, “and God has the power to make it happen, then what do I think I’m accomplishing by praying for it?”

“Thy will be done, God. Just wanted to let you know that I approve of your will being done. I know that you were going to do your will—not trying to stop you here! Just saying, God, that if you feel like doing something, I for one think you should just go ahead and do it. ”

“Thy will be done, God! Go ahead and do whatever it is you were planning on doing!” Sounds sort of like a child saying to a parent in the candy aisle at the supermarket, “Mom, when it comes to buying or not buying me a treat, I just want you to know that I approve in advance of your decision.”

This hits on a big question for us in prayer, which is, “Just what do we think we’re accomplishing when we pray?” Is God somewhere waiting for us to pray so that action can finally be taken? Does God have a will to act in this world that is somehow reliant on our giving it permission? “Ok, God, thy will be done—go ahead.” Surely not. Whatever God’s will is, it’s God’s will, and I highly doubt that you and I are the final say in enabling or disabling that will through our prayers. So then the question: what are we really doing when we pray to God, “Thy will be done”?

I shared this story with the Sunday school class last week after worship. A friend of mine a few years back was suffering from a terrible sinus infection, and she asked me to pray for her. We were actually standing in a parking lot outside the mall in Rockford, IL. I was in college at the time, and I felt a little self-conscious praying right there and then, but I did. We bowed our heads and I mumbled out some sort of prayer, and at one point I prayed, “God, if it’s your will, please heal Danielle,” and at that moment she hit me! She stopped the prayer right there and smacked me in the arm and said, “What do you mean, ‘God, if it’s your will’? Of course it’s God’s will! God doesn’t want me to be sick! Let’s pray again.” So we bowed our heads again, and this time, I tried to be more sure of what God wanted.

If I’d been a little more astute at the time, I might have reminded my friend that Jesus began a prayer once with “God, if it’s your will…” He was in the garden just hours before his arrest, and he knew what was coming. Betrayal, crucifixion, death. And in a prayer that reveals just how human Jesus was, he prayed to God, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.”

“God, if it’s your will, make this go away.” I for one appreciate the element of uncertainty in that prayer, because I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. Life crumbles apart and the only prayer we can think to pray is, “God, if you are God, can’t you just snap your fingers and change all this? The car wreck, the foreclosure, the cancer diagnosis… Hit the reset button, God, and make it all better.”

It’s hard not to look at the whole world and wonder. The AIDS pandemic, debilitating poverty, horrific wars, millions struggling without access to fresh water… The list goes on and on. It’s hard not to wonder, “God, do you even have a will for this world? And if you do, God, we can only assume that it doesn’t include these awful things, right? That your will is not for a world where thousands die each day from starvation and preventable disease? That your will is not for a world torn apart by violence?”

That’s the prayer we pray when we say to God, “Thy kingdom come,” though, isn’t it? “God, the kingdoms of this world are failing. Kingdoms of division and power—they’re not working too well here. Kingdoms where the gap between rich and poor widens at an alarming rate, kingdoms where two percent of the people own half the world’s wealth, kingdoms where children make up the fastest growing homeless population… These kingdoms have failed, God. Thy kingdom come.”

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” These aren’t prayers that give God “permission” to act; they’re prayers that confess just how broken and needy this world is.

Another story from my college days. For a couple years during my spring break, I went with some other students from the University of Illinois to volunteer in an impoverished neighborhood on Chicago’s west side. One of the highlights of those trips was being invited for dinner into families’ homes. These were families being served by the Chicago Urban Project. Living day to day, they struggled to make ends meet.

I’ll never forget my time with one of those families. Two kids, their mother, and their grandmother, all living in a tiny apartment in the Austin neighborhood. Another student and I joined them for a delicious supper of ham and pea soup, corn bread, collard greens… It was an amazing meal and their hospitality was so warm and gracious. The interesting thing about this apartment was that there were boxes here and there, full of things. “Are you getting ready to move?” we asked. “Oh, we’re always thinking about moving.” And then the young daughter pointed to the clock on the wall in their dining room. Just a basic wall clock, but this one was different. Someone had taped a little sign above the number twelve, and it read, “Nebraska time.”

“We’re hoping to move someday,” the mom said. “Get out of here and go to Scottsbluff, Nebraska.” The family knew someone who lived out there, and Scottsbluff had come to represent a new start for them. Now the funny thing is that Nebraska is in the same time zone as Chicago. But that clock wasn’t about keeping track of another time zone, it was about keeping hope alive for another reality. A place where the kids were safe walking to school—where gangs didn’t rule the streets—where the playgrounds weren’t littered with broken glass.

“Nebraska time” is a “thy kingdom come” prayer—a prayer that refuses to believe that the kingdoms around us are final—a courageous prayer that, in the midst of a broken world, says, “God, this cannot possibly be your will!” “Thy kingdom come thy will be done” is not a wish that God would wave a magic wand and make all the bad things go away; rather it’s a statement of faith that brokenness is not the final reality in this world.

“Thy kingdom come” is an active prayer. And a question for you to consider the next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer is this: If I’m willing to pray for God’s kingdom, am I also willing to work for it? Right? If I’m willing to pray for God’s kingdom come, am I also willing to commit myself to its coming.

Alan Redpath once said that “before we can pray, ‘Lord, Thy Kingdom come,’ we must be willing to pray, ‘My Kingdom go.’”

Think for a moment about your own “my kingdom”—the one you’d have to let go of if God’s kingdom were to become more real for you.

In my kingdom, I get to love my friends, and while I don’t hate my enemies, I don’t choose to spend time with them. In God’s kingdom, I’m called to love everyone—everyone.
In my kingdom, it’s often every man and woman for himself or herself. In God’s kingdom, every man is my brother, every woman my sister.

In my kingdom, I get to pretend that the money I have is mine to save or spend. In God’s kingdom, I come to realize that everything belongs to God, and so the money currently in my possession is to be spent and shared responsibly.

Thy kingdom come, my kingdom go. And so the Lord’s Prayer is more than a prayer—it’s a call to action—a commitment we make to God’s kingdom, not someday, but now.

The prophet Micah said it best, perhaps, when he asked, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” When we do that—when we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, we say goodbye to the kingdoms of our own making and we invite God’s kingdom to be a more present reality in our day to day lives.

This week, friends, may the prayer “thy kingdom come” be one that takes you from moment to moment. Begin when you wake up, before your feet even hit the floor, and pray, “God, your kingdom come.” When you greet members of your family and friends and strangers, whisper to yourself, “God, may your kingdom be made known in me in this conversation.” When you work, when you play, when you express warmth and sympathy, let your prayer be, “thy kingdom come.” Pray that God’s kingdom would be made known in your life and in the world around you. Especially when you dream about your own life. When you imagine your days to come and summon hope about your future, make it your earnest prayer: God, may your kingdom come in me.

God’s kingdom come in us, friends, today, this week, and in all our days ahead. Amen.

Be Still. Stop.

2010-09-22T13:57:00.002-05:00

Evotional on Wednesday, September 22

Some words from Wayne Muller in his book Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives

When we breathe, we do not stop inhaling because we have taken in all the oxygen we will ever need, but because we have all the oxygen we need for this breath. Then we exhale, release carbon dioxide, and make room for more oxygen. Sabbath, like the breath, allows us to imagine we have done enough work for this day. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, Jesus said again and again. Let the work of this day be sufficient…

Sabbath says, “Be still. Stop. There is no rush to get to the end, because we are never finished. Take time to rest, and eat, and drink, and be refreshed. And in the gentle rhythm of that refreshment, listen to the sound the heart makes as it speaks the quiet truth of what is needed.”

Both in our worship and in our adult Sunday school class, we’ve been thinking openly and expansively about the practice of prayer in our daily lives. In that vein, I’m finding Wayne Muller’s words helpful—especially his line, “Listen to the sound the heart makes as it speaks the quiet truth of what is needed.” The connection between prayer and Sabbath isn’t always automatic for us, I think. We readily acknowledge listening as a form of prayer, but it’s hard to create time for quiet amid the busy clutter of our day-to-day lives.

Maybe it won’t be a whole day for you this week. Maybe not even a whole afternoon or even an hour. But could you carve out some time for Sabbath today? And in that restful quiet, might your prayer simply be your willingness to listen?

Peace,
Pastor Ben

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." - Matthew 6:7-13

2010-09-22T13:40:00.002-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, September 19

Well, as many of you know, today we begin a series on prayer here at First Presbyterian Church. Today and for the next five Sundays, we’re going to explore the Lord’s Prayer together in the sermons, one phrase at a time. By mid-October, you may never want to pray the Lord’s Prayer again. Or (and this is what I hope to accomplish) you may find yourself praying it with more intentionality than ever before.

This past spring I was thinking to myself that while we pray the Lord’s Prayer every single week, it’s not something we necessarily think about much. In fact, I’m going to just go ahead and make a little confession: sometimes my mind wanders when I say it. Am I the only one? It just happens so easily. Beginning the Lord’s Prayer is a little bit like engaging the auto-pilot system of our brains. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…” and I’m wondering, is my microphone still on? Hmmm… I’m hungry. What’s for lunch today? Are the Packers “home” or “away” this afternoon? It happens, right? Our lips move and our minds take a little vacation.

This may not be an entirely bad thing. I have been with people who, near the end of their lives, didn’t recognize me or even members of their own families. They didn’t know where they were and couldn’t come close to holding a conversation together. But they could remember the Lord’s Prayer, and they could say it with me. Even more importantly, saying the Lord’s Prayer in those last days of life clearly seemed to bring them a measure of peace and comfort.

Maybe you’ve had that experience with someone else, or maybe you’ve found yourself relying on the Lord’s Prayer in another way—a moment, perhaps, when you knew you needed to pray, but for the life of you, you couldn’t imagine how or what to say. Sometimes it can be nice to just have a prayer ready to go when all else fails. At bedsides and gravesides and following great tragedies, the Lord’s Prayer can come in quite handy, simply because people have it memorized.

This is probably true for most of us—that, having the Lord’s Prayer memorized, we know that it will be there if and when we need it most, but also, because we have the Lord’s Prayer memorized on such a deep level, when we say it each week in worship, we tend not to think about what we’re praying as much as we could.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen to lead us through this series. We pray the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday, and because of that it has become ingrained on a deep level in our spirits, but also it has become something we can easily recite without engaging our minds much. And that interests me—that we have this weekly prayer that is both central to our identity and distanced from our thinking.

My hope in this series is that by dwelling on the language of the Lord’s Prayer, we might find ourselves entering into it a little more deeply each Sunday. My hope is that this prayer becomes something new for you on some level—not just more talking in church, but something new.

I remember when my brother and I were little and we made a case with our parents for why we didn’t want to go to church one Sunday. “We’d rather not go,” we told them. “Why?” my mom asked? “Don’t you like church? Don’t you like Sunday school? Don’t you want to see all your friends?” And we were ready with our reason: “There’s too much talking in church.” Too much talking. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to get up early on a Sunday and it wasn’t that we didn’t like wearing our Sunday clothes. It was that at church, there was too much talking.

As an adult in the church today, sometimes I wonder if we have too much talking in here—which, of course, leads to a bit of a dilemma for me personally, since I’m the one doing much of it. But here we have this hour together and week after week, we tend to fill it up with a lot of words…

Jesus taught, “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.” So maybe Jesus would have joined my brother and me in our plight, claiming that there was “too much talking” in church. Jesus encouraged his followers to get to the point and do it quickly. And so the Lord’s Prayer was born out of a desire to be brief before God—to approach prayer with simplicity, using as few words as possible and certainly to avoid heaping up “empty phrases.”

And so Jesus begins: “Our Father…” Right away, this prayer is different—radically different. Did you know that in the entire Old Testament, the father image for God appears only seven times? Seven! God is called a lot of things in the Hebrew Scriptures, and we’ll get to that shortly, but “Father”? Just seven times. By the way, guess how many times a motherly image for God appears in the Old Testament. Ten. My point here is simple—in the Old Testament, we have seventeen parental images for God—just seventeen. And yet Jesus calls God “Father.”

This was Jesus’ favorite description of God. In fact, Jesus sometimes called God “Abba,” an Aramaic word which really should be translated as something like “Papa” or “Daddy.” Jesus’ word for God was an intimate one—Daddy—and it implied something their relationship. “Daddy, will you tell me a story.” “Daddy, can I stay up late with you tonight?” “Daddy, I fell and hurt my knee.”

Jesus begins the prayer with a model for understanding God’s relationship with us. And it’s not an invitation to think of God not just as some far-distant force in the universe or as some untouchable, unapproachable presence, but rather as a parent.

I tend not to get too caught up in discussions of God’s gender. In the Old Testament, we’ve got seven images of God as father and ten as mother. Jesus’ favorite way of thinking about God was as “Father” or “Daddy,” but certainly the Bible’s got lots of other names. God is Spirit, and the Eternal Word, and God is Wisdom. The Old Testament psalmists and prophets sometimes used images of animals to describe God: a mother bear, an eagle, a lion, a mother hen. And then we’ve got some nature images for God. In the book of Deuteronomy, God is Fire, in Acts, God comes as the Wind. God is a Rock in Isaiah and Water in Jeremiah. Finally, in John’s gospel, God is referred to as Light. The Bible also contains a number of human images for God—shepherd, baker, potter, midwife, friend…

So which is it? Should we call God “Father” or “Mother.” Well, the problem with that question is that it’s too small. Remember that story from Exodus, where God’s voice comes to Moses from the burning bush? Moses asks, “Who are you?” and God responds, “I am who I am”—or—“I will be who I will be.” In other words, there is no pinning me down. If all you do is call me “Father” or “Mother,” it’s not enough.

We have no human categories to contain God. All our words fall short. God is God, and there is no word or phrase or image in the human language that can pin God down to one identity or name. [10:13] So what do we do? We call God “Father” and “Mother” and “Spirit” and “Truth” and “Shepherd” and “Jesus” and “Love” and…

A lot of kids think God’s name is Howard. Did you know that? There’s at least one in every church. “Our Father, who art in heaven, Howard be thy name.”

I love the phrase, “Hallowed be thy name.” Hallowed is your name. Holy and Sacred is your name. And so it’s as if Jesus makes two moves in the beginning of the Prayer. First, he names God something specific, “Father”—and so he implies that closeness, that intimacy between parent and child. But then, without naming God specifically, Jesus says that God’s name is “hallowed”—sacred, holy. Jesus, in good Jewish tradition, understood that God’s name was beyond a human being’s ability to pronounce—that there is no human word that can speak to the depths of God’s existence, and so it is better to say instead that God’s name is hallowed, sacred and beyond what we can say or imagine.

So now I’d like to give you two things to do the next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer. Just two things. The first is this: think of God as a child thinks of his or her parent. “Daddy.” “Mommy.” When you pray, approach God in that way, knowing God intimately, trusting God completely. And remember that a child doesn’t worry about how the words come out. Believe me, a three-year-old or a six-year-old child isn’t overly concerned about proper form when it comes to making herself heard in the presence of a parent. So quit worrying about praying the “right way.” Don’t try to sound like a serious Christian. Don’t try to sound like your pastor. Don’t try to be anybody you’re not. Just pray. “Daddy… Mommy… God…”

The second thing I’d like you to do the next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer is to simply dwell for a moment on the phrase, “hallowed be thy name.” In fact, let’s all begin the prayer together, and let’s stop right there, after that phrase. Ready? “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name… God, your name—your identity—is hallowed, holy, sacred. It’s beyond all our words. We could talk to the end of time, God, and still not completely name or describe you. All the words in the Bible and all the words in human language can’t make a word to adequately name you, God.”

Friends, next time you pray, “hallowed be thy name,” remember that! And then remember this: you were created in God’s image! Just as God is known as “hallowed, sacred,” there is a part of you, too, that is beyond knowing. There is a depth to your character that is beyond words. Part of your adventure in life is plunging the depths of your own soul, knowing that you will never reach the bottom.

That’s a beautiful way to think of yourself, and you should think of yourself that way. And while you’re at it, remember that the people around you contain that same hallowed, sacred quality. Everyone around you… here in this church, in your family, that angry guy who cut you off in traffic, the people you work with, the woman on the street who’s going to ask you for spare change this week… all created in the sacred, hallowed image of God.

Hallowed-holy and sacred-be the name of God, the name that is beyond all our words. And hallowed be our sense of God's presence in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. Amen and amen!

Remember Who You Are - Matthew 18:1-5

2010-09-13T09:05:00.010-05:00

Sermon on September 12, 2010

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

Well, today is Rally Day—the last utter confirmation that summer is indeed over and that fall is here. As far as church life is concerned, we are now officially “back into the swing of things” as we watch our kids scamper off to Kaleidoscope and Sunday school this morning. At the end of this worship service, we will invite our children and youth to come forward to join their teachers at the front of the sanctuary, and we’ll celebrate them as they make their way upstairs or downstairs to their classrooms.

Maybe you’ve heard this one. A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was running as fast as she could, trying not to be late for Sunday school. As she ran she prayed, “Dear Lord, please don't let me be late! Dear Lord, please don't let me be late!” While she was running and praying, she tripped on a curb and fell, getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress. She got up, brushed herself off, and started running again. As she ran she once again began to pray, “Dear Lord, please don't let me be late... But please don't shove me either!”

Off they go for another year. And I know I’ve said this before. We often hear that our children are the future of the church—that our youth are the future of the church. But that’s just wrong, completely wrong. Our children and youth are the church right now. They’re the church now. Maybe that’s a little bit of what Jesus was thinking when he called the disciples’ attention to a child and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The simple nature of childhood is a gift to those of us who would embrace the kingdom more fully.

Jesus goes on to say that “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Keep that in mind every time you welcome children in this church family—when you see them coming in the door on Sunday morning, when you see them running around fellowship hall, and even when the child in the pew behind you is getting a little restless during worship. When you welcome one such child, you welcome Christ. Jesus seems pretty clear on this one, folks—that God’s very presence is seen and felt in the lives of the least of these—especially children.

Change. Become like children and enter the kingdom. I hope I’m not the first or last to confess that I often think more about what our children need to learn than what they have to teach. Perhaps it’s just that as I look at the world around us, I can’t help but feel the weight of this task before us—this task of raising our children in the faith and helping them embrace their identity as followers of Jesus. Because it’s been some of Jesus’ followers who’ve been driving me crazy lately… Christians whose language is filled with fear, Christians who somehow think it’s appropriate to even consider burning the Koran, Christians who think of the world in terms of “us” and “them.”

We live in an age where people’s beliefs about God seem to inspire them to build fences rather than bridges. The proposal to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City reveals an ugly truth about humankind at the moment—not only do we not understand each another, but we’re also apparently not willing to work to understand each other.

Now make no mistake. The presence of violent Islamic extremism is a real threat in this world—just as the presence of violent Christian extremism has been and could continue to be a real threat in this world. The true enemy is any ideology that fails to acknowledge God’s image in another human being. The real enemy is that temptation we face to project our fears and insecurities onto someone else and to see difference as deficiency.

So this morning, as our kiddos trot off to Sunday school, I wonder to myself, “What kind of world will these children get themselves into one day, and how do we prepare them for it? How do we, as their family of faith, encourage and equip our children to be faithful to a gospel of love in a world so easily tempted by fear?” The great task we’ve been given as a church when it comes to our children is one of shaping and nurturing identity.

With that in mind, a story that I love comes out of a particular tribe of people in Africa. When a woman of that tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the unborn child. When the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud. Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else. When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child’s song to him or her. Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child’s song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come together and sing. At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song. If the person commits a crime or inflicts harm on another, the community sings the song. And I have a feeling that, no matter what the words are to that song, the meaning is always the same: remember who you are, remember who you are, remember who you are.

All along the journey of life, remember who you are.
When you have reason to celebrate, remember who you are.
When you fall in love, remember who you are.
When things get rough, when you make a mistake, when life tempts you to be something you are not, remember who you are.

I have a friend back in Texas who said to his teenage children every time they left the house, “Remember who you are. And remember whose you are.” I like that. And I may use that line someday with my own daughters as they run out the door with the car keys: Remember who you are. You’re a Johnston-Krase. Don’t be someone you’re not. Be yourself. Be your best, truest self. And remember whose you are. You’re a child of God. God’s love is a force in your life to be honored and lived out. So remember whose you are.

When you stop and think about it, that’s basically what we do each week as a church family, isn’t it? For our children and for each other—we come together in worship say, essentially, “Remember who you are.” Remember who you are. Your sins and shortcoming do not define you, for in Jesus Christ you are forgiven. Remember whose you are. You are a disciple of Jesus Christ, and as such, you are called to a life of compassion, love, and peace.

This is life-giving, important work, friends—singing this music of “remember who you are” to each other and to our children—because the world we live can make that song hard to hear.
We’ve got the music of routine, the music of comfort
The music of it’s on sale!
The music of scarcity and get it while you can
The music of fear, the music of isolation
The music of an overscheduled life
The music of every man for himself
The music of nationalism, the music of death, the music of ME first

The drumbeats to these songs are all the same. More, more, more, and me, me, me. And we listen to it all the time. Truth be told, it’s background music to the soundtrack of our lives that plays incessantly on and on and on… Sure, in a clear, quiet moment, we can listen to it and recognize it for the lie that it is, but we seem to run short on clear, quiet moments these days, and it’s as if someone is turning up the volume slowly enough that we never notice.

And in the midst of it all, our song, the song that’s always been ours, is a tune we can’t quite recall. We can sort of hum the melody sometimes, but at other times we open our mouths to sing and find, to our great shock, our song’s gone missing. It’s easy to lose track.

Jesus said that “unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” So, friends, remember your song. Remember who you are. Remember whose you are.

Someone asked me over the summer about the water. You know, every Sunday morning at the beginning of the worship service, I pour water here in this baptismal font. “Why do you do that?” she asked. After all, it’s not like we do a baptism every Sunday.

Every Sunday I pour water into the font to remind us of God’s love and grace. Here at the font, in the sacrament of baptism, we remember that we are God’s children not because of anything we could ever do or believe. Rather, we are God’s children because of who God is. God has loved us, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it! We can’t escape that love, of course, but neither can we make it more real by trying to earn it. That’s what we believe. And so every Sunday, as I pour water into this font, it’s essentially a song. And the words are…

“Remember who you are. Remember who you are. Remember who you are.”

Amen.

Evotional - Hand and Heart

2010-09-09T09:33:00.001-05:00

John of the Cross was a great poet of the faith in the 16^th Century and his passionate, prophetic voice still speaks today. Here’s a poem of his that speaks to me…

“To Those Songs”

Your body is a divine stream,

as is your spirit.

When your two great rivers merge, one voice is found

and the earth applauds

in excitement.

Shrines are erected to those songs

the hand had heart have sung

as they served

the world

with a love, a love

we cherish.

- St. John of the Cross (1542-1592), translated by Daniel Ladinsky

The richest definitions of faithfulness imply a healthy marriage of mind and body—of heartfelt conviction and the actions that follow. May this image of the hand and heart singing a song together inspire you to think about your own life and minstry.

"Counting the Cost" Luke 14:25-33

2010-09-07T09:24:00.002-05:00

Sermon on September 5, 2010

Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Rachel was in her mid-twenties when she left the church. It wasn’t a gradual drifting away, but rather a conscious decision to leave. She’d been active in the congregation—showed up at quite a few things, helped out with Vacation Bible School… Folks in the church were a little surprised to hear that she’d left.

“Oh, well you know Rachel—she’s so busy all the time,” someone said. And it was true. Rachel had a new job that took a lot of energy and time, and she and her fiancé Chuck were planning a wedding the following summer. She volunteered at the food pantry, she mentored a student in a local after-school program, and she had just started taking classes for a master’s degree. She was the kind of person any church would love to have on board—bright, energetic, engaged… and busy, too, that’s true.

Her pastor was a friend of mine, and he gave her a call and they met for a cup of coffee. “Well, we miss you at church,” he said to Rachel as they sat down, “but I think I understand. You’ve got a lot going on, and it can be hard when you’re so busy.” Rachel looked him straight in the eye and said, politely but firmly, “Busy has nothing to do with it. I didn’t stop coming because I was too busy—I stopped coming because the church didn’t seem to need me.”

Her pastor confessed to me and some other colleagues later that he’d been hesitant to ask too much of Rachel when she was a member. “With her being so busy, I didn’t want Rachel to feel like the church was piling too much on. But as it turned out, it was her sense of the church’s low expectations that drove her away.”

Have you ever felt that way? Like the church isn’t expecting enough of you? (If you do, please see me and we can talk!) It’s easy for a church, though, to fall into the trap of having low expectations. After all, people really are busy these days, and with that, they’re understandably skittish when it comes to long-term commitments. That’s probably why the term “commitment-free” is popping up more and more these days. Cell phone plans, cable TV options, marketing strategies—they’re all using the language of “commitment-free” in hopes to connect with consumers who can’t stand the thought of one more thing to keep track of in their lives.

A nation-wide volunteer organization called “One Brick” has tapped into this same reluctance to commit in our culture. One Brick’s website lists ways that people can volunteer in their communities, but the jobs are always short-term—a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon, maybe. When the job is done, it’s over. One Brick boasts on its website, “Our ‘commitment-free volunteering’ allows you to choose when you volunteer, rather than having to make commitments for a certain number of volunteer hours, or agree to be available every week at a specific time. Volunteering made easy!”

And I get it. I’m nervous about commitments too. I’m reminded of that every time I’m asked to write down my email address. All can be right with the world, but then, while filling out a form in the dentist’s office or buying a pair of shoes online, I’m asked for my email, and suddenly the thought of just one more useless email in my inbox is about enough to do me in!

So I get it. I don’t need more emails to delete. I don’t need more stuff to read. I don’t need more stuff to do. No one needs more stuff to do! But I also get it when I see churches fall into the trap of having low expectations. It’s never an intentional strategy, really—more like a subconscious surrender to an overly-cluttered culture.

Jesus says to his disciples and to the crowds in Luke’s gospel, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple… Not one of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” Yikes! Obviously Jesus did not confer with his marketing strategist before he chose these words. Hate father and mother? Hate? Carry the cross? And hate life itself? Give up all my possessions? Gosh golly, Jesus, you really make being a disciple sound fun, but as it turns out, I am kind of busy right now… Clearly this is not a “commitment-free” discipleship Jesus is offering.

I do want to take a moment to talk about the word “hate” here. In our family, “hate” is a bad word, and Sylvia reminds us of that every time we say it. “Oh, I hate being late,” I’ll say as we dash off to the van on a school morning. “Dad, you shouldn’t hate.” “You’re right, Sylvia…”

Here Jesus tells us to hate your father and mother, hate your spouse and children, hate your brother and sister, hate life itself… It’s sort of strange hearing these words coming from the one who commanded us to love others as we love ourselves. But the word “hate” here is an ancient expression that means “to turn away from.” So what Jesus is demanding here is not a true hatred of family or self. Rather, Jesus is acknowledging the commitments and loyalties we keep, and he’s saying that in the midst of them all, the gospel should not only take precedence, but it should also redefine the others. (1)

“Turn away from anything that attempts to define you more clearly than the gospel,” Jesus could have said—“Turn away from the expectations of others, turn away from that mountain of stuff you have, and even turn away from your life as you know it, if you have to.” These words come as a challenge to any church attempting to cope with an overscheduled culture by demanding less of its people. But friends, we do have an overscheduled culture on our hands. None of us need more stuff to do. Certainly the people who aren’t here yet don’t need more stuff to do.

So what do we do? First, I think we need to identify the disconnect that often exists between our message and our expectations.

When I taught eighth grade, I had a colleague who was constantly telling his class to stop talking and pay attention. “Stop talking. Pay attention. This is important,” he’d tell his class. Over and over again. “Stop talking. Pay attention. This is important.” Sometimes he’d say it nonchalantly: “Stop talking. Pay attention. This is important.” Sometimes it would be a yell: “Stop talking! Pay attention! This is important!” He said it so much, it lost all meaning. And it never worked. His class never seemed to stop talking. I don’t know if they paid attention or thought anything was important in that room. I do know that in an odd way, that teacher’s strategy for classroom management undermined his hopes for teaching. He said “Stop talking, pay attention, this is important” so many times that it became background noise, and by the end of the year, he may as well have been telling his students, “Keep talking, guys. Don’t pay attention. This isn’t important.”

Sometimes I think the Christian church is like that teacher. The message we send to our culture, time and time again, is “Jesus Christ is Lord.” But the expectation we often make is that Jesus’ lordship is something you can easily squeeze into your busy schedule—that there’s room in your free time for the gospel.

The message Jesus gives the crowd is that this isn’t about anybody’s free time. It’s not about what you do when you’re not committed to work or family. It’s not about something you can squeeze in on the weekend. Rather for Jesus, discipleship is about life itself. Discipleship isn’t about one more thing—rather, it’s about everything.

I think this is good news for those of us who feel trapped by the demands of an overscheduled lifestyle in a cluttered culture. Following Christ’s Way isn’t about adding something new to the long list of things we have to do: Finish up the project at work, stop at the store on the way home, feed the kids, drive them to soccer practice, do laundry, mow the lawn, and follow Jesus. It doesn’t work that way. Your spirituality is not meant to be an “add-on” in your life. Christ’s invitation to become a disciple, rather, is an invitation for Christ’s Way to be everything in your life.

With that in mind, there isn’t a church in the world that will score points for long by making Christianity sound convenient or compatible with life’s busy-ness. But there’s a lot of room for a family of faith that understands more fully the cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. And the cost is this: everything. Everything. Jesus tells all would-be followers in Luke’s gospel, “I don’t want half of you. I don’t want the left-over you. I don’t want the care-about-justice-sometimes you. I don’t want the when-I-get-around-to-it you.” I want you entirely. Every fiber of your thought and being. Every care and concern. Every hope and possibility.

Now make no mistake. This is not a discussion of church activity. This is not a hope for perfect worship attendance. Rather, this is a reminder that being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not part-time. When we give our lives over to the lordship of Jesus Christ, we invite Christ’s Way to be our way completely. Christ’s Way—the way of compassion, the way of justice, the way of looking out for the poor and the oppressed, the way of mindful, attentive love for others and for self. Being a disciple means being a follower of that Way, and consequently hating—or turning from—anything that would prevent us from doing otherwise.

As we enter another school year, my hopeful prayer for this church is that we would continually find ourselves centered in Christ—allowing the loving character of Christ to define us as a family of faith, and following Christ in all that we do.

Racine doesn’t need another church giving people stuff to do when they’re not busy with other stuff. And neither do you. Racine—the whole world—needs a church that has found its identity in Christ—a church that understands that the cost of discipleship is everything—and a church that therefore has everything to give. Amen.

1. I'm grateful for Fred Craddock's insights into this passage in his commentary on Luke's gospel in the Interpretation series.

Evotional - Back to School

2010-09-01T14:24:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year again. Our kids are heading back to school. Some of them are even just beginning that particular journey in life as they march off to preschool and kindergarten.

Here at First Presbyterian, we're excited about another year of Sunday school, just days away! Rally Day is Sunday, September 12. Immediately after the worship service, our children will head off to their classrooms with their teachers, and as adults we'll have a short "info-mercial" about some adult education opportunities for the fall. Then, we'll all enjoy a bite to eat in the dining room, thanks to Deborah Circle!

Thinking about learning and the school year ahead, here's a quote to ponder...

"We teach children how to measure, how to weigh. We fail to teach them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe. The sense of the sublime, the sign of the inward greatness of the human soul and something which is potentially given to all, is now a rare gift." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

In an age that can be anxiously obsessed with certainties, may our educational ministry with children and youth (and with ourselves!) gift our lives with reverie, awe, and wonder.

"God's Untamed Garden" Matthew 13

2010-08-24T09:11:00.002-05:00

Sermon on August 22, 2010

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.

For those of us who spend a weekend every spring slipping seeds into the soil, but whose thumbs are anything but green, there is perhaps something hopeful about today’s Scripture lesson. For those of us lately who have faced the prospect of being carried off by mosquitoes as we attempt to pick a few tomatoes and zucchinis from our gardens, and especially for those of us who, at this point in the summer, consider just giving our gardens up to the weeds, that there’s something encouraging in today’s parable. “Let the weeds and the wheat grow together until the harvest!” Finally some gardening advice I can live with, even if my petunias can’t.

You see the weeds in my garden have come to think of themselves as Ben’s primary crop. Many of them are second and third generation now at least, and these weed families regard the flats of marigolds I import as unwanted intruders to be surrounded and cut off from circulation. At the rate they’re growing these days, my weeds must have decided that my feeble attempts to pull them are actually part of my pruning program, a regimen I employ every month or so to help them come in stronger and more lustfully than before. So I appreciate the master’s advice—leave those weeds alone! Worry about them later! Let them grow! Strange advice, I know, but when you come to think about it, the entire thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s gospel reads like a bizarre issue of Better Homes and Gardens.

There’s a sower sowing seeds in the good soil, but also on the path, the rocky ground, and among thorns. Then there’s the mustard seed section with the tiniest seed becoming an enormous tree. And finally we have Jesus’ gardening corner where we find out that the weeds are to remain where they’re planted.

Perhaps we’re simply reminded here of something we found out in Genesis: God likes gardens. Even, apparently, problematic ones—even gardens where watering the wheat means watering the weeds as well. And by the way, we’re not just talking about any weeds here. The ancient plant Matthew refers to is called darnel. It is a weed that, as a seedling, looks a lot like wheat. And as darnel grows its roots entangle the wheat around it and these two plants become so intertwined that pulling up one will undoubtedly uproot the other. Making matters worse, darnel is poisonous.

The servants receive their master’s orders: “Let both of them grow together until the harvest.” And so all through the season they can only watch as these plants grow side by side, tangled together. Wheat and weeds.

This story is mindful of another that I first heard from Peter Gomes, a celebrated preacher and theologian. The setting was the World’s Fair during the late 19th Century. Russia arrived with a curious exhibition entitled “World Peace.” Front and center in the display was a large cage containing a wolf and a lamb, hopefully bearing witness to that prophetic vision in which the wolf and lamb lie peaceably together in the kingdom of God. Such a striking exhibit drew large crowds and finally prompted someone to ask the curator, “How do you do it?” The curator replied, “Oh, it is really very simple. We replace the lamb every morning.”

Wolves and lambs… In theory it was a good idea. In practice the pursuit of “world peace” seems to use up more lambs than wolves.

Weeds and wheat… In theory they’re to await the harvest together. In practice they do, but we know what happens. The weeds choke out the wheat. War threatens peace. Violence shatters trust. Ignorance belittles understanding. Intolerance decays community.

Intensity has grown around the decision of whether or not to build an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero in New York City. A recent poll suggests that close to 68 percent of Americans object to the project. My sense has been that the weeds of mistrust and fear in this nation have been choking out the seedling of a possibility that this Islamic center could represent our country’s very best response to terrorism. It would send a message to the world that here in the United States, we refuse to be bullied and to allow a few violent extremists to cloud our judgment when it comes to the Muslim world. Moreover, I would love to be a fly on the wall in the cave when Osama Bin Laden found out that America celebrated the presence of an Islamic center in the very heart of the city he tried to destroy. But that won’t happen, I’m afraid. Those who have demonized Muslims are choking out other possibilities here. The weeds choke out the wheat.

So what are we to make of this parable where wheat and weeds live side by side at the master gardener’s insistence? Matthew provides an explanation. With the crowds gone, Jesus meets with the disciples and deciphers his parable. The sower is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seeds are the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of the evil one, the enemy is the devil, the harvest is the end, and the reapers are the angels. There you have it folks!

Personally I read this and I can’t help but think that telling the truth about a parable is sort of like telling the truth about Santa Claus. Truth may be true, but some things get lost in the explanation. And sooner or later we realize that the deepest currents of truth in our lives are ones we cannot tame.

Which puts us back in the garden, the untamed garden of our own lives. With that in mind, I’d like to make an invitation. I’d like to invite you to think of your life right now as a garden. Pretend it’s spring, and you’re the gardener standing there before the soil, and you’ve got seeds in your pockets—all kinds of seeds.

When you are kind to someone, you plant a seed—a seed of kindness. When you are patient with someone who requires patience, you plant a seed—a seed of compassion. When you encourage someone, you plant a seed of strength. When you cry with someone, you plant a seed of mercy. When you forgive someone, you plant a seed of grace.

We’ve all got these seeds, filling up our pockets—good seeds that need planting—seeds of hope and peace and light and love… And with every good thought and every good act, and with every purposeful move we make in the love of Christ, we drop another seed to the ground.

But here’s the problem. Sometimes we’re good farmers, and sometimes we’re not. Sometimes we’re the evil ones in our own gardens. And when we hurt someone, we plant a seed of unkindness. When we’re quick to point out what’s wrong, we plant seeds of despair. When we gossip, we plant seeds of separation. When we refuse to love others, we plant seeds of mistrust. When we refuse to love ourselves, we plant seeds of insecurity.

Sometimes we plant these bad seeds intentionally. A lot of times they just fall out. And so the gardens of our lives fill up with good crops and with weeds. Just like in the parable, it all grows together.

Now it’s easy in this life to get overwhelmed with the weeds. It’s easy to look at a field of thistles and just forget about planting anything new. It’s easy to read about poverty and violence and unemployment here in Racine and elsewhere and throw up our hands. But the kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field. And it doesn’t matter how many weeds there are out there—you and I are called to do something with the good seeds we’ve been given. So our task as Christians? Keep planting!

Are the weeds overwhelming? Keep planting. Is someone telling you it won’t make a difference? It will. Keep planting. Are you afraid you’ll run out of good seeds? You won’t. Keep planting. Keep planting, especially where you find weeds of hatred and greed. Work that soil and keep planting.

Think once again about your life as a garden. And I want you to bring to mind all those weedy spots in that garden—the broken relationships, the apologies that were never given, the trust that was broken, the words that have been left unsaid, the work that’s left undone, the anxiety that keeps you up at night… Picture the weeds in your garden, and then picture yourself walking right into the midst of those weeds and dropping some good seeds. Here and there, seeds of hope and possibility, willful seeds of love and grace.

Jesus said that “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field,” and in God’s untamed garden, those good seeds will bear much fruit. Amen.

"The Abundance You Bring" John 6:1-14

2010-08-16T11:05:00.003-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, August 15, 2010

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.”

All four gospel writers tell a story about Jesus feeding massive numbers of people with just a few loaves of bread. In each version, we’re told that a large crowd was following him—that there were five thousand in all, but that this may have just been the men—that in fact, with women and children counted, there could have been more than ten thousand. Just following Jesus around the countryside.

Ten thousand… Don’t these people have anything better to do? Really, ten thousand! I mean, come on—nobody can hear Jesus, can they? The disciples aren’t carting around a portable PA system, so how many there could actually hear Jesus at one time—a few hundred at best? And for at least nine thousand of those people, not only is Jesus inaudible, but he’s also impossible to see. There’s no jumbo-tron so the folks in the back can catch a glimpse of what’s going on.

I’m trying to get a sense of what it was like to be a crowd of ten thousand people trekking through fields and mountainsides—following Jesus around, but maybe never really hearing him, maybe just barely seeing him a couple of times. And so again I’ll ask the question: Didn’t these people have anything better to do? Maybe not.

And while we’re at it, don’t you find it odd that none of them brought anything to eat? Just what were they thinking? Imagine for a moment gathering your family together to go wander around with Jesus in the countryside. You’ve got sandals on, the kids, the baby… Out the door you go for God knows how long with nothing to eat? If my wife, Karla, had been in that crowd, it would have been her child who had the five loaves of bread and the two fish because we don’t go anywhere without snacks for kids. Wallets, cell phones, toys, directions—all these things can be forgotten, but the Johnston-Krase family does not climb into the mini-van without a few boxes of raisins and some animal crackers! What about these ten thousand? No food? No snacks? Nothing?

The natural assumption to make is that the crowds who followed Jesus in the wilderness where there because Jesus’ message was so compelling—so powerful, so hopeful—that they couldn’t be kept away. We can wonder, though, if perhaps their presence may have been a sign of the times—that in actuality, the people in those crowds really didn’t have anything better to do. It had been decades—almost a hundred years—since the Roman Empire had invaded that region. No one in the crowd with Jesus could remember a day without Roman soldiers keeping an eye on things. No one knew how a Galilean economy might flourish if it weren’t for their resources being siphoned off and sent back to Rome.

A nation can only live under an oppressive foreign occupation for so long before it starts to show, and you’ve got five thousand unemployed men with no better option than to wander out into the countryside after a traveling preacher—ten thousand total, wandering around with no plans for food, no plans for tonight’s shelter… Jesus looked out at those thousands of people, and he must have seen more than hunger. He must have seen the aftereffects of political greed and distorted human power. Nation sees fit to conquer nation, and this is what’s left: hundreds upon hundreds of people with no food and no better place to go.

We have our own signs of the times today. Empires still conquering. The gap between rich and poor widens. Families throughout the world and here in Racine struggling to break cycles of poverty—unemployment, crime, substance abuse, hunger, homelessness… Environmental disasters, oil in the Gulf, pollution, global warming…

Somewhere along the line, we’re all taught that we need to do our part to help the world, but somewhere along the line, we get completely overwhelmed with it all. We look out at the thousands of issues and problems and needs in our world and wonder, “Where do I begin? How do I start? And will this even make a difference?” Add to that the fact that today more than ever, our society is so overscheduled and over-stimulated… We have so many choices to make and so many places to be at one time. It’s hard to emerge from it all with enough energy and time to tackle much of anything new.

So, friends, I’d like to create an image for us today—an image of what it might look like for you and me to follow Jesus today. (At this point in the sermon, I invited a young boy from the congregation, Meyer, to come forward. He was carrying a basket with five loaves of bread in it.) Thank you, Meyer. If you could just stand here for a few minutes, that would be great. Friends, would you like to change the world? Here’s what it looks like. Would you like to reshape the reality around you? This is what it looks like.

Now you know me well enough by now to know that I tend not to be too “formulaic” in my preaching. That being said, I’d like for us to reflect on our gospel message today and create a formula for what it means to be faithful in our lives. Ready? Here it goes. I’ve got three steps for you.

Step One: Show up in a place of need. That’s the first thing that the boy did in the story. He was there in the crowd—he showed up. You can’t do anything about anything if you don’t show up. You know this. You can’t be a good dad if you’re not home. You can’t be a good employee if you’re not at work. You can’t be a good athlete if you don’t come to practice. You’ve got to show up.

Maybe you’ve had an experience like this before. I was twenty-five when my mother was sick and when she died. At that time, a lot of people said a lot of things to me, but do you know what I remember? I remember who showed up. I don’t remember what they said. I don’t remember what they wrote in their cards. I don’t remember who sent flowers and fruit baskets. What I remember most is that they showed up. So much of being faithful to God and to others is simply showing up.

So Step One? Show up. Show up in a place of need. Don’t worry about what you’re going to do when you get there just yet. Too often we get stuck trying to figure out how we’re going to solve a problem when we haven’t even shown up yet. So just show up first. Show up in a place where there’s hunger. Show up in a place where people are dealing with homelessness. Show up where people are in need of comfort. Just show up! Be in the midst of it—whatever it is.

Step Two: Present what you have. That’s the second thing that the boy did in John’s gospel story. He presented what he had: five loaves and two fish. Notice that he didn’t present anything he didn’t have. He didn’t invite everyone to a seminar on how to survive in the wild without food. Meanwhile, he also didn’t offer a plan for overthrowing the Roman Empire. Instead, he simply presented what he had.

You have something. What is it? What do you have to offer? It could be something simple. In fact, it might not look like anything at all… at first. Think about the five loaves and the two fish that the boy had. In light of ten thousand hungry people, it was practically nothing. So friends, don’t think about what will be enough, or what’s needed. THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE.

This relates to the conversation the leadership of this church has been having lately, asking, “How has God uniquely gifted me to serve the Church at this time?” What do we have? Step Two is present what you have. Your gift. Your interest. Your passion. Even your willingness to see something through. Present what you have.

Step Three: This one’s going to be the hardest for us, I think. I know that this one is the hardest for me. Trust Jesus. Show up. Present what you have. And then trust Jesus. The boy showed up. He was there. And he presented what he had. He handed over his bread and his fish—a gracious act, by the way, since he wasn’t sure how much of that food he and his family would get back. And then something happened. Jesus took over and multiplied the food.

I think that the reason we get overwhelmed and stuck when we try to solve problems in our world is because we expect too much of ourselves and not enough from God. And when we don’t expect enough from God, we measure our potential solely on the basis of our own skill. We forget that we worship a God who multiplies our gifts, multiplies our talents, multiplies our efforts.

I read this story recently. A young boy was taking piano lessons. As a treat, his mother took him to hear a concert pianist. As they made their way to their seats, the boy spotted the piano on stage and slipped away from his Mom. The mother sat down and was horrified to see her son sitting at the Steinway grand piano on stage. The crowd laughed nervously as he began to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” When the boy realized there was a huge crowd listening to him he became nervous and started missing notes.

At that moment, the concert pianist entered the stage. He whispered in the boy’s ear, “Keep playing. We will play together.” He reached over and began playing running harmonies on either side of the boy’s one fingered Twinkle Twinkle. Everyone, including the boy, was entranced, and at the end of the song, they leapt to their feet with applause.

Friends, on our own, what we have is never enough to do it all. But we are never alone! In some form or fashion, Jesus will always play alongside of us. When we trust Jesus with that which we have, we realize that we’ve brought an abundance to the table!

The problems in our world today are different than the once that faced our faith ancestors. Poverty, though, is still poverty. Hunger is still hunger. Hopelessness is still hopelessness. So in the days ahead, may we act with strength and with courage.

Show up.
Present what you have.
Trust Jesus.
With God actively multiplying our gifts, we do bring an abundance to the world!
Amen.

"Caught Between Miracles" - Luke 5:1-11

2010-07-27T10:02:00.015-05:00

Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

Did you know that Jesus has a facebook page? It’s true. For those of you who aren’t familiar with facebook, it’s a sort of personalized spot on the internet where folks like you and I (and apparently Jesus) can post thoughts, information about ourselves, photos, blogs, and random links to Youtube videos…

Apparently jesus.com, jesus.org, and jesus.net were all taken by religious groups, so Jesus found himself on facebook. He used to be on myspace.com, but nobody uses myspace anymore, and so neither does Jesus. His profile is perhaps what you would expect. His interests include do-it-yourself carpentry and mass catering. According to his profile, he’s single, a Sagittarius, and in a relationship. He doesn’t want kids, and uses facebook to look for friends and to network.

And just when you think that Jesus having a facebook page is just silly, listen to some of the things that some of his 89,024 facebook friends have written: (these are facebook users who’ve officially declared themselves “fans” of Jesus)

Thank you! you amaze me everyday! I am so in love with you! You always make it turn out right, even when it feels so wrong! you fix me, and you complete me.

Thank you Lord for the blessings that you have given us. Please forgive us of our sins.

I love you. Please guide me in the right direction.

Jesus i love you, you are amazing thank you for everything... love ur close friend tanisha. ♥

jesus
when i say your name
it's like a party in my mouth
thank you jesus thank you

Long time no talk

Everywhere Jesus goes, he draws a crowd, Even on facebook.

We’ve got a crowd in Luke’s gospel this morning. According to the fourth chapter of Luke, Jesus has been teaching in synagogues throughout the countryside, and if his teaching’s been anything like it was in his hometown, he’s been making people pretty mad. If you remember that scene you’ll recall that when Jesus did a teaching in the Temple back in Nazareth, he so infuriated the clergy-types that they chased him out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff, which is not a good way to start a career in public speaking. That was at the beginning of Luke’s fourth chapter, a chapter that ends with this sentence: “So Jesus continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.”

It’s sort of interesting to think of Jesus’ ministry as one that involves getting kicked out of a list of gradually more prestigious religious institutions. From Nazareth to Jerusalem that’s basically what happens. The negative publicity, however, seems to be working in Jesus’ favor, and the crowds can’t stay away.

Jesus is standing by the lake and they’re doing what crowds do. Lots of people are just there. Some need to get healed. Others are curious about what this guy said to make their pastor so mad. And, of course, a crowd draws a crowd and we’ve got a nice little sea of humanity by the Sea of Galilee.

It’s a beautiful picture, really, to paint in your mind’s eye. Loads and loads of people doing what people do at the lake! Men, women, and children, gathering with friends, seeing what all this fuss is about, talking. Some are fishing and some are just washing clothes. Nobody thought about childcare, so there’s a bunch of kids doing what kids do when they’re at the lake: swimming, splashing, running, throwing rocks in the water. If you can, take a moment to let yourself hear the sounds of this wonderful human mass gathered by the lake.

Jesus shows up, and probably gradually at first, but then with increasing fervor, the crowd presses in on him to hear the word of God. And Jesus begins with a miracle. Maybe it’s a hidden miracle, actually. On the surface it’s nothing, really—nothing like healing somebody or walking on water. But it’s a miracle or sorts.

What does he do? First, he sees these boats sitting there on the shore. Then he gets into one of them, Simon’s boat, and asks him to put out in the water a ways. You could say he’s just being creative—trying to find a way that everybody on shore can see him and hear him. But then Jesus does this little miracle: he sits down.

Now I know what you might be thinking: “He ‘sits down.’ That’s it? Well, I guess every little thing Jesus does is a miracle, then? Oh, look! Jesus sat down! It’s a miracle! Oh, look, Jesus stood up again! Another miracle! But according to Jewish custom, one stood to read scripture, but sat down to teach.

Now we could say, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t read into this too much. Maybe it’s really no big deal that Jesus sat down in the boat. After all, aren’t you supposed to sit down in a boat?” But sometimes the little details are worth our attention. In Luke chapter four, when Jesus teaches in the synagogue, the author makes a point of saying that Jesus “sat down” to teach. And here by the lake in chapter five, he does it again: Jesus “sat down and taught.” If Jesus’ act of sitting down were really insignificant, we could argue that Luke wouldn’t have included it at all.

But he does. “Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat…”

Jesus sat down in the boat. And then what happened? What incredible thing happened next? What’s the hidden miracle? Can you see it? Jesus created a synagogue by the lakeshore! In an instant—in the time it takes to sit down—Jesus said to the entire crowd that was gathered there, “Welcome to this holy place!” And suddenly the people—women, men, and children—some of whom under normal circumstances, were not welcome in synagogue, found themselves in a sacred space. Prostitutes, people with leprosy, women and men who were considered “unclean” for various reasons—they were all there. And suddenly, the best seats in the synagogue did not belong to the religious leaders, the wealthy, or the powerful. They belonged to women washing clothes and children splashing in the water.

Holy space—synagogue, temple, church, sanctuary—was redefined! And the crowd found itself caught in a holy moment!

I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you. I suspect it has. It’s probably true that for lots of us, while our most overtly religious moments happen in a building much like the one we’re in right now, many of our most sacred, holy moments pop up in other sanctuaries: rivers and gardens, seasides and lakeshores, pieces of poetry and wonderful novels and music... Often these are the holy places that give birth to our sense of God’s direction in our lives.

That’s a little bit of what happened at the lake with Jesus and the crowd. Suddenly, and without warning, women, men, and children found themselves in a new place—a synagogue of sorts.

There’s another more obvious miracle in this story: the giant catch of fish. Jesus tells Simon to take his boat and put out into the deep water and let his nets down for a catch. He does so reluctantly, but up come more fish than his one boat can handle. They bring another boat out, fill them both with fish.

And I know that this story is a metaphor for “catching” disciples. Jesus even says to Simon, James, and John, “From now on, you will be catching people.” But there is little about this image of a bunch of fish—stuck in this huge net, sucking air, slowly dying while the folks back on shore lick their lips and get a fire going—there is little about this image that resonates with my own sense of sharing God’s love with others—with making disciples.

The whole idea of “catching” people doesn’t really work for us. We Presbyterians don’t like to think of ourselves as “people catchers.” We’ll leave that to some other denominations. No, Presbyterians tend to approach evangelism like wallflowers at a junior high sock hop: don’t make any sudden moves, let them come to us, you can tap your foot, but don’t clap, and for God’s sake, don’t dance.

At second glance, however, I do find a richness in Jesus’ second miracle in today’s story. Jesus says to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” While I fail to connect with the picture of a net-full of wiggly fish, I love the image of putting out into the deep water. That’s what we do, I think, when we nurture real discipleship in ourselves and in others. We get out of the shallows and we find the deepest waters we can. And it’s into those deep and often dark waters that we cast our conversations, our stories, and our questions. And ultimately, it’s in that depth that we long to be caught.

It’s in that depth where we recognize that our sanctuary is more than our church—that, in fact, we carry it with us and create it wherever we go...
...wherever we encounter folks who seem fed up with the shallows
...wherever people long to engage in meaningful dialog about the things that really matter
...wherever we seek to be God’s love in the midst of pain, homelessness, and exclusion.
...wherever we find thirst, hunger…

There’s a wonderful little quote by C.S. Lewis that I enjoy sharing. He said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” I love it. And I’d say that similarly, “We don’t have a church. We are the Church. We have a building that we meet in.”

So as the Church, may we be called to make disciples of ourselves and one another. May we embody a living sanctuary—a walking, talking, working, loving community of God’s sacred presence wherever we go. And may we put out into the deepest waters we can find, inviting others to join us in the mystery of God’s love there.

Inexplicable blog hiatus

2010-07-27T09:55:00.002-05:00

This is my first blog post in over a month. The reason? Good question. My last post was June 8th, and as I look back, I can't see anything major that week other than a sub-par round of golf (and in this case, sub-par means way over par) surrounded by a handful of regular old summery days. Chalk it up to summer doldrums? Anyway, I'm back on the horse today, beginning with this post. I'll also catch up with some recent sermons and an evotional or two. Thanks for stopping by and I'll promise to stay on track. Really. I will.

Praying for the Gulf

2010-06-08T10:55:00.006-05:00

On Sunday, Rev. Steve Fringer led us in a community prayer that included these words about the BP oil spill in the gulf. Thought I'd share them with you today as we continue to be prayerful about that situation...

Creator God, You invite us to join you in creation’s process, to be faithful stewards of your earth, so we offer our thanks and praise for the way the earth rewards the work of our hands with abundance and goodness. Yet as oil poisons the gulf waters, we have become increasingly aware of just how fragile your creation is and how awesome our responsibility. So we pray that a way be found for the leak to stop completely. We pray for all those people whose livelihoods and lives have been devastated by this tragedy, for those devoted to clean up efforts. We pray for fish and fowl, pelican and manatee, marsh and beach, oceans, wetlands, and eco-systems; that the damage done not be irreversible; that out of this tragedy wisdom be born and new and just policies to protect the delicate balance of life be crafted.

Edges - Luke 7:11-17

2010-06-07T10:42:00.004-05:00

Sermon on June 6, 2010

Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, Rise!”

Luke 7:11-17 is a good example of what I sometimes like to call “routine Jesus.” He and the disciples are traveling through the countryside, and as they often seem to do, they stumble upon a scene of sad desperation. Here it’s a funeral procession. A man has died, and now his mother, who is a widow, along with a crowd from the town, is carrying his body out through the town’s gate.

We know what’s going to happen already, don’t we? We’ve read or heard enough gospel material to know almost exactly what Jesus is going to do in this situation—so much so that reading through Luke chapter 7 is a bit like driving past a dairy farm in central Wisconsin. We know what we’re going to see before we get there: cornfield, house, barn, silo, cows, cornfield.

Getting into today’s passage, we read the sentence, “As [Jesus] approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out,” and we know what we’re going to see before we get there: compassion, touch, miracle, and a bunch of people glorifying God. And that’s what happens, pretty much. Jesus has compassion for the widow—the young man’s mother. He touches the frame on which the man’s body is being carried and says, “Young man, I say to you, ‘Rise!’” and it’s a miracle—the dead man sits up and begins to speak. The crowd goes wild.

No big surprises here on the surface. If you or I had been there in that crowd that day, we’d have a real story to tell, but because this one is so short and because it’s tucked into Luke’s gospel with dozens more, we tend to drive by quickly without looking.

This morning, however, I would like to suggest that a few details in this story make it stand out. But let me say this first. Luke 7:11-17 is not a story about Jesus raising somebody from the dead. No, Luke 7:11-17 is a story about Jesus meeting somebody on the edge of her life and saving her there.

Here’s what I mean by that. In verse twelve, we’re given two details about the situation. We learn that the man who died was his mother’s only son and we learn that she herself is a widow. Now this isn’t added background information to give the characters depth or make the narrative more interesting. The fact that we have a widow who’s lost her only son is actually the true crux of the story.

To explain that, here’s a quick, nutshell lesson in ancient economics. If you are a woman in the ancient Middle East, you’d better pray you have a father or a husband or a son to take care of you financially. A woman in Jesus’ day could not own property or earn income by herself. She couldn’t take out a loan or start up a small business. Without a man to rely on for financial security, a woman in the ancient Middle East had two awful choices: she could beg for a living or she could turn to prostitution. So, friends, when we’re moving along in Luke’s gospel and we read the line, “He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow,” what we have is a woman on the very edge of her life, perched on the brink of desperation with no way back.

Sometimes your life gets pushed to the edge. You don’t go there willingly, it seems. But you get pushed there sometimes. Financial ruin, a death in the family, your marriage is in trouble, your drinking becomes a problem, your job isn’t yours anymore… And it’s weird: most of the time, normal life just feels normal. We’ve all got our problems to work through; we’ve all issues to straighten out. But then the bottom falls out, and you’re standing there on the edge of it all.

We could tell any number of stories here, couldn’t we? Stories from our own lives, from our own families, stories that have grown out of this family of faith… The cancer diagnosis, the car accident, the loss of good mental health... And there are no answers on the edge—no simple solutions. There’s not a formula for what-to-do-next on the edge.

Sometimes, like the woman in Luke’s gospel, you’re on the edge with a crowd. And sometimes you’re there alone, wondering, maybe, if anyone will show up. Normal life doesn’t prepare us, does it? Relatively safe routines don’t equip us to handle a trip to the edge of life.

The first thing I noticed about Frank and Carole was how tender they were with each other. I met them in a hospital room in Chicago. Carole was there with stage four lung cancer and Frank was there with Carole. The doctors had done what they could. Too late for surgery, they’d said, so it was chemo and radiation and chemo and radiation. Gradually their plan was turning away from aggressive treatment to pain management. Frank was there with her, each day, talking, reading to her, wiping her forehead, sitting with her in silence…

One day I stopped by Carole’s room and Frank wasn’t there. We chatted for a bit, and I asked, “Where’s Frank today?” “Oh, he just went downstairs to get something to eat,” she said. And then she stopped and she cried. Through the tears she said, “Oh, Frank can’t see me like this. It would kill him to see me like this.” Later on she said something that stuck with me. She said, “I know that I am coming to the end, but I have to be strong for Frank.”

That afternoon I caught up with Frank in the lounge. And we talked for a while. And it was clear to me that here was a man feeling completely defeated. At one point in our conversation, oddly, but maybe not surprisingly he said through his own tears, “One thing I know—I can’t let her see me down. I’ve got to stay “up”—got to stay strong for Carole.” A part of me wanted to say kindly but bluntly, “You two spend a lot of time together. You should really try talking with each other about this.”

On the edge, trying to look like we’re not on the edge. Trying to be “strong.” Because normal, safe life doesn’t prepare us for the edges. So even though we’re getting close, we we strive to maintain a picture of business as usual.

Someone asks us how we’re doing and we say something like “Doing ok. How ‘bout you?” A big part of our problem is our stubborn reluctance to admit that the edge is near. Of course, in this culture of ours, when we ask someone how they’re doing, we’re usually not prepared for “I’m falling apart,” “I’m losing my mind,” or “I feel like I’m going over the edge!” But maybe we should be open to that possibility when we start a casual conversation.

Jesus says to the man—to the body of the man—“Rise!” But that’s just part of it, because in that act of healing, he says to the woman, “It’s ok. You can step back from the edge now.” That’s the miracle in this story. Jesus saves the woman from a life of begging or even worse. He rescues her at the edge of her life.

Maybe there’s an edge in your life that you’re afraid to get close to. A relationship that seems lost, a job that’s going nowhere, a mountain of debt, a looming cloud of sadness… Maybe there’s an edge you’re staying away from—maybe for good reason. But know this: Jesus is waiting for you along the edges of your life, waiting for you there, ready to offer hope.

And we could leave it at that, and that would be enough—a call to trust Jesus on the frayed edges of our lives. We’d be silly, though, not to mention that our ministry to each other and to our world should never be confined to a safe, manageable distance from the edge. No, as we are called to the loving ministry of Jesus Christ, we too are called to the edges. Where sadness turns into despair. Where a problem turns into an addiction. Where poverty turns into homelessness.

Is there an edge in this world that God is nudging there towards? For the person sitting next to you? For someone else in this room? For someone you haven’t met yet? Every day, everywhere, people are approaching the edges in their lives. Where is God calling you?

Evotional - Hopeful?

2010-06-02T11:23:00.005-05:00

Dear Friends,

On Sunday, as our worship service drew to a close, I shared these words with you during the benediction. They’re from Barbara Kingsolver during her 2008 commencement address at Duke University.

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides."

Have you been struck by hope this week? Or is hope something you’ve had to look for diligently? And what would it look like to “live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides”?

May your hours and days this week find you hopeful, friends. And, feeling that hope, may your life reflect God’s hopeful love in Christ.

“And now, O Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you.”
- Psalm 39:7

Peace,
Pastor Ben

Living Into Hope

2010-06-02T11:05:00.006-05:00

Sermon on May 30, 2010

Romans 5:1-5:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Are you a hopeful person? What do you think? Maybe you’ve never considered that question before, so go ahead and think about it for a second. Are you hopeful? If your answer is “yes,” that’s great. Of course, this may represent a little wishful thinking on your part—hoping that, in fact, you are a hopeful person. Though I suppose that if you hope you’re hopeful, then you are indeed at least somewhat hopeful.

Now your answer may have been “no” or “I don’t know,” or you may have thought to yourself, “Am I hopeful? What kind of hair-brained question is that?” Perhaps when you considered the question, your mind raced to glasses half-full or half-empty, or weather reports: Is there a 30% chance of rain today, or would that be a 70% chance of total sun?

If you’re feeling hopeless at the moment or in general, you may know that there’s plenty of advice floating around out there for you. This past week I googled the phrase, “how to be hopeful,” and as luck would have it, just such an article existed online. According to the website “wikiHow,” you can be a more hopeful person if you apply some simple steps in your life:

1. Think about a plan for your life.

2. Learn from the people around you.

Ok, so far so good, I guess. But this next step is questionable:

3. Imagine waking up fresh with new opportunities every morning feeling hopeful.

In other words, if you want to be more hopeful, you should try waking up each day simply feeling hopeful.

4. Develop some talents.

5. Get training and counseling.

That last step might be the wisest. Becoming hopeful isn’t like turning on a switch—it doesn’t work that way, at least not all the time. It takes time and sometimes it does take counseling. But overall I’m suspicious of any guide to hopefulness—or love, faith, peace, or happiness for that matter. It’s always seemed to me that forces in this world like hope are too rambunctious for a step-by-step approach.

With this in mind, I’ve been mulling over Paul’s words in his letter to the Romans: “We… boast in our sufferings,” he says, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Sounds sort of step-by-step, doesn’t it?

Step 1. Suffering produces endurance.

Step 2. Endurance produces character.

Step 3. Character produces hope.

Of course, Paul’s words are perhaps easier to consider when you’re feeling hopeful than when you’re actually suffering. Despite what Paul is doing in his letter, I cannot imagine a scenario where I’d cite Romans 5:3-4 for a person who’s suffering. “What’s that? You lost your job? Well, don’t worry, my friend, because according to the Bible, suffering produces endurance which produces character which produces hope… So cheer up, because your unemployment is really your key to endurance, character, and hope!” Not so comforting, is it?

Still, it may all be true. Suffering does produce endurance. Often begrudgingly, we learn something of endurance in the midst of suffering. The battle with cancer that takes not weeks, not months, but years. The life-long grief that comes with losing a child. The grueling road of intense pain management. Yes, suffering does at least produce endurance, but does this always lead to hope? Suffering can produce a lot of other things, too, and Paul seems to have left them out. Suffering can produce bitterness, which can produce resentment, which can produce destructive patterns in relationships, which can produce more unwanted suffering.

But for Paul, suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. This morning I’d like to suggest that Paul is right, but that this process of suffering leading to hope is not one that always flows naturally. Rather, it is one that we must cultivate, and sometimes it’s a true struggle.

You may have heard this wonderful ancient story. A Cherokee elder was teaching his grandson. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible battle and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil—he is anger, envy, greed, guilt, and hatred. The other wolf is good—he is joy, peace, kindness, love, and hope. And this battle is the same one that goes on inside of you—and inside of all people.”

The grandson thought for a minute and then asked, “Grandpa, which wolf will win?” And the elder simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Are you a hopeful person? Do you feed hope in your life? If you do, you may find that even suffering is not wasted—that even the painful, broken pieces of life can be gathered together and fashioned into something hopeful.

From 1989 to 2003, the West African nation of Liberia was brutalized in its own civil war. Close to 250,000 were killed and many more became homeless. Fourteen years of war left the country’s economy in shambles and its communities overrun with weapons.

It was in the midst of that devastation and chaos that a small group of Liberian Christians fed hope. Their cities, towns, and countrysides were littered with bomb and shell casings—part of war’s pollution. They began to gather them, and with those empty rounds of ammunition, they put themselves to work. I’m holding in my hand one of their creations. This is an empty shell from the Liberian Civil War, but it’s been cut and reformed in the shape of a cross.

The people who made it are part of a group called Liberians Against Violence. They are victims of Liberia’s war—civilians and former soldiers—who are now generating income for themselves and their communities by fashioning these crosses. They’ve partnered with the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and with other non-profit organizations throughout the world, and they are making an impact in a nation that has an 80% unemployment rate.

Suffering produces endurance produces character produces hope. Yes, if you feed it that way. Our spiritual task in life is to feed hope, and sometimes that’s hard to do. Sometimes you literally have to pick up the worst, violent pieces of your life and smash them forcefully into something worth keeping.

What does that look like for you?

May Lou Weisman has written a book called Intensive Care. In it she tells the tragic story of the death of Peter, her fifteen-year-old son. Peter suffered from muscular dystrophy, and at the end of his life Mary Lou and her husband Larry were with him at his bedside.

By this time, Peter’s body was completely paralyzed, but his mind was still sharp. He lay there, moaning with pain, struggling to communicate with his parents. “His voice,” wrote Mary Lou, “sounded so far away, so lost.” But then, suddenly, in a surprisingly clear voice, Peter spoke directly to Larry, his father.

“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?” Bewildered and frightened, Larry and Mary Lou looked at each other. What could this strange question from their dying son possibly mean?

“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?”

Even though he had tears streaming from his eyes, Larry answered Peter matter-of-factly. “Impudent. Son, impudent means bold. It means shamelessly bold.”

Peter paused for a moment, death closing its grip on him, and then he said, “Then put me in an impudent position.”

And sure enough, just before their son died, Larry and Mary Lou, positioned Peter’s arms and legs in a posture of bold defiance, an “impudent position” in the face of death. (1)

Sometimes, in the midst of suffering, we have to fiercely feed the good wolf. Sometimes, when suffering is all we know, we have to brazenly feed any source of hope we can find. Because Christian hope isn’t just wishful thinking or even sincere optimism. Rather, Christian hope is an “impudent position” against the powers of death and brokenness.

Our hope is not, “I hope the sun comes out soon,” “I hope the Brewers can get their act together,” or even “I hope this economy picks up soon.” Our hope is a faith that in broken world of violence and war and hunger and greed, none of these things will have the last word—that against all odds, love is finally stronger than hate. Our hope is an “impudent position” that we willfully take—a position that celebrates resurrection even in the midst of suffering and death.

May God bless you with courage, faith, love, and impudence as you live into hope today in the days to come. Amen.

1. Professor, author, and pastor Thomas Long tells this story in a sermon entitled "A Living Hope."

Back to the Blog

2010-06-02T11:02:00.002-05:00

Well, it's been a while. Having returned from Ethiopia a month ago with our two new children, Karla and I have been "laying low" for a bit. And for me "laying low" apparently means letting go of my blog. But I'm back this week with this past Sunday's sermon and the weekly First Presbyterian Church evotional. Enjoy!

Ben

Evotional - Nothing Goes to Waste

2010-04-07T10:26:00.002-05:00

Welcome to the Eastertide. A resurrection quote for you today from Henri Nouwen. May we be mindful today that “nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste.”

“The resurrection does not solve our problems about dying and death. It is not the happy ending to our life's struggle, nor is it the big surprise that God has kept in store for us. No, the resurrection is the expression of God's faithfulness to Jesus and to all God's children. Through the resurrection, God has said to Jesus, ‘You are indeed my beloved Son, and my love is everlasting,’ and to us God has said, ‘You indeed are my beloved children, and my love is everlasting.’ The resurrection is God's way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost.”

- Henri J. M. Nouwen

because of and not so that - Holy Week Day 7

2010-04-04T11:45:00.001-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, April 4

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. - John 20:18

Earlier this week we had one of those perfect spring days—a day to get outside and get your hands dirty. We did just that at our place and got our garden going again. We made it a little bigger this year, so I was on my knees with the flat spade slicing off the sod. Sylvia was on worm patrol—vigilant in her self-assigned task of making sure that each worm was safely returned to the soil.

Once the sod was gone, I came through with a shovel and turned it all over, and then we both started to break apart the clods with our bare hands. Sylvia said to me, “Dad, I’m Mother Nature and you’re Father Nature, and we’re making the earth soft again.” Hearing her say that strengthened in me what I was already feeling—that simple wonderful sense of spring again.

Coming through Holy Week towards Easter this year, it’s been easy to sense resurrection in the air. New life, new growth—crocuses and daffodils exploding through the ground, buds on the raspberry bushes… and just weeks ago it all sat below a few inches of snow, locked in the frozen soil. But now here we are singing, “Jesus Christ is risen today,” and we sense it all around us.

So, friends, Happy Easter! Today we revisit the essence of our faith—a faith that is nurtured in our understanding of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For close to 2,000 years now, we’ve been attempting to respond to that story. The entire Christian movement—Catholicism, Presbyterianism, Pentecostalism… protestants, Mennonites, orthodox Christians, Charismatic Christians, Baptists, Methodists… all of it: organized religion and disorganized religion has attempted to live in response to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Bono, the lead singer of the band U2, gave an interview a few years ago. It’s fairly well-known that Bono is a person of deep Christian faith, and he was asked specifically about his relationship with “organized religion.” Bono said, “It's true. I often wonder if religion is the enemy of God.
It's almost like religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building.”

Maybe you’ve felt that before. Looking back on the resurrection scene in John’s gospel, we see an astonished woman, Mary, who meets her risen Lord. She’s terrified, shaken, amazed, confused… The sight of Jesus alive again has utterly changed her world, and we can well imagine her sprinting from the empty tomb to tell her friends what has happened—consumed with a passion to share what she has seen and heard.

But has the Spirit left the building? Have we become complacent? Comfortably disengaged from that same sense of resurrection awe and wonder? The old hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” ends with the line: “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” My soul. My life. My all. That may be true—that the reality of God’s love in Jesus Christ demands everything we’ve got—our very best. And yet I would like to share with you one of the most common and compelling religious question of our day. In essence, that question is this: “Why church?”

I’ll elaborate. Why go to church? Why do we need church? Or, to put an even finer point on it: If Romans chapter 8 is true—and nothing can separate us from the love of God¬, then why should we strive so much to stay connected? Why should anyone bother with institutionalized religion? Why does it make a difference and what are we hoping to accomplish with all this churchy-ness? Sometimes the question comes out like this: “I’m a spiritual person and I believe in God. Why do I need church on top of that?”

For years and years, organized religion has answered these questions with “So that…” You go to church so that you can be a Christian. You need church so that you can be saved. And even: You go to church so that you can experience God’s presence. That’s interesting, isn’t it? In the beginning, when Mary ran from the empty tomb to tell the others that she had seen the Lord, the “church” was a wonder-filled band of misfits who couldn’t believe their ears. But in the eyes of many today, the church has become the establishment—the be-all, end-all broker of spirituality. It’s no wonder, then, that many are questioning its relevance. It’s no wonder that more and more of those who perhaps think of themselves as “spiritually hungry but institutionally suspicious” are leaving the church in their dust—especially when the church itself can’t come up with a compelling enough reason for its own existence.

This may not seem like a terribly wise thing to do—questioning the relevance of church on Easter morning. But maybe there’s no quicker way to irrelevance than failing to do so. And so with the time that I have left this morning, I’d like to offer something of my own answer to the question, “Why church?”

For me, and for many of you who are part of this particular family of faith, my sense is that our answer to the question, “Why church?” does not begin with the words, “So that,” but “Because of.” Because of… And there’s a difference. There’s a big difference between “I go to church so that I can experience God’s presence” and “I go to church because of my experience of God’s presence.”

There’s a huge difference between “I go to church so that I can be close to God” and “I go to church because of God’s closeness.” You see, at its very core, Christianity is a because of faith, and not a so that faith. What that means is that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection articulates a truth of God’s love and not a condition.

Think about the Holy Week we’ve just been through. Unfortunately, there is a forceful and convincing “so that” explanation of the cross. And it’s this: Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for your sins—a punishment, by the way, that you deserved in the first place. This was God’s gift of grace for you. Your job now is to receive that gift so that it can be yours. So that… Lined up behind that theology are a whole bunch of other “so that’s.” Accept Jesus so that you can be saved. Pray so that God will hear you. Be faithful so that you can be acceptable to God…

But friends, I don’t believe that Christianity is a “so that faith.” Rather, it’s a “because of faith.” So let me share with you a “because of” explanation of the cross. It’s this: God loves us. God loves us so much that nothing can keep God from us. Jesus’ life is really the life of Emmanuel—God with us—God who couldn’t be kept from us.

One way to think of the cross is to think of Jesus taking blame and punishment for our sins. But another is to simply say that on the cross, God said to us, “This is how I am with you. This is how I am with you! I am with you in your pain, with you in your brokenness. Nothing can keep me from you and nothing can ever separate me from you. You can betray me like Judas and deny me like Peter, but I will still always go to the ends of the earth for you. I will still be faithful to you—even when it means giving up my life for you.”

So many have tried to reduce Christianity to a series of yes-no questions and to the grand litmus test of whether or not you’re saved. But on the cross and out of the empty tomb, Jesus Christ says to the world, “It been done. And God’s love isn’t something that you have the power to undo. You can leave it, deny it, doubt it, and refuse it, but you can’t make God’s love any less real.”

I am a part of a Christian family of faith because of that love. I worship in a church family because I want to live my life in light of that love—that all-consuming, gracious love that I have come to understand in the life of Jesus. That’s why I am a part of this church—and because I believe that the church, at its best, can be a living, intentional community of that same love.

Easter itself offers a series of questions for us, and they all use the words, “because of.” Because of God’s love expressed in the life of Jesus, how will you live? Because of Jesus’ love for not only his friends, but also his enemies, whom will you love? Because of God’s love for you, can you love yourself? Because of God’s faithfulness to you, can you be faithful? Because of God’s passion for humanity, will you reach out in acts of compassion? Because God’s love in Jesus rose from the grave, can you trust that love never dies?

The Christian faith is a “because of” faith, and because of that, it’s good to be church here with you. Happy Easter. Amen.

Holy Week Evotional - Days 5&6

2010-04-02T21:09:00.001-05:00

The sun has just about set on Good Friday, and so once again we keep vigil together. To that end, I bring you this poem, “A Naked Death” by John van de Laar.
Peace,
Ben

“A Naked Death”
by John van de Laar

Yours was a naked death, Jesus:
Not for you the fine linen of a rich bed
surrounded by wealth accumulated over a comfortable lifetime.
Not for you a well prepared service of farewell
with time for proper grieving and departures.
Not for you a carefully chosen shroud,
or a tenderly nurtured grave.
When you kept your rendezvous with death
All was stripped away except your determined love
and the life that lay dormant for a moment
waiting for the morning
When your naked glory would break free again.
Amen.

Holy Week Evotional - Day 4

2010-04-01T12:28:00.000-05:00

Today is Maundy Thursday – a day when we remember Jesus’ commandment to the disciples at that Last Supper – that they love one another just as he loved them. May this gorgeous spring day find you contemplating this gift of love. To that end, here’s a wonderful Frederick Buechner quote:

“Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ's love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one."

Holy Week Evotional - Day 3

2010-03-31T13:51:00.000-05:00

Some thoughtful Holy Week words from James Martin in his book, Becoming Who You Are

Toward the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus is clearly able to see what needs to be done. He has by this point more fully embraced his identity and his ministry. But there is one last test: his time in the Garden of Gethsemane immediately before the beginning of the Passion. Near the end of his life, he struggles with a complete embrace of his mission. "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me," he says, hoping that perhaps suffering is not what God intends.

But somehow he realizes, through prayer and reflection, that his impending suffering, whatever it would be, is what God is asking of him at this moment. He realizes that it is part of the reality of his life. And it is here, it seems to me, that in accepting the cup of suffering, Jesus fully and decisively accepts his identity. Part of his life and vocation includes suffering, as do all of our lives and vocations. Jesus is then completely free.

Holy Week Evotional - Day 2

2010-03-31T13:33:00.000-05:00

A Holy Week prayer for you today – from author and theologian Brain McLaren.

Compassionate God, as we consider the sufferings of your servant Jesus, in whose face we see your glory and love, our hearts are moved in compassion. As we weep with him for Jerusalem, for Israelis and Palestinians who are alike your beloved children, we also weep for those who suffer in our cities and towns around the world.

We pray for drug dealers and criminals for whom deadly weapons are the tools of their trade. We pray for weapons merchants and aggressive politicians who think deadly weapons can achieve peace. We pray for crooked police officers and city officials, whose corruption fuels violence. We pray for racists and hate-mongers who think their security is enhanced by reducing the security of others. We pray for people plotting terrorism, thinking that terror can cure terror. We pray for all those who live by the gun, the bomb, the knife, the threat, the insult, the epithet. Help them see that these things do not make for peace.

We pray for those facing unemployment, for the complex economic currents that we theorize about but don't fully understand. We know that violence is often a twin-brother of unemployment, and so we pray for business leaders who can seek to maximize employment for many, not only profit for a few.

Turn our cities, we pray, to your way of reconciliation, forgiveness, grace, compassion, and love. Help them see the futility of any path to peace that violates peace in its means. Help them see that there is no way to peace, but that peace itself is the way. Raise up prophets for peace - leaders in every city who pray, preach, and work for peace.

And help each of us as well, to find ways to be instruments of your peace. As participants in your mission to heal the world we pray. Amen.

Holy Week Evotional - Day 1

2010-03-29T13:52:00.002-05:00

A brief e-votional each day this Holy Week. Today, the day after Palm Sunday, it's a quote from Joan Chittister, from her book The Liturgical Year:

"Palm Sunday... reminds us that at the moment of what seems to be the height of Jesus' public acceptance also begins the process of His public betrayal, His public failure, His public abandonment. Only in the mind of God is Jesus any longer a success, it seems ... Here in the Passion narrative we trace the struggle, one scene at a time, between the Word of God and the ways of the world.”

How He Lived; How He Died

2010-03-29T10:03:00.006-05:00

Palm Sunday Sermon in 2 Parts - Sunday, March 28

As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

How He Lived…

Two of my favorite authors and thinkers in the faith are Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Together they’ve written a book called The Last Week, and it’s an exploration of this Holy Week in which we now find ourselves. One of the images they bring to light is that of Jesus, entering Jerusalem. He’s riding on a colt, but his friends are all walking. They’re wearing robes and sandals and carrying very little.

On the other side of town, Borg and Crossan suggest that another figure is entering the city—that of Pontius Pilate. Unlike Jesus, Pilate rides on a majestic warhorse. He’s accompanied by Roman soldiers carrying weapons and banners—impressive and intimidating signs of empire. Pilate, of course, is essentially an extension of the Roman Empire, sent to Jerusalem to keep an eye on things.

So there you have it. On one side of the city, a Roman bureaucrat arrives in an intimidating display of power. Surrounded by spear carriers and sword wielders, he’s here to maintain order.

On the other side of the city, a simple carpenter’s son arrives on a colt. Had it not been for the miracles and the rumors spreading ahead of him, he would have looked like just another peasant making his way into the city.

Both Pilate and Jesus come with power. Pilate has the power to make right with might, to represent the authority of a great earthly kingdom. Jesus has a different power—power to love and to serve and sacrifice—and he brings the authority of a heavenly kingdom.

Both Pilate and Jesus come in peace. Pilate is here to keep peace—to make sure no one gets out of line, to keep an eye on the activists, to prosecute those who could present a threat to Rome. Jesus is here to announce peace, but this is not the same kind of status quo peace based on the political convenience of some far-distant power. Jesus’ peace is a peace that can be given freely but not legislated—shared but not enforced.

This was how Jesus lived. Jesus was the living alternative to a business-as-usual, might-makes-right way of life. At every turn, Jesus flipped institutionalized religion upside down. He misquoted scripture, healed on the Sabbath, touched people with leprosy, met with outcasts, talked with a Samaritan woman, forgave sins… Jesus was an inconvenient presence in his time and in his faith. And now here he is, riding into Jerusalem—into the regional lions’ den of earthly power and authority.

A question to consider: What was Jesus doing in Jerusalem? Really—what was he doing there? After all, Jerusalem was a hotbed of religious thinking and politics—a dangerous place for a man like Jesus, whose reputation for confronting and disrupting religious and political powers was sure to get him in trouble. So what was Jesus doing there? Well, thanks to hindsight and close to 2,000 years of Christian tradition, we could say that he was there to die—that Jesus was there in Jerusalem to be crucified. But I wonder if this is at least a slight oversimplification.

Ask yourself: What might Jesus have been thinking about that day? As he rode into town on that young colt, and as he watched the people waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna,” was Jesus thinking to himself, “Well, it’s been a nice run. These three years have sure gone fast. Too bad it all has to end this week…” Is that what Jesus was thinking? After all, Jesus surely must have known that death was a possibility here—that he was putting himself in harm’s way. So what was he thinking? Was he saying to himself, “I know what I’m here for—I’m here to get myself killed, so let’s get this over with.”

Or is it possible that Jesus was thinking something much different—that in fact Jesus was thinking, “I have to keep trying. I have to keep loving. Keep healing, keep reaching out, keep telling the truth, keep announcing peace…” Is it possible that Jesus came to Jerusalem to do what he’d been doing all along—to offer a compassionate, inclusive vision of God’s love for God’s people? To present a hopeful sense of purpose in this world?

Maybe Jesus didn’t come to Jerusalem to die. Maybe—just maybe—he came to be fully alive and to teach others what it could mean to live that way. And maybe this was the problem, because throughout history humanity has had a way of violently rejecting those who could do such a thing. And of course, Jesus did die in Jerusalem—he was killed there. But there is a huge difference between saying “Jesus came to be killed so that we could know love” and “Jesus came to love and so we killed him.”

If we say that Jesus came to Jerusalem to be killed so that we could know love, on some level we imply that his presence there was part of some cosmic script over which he had no control. But if we say that Jesus came to love and then was killed, we embrace this Holy Week as a remembrance of the way Jesus lived.

Jerusalem was a death trap for Jesus, but that’s where he went. And in doing so, Jesus said something about the nature of God—namely, that God is in the constant business of entering and confronting the broken places in our world. God will not be kept from showing up where love and truth are most consistently rejected. Jerusalem, Racine, your family, your thoughts, your marriage, your fears and worries, your pain… To the very end, without counting the cost, that’s where Jesus will go, because that’s how he lived.

How He Died…

Jesus died asking the question, “Why?” In Mark’s gospel, we read something of Jesus’ last moments before death…

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:33-34)

I don’t know about you, but I usually like to think of Jesus as having things under control. Calm. Cool. Collected. When storms rage on the sea, he quiets them. When the religious leaders try to trap him, he slips away. When the disciples argue amongst themselves, he sets them straight. Over and over again, Jesus is the one keeping it all together. With grace, he moves through towns and cities and countrysides, healing the sick, forgiving sins. Around practically every gospel corner, we see Jesus speaking and moving with graceful purpose,
handling the world’s problems with apparent ease…

But now this. “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

And so Jesus joins the entire human race in asking the question: Why? Why, God, why? Jesus, in that moment of blinding pain and anguish, having watched his friends filter away, and now hanging from the cross, asks that question that is so central to the human experience—especially the human experience of suffering: WHY?

It’s not a always a rational question, but it’s a human question: Why? Why, God?
Why is it, if you’re so powerful and good, that evil exists in this world?
Why, God? If you can do anything, why was my child born with a mental handicap?
Why did my father have to die so soon?
Why did the tornado hit my house?
Why can’t I get through one day without feeling lousy?
Why cancer, God?
Why earthquakes, God?
Why the holocaust, God?
Why can’t I have a normal life, my God?
My God, why have you forsaken me, God?
Jesus’ “WHY” wasn’t the first human “WHY” and it certainly wasn’t the last. But it was definitely was a human why. Which brings us to the heart of it all—that Jesus was human. Really human. God with us. God, yes—but one of us. A walking, talking, eating, sleeping, laughing, crying, feeling joy, feeling pain human being. Prone to sadness and misery, prone to defeat and heartache—human.

Jesus was NOT God in a human costume, parading around for roughly three decades, pretending to know what it’s like, pretending to struggle with the confines of an earthly body, thinking all the while, “Gosh, it’ll sure be great to get back up to Heaven with Dad so I can lose this goofy human body.”

The story of Jesus isn’t a story of God masquerading as a human being—pretending to feel pain, pretending to catch a cold, pretending to grieve when John the Baptist died, pretending to know what it’s like to feel so undeniably human all the time. The story of Jesus is the story of Emmanuel—God with us, truly with us, one of us, one with us. Living with us and, in the end, dying as one of us.

And when Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it’s not a show. It’s not a desperate plea for posterity’s sake. It simply is what it is. A real man, hanging on a cross, wondering just where in God’s name God is. Feeling alone, abandoned, forsaken. And, when you think about it, what else is there to say? Love. Pure, unadulterated love, is being betrayed, denied, and murdered here. Flushed down the toilet of humanity’s wasteful greed and ignorance.

And thus the cross comes into focus and we see more of what’s going on. God is with us. With us in our living, and with us in our dying. With us in our suffering. With us in our abandonment.

God with us in that feeling we get that God is nowhere to be found. That is how Jesus died.

Evotional - Oscar Romero

2010-03-24T10:37:00.003-05:00

Today is the thirty year anniversary of the death of Oscar Romero, once the Archbishop of El Salvador who, inspired by his faith, confronted that country’s oppressive and often violent government through nonviolence. Romero worked diligently to promote peace and justice among the people of El Salvador, but he was assassinated by the military.

A few Oscar Romero quotes, then...

“If we are worth anything, it is not because we have more money or more talent, or more human qualities. Insofar as we are worth anything, it is because we are grafted on to Christ's life, his cross and resurrection.
That is a person's measure.”

"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."

And then, shortly before his assassination, Romero wrote these words:

“It helps now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capability.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.”

As we move through Holy Week and towards the cross, may we be mindful that our lives are grated onto Christ’s own. And may we take “the long view” as we let God’s kingdom find its way into our lives and our world.

Peace,
Ben

Abundant Living - John 12:1-8

2010-03-22T10:38:00.011-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, March 21

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.

Today is the fifth Sunday in Lent and that means a few things. It means that next week is Palm Sunday and the following week Easter. Our Lenten vigil is drawing to a close, making way for shouts of “Hosanna,” Holy Week, the empty tomb, and an Easter egg hunt. For the past five weeks, we’ve been leaning toward the cross—toward those moments when Jesus is betrayed, arrested, denied, and crucified.

But first Jesus pays a visit to a family—sisters Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus. At first, one might think of this simply as a follow-up visit. Just days earlier, Jesus had performed a miracle at their home. Lazarus was dead, you’ll recall—dead for four long and lonely days—dead and gone long enough for all hope to be lost. By the time Jesus had arrived at their house, Martha had said as much: “Don’t roll away the stone, Jesus—there’s a stench.” But the stone was taken away from the tomb, and Jesus cried out, “Lazarus, come out!” And out walked this man, their brother Lazarus, still bound in bands of burial cloth, undoubtedly a bit dazed, wondering what had just happened to him.

Jesus doesn’t schedule too many follow-up appointments in the gospels, but you could argue that this was a special case. Maybe that’s what Martha and Lazarus were expecting. Maybe they thought Jesus would ask a few questions, run a few tests, and maybe prescribe some physical therapy. Being dead for four days, after all, must have some serious side effects. But not much is said about Lazarus in this story—he’s just sitting there, ready to eat with his sisters and with Jesus. We can well imagine that the world is a pretty fantastic place for Lazarus at this point. Dead for four days and now alive! Air, food, water, conversation—it all tastes like new life to him—like a second life he didn’t know he had coming.

Martha, meanwhile, gets busy preparing a meal. After all, how do you thank a man who raised your brother from the dead? You can’t respond in kind. You can’t return the favor. If you offered money you would only cheapen the gift of that miracle. And so Martha does what a lot of people do when they don’t know what to say or how to say it: she cooks. I imagine her cooking up a storm, having lovingly planned a meal for this man who brought her brother back to her from death. She’s back in the kitchen, pulling out all the stops, making everything just so, getting ready to communicate her loving thanks through food. Martha would have made a good Presbyterian.

And then there’s Mary. When Jesus had seen her weeping at Lazarus’ tomb, it moved him and he wept too. And now here they are again. And unlike Martha and Lazarus, and unlike the disciples, Mary seems to have a sixth sense about what’s going on. Jesus isn’t going to make it. She knows it. She saw what happened after he raised Lazarus from the dead. She knows what a threat Jesus has become to the religious establishment. And she’s heard the word going around: that anyone who knew where Jesus was should report it to the chief priests and Pharisees so that he might be arrested. In Mary’s mind, the clock is ticking. She doesn’t have much time because, in fact, Jesus himself doesn’t have much time.

And so Mary does the only thing that makes sense in her mind. She brings a container of costly perfume into the room. It’s made from nard, a precious ointment imported from the East. And she anoints Jesus’ feet with it. I wonder if at first Martha and Lazarus thought this to be a bizarre gesture—nice, maybe, but a little strange. But then Mary keeps going, she keeps anointing and keeps anointing. Finally she pours more and more than enough—too much, really—on Jesus feet. The aroma must have been suffocating. “Mary, dear, you’re using way too much.” But she won’t be stopped. She tips the jar over entirely, every last drop spilling out onto Jesus’ feet. And still somehow it’s not enough. And so she begins to wipe them with her hair. Weeping, cleaning, anointing. Dumping it all out—every last drop.

At last she finishes cleaning Jesus’ feet with her hair. And I imagine there followed then an awkward silence in the room. How does one break the ice after a woman intentionally tips a year’s salary’s worth of perfume onto Jesus’ feet and onto the floor? What do you say after such an embarrassingly intimate and public display of love and waste? What do you say to Mary, whose hair is now drenched with perfume and covered with dust? Lazarus might have said, “Well, ok! Now who’s hungry?” Martha might have said, “Let’s open some windows and air this place out.” Instead it was Judas who spoke, and he probably said what everyone was really thinking: “What a colossal waste! Why wasn’t this perfume sold?” In other words: “We’re all dirt poor, traveling around the country on a shoestring with resources few and far between. What in God’s name could have possibly gotten into you, Mary?”

But Mary knows. And Jesus knows. “Leave her alone,” he says. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.” Mary’s act was not an act of thanksgiving or even cleansing. She was doing what many of us do for our loved ones when they die—she was treating his body with care and respect and devotion—preparing it for burial.

Mary’s gift is a gift of extreme extravagance. It goes overboard—too far, in fact. Now there are a couple ways to look at that jar of perfume—the one that Mary dumped out at Jesus’ feet. One would be to say that it represents a nest egg—a foundation of wealth to be saved—a precious resource to hang onto, to use, maybe, gradually over the course of a lifetime—to sell in small volume, perhaps, during a rough year.

But Mary looks at that jar and says, “What else am I waiting for?” She may have thought to herself, “How many times in my life will I have a chance to be this crazy? Maybe never again.” I wonder if she said to herself, “If I can’t be generous and extravagant right now, it’s probably true that I’ll never really be generous or extravagant.” And so Mary treats that jar of perfume like she’s got a hundred others sitting in the back closet collecting dust.

Some people have the gift of being able to look at the world that way. Some people are simply blessed with the sense that nothing in this world is truly valuable if you can’t somehow turn it into a gift.

Not long before he raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus said, “I have come that all may have life, and have it abundantly.” There’s an invitation there for us to wonder more about what it means to live abundantly—to adopt a world view that flourishes with an abiding sense of abundance.

Have you ever noticed that if you believe and behave like you don’t have enough time, then in reality, you don’t? And have you ever noticed that if you believe that you have plenty of time and behave like you have plenty of time, then most of the time you do?

Some people in this world operate out of a sense of scarcity and some out of a sense of abundance. Some people—some of us—move through this world like there’s never a minute to spare. There’s always “the next thing”—the next phone ringing, the next text message, the next event to plan, the next meal to prepare, the next day to worry about. And so we miss moment after moment after moment because time is a scarce resource.

But there are some people—some of you—who seem gifted with the ability to move through this world with plenty of time. Plenty of time to turn off the phone, to chat, to stop by with a casserole, to plant seeds, to look at the clouds moving in… plenty of time because time is an abundant resource.

Have you ever noticed that if a person believes that love in this world is scarce, then it is? And have you ever noticed that if you believe that love in this world is abundant, then it is?

Some people operate out of a sense of scarcity when it comes to love. And it’s hard for them to trust love because there isn’t enough of it. And so love itself is measured and conserved—received, perhaps, with suspicion and shared tentatively.

But there are some in this world who operate out of a sense of true abundance when it comes to love. They know that love is a renewable resource—strengthened when it is given and received. They never worry about running out of love simply because they never have. They know that there’s no such thing as loving too many people because love itself isn’t something you have to ration. It’s abundant.

We could say this about lots of things. If you believe goodness in this world is scarce, then it is; but if you believe that goodness is everywhere, you’re sure to find it in abundance. If you believe that true friendship is rare, then it can be scarce. But if you believe you’re friends are everywhere, then they often are!

How much of our perspective in this world is shaped either by our sense of scarcity or by our sense of abundance? Another exciting question for us to ask ourselves as a church is this: what does a sense of abundance do in terms of our mission and outreach in this world? What could a family of faith like this one do with an endlessly abundant sense of its resources—its time, its talent, its potential. The possibilities are endless if you think about them abundantly.

In many ways, this reflects a conversation that the leadership of this congregation has been having lately. We’ve been asking ourselves the question, “How are we uniquely gifted by God to serve this church at this time?” Sometimes this is a hard question to answer. Church life is full of to-do lists. We’ve got lots of things to do around here. People to reach out to, light bulbs to change, classes to teach, ministries to keep going… there’s always a lot to do. But the truth is this: we don’t want you here so that we can give you something to do. We want you here because we believe that each person who comes into this place is uniquely gifted by God to be a part of this family of faith.

A quote that I love comes from Howard Thurman, who wrote, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

This week, I would invite you ask yourself: What makes me come alive? And how has God gifted me to be a part of the world? And may your response to those questions foster in you a true sense of abundance—that your life might spill over with extravagant love and grace. Amen.

E-votional - Steadfast

2010-03-17T09:09:00.005-05:00

This past Sunday we sang, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, oh Lord; great is your faithfulness.

Steadfast... This past week, the crocuses behind the house came up, pushing their way through the lingering snow. Part of the joy of planting bulbs is that by the time they come up, I've usually forgotten where I planted them, or that I even planted them at all. Crocuses are the first to arrive, defying winter's lingering grip and willing spring into existence. Poking through the snow, they seem to say, "We will not be denied!" And so it begins again: melting, thawing, growing, gardening, picnicing, playing...

Steadfast... Through Lent, we recall God's unwavering faithfulness. We remember that even as this season carries us relentlessly towards the cross, our faith blossoms from the mystery of resurrection - that sense that death never has the last word and that new life simply will not be denied. Thanks be to God for this enduring faithfulness, and for endless possibilities of new life!

Lost and Found - Luke 15:1-7

2010-03-15T16:29:00.001-05:00

Sermon on Sunday, March 14

Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

Everywhere you go, there’s a ‘lost and found.’ Schools, stores, churches… they all have a ‘lost and found.’ Maybe it’s a closet or a cardboard box in somebody’s office. It doesn’t have to be fancy—just something to hold wayward mittens, stray umbrellas, misplaced reading glasses…

Reading through the gospels, it’s hard to miss a ‘lost and found’ theme. When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he often uses losing and finding images. He tells the story of a woman who loses a coin and sweeps her entire house until she finds it. Jesus refers to the kingdom of heaven as a treasure that a man found in a field, and as a fine pearl found by a merchant. I suppose there’s just something about being lost and being found that resonates with us as human beings.
In our story today from Luke’s gospel, Jesus is eating with tax-collectors and sinners. And this frustrates the Pharisees and scribes. Maybe they’re jealous. Maybe they wish Jesus would beg for an invitation to eat with them. Or maybe Jesus’ willingness to eat with outcasts has simply made them embarrassed and uncomfortable, because they know deep down inside that if they took their faith seriously, they’d be doing the same. In any case, the religious leaders, the faithful Pharisees and scribes, are grumbling about Jesus. And so Jesus asks them an intriguing question:

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”

It’s easy, I suppose, to read this and think, “Yes, this is what a good shepherd does. A sheep gets lost and so he leaves his flock and goes after it. That’s the ‘good shepherd’ way.” Upon further reflection, however, we might question the wisdom of this particular shepherding strategy. Say you’re a shepherd and you’ve got 100 sheep. You’re in the wilderness—a place where a mountain lion could easily pick off one of your sheep if you’re not paying attention. So every couple of hours, you make a habit of counting your sheep, just to make sure they’re all there. One afternoon you’re doing the count, “96, 97, 98, 99…” and you realize that one’s gone missing.

What do you do now? Do you stay with your flock of 99? Or do you leave them alone while you search for the one? What makes good shepherding sense? Well, according to Jesus, the good shepherd leaves his 99 sheep alone in the wilderness to go and look for one that’s probably already made a nice meal for a lion or some other creature. What kind of shepherd does that?

In Jesus’ story, though, the shepherd gets lucky. He finds the lost sheep and says to his friends and neighbors, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” And we can well imagine his friends and neighbors saying, “Gee, that’s great. Remind me not to send you into the wilderness with my sheep, because as shepherds go, you stink!”

I imagine that might be what the Scribes and Pharisees are thinking in Jesus’ presence. But of course, this is not a seminar at the annual Judean shepherding convention. This is Jesus, eating with the tax collectors and sinners, and the Scribes and Pharisees are there too, grumbling about the whole thing. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them!”

Jesus’ teaching is not counsel on the finer points of shepherding; rather, it is a direct challenge to anybody who would attempt to pass judgment on who is “in” and who is “out.” Had Jesus not communicated in parable language here, his words to the Pharisees and scribes may well have been, “What makes you think you’re so good? What makes you think you’re the only ones God cares about? In fact, I’ll tell you what, God rejoices when these tax collectors and sinners come to me and listen! God rejoices when they show a fraction of the faith you practice…” Jesus might have said to the Pharisees and scribes, “You know, God may not be a practical thinker like you. God might be more like an impractical shepherd who’s so upset about a lost sheep that nothing can keep God from it—nothing!”

We always think of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd,” which is strange, because he’s the shepherd who will always throw conventional shepherding wisdom out the window when one of his sheep gets lost. Jesus is more like the “Crazy, Unpredictable Shepherd,” which would be a wonderful name for a church, wouldn’t it? Every town’s got a “Church of the Good Shepherd,” but wouldn’t it be fun to worship at the “Church of the Crazy, Unpredictable Shepherd”? “Where do you go to church?” “Oh, my family and I worship at the ‘Church of the Wild, Crazy, Impractical Shepherd.’” That’s the shepherding Jesus describes here—the kind of shepherding that leaves the whole flock for the sake of just one who gets lost.

Maybe here’s where we come in. Have you ever been lost? Have you ever felt lost? When’s the last time you got lost? I’d like to take a moment to invite you to think of a time in your life when you were lost…

As a child, separated from family…
Maybe you got lost once when you got your heart broken…
You realized that you friends weren’t who you thought they were…
You got some news over the phone that scared the life out of you...
You came to realize that you weren’t really sure who you were...
Lost in a sea of unfriendly faces…
Lost in a sea of confusing medical reports…
Lost without a job, without purpose, without someone or something to turn to...

It’s easy to get lost. It’s easy to wander away and find ourselves lost. Lost in the wilderness of isolation, of individualism, of consumerism, materialism, perfectionism, busy-ism… It’s easy to get lost in the wilderness of I-don’t-need-anybody and it’s equally easy to get lost in the wilderness of nobody-needs-me. We know what it means to be lost. Sometimes the whole trick in life is getting found.

Of course, we usually like to be in charge of our getting found. Especially when it comes to faith, we like to be in charge. That’s why we use this language of “finding God.” You’ve heard it before: “I found God.” “I was lost in my life, but then after searching for a while, I finally found God.” “I found God when…(I went to church, I joined a Bible study, I saw a beautiful sunset, I heard a really good sermon, I met a wonderful person…) I - I - I - I found God!”

Did you ever hear that? Did you ever say it? I know I have. It’s like we’re rewriting the parable of the lost sheep and we’re the sheep who gets lost. It goes something like this...

“The Kingdom of God is like a sheep who wanders away from the flock. He wanders and wanders until he can no longer hear his 99 sisters and brothers. After awhile, he gets really, really hungry and, to his astonishment, remembers that there may be predators lurking around nearby. ‘Wow!’ he says, ‘I need to get home!’ Relying on his innate sense of direction, the sheep aligns the stars and plots an effective course from his current position back to the flock. When he arrives, he exclaims, “I was lost, but now I have found my shepherd!”

This is the Christianity around us, friends—a faith that relies on the individual to get found—a faith that makes you the active agent of your salvation. And it makes sense. We live in a culture that encourages and rewards our resourcefulness as individuals. But here’s the gospel: you are a child of God not because you found God, but because God has found you. God is the one seeking you. God is like a crazy shepherd for you and it doesn’t matter how lost you become! God is like a wild shepherd who didn’t pay attention in shepherding school because God would sacrifice everything just for you! And there is no place in the whole wide world or in the deep depth of your soul that God won’t come looking for you.

We’ve got just a few weeks left in Lent. And I would like to offer this invitation. Instead of seeking God during that time, maybe try remembering that God is seeking you. God is looking after you, searching for you in all the lost places you find yourself. God is in the constant business of looking for you, and then finding you, and then welcoming you home. That’s who God is—the Wild, Impractical Shepherd. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Stand Up - John 5:1-18

2010-02-28T13:04:00.001-06:00

Sermon on Sunday, February 28

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

The Oscars are coming up next Sunday night. I’ve always enjoyed the Oscars, except there are years when I realize I haven’t had time to see any of the movies. This is one of those years—I’ve seen just two of the films receiving any nominations and so watching the Oscars is only sure to confirm that yes, I am currently out of touch with popular culture.

I was an extra in a movie once—nothing to write home about. It was a small, independent film, shot in the house next door to ours when we were living in Austin, Texas. That’s how I got the role, really. They needed people for a scene and so they started asking neighbors. In my six seconds of fame, I’m standing in my neighbor’s backyard, wearing a suit and pretending to laugh at a joke. No Oscar nominations for me that year, I’m sorry to say.

Sometimes I wonder about the “supporting cast” of Scripture. A large group of people, some with speaking parts, who drift in and out of these Bible stories. In most cases, we’re not told what their names are. If the Bible were a movie, the closing credits would include a long list of characters known simply as, “rich young man,” “woman with a withered hand,” “boy with five loaves and two fish.”

There are dozens of them in the gospels alone—these characters who help us understand the message and who, at times, can seem a bit one-dimensional. “The leper,” “the man with dropsy,” “the woman at the well”—they show up in the story, do their job, and go home. It’s left to us to wonder, “Who is this person, really? What is he like? Does she have a family? Dreams? Aspirations?”

The man in our story from John’s gospel this morning is “the invalid by the pool,” and he’s a little more than an “extra.” He’s got a few lines to say, and in terms of his particular condition, he might stand out a bit. Still, it’s easy for him to blend in with that large, unnamed cast of biblical characters, so I wonder if it won’t pay to wonder about him for just a little while.

Jesus goes to Jerusalem and heads over to Bethesda—to this pool which at the time was surrounded by people who were suffering from various sorts of illnesses and disabilities.
Now you need to know that this was no ordinary pool. Legend had it that from time to time, the waters were magically stirred, and when they were, at that moment an angel would appear and heal the first person who got into the water.

Jesus comes to this pool and sees among those waiting by its side, a man who’s been ill for thirty-eight years. He sees him lying there and says, “Do you want to be made well?” The man replies, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

Jesus commands him, “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.” And at once he is made well. He stands up, takes up his mat, and begins to walk, leaving us to wonder, perhaps, “Who was that guy? Who was he really? What was true about him?”

Once, when Sylvia was just three, we were driving in the car, and she piped up from the back seat, “Dad, I’m going to tell you something, and it’s not true, but it’s very true.” I was instantly curious, of course, ready to hear something profound coming from my daughter. She cleared her throat importantly and said, “Tweety Bird has wings and arms because she can fly and carry things.” Not true, but very true. How true.

I wonder what’s very true about our man lying beside the pool at Bethesda…

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. Bethesda was a depressing place. The architect who designed it had in mind a bright, cheerful spot where families could gather, where children could bathe, where afternoons could be spent with friends lost in conversation sitting by these beautiful pools. But the truth: Bethesda was a depressing place.

Sometimes children—on their way to or home from school—intentionally walked by the pool so they could stare at the people with strange diseases and crippled bodies. And often times adults—going about their business during the day—intentionally avoided Bethesda so they didn’t have to look at the people with strange diseases and crippled bodies.

Bethesda was a dump—literally, a dump. When a person became horribly crippled, or when a baby was born without sight, or when a family member became incurably sick, friends and family tried their hardest to support them. They really, really tried. But, you know, after a while, it got hard. And there were other mouths to feed, and the doctors couldn’t do anything, they said, and taking care of someone who required round-the-clock care became an all-consuming occupation that gradually defeated the caregiver. So people got dumped at Bethesda. Bethesda was a dump—literally, a dump.

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. Of course, he hadn’t been at Bethesda that whole time. No, in fact, in the beginning, there was great hope for him—that he would get well. He was faithful to his doctor and he did everything that he was told to do. He was the “perfect patient”!

After a couple of years, though, it kind of became clear that he might not get better. So family and friends rallied around him. “God must have a different plan for you,” some said. Others tried to cheer him up with, “You must have gotten sick for a reason. God’s ways are mysterious, you know.” Still others said, “Maybe you did something wrong, and that’s why this happened to you.” One time somebody said (and this hurt the man a lot) “Pray hard about it, and if you have faith, God will heal you.”

“If I have faith?” he thought. “If I have faith?” What kind of crazy talk is that? All I’ve got these days is faith! My body is wearing away before my eyes and you dare to tell me “if I pray hard enough?” What do you think I’ve been doing for the past two years? “If I have faith…”

He continued to try to be the perfect patient. But gradually the man became “difficult.” It happened slowly, some said. At first, the question “How you doing?” was met with a “getting by!” But after awhile the response became, “How do you think I’m doing?” and eventually, “Oh, I’m great! Just perfect! You know, my body’s falling apart and it looks like I’m going to spend the next twenty years of my life slowly dying from this painful, torturous disease God has ‘blessed’ me with, but other than that, I’m splendid! How are you?”

People stopped asking, “How you doing?”

His family tried to keep him at home. They really did. But in the end, they couldn’t. Caring for him, dressing his bedsores, helping him go to the bathroom, trying to figure out what he could eat and keep down, cleaning up when he couldn’t keep it down… it all added up and it all took its toll. They weren’t bad people, you see. It’s just that after 16 years of it all, well, they were burnt out—more than discouraged—hopeless…

And by the time they looked for another place for him to live, their closer friends had had enough, too. For awhile they paid someone to take care of him in her home, but the money ran out, and the work was really too much for her, anyway.

They’d heard about the pool, Bethesda. At first, it sounded like a bad joke. “An angel comes and stirs the waters and then the first person to jump in gets healed? Don’t be ridiculous!” But then, as any hope for his health slipped away, it didn’t sound so bad. Finally his brother said, “Lord knows we’ve tried everything else!” The family brought him to Jerusalem. When they first saw the pool, the man exclaimed, “It must be true! Look at all the invalids here! Blind, lame, and paralyzed! They wouldn’t all be here if it weren’t true!”

His family was excited too. “Yes!” they thought, “This could work!” And with renewed vigor, they sat with him by the pool—patiently—waiting for the waters to move. The first time the waters were stirred, they hadn’t really noticed it. It was late in the day and they had been nodding off, so by the time they could stand up and look, thirty or maybe forty people had already jumped into the water to get healed. They weren’t sure that anybody was made well that time, actually. A rumor went around that a man’s arm was strengthened, but nobody was verifying it.

So they waited. And waited. And waited. And they watched that water so closely. Any movement, any ripple, any wave—the angel could come at any time! So they watched and waited. For about a year, the family waited with him. Not all of them, of course. There was still work to be done, mouths to feed. But they took turns, waiting with him by the pool.

They didn’t give up all at once. At first someone came by once a day to check on him, make sure he didn’t need anything. Then it went to a couple times a week—once a week—once or twice a month—once every once in a while… and every once in a while turned into once in a great while. Finally, they stopped coming. And then finally, after a painfully long time, he even stopped expecting them to come. So it was just him with the other invalids. He remembered one day when he was thinking about that word, “invalid.” “I know what that word means,” he thought to himself. “Invalid – in-valid – not valid.”

He smelled. He was hungry. When he wasn’t watching the pool, he was begging for food to eat. And if he wasn’t begging for food, he was begging for someone to wait with him to carry him into the water. He wouldn’t have told you this, probably, but what he really wanted was someone to wait with him. In his mind, maybe, he knew the water wasn’t going to heal him. Perhaps he knew that this whole angel-stirring-the-water-story was a pile of garbage—a hopeful pile of garbage, maybe, but nonetheless, a pile of garbage. What he really wanted was someone to wait with him—to sit with him—to talk with him—to be human with him…

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me… Will you wait with me? Will you sit with me? Will you talk with me? Will you listen to me?!”

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” But a story came first. A sometimes hopeful, often tragic story came first.

I may have gotten this guy’s story wrong—I know that. It might not have all happened this way. But you know what, there’s no such thing as a one-dimensional man who’s been sick for thirty-eight years and has found himself hoping in a hopeless pool of healing. There’s more to it than that. There’s always more to it.

Jesus says, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Can you imagine what people were thinking when they heard that? This is a pool where the hopeless live! This isn’t a place for real healing! “Stand up? What, are you out of your mind?”

When Jesus tells him to stand up, he does more than heal him—he does more than make him well. He cuts through thirty-eight years of pitiful, self-loathing, downward-spiraling, debilitating sickness. Christ reaches through layers of broken relationships, defeated hopes, and broken promises, and says, “My friend, this is over! Get up!”

This is the gospel, my friends. The gospel is infinitely more than something we believe in. It is hope that the worst parts of our world—the Bethesda pools, even—can be redeemed. We—our lives—we can be redeemed, but also—our world! Our world can be redeemed.

Can’t you feel it? Sometimes it’s like our world is just sitting there by this Bethesda pool. Our whole world—given to war after war after war—unable to stop fighting. Our world—having enough food to feed everybody but somehow not doing it—having the resources to get drinking water to people who need it, but failing…

And what are we waiting for? Some miracle? Some kind of angel coming down to stir the waters and make all the bad stuff go away? Is that what we’re waiting for?

Christ comes. Christ says to us, “Stand up!” Christ says to us, “Pick up your mat!” And Christ says to us, “Walk!”

And that’s what it means to say “Yes” to God! That we stand up and say to ourselves, to God, and to our world, my life will not be defined by this hopelessness! And furthermore, I will not sit idly by while others’ lives are defined by this hopelessness! And so we are people of faith who engage in mission, where we say to others in our world—people who are hurting, people who are without homes, people who are hungry, people who have lost hope…

I will sit with you.
I will stand with you.
I will help you take up your mat.
I will walk with you.

Amen.

Led to Trust - Luke 4:1-13

2010-02-24T15:43:00.003-06:00

Sermon on Sunday, February 21

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

Today is our first Sunday in this season of Lent. So welcome to that—welcome into the midst of another season of reflection and listening and learning to trust. Lent always has a way of slowing us down, encouraging us all to reflect a little more, to engage life more prayerfully. Lent also runs alongside winter turning into spring. Just as we look forward to the melting of snow and the revealing of tender shoots and bulbs, Lent calls our attention forward to a celebration of resurrection.

During World War II, some European cities were bombed so heavily, there wasn’t much left of some buildings that was recognizable. Homes, shops, and cathedrals that had been standing for decades fell, leaving communities with enormous piles of rubble. But something amazing happened in the midst of that destruction. In some places where a wall might have fallen over, or where a foundation might have been blown apart, seeds had been lying in the soil, dormant for ages. And so after the war, people began to find various plants growing through the cracks in the destruction. And here’s the interesting part: some of them they’d never seen before—beautiful flowers and heirloom varieties of vegetables and herbs. (1)

I love that image of unknown seeds patiently waiting under layers of human construction. Just waiting for the right time and the right conditions—some warmth, a little rain, a crack in the rock above. It makes me wonder what seeds might be lying dormant in my own life—seeds of possibility that are just waiting for my own life to present them with a chance to grow. That’s part of life’s fun and mystery, I think. All of you—all of us—no matter how old we are and no matter how predictable we may think we’ve become, contain within us seeds of potential and promise that no one has yet considered. And when the conditions are right, they’ll grow in us and grace our lives with something new.

I say all this because it’s something of what I see happening with Jesus in our story from Luke’s gospel. At the very beginning of his ministry, life makes some demands of Jesus—perhaps some demands that he wasn’t expecting at the time.

I know that we don’t say this outright, but I think we often picture Jesus as somebody who’s always got things under control, always got his act together, and always knows what to do and what to say in any given situation. That’s pretty much how we tend to picture Jesus, isn’t it? Cool, calm, collected. We forget sometimes that Jesus was human—that Jesus really, really was human. We forget from time to time that Jesus was a real guy—that he got tired, that he might have gotten crabby, that he found some things annoying… We forget that Jesus cried—wept, even—and we forget that Jesus felt pain, feared pain.

Our story in Luke begins, “was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” The language here is worth paying attention to. Some translations say that Jesus was “led by the Spirit.” Others suggest that he was “driven by the Spirit.” Calvin wrote that Jesus was “carried away by the Spirit.” The point is this: Jesus didn’t wake up one day and say to himself, “You know what? I think I’m going to go camping for a few weeks.” He didn’t pack, he didn’t prepare. He was led, driven, carried away. Jesus begins his public ministry as one who is not in charge, but rather as one who’s been dramatically moved by the Spirit against his will—into the wilderness. And we have to keep in mind here that “the wilderness” wasn’t a state park. “Wilderness” was a place beyond the city’s safety where one was subject to the elements and to robbers and thieves. No water, no food, no safe haven—this is where Jesus was taken.

Writer Barbara Brown Taylor’s got a great description of what “the wilderness” might look like in our own lives. “Maybe it just looked like a hospital waiting room to you,” she writes, “or the sheets on a cheap motel bed after you got kicked out of your house, or maybe it looked like the parking lot where you couldn't find your car on the day you lost your job. It may even have been a kind of desert in the middle of your own chest, where you begged for a word from God and heard nothing but the wheezing bellows of your own breath.”

Have you been to the wilderness? The wilderness of the moments after she stopped breathing. The wilderness of too much debt. The wilderness of believing—really believing—that others judge you just as harshly as you judge yourself… Have you been to the blinding wilderness of anger? And if you’ve been to the wilderness, or if you are in the wilderness, a question to consider is this: What tempts you there? How are you tempted in the wilderness of your own life?

The gospel writers understood the devil as the source of temptation. You may or may not think of the devil as literally as they did, and that’s fine. Our problem usually isn’t that we don’t know what to believe about the devil. Our problem is that regardless of our theology, we often fail to take temptation seriously. We often fail to acknowledge and grapple with the powerful, seductive forces of temptation in our lives. So I’ll ask it again: What tempts you in the wilderness?

Are you tempted to believe you can do it all alone? Are you tempted to think you’ve got all the answers? Or are you tempted to believe that life will never be as good as it once was?

See, understanding temptation isn’t always easy. Maybe if the devil himself were the one doing the tempting, we might stand a chance, but so often we’re the ones creating those subtle undercurrents of temptation in our own lives.

Are you tempted to say nothing—because if they knew you, they wouldn’t love you? Are you tempted not to try, because somewhere along the line, a fear of failure took a hold of your life? Are you tempted to expect less of yourself, because it’s easier that way? Are you tempted to trust less, because that way you won’t be disappointed? Are you tempted to never cry again, to never let your guard down?

Temptation isn’t always obvious. But sometimes it is. Are you tempted to keep drinking? Are you tempted to cheat? Are you tempted to lie or steal? Are you tempted to finally blow up? Are you tempted to think too much of yourself? Or are you tempted to doubt yourself? Are you tempted to believe that your worth can be measured by the things you’ve done right? Are you tempted to believe that your lack of worth can be measured by the things you’ve done wrong?

Writer and humorist Sam Levenson once said, “Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.” That’s true, I think. We have a way of finding temptations in our lives—temptations to exaggerate our worst fears and to give credence to our baser instincts.

Here’s the good news. And it’s strange news, too, but it’s good news. Jesus was tempted. And maybe that’s hard for us to believe. Maybe we want to think that somehow Jesus couldn’t have known what it’s really like to lose hope, to fear, to be tempted to give up. But Jesus was tempted. If Jesus wasn’t tempted, then what are we to say? That Jesus looked human, but really it was all a façade? That in reality, Jesus was just God parading around the countryside pretending to feel pain, pretending to struggle with life, pretending to fear?

The Lenten season draws us more deeply into an understanding of incarnation—that in Jesus Christ, God was really human, and that it wasn’t an act. Jesus’ temptation was real temptation. Jesus’ tears were real tears. Jesus’ “if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” was real fear of death by crucifixion. This is good news because it reminds us that in Jesus Christ, God entered into the true depth of human existence, which can be a nightmare.

One more thing about the wilderness. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being lost too much. The novelty of being lost wears off quickly for me, especially when I’m late. Now that I’ve got my iPhone, of course, I’ve got instant access to a global positioning system that will tell me where I am on the map at any time. I like that. And it’s not that I like the prospect of never having to stop to ask for directions. I like the security of knowing that I can’t get lost with this device at my side!

Sometimes in this life, though, we get so lost—lost among the temptations we face to believe the lies we tell ourselves—lost among temptations to trust less, believe less, expect less… We get lost in the wildernesses of this world where no gadget can save us—where we’ve got nothing going for us except, perhaps, to trust God.

And the biggest temptation we face, I think, is the temptation to trust ourselves and ourselves alone. When you stop and think about it, this is where most temptations end up—a trust in one’s self at the expense of trust in others. Trusting yourself to stay in control. Trusting yourself to always be right. Trusting yourself to know your limits. Trusting you and you alone to get yourself out of this mess. Now there’s nothing wrong with a good, healthy dose of self-confidence. But when your confidence prevents you from expanding your circle of trust to include others—to include God, you’re in trouble.

The way out of temptation is not avoidance. The way out of temptation is trust.

Shannon, a single mom, lost her job when her kids were four and nine. Work had been steady, but not steady enough, so there wasn’t much in the bank. Rent, groceries, doctor visits, clothes for school. Something had to give, finally. She had family but they were far away, so she and her kids stayed with a friend on the pull-out sofa. “The hardest thing wasn’t making myself believe that I could make it,” she said. “The hardest thing was realizing that I couldn’t make it alone.”

Trust—real trust—is scary because in trusting, we place our lives in another’s hands, sometimes entirely. And friends, we are always tempted to not do that—to keep our lives in our own hands. But this Lenten season, in whatever wilderness you find yourself, could you be led to trust?

(1) I'm grateful to my good friend Allen Brimer, who shared this image of post-WWII seeds during a call to worship back in our seminary days. It was during Lent when he shared this, and seldom has a call to worship enlivened my sense of place and purpose more.

On Faith and Evolution - Genesis 1:1-8

2010-02-17T09:36:00.002-06:00

Sermon on February 14, 2010

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

A little girl asked her mother, “How did the human race appear?” The mother answered, “God made a beautiful garden called Eden. God put two people in this garden, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had lots of children and they had children and that’s where people came from.”

Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, “Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.”

The confused girl returned to her mother and said, “Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?” The mother answered, “Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his.”

Part of what we’re celebrating in church today is “Evolution Sunday”—a chance, really, to think faithfully and critically about faith and science, and to wonder a little about how it all fits together. Of course, today is also our congregation’s “Anniversary Sunday”—a chance to stop and reflect on what 171 years of ministry means, and perhaps to wonder about 171 more. Today is also Valentine’s Day, tomorrow is Presidents Day, and Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, thus beginning the season of Lent. You may be wondering this morning, “With Valentines, Presidents, Lent, and our church’s anniversary, did Ben really need to go dig up yet another thing to think about this morning?” Truth be told, I’m not going to say anything about Valentines or Presidents today, and I’m going to leave Lent for next week. But I think it’s entirely appropriate that today, on the anniversary of our congregation’s life, we think about issues of faith and evolution—science and religion. What better way to celebrate the rich, thoughtful, and engaging history of faith and learning at First Presbyterian Church!

I’d like to take a quick moment to explain that “Evolution Sunday” is not a day that I just made up for the sake of a sermon title. Evolution Sunday is a Sunday that coincides with the birthday of Charles Darwin, and it provides an opportunity for people of faith to raise questions about faith and science in the context of worship and Christian education. That’s what we’re doing today.

Churches around the country began holding Evolution Sunday services when, in 2004, a school board in Grantsburg, Wisconsin passed a series of anti-evolution policies. Of course, school boards around the country had already done similar things, and so I’m not too sure why it was that Grantsburg provided the impetus for what followed. I do know that at the beginning, a couple hundred clergy from around the state of Wisconsin signed a letter to the school board in Grantsburg. I won’t read the entire letter to you now, but here are a few pieces of it:

“While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook… Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts. We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator… We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”

It started with 200 clergy in Wisconsin, and today that list has grown to over 12,400 signatures—all pastors, preachers, and professional Christian educators adding their “yes” to this statement about faith and science.

Not everyone sees it that way, of course. We all have different ways of thinking through these issues. For some, faith falls apart in light of what science teaches, and for others, science fails to convince in light of what the Bible says.

A zookeeper came across an orangutan reading two books. One was the Bible; the other was Darwin’s Origin of Species. “Why are you reading such opposite books?” the zookeeper asked. The orangutan replied, “Well, I’m trying to figure out if I’m supposed to be my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.”

That’s sort of where some folks fall—an understanding of faith and science as opposites, and a belief that, like the orangutan, we need to choose one or the other. So, which is it? Or where do we start? Part of the problem, in my mind, is that we’ve got too many people running around with Bibles trying to disprove scientific discoveries, and at least a few others running around with science books trying to disprove faith. Another part of the problem is that all too often, faith is strictly filtered through the lens of scientific discovery or science is strictly filtered through the lens of biblical teaching.

That being said, there’s also a temptation to say, simply, “Let’s let faith be faith, and let’s let science be science,” and to then never let the two comingle. But then can a Christian take science seriously without dismissing his faith? Can a scientist be a disciple of Jesus Christ without leaving her scientific brain at the door?

Our Scripture reading today from Genesis goes back to the beginning. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters…”

For some, this is the beginning of all the science they need about Creation. I’ve seen a bumper sticker that says, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Theories and prospects of a “Big Bang” and any evolutionary designs that might have followed are apparently not worth considering. The problem, though, with this literal, simplistic reading of Genesis is that it misses something beautiful about what its author was attempting to say. Take the phrase, for example, “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” For our Jewish faith ancestors, the “wind from God” was God’s Spirit, moving over the waters. Water itself represented chaos, disorder. So the image of Genesis 1:2 is an image of God’s Spirit, hovering over this gigantic churn of chaos and shining a light on it. “Let there be light,” God says, and so we’re given this image of a Divine spark, brining sense and order to Creation.

Is this significant because it says how it happened? Is it true because it gives a literal account of what things really looked like on Creation’s first day? Is this really all the science we need? Or, could it be that what we have here in these first two verses of Genesis really has nothing whatsoever to do with science and everything to do with how we understand the loving nature of God? God—never far from the chaos of life—hovering over it, actually, shining a light on those places in our world and in our lives where the chaos seems overwhelming—calling that light “good.”

The first chapter of Genesis is not a science textbook. It’s poetry. It’s a hymn that may actually have been sung when it was first written—a song of God’s faithfulness to Creation. The second verse goes like this: And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.”

Now all this talk of domes and waters might seem confusing. But imagine a person a few thousand years ago standing on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. He looks out at the water. What color is it? It’s blue. He looks up at the sky and what color is it? It’s blue. And what is it that occasionally falls from the sky? Water! What might he naturally conclude about the makeup of the sky? There’s water up there! Another giant sea hovering high above us!

If there’s any science in Genesis, it’s a basic, observational science that concludes that beyond this dome above us called “Sky” there lies yet another chaotic churn of water. And guess what? Now that we’ve flown through our atmosphere, we know that that understanding of the Sky is scientifically wrong. But Genesis is not about science—it’s a poetic love song to God, the Creator. And the author says in Genesis, “Thank you. Thank you, God, for creating this dome in the midst of these waters so that we might have life and breath.”

The purpose of Genesis is not to scientifically explain it all. The purpose of Genesis is to express awe and wonder at the sight of it all.

A creationist would disagree. A creationist would find a way to argue that in spite of everything I’ve said, Genesis 1:1-2 really gives an accurate scientific, historical account of the first two twenty-four hour days of creation. A creationist might also argue that Intelligent Design be taught in public schools as a science, in spite of the fact that there are no peer-reviewed scientific journals publishing empirical data supporting intelligent design. None.

But a creationist would argue that the universe must have a source—that we human beings couldn’t possibly have evolved from primates. Of course, there are a number of problems with this, one of them being that Darwin’s theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the source of creation—it merely explains how it is that various species have come to look like what they look like today.

More conversation about this to come. As I preach today, I have the distinct advantage of knowing that Dave Higgs and I are about to begin a three-week Christian education series on faith and science, beginning today. That frees me to not try and say everything in the context of this particular sermon!

But for now I will say this. I believe that our best faithful minds and our best scientific minds operate in a similar direction. Both attempt to give voice to mysteries of creation and life. Both instill a true reverence for the way things are—for the sky, for fingerprints, and for the fact that our minds are advanced enough to even have this conversation. Both faith and science call us to wonder, to ask questions, and to marvel at universe around us.

Kenneth Miller has written a book, Finding Darwin’s God. In it he writes: “Even as we use experimental science and mathematical logic to reveal the laws and structure of the physical universe, a series of important questions will always remain, including the sources of those laws and the reason for there being a universe in the first place.”

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that humanity had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell God that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and mind your own business?” God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “Okay, we can handle that!” “But,” God added, “we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.” The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt. God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”

May our best faithful and scientific minds lead us to wonder more and more about God at the source of it all. Amen.

Called, Sent - Isaiah 6:1-8

2010-02-10T13:42:00.002-06:00

Sermon on Sunday, February 7

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple...

I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

I want to share three phrases with you today. Just three phrases. The first is, “In the year that King Uzziah died.”

Nobody names their kid “Uzziah” anymore. I don’t know that I’ve ever met an “Uzziah.” But the name, “Uzziah” means, “The LORD is my strength.” And our story from the book of Isaiah begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died…”

If you look elsewhere in the Old Testament, you can find bits and pieces about Uzziah’s reign as king. He took the throne when he was just sixteen years old and ruled until he was in his late sixties. For fifty-some years, Uzziah—“The LORD is my strength”—ruled over Judah. In the books of Kings and Chronicles, it is said of Uzziah that he was faithful to God, bringing prosperity to the land.

Uzziah was a famous king. Throughout the region, to the border of Egypt, his name was known and revered. In Jerusalem, Uzziah built fortified towers and raised a massive, powerful army. According to the book of Second Chronicles, “the whole number of the heads of ancestral houses of mighty warriors was two thousand six hundred. Under their command was an army of three hundred and seven thousand five hundred, who could make war with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy. Uzziah provided for all the army the shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging.”

Uzziah was powerful and organized. He ruled Judah with vision and with authority. For most of Uzziah’s reign as king, his name was synonymous with prosperity and prestige. But then, as the story unfolds, Uzziah’s reign did not end well. In his strength he became prideful, says the writer of Chronicles, and his pride became his downfall. His crime? He attempted to elevate his status to that of high priest. Apparently, the power of kingship wasn’t enough for Uzziah, and so he barged into the temple and assumed the role both king and priest. As the story goes, he was immediately struck with leprosy for defying God’s will in this way.

For his last ten years as king, Uzziah was shut away in a separate house, shunned from any real power. His son, Jotham, ran the kingdom in his place. Finally, Uzziah withered away and died, and because of his leprosy, was buried alone—not with the former kings of Judah. It was sort of a pathetic end to a once mighty and prosperous kingship.

Our story today begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died…” But I’d like to rephrase that. “In the year that King Uzziah died” means, “In the year that ‘The LORD is my strength’ died…”

The year King Uzziah died: the year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year we wondered if our best days were long gone,
The year we wondered if we’d been blessed or just lucky,
The year King Uzziah’s earthly power and fame finally shriveled to nothing,
The year we had to accept that even the best of us could fall so low…

History has a way of forcing moments like these upon us—moments when we question God’s presence, when we question all that we thought we knew about our strength and sense of security. Isaiah chapter six begins with the people of God wondering, “What now, God? What next?” And perhaps it should evoke in us all those times and places when we simply could not see a way forward.

The year King Uzziah died: the year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year the economy dropped out from under us,
The year he lost the job,
The year we lost the house,
The year she got sick,
The year the marriage finally fell apart…

The year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year the earth shook,
The year a hurricane took our city away,
The year the towers fell,
The year we lost faith,
The year we questioned everything…

It’s not so often that I spend so much time on just seven words, but the phrase, “In the year that King Uzziah died” is loaded. More than a simple historical marker, it says something of the human condition—that from time to time we find ourselves questioning God, questioning ourselves, questioning our future… and that so often life itself gets carried away to the point where we’re not sure who’s in control anymore, if anyone.

In the book of Isaiah, it is in the midst of this anxiety and uncertainty that a new prophet is born. It is in the context of turmoil and fear and doubt that God’s voice is heard again and in a new way. This brings us to our second phrase: “The hem of God’s robe filled the temple.”

In our story, Isaiah is not a prophet yet. But he’s in the temple and he sees God “sitting on the throne, high and lofty.” It’s a pretty fantastic scene, with six-winged seraphs flying around and singing and smoke rising up everywhere. It’s a vision of God on a massive scale—so massive, in fact, that just the hem of God’s robe fills the temple.

Some interesting things about this description of God. If you wanted to read it all literally, you might say, “Well, that settles it—God must wear a robe—a really, really big robe! With a big, big hem.”

Or we might say instead that nothing in this world can contain God. God is always bigger than the temple, bigger than the church, bigger than our understanding. Our words can’t contain God, our beliefs can’t contain God… even our religion can’t contain God—nothing can! God cannot be contained! God is God, and perhaps the visions we have of God are but fragments of a much, much larger whole.

“In the year that King Uzziah died,” Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lofty, and “the hem of his robe filled the temple.” In other words: In the year everything fell apart and we began to question everything, we saw God and God was bigger than all we could see.

The third phrase is a question: “Whom shall I send?” In light of the first two phrases, I marvel at these four words: “Whom shall I send?” The world is falling apart—Uzziah, “The Lord is my Strength,” has died. But still, God is still God—a God so big, even the hem of God’s robe fills the room. And yet, God’s question for humanity is not what we would expect it to be. God does not say, “How can I help now that your king is dead?” or “What can I do to restore your faith?” Instead, God’s question is, “Whom shall I send?”

We’d often love to have a Superman God—a God who swoops in when the going get rough—a God who makes everything ok. So often we’d love to have a God who makes it easy to believe, easy to trust, easy to not worry about the things that fall apart in this world. But God doesn’t ask, “How can I make everything ok?” Instead God asks, “Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?”

This is the nature of God. God—bigger than our understanding, always bigger than our imagining. But not a “Superman God”—rather, a God who is always asking, “Who will go for me? Who will speak for me? Who will move with my Spirit and love with my love?” Even when the world seems to be falling apart, crumbling in the midst of war and poverty and brokenness, God is whispering into the ears of would-be prophets like you and me: “Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?”

The faithful response, then, is not to understand it all, or even to know the way forward. The faithful response is to daily summon the will to say, “Here am I. Send me.”

Come Alive - this week's E-votional

2010-02-04T15:30:00.007-06:00

Every week I try to send out an "e-votional" to folks at the church. Sometimes it's just a little quote or a poem; sometimes it's something of my own making - a thought or two, a prayer... This week's e-votional features a quote by Howard Thurman that I like a lot:

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Isn’t that a powerful thought? I think so. So many needs around us, and often we’re tempted to meet them all. A question to consider, though, is “What makes me come alive?” And perhaps our answers to that question really do lead us to the places where we’re most needed.

Leaning towards this Sunday, I'm preparing to preach on that text from Isaiah 6: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" "Here am I; send me!" At this point, I don't know if Thurman's quote will make it in the sermon or not, but I'm wondering more and more about a "coming alive" that goes along with saying "yes" to God's call in our lives. We'll see. Blessings until then!

It's About Love - I Corinthians 13:1-13

2010-01-31T23:01:00.001-06:00

Sermon on January 31, 2010

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

If you’ve ever been to a Christian wedding, you’ve probably heard I Corinthians 13 read aloud. Whenever I’m doing premarital counseling with a couple and it comes time to plan the actual service and think about which scriptures they’d like to have read at their wedding, I share with them a list of passages that they might want to consider. I Corinthians 13, of course, is on the list, and when we get to it, I’ll often hear one of them say something like, “Oh, no. We can’t do I Corinthians. Everybody uses I Corinthians at their wedding. We’ve got to find something different.”

Once, in my very first premarital counseling session with a couple, we were just getting started—still weeks away from planning the service—when the bride told me, “Well, before we get going, just so you know, we are not using I Corinthians 13 at our wedding.” “Really?” I asked. “How come?” “All my friends have used it, and quite frankly, I’m tired of hearing it.” But then she asked, “Is there another good ‘love passage’ in the Bible?”

I guess a couple of things are going on here. First, more and more, couples are feeling some strange pressure to be “different” in their wedding—as if somehow entering the covenant of marriage and binding your soul to that of another person needs to “stand out” any more than it already does. But also, this general criticism of I Corinthians 13 suggests that it has been overdone. In a way, it’s sort of become the “Kum ba yah” of biblical passages, the song that’s been played way too many times—so many times, in fact, that it’s begun to lose its meaning.

Or perhaps I Corinthians 13 simply smacks of too much Hallmark greeting card sentimentality—so much so that “Love is patient; love is kind…” has become like “Roses are red; violets are blue…” overused to the point of becoming useless. Of course, the truth is that I Corinthians 13 is a powerful biblical text. There’s a good reason so many couples have chosen to have it read at their weddings. It presents such powerful, compelling language about love—language that sets love apart, I think, from its many references in pop culture and on Valentines Day cards.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

If you’re sitting there and your sense that I Corinthians 13 is overdone still prevents you from considering it much further, let me invite you to do a little exercise. Start with verse four and read through verse seven, and instead of reading the word “love,” substitute your own name. Instead of reading, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude,” read to yourself, “____ is patient; ____ is kind; ____ is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. ____ does not insist on his own way; ___ is not irritable or resentful; ___ does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ___ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

To what extent do I embody “love”? Makes for an interesting self-inventory, doesn’t it? And we realize that “love” here isn’t simply an emotion; rather, Paul thinks of love as a “way.” He writes, “I will show you a still more excellent way.” Love—not a feeling, but a way, a practice, a life that we lead. And as Paul describes it, the way of love can be described both by what it is and by what it isn’t. “Love is patient… love is not envious…”

It’s kind of like the aspiring wood carver who was really trying to whittle a basic project—a little figure of a dog. He was making a mess of it and failing. So he went to his teacher with his knife and his rough block of wood and said, “I give up. How do you do this? What is the secret of carving?” The teacher looked at him and said, “Well it’s easy, really. You just take this piece of wood and cut off everything that doesn’t look like a dog.”

What happens when you cut everything else away in your life? What are you left with in the end? Is it something that resembles love? Is it a dog? Think about the rough block of wood of your own life. And imagine whittling it down to its essential substance. Chip off those outer layers, the stuff that really doesn’t look like you, and what are you left with?

Sometimes you can get to the core of it all and not like what you see. When that icon of baseball, Mickey Mantle, was dying of liver cancer, he was asked what advice he would give young people who still looked up to him. Mickey Mantle—an amazing athlete, an all-star on the field, but one whose recklessness and debauchery off the field gave him a reputation. He looked at the camera and said simply, “Don’t be like me.”

And the end of it all, when you see your life for what it is, will it look like love? Love is, at the end of it all, what it’s about. Love is the heart of our faith.

When I was in Austin, I was doing campus ministry near the University of Texas. One of the years I was there, the Dalai Lama was touring the United States, and he came to the UT campus and spoke in the Erwin Center—the basketball arena where the Longhorns play. The students at the church and I jumped at the chance to attend—to hear from one of the world’s religious leaders. And so we packed in with thousands of other young people that evening to hear from this little man in an orange robe with glasses.

He spoke for a while about the practice of faith and about peace, and near the end of his talk, he invited students from the audience to ask him questions. A young man near the front of the arena came to a microphone and asked simply, “What advice would you give to us college students who are about to go out into the world.”

The Dalai Lama was silent for a moment. My own seat was up high—in the nose bleed section—but I could almost sense the crowd leaning forward, ready to take in whatever this man said to them. And then he spoke. He said, “Be kind to each other.” That was it. Next question, please.

At first, I thought, “Really? Be kind to each other? We’ve got the Dalai Lama here and that’s it?” I guess I was expecting something a little more, oh, I don’t know… revolutionary? But then the students and I talked about that response during our walk back to the church, and we realized something: if we truly took kindness seriously, it would be a revolution. If everyone in the world was simply and deeply committed to kindness, we’d have a wonderful revolution on our hands!

And then we began to wonder about things that Jesus said that, on the surface, seemed perhaps a little too simplistic—things that, if we took them seriously, would revolutionize the way we lived our lives. “Love your neighbor as yourself” was one of them.

And we could have added to the list Paul’s words: “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” Love is the greatest. It’s about love—our faith is about love. I’ve said this before here, and I’ll say it again: this is what the gospel is all about—that in Jesus Christ, God loves us. Through Jesus Christ, God says to us, “You can betray me, you can deny me, and you can doubt me, but I will still love you. You can even put me to death—even death on a cross—but you cannot destroy my love for you.”

“You can do everything right in the world or you can do everything wrong. You can run to me and you can run away from me. You can choose to love me back, or not,” says God, “but nothing will ever change the fact that I love you. You can love me, love the world, and love yourself, and you can hate me, hate the world, and hate yourself, but nothing you ever do or fail to do will change my love for you.” This is God’s love—a love for us to embrace and practice in our own lives and in our world.

Have you ever heard of the phrase, “six degrees of separation”? Supposedly, every person in the world is connected to every other person in the world through six people. So, for example, I have a friend from high school who used to go out with a guy who used to date the singer Jewel, who, in turn, probably knows at least one person who knows Kevin Bacon, and so forth… If you think of everyone that you know in your life and then were to branch out to everyone that they know, and then branch out even further, with only six steps you would likely reach every person on the planet.

The question to ask, then, is an exciting one: What power could your love have in this world? Beginning with you and moving out, what power could it have? In light of the world’s problems, we tend to think of ourselves as immeasurably small, but the truth is this: love can change the whole world and it begins right here.

Evotional - To Be of Use

2010-01-27T09:18:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite poems of all time is “To Be of Use” by Marge Piercy. As Haiti’s earthquake has snapped us to attention and begged us to consider what we might do to alleviate the suffering of others in our world, these words have come to mind again for me. May they bless you with an earnest curiosity about your own work, whatever it may be: serving, caring, leading, teaching, building, healing, listening, parenting, grandparenting…

“To Be of Use”
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Body Language - I Corinthians 12:12-31

2010-01-26T13:07:00.002-06:00

Sermon on January 24, 2010

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

I was a teenager in the 1980’s. For youth and young adults today, I realize that makes me something of a curiosity. But it’s true—I came of age during the era of acid-washed jeans, MTV, parachute pants, and mullets. My generation was the last to move through high school without the internet and without email and without cell phones. It’s sort of strange today to think of life without those things, but somehow we survived.

I bring this up because there’s an episode of the 80’s that I’d like to share with you. Some of you will remember this—that in 1986, there was a movement in the United States called “Hands Across America.” Basically, the idea was that millions of people would come together for fifteen minutes, holding hands in a line that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Everyone would pay $10 to participate and that money would be donated to local charities that fought hunger and homelessness.

I guess in 1986, this seemed like a pretty good idea. Sunday afternoon, May 25, more than five million people lined up across the country and held hands. The line stretched 4,152 miles from New York City to Long Beach, California. And had that line been absolutely straight, it would have indeed been an unbroken chain all the way. But in order to get more people involved, the organizers had the line snaking its way from one major US city to another. So moving eastward from New York, the chain only made it to Maryland before it suffered a large gap; apparently the folks in Baltimore didn’t want to hold hands. The line continued through the country, mostly intact (five million people is a lot of people), but it suffered significant gaps here and there, especially in the Arizona desert, where the longest breaks in the chain occurred. Some die-hards flocked to the desert, though, and formed mile-long chains here and there. In the end, the event turned out to be, “Hands Mostly Across America.”

Not a complete loss, though – the event raised close to $20 million for soup kitchens and homeless shelters across the United States. Not bad for a day’s work. Of course, the event was expensive to promote and to run. Before it could even take place, corporate sponsorships totaling close to $30 million had to be raised to cover costs. So yes—the math: Corporations like Coca-Cola and Citibank doled out $30 million to run an event that, in the end, raised $20 million.

But, we could argue, that $20 million was really put to good use, and what about the symbolic significance of everybody holding hands across the country? What about the hope, the love, the promise that such an event could instill? What about the fact that on May 25, 1986 at 3:00 p.m. Easter Standard Time, five million folks across America, including Jazzercisers, Hell’s Angels, Hopi and Navajo Indians, 500 little leaguers at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium, numerous celebrities, and President Ronald Reagan held hands together and sang “We Are the World,” “America the Beautiful,” and the Hands Across America theme song? (Yes, there really was a Hands Across America theme song – part of the $30 million price tag, I guess) All those people holding hands, connected and singing sappy 80’s pop music (which by the way, wasn’t called “sappy 80’s pop music”—it was just called “music.”) Isn’t there something wonderful about that single act of solidarity?

And you could say “Yes”—that Hands Across America, despite its shortcomings, provided a symbol of unity and hope for a nation struggling to address issues of global hunger and poverty. So, yes, Hands Across America was a nice gesture.

But if events like “Hands Across America” teach us anything, it’s this: that true unity is awfully hard to organize and even more difficult to maintain. Furthermore, I would argue that when we engage in an activity that focuses our attention and our efforts on issues of poverty in our world, we are apt to more fully understand that poverty in our world is overwhelming. And in the true face of poverty, our symbolic acts of unity often fail to deliver long-term results.

It’s relatively easy to hold hands and claim for a moment that “Yes. We are the world. We are one human family.” It’s much more difficult to shape our lives in ways that authentically resonate with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose quote I included in our bulletin this morning: “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”

Dr. King echoes those words of the apostle Paul, who wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, “In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body… If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

There’s a word for that. Ubuntu. Go ahead and say it: “Ubuntu.” “Ubuntu” is a word from the Bantu languages of southern Africa, and it means, “I am because you are.” “Ubuntu—I am because you are.” Go ahead and take a quick second and say to the people next to you or around you, “Ubuntu.”

I am because you are. If you suffer, I suffer with you. If you are honored, I rejoice with you. I am because you are. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. Ubuntu. I am because you are. Ubuntu—more, much more than fifteen minutes holding hands. Much more than a photo opportunity. Ubuntu is a way of life that acknowledges the truth of our connectedness!

A nice image for us striving to live in a spirit of Ubuntu is the aspen tree. Did you know that out in Colorado and Utah, an aspen forest is usually just one tree? That’s the way aspens grow. The root system is all connected. You can take a genetic sample from the leaf of one aspen and then walk a mile or so and take another from another tree, and you’ll find that it’s all really one tree—connected underground.

What would happen if we human begins began to understand ourselves that way? What would happen to our sense of connection as a church? What would happen to our view of the world around us?

I’d like to talk again about the earthquake in Haiti. Those pictures online and on TV are still so vivid in our minds and we continue to express concern and care for folks living in Port au Prince. On Friday night, a bunch of singers and celebrities came together to raise money for Haiti, and I guess the danger might be that this becomes another “Hands Across America Moment”—a strong show of unity and support followed by a gradual fading away as other news stories take center stage and capture our attention.

Haiti, like the gulf coast after Hurricane Katrina, is going to need serious, long-term care. And so we might wonder what will sustain that kind of commitment. And here’s the truth. It won’t be our good intentions. Feelings of sadness and sympathy will not sustain the kind of loving humanitarian outreach that will be needed in Haiti over the next decade or so. But you know what will? Ubuntu. A conviction that what Paul said was true—that if one member suffers, all suffer together with it. That’s what will sustain outreach to Haiti—an unswerving commitment to the fact that our very identity is wrapped up in the identity of the people of Haiti.

This, by the way, is what really makes a difference in our world—our recognition of ourselves in each other. Scripture’s teaching—Christ’s teaching—that you love your neighbor as yourself is an Ubuntu teaching—a call for you to see yourself in the face of another.

You’ve all experienced this, I know. Many of you here have lost loved ones. Your life’s great grief has been the loss of a parent or a spouse or a child. And you’ve said it: “When he died, a part of me died with him.” “When she died, a part of me died too.” And that’s not just a figure of speech—it’s true. It’s true because in our loving relationships, our identities bleed together and it’s hard, if not impossible, to understand ourselves apart from the other.

Think about what the world would be like if we all shared that sense of “self” and “other”—if we could all truly see ourselves in the faces of others. This is a big part of what being a church family is all about. Because it’s here in this family of faith that you and I practice Ubuntu. It’s here that we recognize each other as sister and brother in the same body of Christ. And it’s here that we experience the truth that when one of us suffers, we all suffer with that one. And when one of us rejoices, we all find cause for rejoicing.

The challenge and joy of being a church family is expanding our sense of Ubuntu to include an ever-widening pool of family members. Our outreach, then, to folks who are homeless and hungry, to our neighborhood and to the city of Racine, and to places like Haiti grows not from our desire to be charitable; rather, it flows from our conviction that we are one body.

I’m going to give you an assignment today. And that assignment is this: practice Ubuntu with somebody this week. Practice I am because you are with somebody! Maybe it’ll be with someone you know and maybe it’ll be a total stranger. Someone at work, a girl serving coffee, somebody on the street… Imagine that the two of you are part of a much larger body. See yourself reflected in the face of another, and then see what that reflection enables you to say, to do, and to believe. Amen.

Enough - Exodus 23:4-13

2010-01-17T11:23:00.005-06:00

Sermon on January 17, 2010

You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Every Sunday morning I check the news. It’s part of a pre-worship routine that I do each week. I get up early, put on a pot of coffee, and then check in briefly with cnn.com. The thought is that something may have happened during the night—a death, a disaster, a conflict, some catastrophe—something may have happened during the night that has effectively rendered my prepared sermon irrelevant.

My plan has always been that I could write a new sermon—or at least change the one I’ve got—to address the situation, to comfort the congregation if need be, and to begin to develop a response that grows out of our Christian faith.

The earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday, so we’ve all had five days to ask “Why?” Five days to sift through pictures and news articles and to begin to face the true magnitude of the situation there in Port au Prince. And despite the extra time to think and prepare, I must say that in some ways I’m at a loss for words. Like many of you who are also glued to the news, I’m stunned by the horror of it all. So you and I and the whole world are scrambling to respond to Haiti—scrambling to respond not only with humanitarian aid, but also with words to even describe what has happened there.

I’ve watched more television than I usually do these days, and at one point, I heard a reporter, in reference to the post-earthquake devastation, say, “The tragedy here is one of biblical proportion.” Did you happen to catch that? I sat there on the couch and thought, “Thank you, random reporter, for that riveting theological assessment.” But I must confess it left me wondering.

What is biblical proportion? I was never very good at math, and I’m not even particularly good at reading recipes. So understanding proportions to begin with has always been a bit of a challenge for me. But biblical proportion? Supposedly it refers to something that happens on an enormous scale—so huge, in fact, that it could only be possible in the Bible.

And, proportionally speaking, when it comes to mass crises, the Bible has more than its fair share. A giant flood being the first, but moving into the stories from Exodus, we find a few more. The Hebrew people forced into slavery in Egypt. Pharaoh issues an order to kill infant Hebrew boys. And then in the following chapters, plagues: thunder and hail, water turning to blood, flies and gnats, disease, darkness, death. Tragic events of biblical proportion.

However, I’d like to suggest this morning that there are other biblical proportions worth paying attention to. We’re not going to hear about these on the 10 o’clock news, and that’s fine. But I do believe that they’re some of the best biblical proportions the Bible has to offer:

The first is 5,000 to 5 and 2: the feeding of five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. That's a biblical proportion.

The second is 99 to 1: the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep in search of the one that is lost. That's a biblical proportion.

The first will be last and the last will be first. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. These are true biblical proportions!

According to the laws of this world, they don’t always make sense, and certainly according to laws of scarcity, fear, and competition, they never make sense. But these are biblical proportions. And they beg this question of our nation and our world: will history measure our response to Haiti’s earthquake in biblical proportions? Will the outpouring of aid and efforts to heal and revitalize Haiti reflect loving biblical proportions?

Pondering those questions, we turn to this morning’s passage from the book of Exodus, where the voice of God is understood through Moses. God is giving Moses these lists of commandments, and tucked in there among them all is this one: “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” Perhaps this command blends in with those around it, but you know, it’s interesting. In the entire Old Testament, there is one commandment to love your neighbor and no less than thirty-six commandments to love the stranger. And there’s a reason for that. After all, the people of Israel knew what being a stranger felt like. As slaves in Egypt and then later during Babylonian exile, the Israelites understood what it meant to be strangers in a strange land. Consequently, one of the foundational building blocks of our faith tradition is a commandment to make sure that the stranger has enough.

This is God’s heart in the book of Exodus! Remember that when the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness, they are strangers, and God provides manna for them to eat. And the thing about that manna is that it’s everywhere! So it’s distributed equally to everyone—everyone gathers as much as he or she needs. And because there is enough manna to go around, there is no market for surplus manna. Because it is so plentiful, it’s impossible for an enterprising person to try to corner the market and drive up the price with artificial shortages.

You can’t be poor when there’s manna on the ground, and when there’s manna on the ground, it doesn’t pay to be rich, because everyone simply has enough.

We haven’t yet seen this kind of manna in Haiti. Simply getting the resources there and where they’re needed has been difficult. But many Americans and folks from all over the world are mobilizing.

Here in Racine and in this church, we ask ourselves, “What can we do?” Did you know that Port au Prince, Haiti is closer to Racine than San Francisco or Seattle? It’s strange—watching the news, it’s easy to think that Haiti is such a far-distant place, but it’s in our yard. So perhaps it helps greatly to remember that when we reach out with love and care to the people of Haiti, we echo the commitments of our faith ancestors who could not be stopped from loving the strangers in their midst!

In a moment I’m going to ask Tim Lafond, our chair of finance and stewardship, to share a few words about our own congregation’s response to the situation in Haiti. Before I do, though, I’ll share some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that there are many hurting, displaced people in Haiti who are waiting for help. The good news is that there is enough—the world has enough food and water and resources to heal and rebuild Haiti (and a few other places where the human family is struggling!).

Tomorrow we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. And so as we prepare for our offering, I’ll close with my favorite King quote. This comes from an address he gave at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. just four days before his assassination. I think these words can and should fuel our own response to suffering in Haiti and in our world.

"Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood [or sisterhood]. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured."

(From "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," delivered by Martin Luther King at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968.)

Amen.

To contribute to relief efforts in Haiti through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, go to their web page and click "Give $"

Thinking of Haiti

2010-01-14T14:12:00.002-06:00

Along with you, I've been reacting to news from Haiti with such shock and sadness. In the coming days, no doubt, we'll learn more about the devastation there and hopefully we'll get a better sense of how we might be helpful in efforts to rebuild. For now, I want to share two links with you. The first is the link for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance PDA is an extremely efficient and helpful organization in situations like these, and I'm confident that the financial resources we funnel through them will be put to good use.

The second link is to an organization to which First Presbyterian Church, Racine is connected. Linda and Joe Markee, Julie Markee's parents, sit on the board of The Haiti Foundation of Hope. While this organization serves communities in more rural, northern parts of Haiti, their work and ministry is no doubt impacted by the recent earthquake. Joe and Linda will be coming to First Presbyterian Church this spring to give a presentation on their work. It will be good in the coming weeks to learn from them more about how we as a congregation might be able to respond.

When Heaven was Opened - Luke 3:15-22

2010-01-12T09:18:00.001-06:00

Sermon on January 10, 2010

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Dayton Edmonds, a United Methodist missionary, tells this tale about a poor man who had a vision in his dream. And his dream was of a heavenly city where everything was perfect. Growing very weary of his living, he decided to go in search of his heavenly city of his dreams. So he gathered what few belongings he had and started on his journey. He walked. All day long he walked. And as he walked, he had but one thought: the heavenly city of his dreams—how perfect it was going to be when he arrived. All day long he walked with this one thought, and then it was evening time. He had not yet come to the heavenly city of his dreams. So he decided to make camp right where he was. He took out a crust of bread, gave thanks to God, and ate it. And then, just before he went to sleep, he took off his shoes and he put them in the path, facing them in the direction that he would continue his journey the next day. And, then, the poor man went to sleep.

Little did he know that in the middle of the night, a trickster came along, picked up his shoes and turned them around, facing them back in the direction from which he had come. Early the next morning, the poor man awoke. Taking out his crust of bread, he once again gave thanks to God, and ate it, and then he walked to the path, and he slipped on his shoes. And he began to walk in the direction that his shoes were facing. All day long he walked, and as he walked, he had but one thought: the heavenly city of his dreams and how perfect it was going to be when he arrived. He walked until it was almost evening.

He looked off in the distance and he saw it! The heavenly city of his dreams! It wasn't as large as he thought it was going to be, and it looked strangely familiar. The poor man walked until he found a strangely familiar street, and he turned down the strangely familiar street, and he walked until he found a strangely familiar house. And he knocked on the door, and when the door was opened, he was greeted by a strangely familiar family. The poor man went inside and lived happily ever after in the heavenly city of his dreams.

Sometimes a new perspective leads to a new life—a new sense of place and purpose—and perhaps even a living conviction that Heaven itself isn’t so far away. Racine, Wisconsin, or maybe Burlington—the Heavenly city of our dreams! On some days, maybe.

And yet I tend to be suspicious of theologies and explanations that lean toward an understanding of Heaven being simply a matter of perspective. There are those who claim that in a very real sense, Heaven is not a place—not a destination, but rather a state of mind—a way of embracing the present and experiencing God each day. My hesitation with that line of thinking comes from the fact that for so many in this world, daily life is an absolute struggle to survive. While some may be able to find Heaven in the day-to-day, there are simply those for whom life is a living Hell. And it’s hard for me to imagine myself saying to a man suffering from severe bouts of depression, or to a woman in an abusive situation, or to an orphan in a war-torn country, “Don’t worry. Heaven is here—it’s just a matter of your perspective!”

I doubt very much that I could stand by that explanation of Heaven. And yet… And yet we have these gospel stories where again and again and again we hear John the Baptist and then Jesus saying things like, “The kingdom of Heaven is near!” “Repent! Believe! For the kingdom of Heaven is near!”

Coming right out of Christmas, we have these stories about Heaven’s nearness fresh in our minds. An angel appears to Mary and later an angel appears to Joseph. A heavenly host of angels appears to the shepherds living in the field! These are just the first gospel stories where the boundary between Heaven and earth seems amazingly thin.

And then throughout his teaching, Jesus paints a picture of Heaven that is anything but far-distant. “The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed…” “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with flour…” “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure in a field…”

At one point, in fact, in Luke’s gospel, the Pharisees ask Jesus when the kingdom of God is coming and Jesus responds, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

For Jesus the boundary between Heaven and earth is thin—perhaps even nonexistent. In today’s story from Luke’s gospel, we find Jesus by the River Jordan. It always feels strange to me that every year we go from baby Jesus to big Jesus all in one week. But here we are—and Jesus the adult is being baptized and we see something of Heaven’s nearness.

Luke paints a complicated picture for us here. Clearly a movement is getting off of the ground. The people are “filled with expectation”—excited about John and excited about the coming Messiah. We can imagine that they’re showing up at the Jordan in droves to be baptized. At the same time, Herod doesn’t like what he’s seeing. Crowds like this today could spell “uprising” tomorrow, and so for the sake of Rome’s control in the region, he puts John in prison. And so the world that sees Jesus’ baptism isn’t much different from the world that received his birth: violent, unstable, corrupt.

And the amazing thing is that it’s in the very presence of a violent, unstable, and corrupt world that the heavens are opened. “Now when all the people were baptized,” Luke writes, “and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.”

I wonder what that looked like. I wonder what that felt like. I wonder if people standing there looked up and said to each other, “Well, would you look at that? The heaven is opening up. I’ll be darned.” Or perhaps whatever happened in that moment was really too wonderful to describe. That’s probably true, isn’t it? Whatever descriptions we think we have of Heaven—they all probably fall wonderfully short of capturing it all.

One thing we do know from reading the gospels, however, is that there is something of Heaven’s nearness that is worth paying attention to. Beginning with Jesus’ birth and baptism and unfolding through the gospel stories, the boundary between Heaven and earth seems so paper-thin. The kingdom of Heaven—the kingdom of God, Jesus says over and over again, is closer than you think.

The question we might bring to that observation, though, is “So what? So what if Heaven is really nearby?” Well, for one thing, if the kingdom of Heaven is really nearby, we just might find ourselves living a little more expectantly—eager to catch a glimpse of Heaven here or there—in a relationship, in a moment of joy or wonder, in the intricate uniqueness of a snowflake clinging to the windowpane…

But also, if the kingdom of Heaven is really nearby, we just might challenge ourselves to shape the world around us in its heavenly form! We know the truth, and the truth is that there are places in this world where Heaven must feel like a far-distant fairy tale. And yet Jesus calls us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, they will be done,” and so we become God’s agents of heavenly nearness! Perhaps God is calling you to be one who opens the heavens to a certain place in this world.

That may be an interesting way to sum up the Christian life—recognizing the kingdom of Heaven when it appears and creating the kingdom of Heaven when it is most needed.

My prayer this morning is that in the coming days and weeks, Jesus might come to you like a trickster, pointing your shoes in a new, heavenward direction when you least expect it—helping you find your way to the kingdom of Heaven—helping you share the news that yes, the kingdom of Heaven is near! Amen.

Putting Away the Decorations

2010-01-11T13:31:00.008-06:00

We just finished putting the Christmas decorations away at our house. Before they're completely gone from sight, however, I thought I'd share these pics with you. A wonderful couple in the church gave Sylvia this lovely manger set for Christmas, and as you can see, she enjoyed playing with it. Here's what it looked like when she first set it up.

This was before Christmas, so of course, Jesus hadn't arrived yet.

Then Jasmine, Cinderella, Ariel and Mulan came to be with Mary and Joseph.

Jesus is born in a pile of gold tokens! Another princess on the scene, plus a Polly Pocket hiding behind the shepherd. And Sylvia's new headlamp - the Bethlehem star or another gift for Jesus?

The final scene, complete with new Polly Pockets, a Littlest Pet Shop cat, and a purple hedgehog. Not sure about the meaning of the barrettes up top, either, but they managed to stay through a few weeks of changes.

Sylvia's six now, and she's working out a theology. She told me this morning that she didn't think Adam and Eve could have been the first people because God had to be first. She said this with a delightful expression on her face and then laughed uproariously at the thought that things could be any different. It's been fun to watch her begin to work it all out along with the rest of us.

This year's manger scene with its ever-changing cast of characters hits me with a message of God's immediate presence in our lives. God's coming in Jesus wasn't simply a long-ago event. Rather it is but one expression of a daily reality - that God truly is with us - Pollies, pets, and princesses - all of us. What a playful reminder!

Evotional - Laughing Breath

2010-01-01T10:32:00.002-06:00

Merry Eighth Day of Christmas to you all. Today I'm adding my final Christmas Evotional of the year - a poem by Thom M. Shuman. May these words bring out the very best in you as you continue to reflect on Christ’s birth, and may God's laughing breath give you life in 2010!

if you came in the spring,
we could expect newness,
bright yellow flowers
to soften your path,
the songs of birds
to herald your coming.

but you came in
winter's despair;
the chill of complacency
settled upon us.

if you came in summer
we could expect you
to be bronzed,
blonde,
stepping from the sea;

but you came
in a stable,
a wrinkled baby
with animals your midwives,
and angels your playmates.

help us to set down
our parcels of expectations
to reach down and scoop
you up in our arms,
your laughing breath
giving us life.
Amen.

- Thom M. Shuman

Welcoming the Infant Promise - Luke 2:22-38

2009-12-30T16:11:00.001-06:00

Sermon on December 27, 2009

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Merry Christmas once again. Today is the third of our twelve days of Christmas—the day for “three French hens” if you’re going by the song and looking for gift suggestions for any relatives you might be seeing later on this afternoon. Already I’ve spoken with a few who’ve asked me, “Did you have a nice Christmas?” or “How was your Christmas?” And the answer is “yes.” Christmas day was wonderful—a day spent mostly in pajamas, opening gifts, reading, playing, eating… Christmas day was wonderful for us. But Christmas itself is not in the past. We are in the season of Christmas now, and so for today and for nine more days, the “Christmastide” is upon us.

We turn again today to Luke’s gospel, and we find Mary and Joseph, like us, facing life after Jesus’ birth. But whereas we use the week after Christmas to return a few gifts, maybe write a few more letters, and perhaps even start thinking about when we’ll box up the ornaments and take the tree down, Mary and Joseph had quite a different experience. As Luke tells it, they’ve been in the manger this entire time—and whatever quaint charms a stable stall might have had for a night or two, they’ve surely worn off after a week or so. Years later, there will be stories of Jesus’ many miracles, but for now his main task is to thrust Mary and Joseph into parenthood and all its responsibilities.

One of those responsibilities, according to Jewish law, was to present a newborn child in the Temple. This was both an act of dedication for the baby and of purification for the mother. And so Mary and Joseph leave Bethlehem and make their way to Jerusalem. And as Luke tells it, when they arrive there, they are met by Simeon and then by the prophet Anna. Simeon was one who seemed to know Jesus was coming. Luke doesn’t give Simeon’s age, but I’ve always pictured him on the older and wiser side, scooping up the baby Jesus in his arms and saying to himself, “Now I’ve seen it all. Now I can leave this world, knowing that I have seen the face of God.” Anna the prophet is eighty-four—the Bible says she is of “a great age,” a wonderful way to think being in your eighties—and she, too recognizes Jesus and praises God when she sees him.

These early stories about Jesus’ life are wonderful for lots of reasons. One of them is that Jesus himself isn’t doing very much. He’s not eloquent, compassionate, or powerful. He’s just a baby. One day he’ll be preaching in Galilee, but for now he’s just babbling and gurgling and crying. The wonder of these stories is found in others’ recognition of God’s presence in an infant. First a band of shepherds, and now Simeon and Anna—they all behold a small, helpless baby and yet they see the promise and the fulfillment of the kingdom of God.

There’s a real art to recognizing something before it’s fully grown, I think. Gardeners know this. Granted, we may be a long way off from thinking about our gardens. But before we know it again, the ground will thaw and we’ll start wondering where we’ll set up the tomato cages again. Now some of us—myself included—will hold a tiny seed in our hand and say to ourselves, “I wonder if I can get this darn thing to grow.” But there are others here—people like Peg Rendall and also those like Ken Clark, whose life we celebrated yesterday—there are others here who look at a small seed and can already see the seedling and the leaves and the plant and the flower and the fruit. Their true art in the garden is somehow being able to see it all before it grows.

Maybe you can think of someone in your life who saw something in you before it was fully grown. A parent, a teacher, a friend or mentor—someone who looked at you and saw something long before you even knew it was there. There’s a real art to recognizing those tiny seeds in people’s lives.

Christian author and essayist Lewis Smedes writes this, and I love it: “You are deep, unfathomably deep. You cannot be a shallow person; God does not make shallow people. You can, if you choose, close your own mind to the depths within you. But you cannot be shallow.” Thank God for the people in our lives who recognize the depths within us long before we see them ourselves.

2009 is coming to a close. Can you believe it? Just ten years ago, we were just days away from the year 2000 and we thought all our computers were going to blow up with the Y2K scare. Now here we are, a decade later, and we’ve gone from Y2K to H1N1.

As we come into this New Year and this new decade, I wonder if we might use the story of Simeon and Anna to think about God’s call in our lives. Because perhaps this coming year, God is calling you to be a Simeon or an Anna. God is calling you to recognize something in its infancy. And it’s fun to think about what that could be.

I don’t know if you heard about Zach Bonner yet. Zach is just twelve years old, and he was recently awarded the distinction of “Most Inspiring Person of 2009” by beliefnet.com. Just what makes Zach so inspiring? Well, for starters, this year he walked 1200 miles from his house in Tampa, Florida to the White House to raise money for homeless children. But before that, he organized a city-wide project in Tampa, collecting backpacks full of school supplies, toiletries, and other necessities for families that were homeless. But before that, at the ripe old age of six, Zach organized his neighborhood to collect bottled water for victims of Hurricane Charley. He collected the water in his red, Radio Flyer wagon. Today, Zach has a foundation started to assist him in his work—it’s called the Little Red Wagon Foundation (littleredwagonfoundation.com).

Now the great thing and the problem with stories like this one is that they get us thinking: What big thing might I do to address the problems of this world? That’s a great question to ask, but at times it can be an overwhelming and stifling one, too. The problems of this world are overwhelming, and so we often balk in the face of potential solutions that seem too unwieldy themselves.

Another question to ask is this: Where did it all begin for Zach Bonner? Before the 1200 mile walk to Washington, before the backpack program, and even before collecting bottled water in his red wagon: Where did it really begin for him? Or, to put it another way, What infant promise in Zach Bonner’s life did someone recognize and nurture?

Let me speak plainly about this. We need this in the church right now. We’ve got problems here in Racine. You know that. Homelessness, hunger, poverty… lots of problems in our neighborhood around us and in our city. Sometimes the temptation is to try and address big problems with big solutions. But you know what we need? We need some of you—a few of you—maybe a few dozen of you even—to see the promise of a solution in its infancy.

We need just a few of us to welcome and celebrate something of God’s infant promise of hope. Just as God’s love in Jesus Christ began with a fragile, humble birth, God’s love in action today just might begin with a fragile, humble thought—an inkling of an idea, a quick conversation over coffee, a daydream.

Some of those plans are already on the way: HALO, the Health Care Network, the HOPES Center… And part of our call is to join them and add our very best to the work that they do. Another part of our call is this: to welcome God’s infant promises—those tiny seeds of ideas and visions that no one’s even thought about yet. And then, just like Simeon and Anna, we’ll scoop up those infant promises in our arms, and worshipfully say, “Yes! This is what God is doing! This is but a tiny taste of God’s hope to come!” Amen.

Evotional - Haphazard

2009-12-23T12:27:00.000-06:00

Blessings to you all as our Advent journey reaches Bethlehem. A poem that keeps coming to mind for me this year is one by U.A. Fanthorpe. The line, “Walked haphazard by starlight straight into the kingdom of heaven” is one that has captured my imagination and encouraged me to wonder about my own approach to the manger this time around. As we welcome and celebrate God’s newborn presence, may you know the joy and hope of “God With Us.”

“BC:AD”

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

- U.A. Fanthorpe

Advent Devotion - Week 3

2009-12-17T21:59:00.001-06:00

Philippians 4:4-9
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Today, as we light our third Advent candle, we read part of Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi. He tells them to think about “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable…” Spend some time today thinking about these things. See if you can think of at least one thing to go with each of the things Paul wants the church to think about:

True:
Honorable:
Just:
Pure:
Pleasing:
Commendable:
Excellent:
Worthy of praise:

Loving God, as we continue to wait for you and watch for you this Advent season, we are mindful of all that is good and wonderful in your world. Help us to continue to follow Christ with our lives and give us strength to be his disciples. Amen.