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!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
"And Forgive Us Our Debts..."
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.
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.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Evotional - Autumn Thoughts
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
"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
Monday, October 4, 2010
"Give us this day our daily bread"
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.
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.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Evotional - Rejoice!
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!
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!
Monday, September 27, 2010
"Thy Kingdom Come" - Matthew 5:1-12
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Be Still. Stop.
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
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
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!
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!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Remember Who You Are - Matthew 18:1-5
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.
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.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Evotional - Hand and Heart
“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.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
"Counting the Cost" Luke 14:25-33
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Evotional - Back to School
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
"God's Untamed Garden" Matthew 13
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.
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.
Monday, August 16, 2010
"The Abundance You Bring" John 6:1-14
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
"Caught Between Miracles" - Luke 5:1-11
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.
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
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.
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