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My Road-trip Route Map

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:58:04 PST

Here's a basic map of my route over the next two weeks, in case you are interested in seeing where I will be for my vacation, and for my attendance at Exploration 2009. Sorry Kansas and Missouri - I'm making a giant circle around you. Maybe some other road-trip....

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Sermon for All Saints Sunday, "Giving Thanks: For All The Saints"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:48:06 PST

Sermon 11/1/09, Mark 12:28-34

Giving Thanks: For All the Saints

All Saints Sunday is not a day I remember celebrating as a child in my congregation. In fact, I really don’t remember celebrating this special until I got into seminary, although I’m sure we did at my childhood church. But I was lucky enough not to have experienced much in the way of loss and death until I was in college, and so I don’t think I was very tuned in to a day to remember those who had passed away. But since seminary, All Saints has become one of my favorite celebrations in the church – a precious day when we remember – remember our loved ones, remember members of our church family, remember so many lives who have shaped us, over the years, through our lifetimes, even through the centuries, through history. To our Protestant ears, perhaps we perk up a little, in confusion, when we hear talk about saints. Do we have Saints?

But, as soon as we ask the question, a million possible responses pop into our heads, as we think about the people who have touched our lives. In a time of pastoral transition, All Saints Sunday is unique – I don’t know – never knew – the people whose names we will read today – I have met family members, and heard stories, but I did not know these people personally. And today, in churches in Franklin Lakes, NJ, and Oneida, NY, people’s names will be read whose funerals I conducted, who I knew well. But in some ways, that hardly matters – because All Saints Sunday is a day when we can enter into the story together. These names here because my names, my people, my loss, and my celebration, just as they become yours, even though you may not know all of these names either. All Saints Sunday is a celebration in the community of faith, of the family of God, as we remember lives that have shaped us in different ways.

Who has shaped you that you are missing today? Probably, we all have that individual who we still miss dearly, who we hold up in our hearts and minds. For me, this person has been my grandfather, Millard Mudge. Grandpa wasn't a leader. He didn't start any great movements, he didn't make headlines very often. But when he died – can it be eleven years ago now? – over 500 people showed up for his calling hours and funeral, a friend of my brother's asked with awe, "Who was your grandfather?" Who he was, to me, anyway, was something like a saint. He was not perfect, certainly. But it’s hard now to remember anything not-wonderful about him. Today, the best compliment I can give anyone is that the person reminds me of my Grandpa Mudge. He simply was a faithful servant, a living witness to the power of God and the love of Christ working in his life. Though he worked most of his life at Rome Cable, when I was little he was retired and working as a gas station attendant, trying to make ends meet financially. And even there, he was a witness, always wearing his "I love Jesus" pin, always trying to share a word of comfort and love, and somehow transforming a job like that into a place where he made people feel loved every day. He loved God, and he truly loved his neighbors, all of his neighbors.

Who is the saint in your life? Who have you looked up to, and what was it that made you admire them? Today we remember our members, the gifts their lives were to their friends, to their families, to this congregation and community. And we also take time to remember those who are connected to this congregation in other ways – those who are sisters and brothers and children and parents and grandparents and loved ones of yours, those whose names you carry in your hearts today and everyday. And we celebrate the lives of those we have lost as a community, as a society. We celebrate those who have gone on before her, working for peace and justice in the world – treasures like Martin Luther King Jr., or Mother Teresa. We remember treasures that are lesser known – perhaps someone in the history of your family. And we celebrate and remember the lives of the saints that fill the pages of our church’s history. We remember the first disciples who followed Jesus, and the women whose names are lesser known but who also responded to the call. Today we call to our mind the early church figures who helped Christianity grow from a small sect into a worldwide faith. We remember those who gave their lives to make it so. We remember our Protestant history, and celebrate those who helped reform the church. We celebrate our Methodist heritage – John and Charles Wesley – and our Presbyterian tradition– with names like John Calvin and John Knox as leaders of the church. As we sit in these pews today, we stand on the faith of so many others – those in the long ago past and those in the all too recent past. These are the ones who have shaped our lives. These are the ones who have impacted our faith, whether we recognize it every day or not.

And so as I love to celebrate All Saints Sunday, I also approach it with caution. As soon as we name someone as a saint, we tend to put them into a category other than where we place ourselves. They are saints, so we can expect them to be good, kind, and to change the world. But we’re just regular people. Everyone can’t be Mother Teresa, right? God hopes and expects a lot for us, but we’re not really all meant to be like her are we? We’re not expecting to be put in the history books, are we?

And so we turn to our text for today. In our gospel lesson we hear Jesus reminding us of the greatest commandments, after being questioned by one of the scribes. This time, instead of so many scenes where a religious leader is trying to entrap Jesus in his teaching, the scribe seems sincere in his questioning, and Jesus tells that man that he is not far from God's kingdom. The scribe wants to know which commandment is first of all. Of course, Jesus tells us as he tells the scribe that the commandments we must follow are ones that the whole community in Israel knew by heart, and that most of us Christians today know by heart as well. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself." The scribe responds, “You are right Teacher,” saying that following those commandments are much more important than making the proper sacrifices and appropriate offerings. Jesus sees that he has answered wisely, and says, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no one else dares to ask Jesus questions, at least not for the time being.

We are commanded, above all, to love. When I think of the lives of the saints – saints of the church or saints in my life – I can see how love was at work in their lives. Mother Teresa loved those others considered untouchable. Gandhi loved those who were oppressing his people, and loved those whose faith and beliefs were completely different than his own. My grandfather, imperfect though he was, loved freely, in spite of the prejudices he was raised with. He always acted in love. Jesus says that following the commandments to love brings us near to God’s kingdom. And to be in God’s kingdom is the best way I can understand sainthood.

That means, though, that we can’t shove sainthood off as a title only for those who have passed away, or as a title we use to get ourselves out of the responsibility God has placed on us in discipleship. Because loving is something we can all do, if we choose to open our hearts. You can bring in a thousand cans for our food drive, but if you do it without love, you’re missing the point. When you speak, do you speak with love? When you see those who don’t look like you, or dress like you, of live like you, do you look with loving eyes? The first commandment tells us that we must love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Catholic Worker Dorothy Day once said, "I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least." We can only love God if we love one another. We can love that which God has created, and love God through our actions toward others.

When we talk about saints in the life of the church, we’re not talking about those who have completed some special tasks, or those who have gained world-wide renown. We’re talking about those who leave a legacy of love, those who take Jesus seriously when he reminds us that there’s nothing better we can do in life than loving God, and loving others. If you think about those saints in your own life, or even those saints in the scriptures and beyond, I think you’ll agree that these saints weren’t perfect. St. Peter denied Jesus three times in the hour of Jesus’ greatest need. St. Paul spent years of his life persecuting those who followed Jesus. Much has been made in recent years of letters showing the Mother Teresa had periods of struggle and anguish in her life, as we all do. John Wesley had times of great despair in his faith journey. And so we celebrate on All Saints Day not a class of perfect Christians, unfaltering disciples. To me, a saint is someone where you can tell that their life has been transformed by the love of God they carry with them, and so share freely with others. You can tell that they are living in a new way because of God’s love for them.

Today is All Saints Day. And you are meant to be counted in that number. Don’t count yourself out, and let yourself off the hook. We all know what it means to love. “Hear,” Saints of God, “the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength,” and “you shall love you neighbor as yourself.” Amen.

Sermon for Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, "Take Heart"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:46:59 PST

Sermon 10/25/09, Mark 10:46-52

Take Heart

This week, my mother found out that she will need to have surgery on her ankle in January – surgery to fuse together the joints which have collapsed on her through the years. My family and I have been trying to put together a plan for her post-surgery – she’ll be in a cast for three months at least, and her house isn’t particularly friendly for a person who has a hard time with stairs. As we’ve been talking about plans for her recovery, one thing has become clear to me: my mom is in a bit of denial about the extent of injury to her ankle and about the extent of recovery time she will need. (And yes, I did let my mother know I was preaching about her today!) Somehow, my mom has seen her bad ankle as a minor problem that she should be able to get over with a better pair of sneakers. She’s embarrassed when the pain makes her limp. Although she was granted permanent disability from work, it is only just recently that she finally accepted that it would be smart to get a handicapped parking permit. She went to the doctor this week and seriously was expecting him to send her to physical therapy, when it has been clear to her family that her ankle is very far structurally past any non-surgical means of repair.

I’ve been wondering about her reaction. I tease her about it, to be sure. But it’s really not so unusual. I’ve been there. Most of us have, in one way or another. Mostly, we value our independence, and self-reliance. We hate having to ask someone else for help. But why? Since we usually don’t mind helping others, why are we so reluctant to accept help ourselves? I think that needing help makes us feel weak, and we’re certainly taught, from a very early age, to value strength over weakness in all things.

But I think it goes even deeper than that. I think, although we might not always think we do, or put it in just these terms, and regardless of what we think of Charles Darwin and his theories as a whole, we deeply believe in a practical application of the survival of the fittest. We deeply believe that the strong survive. That weak equals worthless. That to be worthy is to be the best. That we have to play to win, always – that losing is never an option. That mindset is pervasive in every area of our world – in school – from academics to sports; in the military and government, where political victories so often outweighs the costs; at work, as we seek promotions and climb the ladder and wind up putting ambition ahead of whatever it is we actually do; in our social circles, where even our closest relationship are layered with unspoken competitions about who has more, whose lives are more ‘together’, who can claim more success.

Of course, the trouble for us comes in that this mindset is in extreme opposition to the mindset, the teachings, the message of Jesus Christ. They just don’t line up, these points of view. We struggle and struggle to reconcile this world view with Jesus’ world view, but they just don’t fit together, and the only way we can make them fit together is by making Jesus about something he wasn’t. Our texts from last week and this week set up the perfect juxtaposition of these views. Remember last week, James and John had requested to sit at the right and left of Jesus in God’s kingdom. Throughout Mark, we see the disciples as the group that is sort-of failing to get it, failing to understand Jesus, no matter how clearly he seems to speak. They just can’t seem to let go of their expectations that Jesus will fit into the role of a typical leader, king, revolutionary, celebrity, or something else equally exciting. They seem to be in it for the rewards, at least a little. Maybe they’ve finally started focusing on rewards in God’s kingdom rather than earthly ones, but they still want a prize for following Jesus so well. And so they ask, with an amazing lack of embarrassment, for the seats at Jesus’ right and left.

Jesus explains that not only was this not possible for him to grant, but their asking missed the mark: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,” he said, ^44”and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’” A completely opposite point of view – not about greatness and places of power, but about service, being “slave of all,” certainly a role of weakness and powerlessness.

Following this scene, we find Jesus and the disciples departing after a stop in Jericho, mixing in among a large crowd also at the city gates. A man named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, is sitting by the roadside. We’re told that he is a blind beggar. When he realizes it is Jesus passing by, he begins to shout to Jesus: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many people, upset by the outburst, try to silence the man, ordering him to be quiet. But he just cries out even more loudly and persistently, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stops and tells the people to call them man over to him. They say to Bartimaeus, “Take heart, he is calling you.” Bartimaeus throw of his cloak, springs up, and comes to Jesus. Jesus asks what the man wants Jesus to do for him, and he responds, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus replies, “go; your faith has made you well.” And immediately the man’s sight is restored, and he follows Jesus on the way.

Why this story? It’s a miracle, of course. A healing. Another act of compassion by Jesus. But what’s special about it? What does it mean? Because some details of the passage make it clear that Mark finds this instance of healing of particular importance. First, Mark name this blind man – Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus. Most of the people Jesus heals in Mark, or in other gospels to an extent, are unnamed. It’s just, a blind man, a hemorrhaging woman, a lame man, a young girl. Bartimaeus has a name, and that let’s us know he’s important. He also stands out because of how he calls out to Jesus: “Jesus, Son of David.” That title, “Son of David,” shows that Bartimaeus sees Jesus as the messiah. In Mark, very few, including the disciples, have correctly identified Jesus as such. And finally, when Bartimaeus is healed, it says he follows Jesus on “the way.” That phrasing, “the way,” is the name the early Christians used to describe themselves. They were followers of the way. Bartimaeus is a follower of the way. So this passage shows that though blind, this is a man who sees clearly, who is on the right track. How he behaves, what he does, is probably being held up as an example for us to follow.

So, what does Bartimaeus do? Well, immediately following two of Jesus’ disciples asking for places of honor, we have Bartimaeus, asking for mercy. We have disciples who have argued about greatness, and we have Bartimaeus, a beggar, blind, pleading, humbling himself before an entire crowd of people. We read that Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, and springs up when Jesus calls him over – and almost always when Mark talks about leaving behind a garment in his gospel, the symbolism is about leaving behind and old way to embrace a new way. So Bartimaeus is leaving behind whatever has bound him, and coming to Jesus. And it is to Bartimaeus, the one who asks nothing of Jesus except for mercy, that Jesus speaks these words: “What do you want me to do for you?” When Jesus heals Bartimaeus, it is not his goodness that makes him well, his position or status, not his achievements or successes. It is his faith, Jesus says, that makes him well.

In the end, the message is simple here, as simple as my children’s sermon – but we have such a hard time living it out. If we are already full - no matter what the quality of the stuff is that we’ve filled our lives up with, what can God possibly give to us? The gospels are full of Jesus interacting with people that are on the margins of society – the blind, the sick, the unclean, the shunned by society, those sinning in ways that got them rejected from the community. But I don’t believe Jesus kept company with them because they were any more sinful than the others – the Pharisees, the disciples, the elders. Jesus kept company with them because they were the ones who were ready to admit that they needed help. They were the ones who had enough space in their lives for God to actually move and breathe. They were the ones who knew that they needed mercy more than they needed seats of honor.

If we are so strong that we can do everything ourselves, what need could we have of God? If we are always right, what could we need to learn from the one Bartimaeus called teacher? If we must be first, best, winners in every aspect of life, how will we build a relationship with the Christ who has put himself at the end of the line? Take heart; Jesus is calling you. Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on us: we pretend we are so strong. Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on us: sinners. Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on us. Amen.

In honor of Ella, my cat

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:34:56 PDT

So, I haven't blogged in forever, and all I give you is this graph? But it made me laugh out loud - I couldn't help it. Also, Graph Jam is hilarious.

see more Funny Graphs

Sermon for Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, "Be Challenged"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:09:13 PDT

Sermon 10/11/09, Mark 10:17-31

Be Challenged

I’ve been thinking, over the last several weeks, in light of some of the powerful lessons from the New Testament that we’ve focused on in worship, that it’s amazing that we even read the Bible aloud and pretend to like it. I wonder why our very reading of the words of Jesus and his closest followers doesn’t offend us. I wonder how we can even bear to hear what Jesus says sometimes, if we believe that he’s the Messiah, if we believe that we’re supposed to try to practice what he preaches. I think this because sometimes I’m struck with such force at how much distance there is between what Jesus teaches and what we do. Jesus challenges us. More than that. Pushes us. Tells us we’re getting it wrong. Quite wrong. Tells us we have to completely change what we know, how we live, what we do.

I recently happened on one of my favorite quotations, by 19^th century philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard. He writes, "The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."[1]

The Bible is easy to understand, Kierkegaard says. But we have to pretend it’s hard to understand, because following it – well, that would mean too much of a change in our way of life to be able to stand. There is, I think, a sense of humor, a facetiousness in his tone – but also a powerful truth. How can we read this Bible, if we believe it to be the word of God, and go on living as we do? This week’s gospel lesson is a prime example of what Kierkegaard writes about, and of what I mean by wondering that we even dare to read Jesus’ words in a public setting. Did you know that fully 40% of what Jesus teaches about in the Synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are about money or use economic metaphors? We hate talking about money, don’t we? Or at least, talking about our personal money. How much we have, how we spend it, how we use it, how much we need, how much we don’t have. How is it that we like to spend so little time talking about our money, when Jesus focused on money and faith so much? As Christians, we seem to get ourselves all tangled up in three or four verses that talk about homosexuality, or a few passages that talk about women’s roles, or that speak to some other controversial social issue of the day – we make these issues so important, but we like to stuff all the money talk in churches into a few weeks when, by necessity, we must have a stewardship campaign. And we don’t even like to talk about it then very much. And yet, almost half of what Jesus says has something to do with money, our stuff, how we share, or don’t share our wealth, and what all this means about our relationship with God.

Our gospel lesson today is a challenge. Everything that Jesus says is challenging – but this is a standout lesson for sure. As Jesus is setting out for a journey, a man falls on his knees before him and says, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers strangely: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” He then continues, listing several of the ten commandments to the man. The man tells him that he’s done this already, kept these commandments since he was a child. Jesus looks at him and loves him, the text says. And he responds, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The man is grieved and shocked, and walks away thinking of his many possessions.

Jesus then turns to his disciples, and tells them it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. At this extreme statement, everyone is astounded. They ask who can possibly be saved if these are the standards. Jesus replies, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” Peter seems to want to show that he and the other disciples have done what the rich man seems to be struggling with: “Look,” he says, “we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus says then that there’s no one who has left someone behind to for the sake of the gospel won’t receive a hundredfold back both now and in eternal life. But he, concludes, with often repeated words: “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” A challenging text. What do we do with it?

As Kierkegaard expected, many of the commentaries about this text try to find some way to soften it. Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” And as soon as he says it, we try to unsay it for him. One pastor writes, “Nearly irresistible is the urge to soften this passage’s demands.”[2] Another[3] writes that he had come across two ways to interpret the metaphor of the camel and the eye of the needle that might make Jesus’ metaphor more bearable. First, he shares, “some interpreters of the Bible suggest that apart from the large gates into Jerusalem, there may have also been one small gate. This narrow gate, [easier to use than opening the big city gates, and] just high enough for human entry, was called the “Needle’s Eye.” Maybe a camel might be able to squeeze through if the beast hobbled in on its knees. As you can see,” he explains, “this tames the words of Jesus a little, and would suggest that a rich [person] humbly on [his or her] knees might be able to enter the kingdom of God.” However, there’s simply no evidence for the existence of such a gate. It’s totally speculation.

So he shares a second possible interpretation: “A second interpretation hangs on the undisputed fact that in the Greek of the New Testament the words for camel and thick rope cable are similar. Camel is “camelos” and rope cable is “camilos”. Maybe the later copiers of the New Testament got the words mixed up. This is a plausible theory. But it does once more blunt the words of Jesus.” Of course, a thick rope cable might be easier to fit through a needle eye than a camel – but I guarantee that thick rope cable isn’t going to actually going to make it through either.

Even if we take Jesus’ words at face value, some of us still don’t feel worried by this text, because we figure Jesus isn’t talking to us. He’s talking to someone else – someone who is tied to their possessions. Someone rich. We’re not rich are we? I’ve served three very different congregations now, and I have yet to run into anyone who actually considers themselves rich. The way I figure, as long as we know of someone who has more than we do, we figure that they may be rich, but we sure aren’t. It’s understandable. It’s hard to think of ourselves as rich if we struggle to make ends meet. But consider this – in my family, between me, my three brothers, my mother, my sister-in-law, and my nephew – that’s 7 people – we have 6 televisions, 5 computers, 8 telephones, 6 cars, two houses and an apartment, a swimming pool, probably 1000 DVDs and 3000 CDs, thousands of dollars worth of musical instruments including guitars, a piano, violins, and drums, 3 mp3 players, some gaming systems, 3 well-fed and pampered pets, at least a hundred stuffed animals, and at least 25 bins of “storage.” This comes from a family of workers that would consider themselves thoroughly middle class. But if we’re not rich, what’s rich? What’s the standard?

A good rule to follow when reading the scriptures is this: If Jesus is talking, he’s talking to us – to you, and to me. He’s not talking to someone else, about someone else. He’s talking about us. Jesus was really emphatic about tending to your own struggles rather than pointing out the sins of others. So if he’s talking, he’s talking to us. We might try to shed the label as best we can, but when it comes to being rich, there’s probably only a small handful of people in this congregation who could argue that this text isn’t really applicable. But if that list of stuff I shared sounds like a list of stuff you might rack up in your own family – Jesus is talking to you. Somehow, in the end, we have to come to terms with that – Jesus is talking to us. We don’t have to like it. We don’t have to follow him, to listen to him. But if we do decide to follow, then Jesus is talking to us.

So now what do we do with this text? To me, it’s a question of before and after. In this passage, we have two sections that talk about following Jesus. First, the rich man wants to know what to do to inherit eternal life, and he tells Jesus he’s been following the commandments. Jesus tells him one to do – one thing – sell his stuff, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus. We don’t know if the man decides to do this or not. But we know he was grieved at the prospect. At the end of the passage, we have Peter saying to Jesus, “we have left everything and followed you.” In other words, the disciples have already done what Jesus was asking the rich man to do – left everything to follow Jesus. And Jesus says they will ultimately receive a hundredfold because of it. I think the rich man was hoping that he could be a follower of Jesus without having his life after he met Jesus be too different from his life before he met Jesus. He was hoping he could be a follower, be a disciple, but not have to change anything about his life. But if your life as a disciple doesn’t look very different from your life before being a disciple of Jesus, what’s the point? What’s the purpose? Following Jesus changes us – or is supposed to – making our life after significantly different from our life before. The rich man said he followed the commandments – but really, can’t most of us say we’ve done those basic things? Following Jesus is more of a commitment, more radical of a change in our lives. In fact, a complete change. We’re new creations in Christ. But so often, from trying to interpret Jesus’ words to make them easier to bear, to trying to convince ourselves Jesus means someone else and not us, we try to minimize what Jesus is asking of us, rather than trying to change ourselves.

When Jesus speaks these challenging words to this rich man, we might over look the powerful beginning of verse 21. Just before he tells the man to sell everything and give away his money, we read, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said.” Jesus loves this man. And what he says to him comes out of that love. If you love someone, you want the best for them. So Jesus is convinced that if this man does as he advises, he will have the very best life he can have, the fullest life that Jesus can offer, which comes from letting God fill us up, rather than trying to be the source of our own blessings. Jesus challenges us, asks the impossible from us, asks us to turn our lives upside down. He does it not to make following him a task we can never perform, but because he loves us, and wants us to stop settling for an imitation of real life.

The disciples themselves are overwhelmed by the uphill task of following Jesus. “Then who can be saved?” they wonder. Jesus responds, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” Alone, we’re in trouble. With God, we have grace, unconditional love, unlimited second chances. We spend too much time hoping God will lower the expectations placed on us. In doing so, we diminish the perfection of what God offers us. Instead of lowering the standards so we can meet them, God offers grace and forgiveness, and the help to do what we never dreamed we could. So let’s hear what Jesus is really asking of us. And despite the difficult road ahead, we can give thanks: With God, it’s possible to change our lives, change the world, and to fit a camel through the eye of the needle.

Amen.

[1] Kierkegaard, source unknown.

[2] Skinner, Matthew.

[3] Prewer, Bruce. http://www.alphalink.com.au/~nigel/doc/20031012.htm

Sermon for Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, "Be Childlike"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:58:39 PDT

Sermon 10/4/09, Mark 10:13-16

Be Childlike

Today we come to the third in a set of texts where Jesus draws children into the scene, draws children to the center of a circle of adult men, to the center of a circle of his most trusted colleagues, to the center of his teaching. In our first text two weeks ago, we read about the disciples arguing over who was the greatest, and in response, Jesus brought a small child into their midst, and said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Then, last week, we talked about stumbling blocks, and heard Jesus say, probably of this same child, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your heck and you were thrown into the sea.”

And today, finally, we get to this passage of four short verses. People are bringing their children to be blessed by Jesus. The disciples, apparently not having absorbed much from the conversations they’ve seemingly just had with Jesus, speak sternly to them. We’re not sure exactly why they are upset with these parents and children. But we can make some guesses – the children were distracting, Jesus was busy, teaching, doing something more important. The children were in the way, Jesus had a lot on his plate; the children wouldn’t understand Jesus anyway. But Jesus becomes indignant at seeing this happening – another strong response from him after some passages of strongly-worded teaching. He says, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he takes the children in his arms, lays hands on them, and blesses them.

This passage is short, but powerful, as long as we don’t just skim the surface of what Jesus is saying. At surface, I think our impulse is, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, to conjure images of Jesus and children, which is fine, but not if the only response we can have is “how sweet.” Jesus is doing some serious teaching here. At the least, the passage hopefully causes us to think about children in the life of the church. How do we see children? What place do children have in the Body of Christ? I recently came across an article about a church that actually prohibits children under a certain age from entering the sanctuary. The church adamantly defends the practice, insisting adults shouldn’t have to be distracted during worship. They don’t seem to see any relevancy, apparently, between their practice and our passage for today. Beyond worship, though, are questions about how children are part of everything we do at church. Why do we want young people here and involved in what we’re about? Is it just for the survival of the church? Or because we want young people to experience God’s unconditional love? How do we welcome and bless children in our midst?

But still, Jesus pushes us beyond even those questions. He says, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” We’re not just being asked to be nice and welcoming to children. We are being asked to learn from children, to in fact, ourselves, be childlike, so that we can receive God’s kingdom like they do. If we want to enter God’s kingdom, in this life or after, we need to receive it like a child. And that’s a little more challenging. What does that even mean? How do we receive the God’s kingdom like a child? How does a child receive God’s kingdom? What characterizes children, and how they approach things, and how they approach God? I spent some time considering these questions this week. Of course, when we think about children, we could come up with many different adjectives and descriptions. But thinking about children and God, children and faith, I’ve focused in on curiosity, vulnerability, and receptiveness.

Children are curious, aren’t they? From the moment they’re born, babies are curious – you can see the amazement in their eyes when they discover that their hands and feet are attached to their bodies, or when they become fascinated by a light on the ceiling, or a whirring fan. Children ask why. Why does this work that way? Why does this happen? Why does this rule exist? Why? Children ask until adults finally give in and say, “because I said so!” My nephew Sam is at the age where he can think the smallest thing is funny, and laugh at some new thing he has discovered over, and over, and over. On my vacation this summer, Sam spent an hour shining a flashlight into each of the adults’ faces, fascinated by seeing the light shine. Children are curious, and they are filled with awe and wonder.

As adults, are we curious? Do we have a sense of us? Do we look at the world around us in wonderment? Do we ask “why?” Sometimes, when it comes to faith matters, we’re afraid to be curious, and ask why, and wonder about what God is doing, and how God moves in the world. But actually, I think that some of our deepest growth in discipleship can come from asking questions. Not having any questions about our God who moves in such mysterious ways only says we’re not very interested in what God has going on. We need to wonder and ask. I think, as we get to adulthood, we’re afraid of not knowing the answers to questions. We’re afraid to be caught, called out, like a student called on in class who was busy daydreaming. I’ve certainly been in that embarrassing situation – you know, where you laugh at a joke but you haven’t even really understood what the other person was talking about? We’re so interested in appearing to know what’s going on, that we let ourselves miss out on fully experiencing things. We’d rather just pretend we know what is happening.

And we can get caught up with doing that in our relationship with God too – we’re worried about not looking like good disciples. We’re worried that we don’t seem to hear God’s voice as clearly and confidently as the person in the pew next to us seems to. We’re worried that our questions about God mean our faith isn’t strong. We worry that because we don’t know the Bible well, or don’t know our history well, or don’t know enough about our denominations, that we are somehow failing as Christians. We must be curious! Eager to ask about God and God’s ways. You have to rest assured that despite appearances, everyone one of us here, including your pastor, is filled with questions about God and how we are meant to follow God. We’re in this journey of faith together. So be curious, be filled with awe, and wonder.

Children are also vulnerable. In fact, humans are dependent and need the care of adults longer than virtually any other species on the planet. Newborns depend on others for every single thing in their lives. And any parents will know that children continue to depend on you for the next 18 years at least, but probably more like the next 25 years, or 30 years, or more. But seriously, children are vulnerable. They must put their trust, faith, confidence in others every day. Their very life is dependent on someone else providing for them every day.

As adults, one of the last things we want to be is vulnerable. In fact, in this society, we value our independence and our privacy so much that we’d usually rather not have to ask anyone for anything. And we certainly don’t want to appear vulnerable to others. If you think way back to the primaries before the last presidential election, you might remember a time on the campaign trail when Hillary Clinton started crying in response to a question someone asked her about the demands of her candidacy for the presidency. With the media coverage, with the incredible response – supportive or critical – of Clinton’s tears, you would think that the capacity to cry, to be moved to tears, to have an emotional response to something, must be some very, very rare thing. That’s how much we dislike being vulnerable in front of one another. And I can relate. I have long hated crying in front of others. I may be in extreme emotional distress internally. But externally, I will do everything I can to keep it together.

And why? For what purpose? Why are we so obsessed with seeming like we have everything together in front of others? What would be so horrible about being vulnerable? Perhaps we know that others are sometimes not gracious in their responses to our vulnerability. We close up and self-protect because we’ve been hurt. But with God, things are – or can be – different. God is merciful, and gracious, and gives us strength, where we see weakness. If nowhere else, we need to learn how to be vulnerable to God, and stop trying to put on a show for God of how together we are. When we’re vulnerable, then God can actually reach us, shape us, and change us.

And children are receptive. And I mean this in some very literal ways. Children have the ability to receive things, to receive gifts, with ease and openness. Children love receiving presents, and they delight in every part of the gift, from the shiny wrapping paper, to the box, to the item inside all the wrapping. They don’t worry about getting too many gifts. They don’t even really mind getting a lot of the same gift. Hopefully they say, “Thank you!” But hopefully, the joy with which children receive gifts is in itself a ‘thanks’ to the gift-giver.

Adults seem to have a hard time accepting gifts. We worry that there are really strings attached to gifts that we receive. We worry that something is expected of us in return. We worry that we don’t deserve the gift. We only want certain kinds of gifts. You remember this summer when I was talking about making a wish list for Christmas and birthdays. We go beyond that really – for weddings or baby showers or other special events, we actually register for the gifts we want, just to encourage people to get us only the things we’re asking for. Or we give each other gifts that we would never want ourselves, because we’re giving out of obligation, rather than generosity. Giving and receiving gifts, something that should be easy, and all about showing love and affection for others, becomes a tricky and stressful endeavor full of proper etiquette to uphold and unspoken expectations.

God is the best giver of all good gifts. God gives to us never out of obligation, but always out of love. And God gives to us as one who knows us completely, knows what we want, and what we truly need. And God always gives us the best. But so often, we’re not receptive to what God is giving us. God gives us talents and skills and abilities, and we neglect to use them, fail to appreciate them, act like they are a burden to us, and wish we had some other gifts or talents instead. God gives us forgiveness, grace, love without condition, and we feel like we have to earn the gift, do something to pay for it, be good enough to have received what God wants to give freely, not so that we will be in debt to God. If we are receptive, open to God’s gifts, God’s abundant generosity will overwhelm us, and satisfy us more completely than we can imagine.

Today we celebrate World Communion Sunday, a day when we rejoice to know that Christians all over the world, despite our different practices, structures, and theologies, we are members of the One Body of Christ. Today as we share this meal, let us come, childlike. Come and be curious and filled with wonder at how God can be present in the breaking of bread and the sharing of the cup. Come, be vulnerable, and open to God changing you through the simple meal. Come, receive these gifts, freely given, given with love, offered without price. Come, like a child, and receive the kingdom of God. Amen.

Sermon for Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, "Be Healed"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:05:05 PDT

Sermon 9/27/09, James 5:13-20, Mark 9:38-50

Be Healed

Today’s gospel lesson of those times when I feel like the author had a few scenes of Jesus’ teaching that he didn’t know where to put, and just sort of jumbled them together in one scene. We have several snippets in today’s text, words from Jesus, that at first don’t seem to go together. Follow me through the text. First, we have the disciple John coming to Jesus apparently upset because someone else was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, someone who was *not* one of the twelve. Apparently, this bothered John and the others – they tried to stop the man because he wasn’t one of the inner circle. But Jesus tells them “whoever is not against us is for us,” and he tells them to let the man continue in his work. Then, Jesus says, “For truly I tell you,” implying that what he says next will be a conclusion to what he has said so far. “Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” Next, Jesus begins warning against putting stumbling blocks in front of any of “these little ones” – here I assume he is speaking about the child that still must be at the center of their circle, the child Jesus used as an example of who to welcome in our reading last week. He says that anyone that puts a stumbling block in front of a child would be better off with a great millstone hung around their neck, thrown into the sea. Then Jesus, still talking about stumbling, seems to shift gears a little, saying whoever has an eye or hand or foot that causes them to stumble in sin would be better to cut off these body parts in order to enter the kingdom of God than to end up going whole into hell, certainly a vividly memorable and compelling image! And finally, Jesus says, again, as if it relates smoothly, “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

What’s the message for us in this jumble of texts? Can we find a lesson in this mix of teachings? Turning back to the beginning of our text, we see that the disciples are upset because someone else is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Why are they upset? If already, so early into Jesus’ ministry, and early into the disciples’ own outreach, if already, others are taking up the cause, taking the message of Jesus, and using God’s power to heal, to free others from demons, wouldn’t this be a good thing? Shouldn’t they be happy to hear the effect that their message has had already? But instead of being happy about the obvious success of the message of the kingdom of God, they are upset and possessive – they want to control the message – control who spreads and how and who gets credit for it. So they try to stop this man, saying, “because he was not following us.” Already you can hear in their response that they are speaking of who is following the collective them, rather than who is following Jesus. Already they’ve forgotten that they aren’t the leaders – they’re servants of the one, the only one, they’re following.

Would we be any different than the disciples if we were in their place? Actually, I think we are in their place. We’re much the same as the disciples. Unfortunately, the church universal today is the center of a lot of fighting among its members – fighting among the various denominations, fighting among the various members within denominations. What is everyone fighting over? Our fighting may take different forms, focusing on how to interpret the scriptures, or social issues like sexuality or abortion, or even on organizational structure – but the main idea is usually the same – we believe we do things the right way, and that the others are doing things the wrong way. That’s perhaps to be expected. But, often, because we believe we do it right and they do it wrong, we actually spend more energy trying to stop them from doing what they’re doing than we do just doing what we’re doing. In the long run, Christianity as a whole doesn’t have a great public image. Right now, we are struggling to remain relevant and important in people’s lives. But instead of functioning together as the body of Christ, we compete with each other, in congregations, denominations, and between them, and end up losing the interest in the process of those with whom we seek to share the gospel – the good news about God’s redeeming, unconditional love.

Jesus tells the disciples that even a small gesture like giving a cup of water is an act that is part of this kingdom of God – and so even a man casting out demons who is not one of their group – if he is doing it in the name of Christ – as an act of the kingdom – this man too – this act too – it is an act worthy of God’s reward. It may not be the way the disciples wanted it done, and it may not be done by who they wanted to do it. But frankly, Jesus indicates, it isn’t up to them to decide. In fact, he continues, they do more harm by criticizing than the other man does by casting out demons. He says that what they’re doing is putting stumbling blocks in the way of others in their journey of following Jesus. And Jesus says that putting stumbling blocks in another’s path is the greater evil. In fact, he feels so strongly about this that he says it is better for a person to throw themselves into the ocean with a millstone around their neck than to be the one who puts a stumbling block before another. Those are very strong words – an expression of hyperbole or exaggeration to be sure, or indeed, we would all be without eyes, hands, and feet. But the image lets us know exactly how Jesus feels.

We all make mistakes. We all sin. And God asks us to repent and again journey in God’s direction instead of our own. Our own sin is one thing. But when by our actions we lead others into sin – that’s another, more serious matter. When, by our actions, we keep others from following God, and prevent them from answering God’s call to them, Jesus tells us that this is a very serious thing. So, in the life of the church in the world, when we work against each other and not with each other, or at least in support of one another, we not only restrict our brothers and sisters in Christ from doing what God has called them to do, we also keep them from reaching people in need of God’s message of love.

When Jesus talks about the eyes and hands and feet that cause sin, I think he’s saying that when someone stumbles on a path, it’s smarter to remove the cause of the stumbling than to remove the person traveling, or to have the person change paths. The person is right, the path is right, it is only the source, the stumbling block, that is getting in the way. We have to be more honest with ourselves. Most of us, thinking about stumbling blocks, can probably quickly call to mind times when others have been stumbling blocks for us. That’s easy. But that’s not what Jesus is saying. He is speaking directly to us: “If you put a stumbling block before [some]one . . .,” “if your hand causes you to sin.” Jesus isn’t asking us to think about what others have done to us. Jesus is asking us to think about our actions toward others. Today, each of us must think about our actions, and our actions only. Where in our lives have we caused someone else to stumble? Where have my actions – your actions – prevented someone from answering God’s call? We hope, I’m sure, never to be responsible for such a thing. But I’m ready to admit that sometimes I want to tell others they’re doing it wrong, going about ministry wrong, getting the details wrong, following God wrong. I’m tempted to tell them how to do it right, like I do. I’m tempted to put a stumbling block in their path, even though I wouldn’t want to call it that, but you can believe that as a pastor, there’s not a thing in our spiritual lives that I don’t have at least an opinion about! But if what I do – if what you do – if what we do as a congregation, or denominations, or as an entire faith tradition actually puts distance between someone else and God? Jesus says we better think seriously about the consequences of such actions.

I’ve mentioned to you that James is one of my favorite books of the Bible, and it is again the source for our second text today. In part, James is a favorite because James is very practical and straightforward in talking about how to live as a disciple. The apostle Paul might get the credit for his theological depth in all his letters to the churches, but to me, James does the important thing – he tells us how to live. He translates what Jesus has taught into how the early Christians should act with one another. And so James tells us what it looks like when we stop working against each other and start working with one another and for the sake of Jesus. In our passage today, James is writing about the power of prayer, which is just to say the power of actually talking to God, and the power of acting out of concern for one another. “Therefore,” he says,” confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” Healing in the community comes from this mutual relationship of intentional care for one another, under God’s love.

This congregation has certainly been through a long time of transition. Now, I’ve been here with you for three months, and I’ve been working to get a sense of where you’ve come from and who you are. But I think, after a time of transition, a time of waiting and preparing, you are also ready to move forward. There’s a lot going on in this congregation that I’m excited about. The Spirit of God is moving among us. God is calling us. We are ready, I think, to follow Jesus, down the challenging, surprising ways paths of discipleship. But before we go any further, I want us to pause here today – to pray for healing, to ask forgiveness, to share forgiveness, wherever there has been pain or hurt in the process of transition. I want us to pause here today and try to identify the stumbling blocks on our path – what is holding you back from following Jesus with your whole being? Where can you help clear someone else’s way? Today, following the benediction, I will remain in the sanctuary to offer prayers with you for healing, any kind of healing that you might need in your life – physical, emotional, spiritual. If you choose, I invite you to come to the rail, kneel or stand, and I will make the sign of the cross on your forehead with holy oil, and pray for God to guide your life on a clear path of discipleship.

And today, I’m asking all of you to pray for God to help us to remove those stumbling blocks from our path, so that nothing stands in the way of our walking with God. Because I think we’re standing on the edge of the wonderful things God is hoping and dreaming for this community. I think we’re standing at the starting line, and I’m so anxious for us to really embrace this journey together.

Jesus said, “whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will be no means lose the reward.” Amen.

Sermon for Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, "Be Last"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:20:02 PDT

Sermon 9/20/09, James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a, Mark 9:30-37

Be Last

I have to confess to you – it may not seem like it to you at first – but I’m actually a very competitive person. I like to win, and not so much even just to win, but to be the best. Now, I don’t mean that I will get upset and be a bad sport if I lose a game of Scrabble against you. But you might catch a glimpse of what I mean as we approach the CROP Walk next month – I will really want us to raise more money than any other church. Yes, because it will help hungry people, of course. But also, because I want us to be in first place! Throughout school Todd, my youngest brother, and I would always compete over grades and other academic achievements – Todd had a higher rank in high school than I did, but I had the higher SAT score, and we still argue about which is more important, even though now we are both well out of any situations where it matters!

So I have a competitive spirit. Most of the time, I can use this for the good. But sometimes, I have to be careful, and aware of when that competitive nature might be distracting me from what is important or right, or what God is calling me to do. Some of you might know that when I was serving in New Jersey, part of my plan was to return to Drew, where I went to seminary, to pursue a PhD. A PhD is on of the highest academic achievements you can achieve in any given field – it’s the “best,” in a sense, and I wanted it. And it had been my plan since high school to eventually seek my doctoral degree, part of the mental schedule I had mapped out for myself.

Now, I’m a big fan of learning, and higher education, and continuing education, and generally using our minds, the precious gifts that God has given us, to learn more and experience more of this world God has created. But suddenly, as I was going through the application process for the PhD program, I couldn’t figure out why I was doing it – why I wanted to go back to school. I didn’t want to teach in seminary, or work at an agency that might require the degree. I was missing Central New York, and my family. And I didn’t have the drive, right then, for the course load that I would have to take and try to balance with my church work. Finally, I realized that I just wanted the title because it was available – and I wanted the best degree available – the highest, top level thing I could get. But nowhere in my reasoning did I feel like going to school was necessarily what God was calling me to do, or what I felt like was going to really enhance my ministry as a pastor. And I try, always, to make my important decisions by listening for God’s leading voice. I still might go back to school some day. But if I do, it will be in God’s time, and for a purpose, and not in my time, and for a title.

Why were the disciples following Jesus? What was their purpose? As we look at our text today, our motivations are brought into sharp focus. We skip ahead a little in Mark this week from where we left off last week. But the conversation is a bit the same as it was in our text last week at the start – Jesus is sharing with the disciples, as they are passing through Galilee, that the will be betrayed, killed, and then rise again. We read that the disciples don’t understand what Jesus is talking about, but wisely, this time, Peter does not rebuke Jesus for his words. Unwisely, however, when they arrive in Capernaum, Jesus asks them what they were arguing about along the way. Rather than trying to figure out what Jesus means about this betrayal, killing, and rising, they’ve been arguing about which one of them was the greatest.

In response, Jesus sits down with the twelve and says to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” And then, by way of example, Jesus takes a little child and put the child in the midst of the group. He says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

At first it strikes me as funny that the disciples are actually arguing about which one of them is the best – how could they get caught up in something so silly – they, who were following Jesus, who couldn’t be more obvious in his lack of caring about matters like status and power and titles and places of honor. But on the other hand, if I can let myself really imagine the scene, I can see how it might unfold: These disciples are a group of twelve people, probably never chosen for anything before, and now, just twelve out of so many, they are called, by name, to follow Jesus. And Jesus is something of a celebrity, this man who teaches with authority, goes toe to toe with the Pharisees, and feeds people, and heals the sick wherever he goes. To be a disciple is like being in a pretty small inner-circle. I can see how over the course of three years with him, the disciples might start arguing, pointing out who was called first, or who Jesus confided in most, or who Jesus sent out most frequently, or who Jesus corrected most often. Which disciple was the best? The greatest? I can see how it would happen, as it happens to us in so many situations today. We get caught up in our own importance, and want to know where we stand in relation to everyone else.

Jesus clears this up really quickly: if we are to be his followers, where we stand in relation to everyone else is last, at the end of the line, serving others. That is some concise and clear perspective. And to illustrate, Jesus brings a child to the center of the circle, and talks about welcoming them. The child is at the center, and the disciples are moved to the edges of the circle. Now, today we come upon the first of three weeks of texts where Jesus talks about children, a rare topic of conversation in the Bible. And I think most people like these little passages, because children today are so treasured. We value children, love children, dote on children. And so, when we read these texts, we get these heart-warming pictures in our heads. Indeed, images, paintings, sketches of this text, and the ones that follow today’s selection usually depict a happy friendly Jesus bouncing some cute and rosy-cheeked baby on his lap. Sweet, touching pictures of Jesus with children that make us smile.

But such images don’t tell the whole story, let us know how significant these mentions of children in the Bible are, or help us to understand what an important point Jesus is trying to make here. Every time we hear the size of a crowd quoted in the gospels, the number given would be the number of the men only in the crowd. As the texts sometimes explicitly note, women and children were not counted in these numbers, because they weren’t considered important enough, or significant enough to count. What mattered in Jesus’ day was how many adult males were present. Women were considered less important, and children were even less so. Children were certainly loved, and they were important in terms of being able to carry on a family line. But children, in Jesus’ day, were not what they are today.

Why was this? Were people just less loving in Jesus’ day? No – they loved their families like we do, I’m sure. But children were vulnerable. Perhaps as many as half of all children simply wouldn’t survive until adulthood. And children didn’t have any social or legal standing or status in society. They had no power. They were simply not-yet-adults who were being trained to be adults, and they would count for something when they became adults. So when Jesus talks about children, he’s bringing to the center of attention a group of people that no one else is particularly interested in. Jesus is talking about people who weren’t even really considered worth counting, thinking about. He’s making them the focus of his example, the object of his teaching, the important center of attention.

The disciples, for all Jesus had taught them, were still interested in power and status. But, Jesus says, the way to be first where it matters is to welcome those that are not just lower in status – but to serve those who had no status at all, who weren’t even high enough to be counted or given a status. Jesus wants us to take those who don’t even count, and put them at the center. In doing so, we take ourselves out of the center, to the edges, placed as servants. In doing so, we welcome Jesus, and welcome God. And the one who welcomes God to their table – surely this person would feel themselves to be the greatest in a way that actually matters.

The only question left for us then is this: who is it who is like the unseen, uncounted child for us today? Who are we not counting? Not seeing? Not including? We can ask ourselves that question in many settings. Who don’t we see right within the walls of this church? Whose opinion do we count as less than our own? Sometimes we look at someone who has been here less years than someone else, and we don’t really see them. Sometime we look at someone who has been here their entire life, and we don’t really count them. Sometimes we overlook someone because they are too young to take seriously. And sometimes we count someone out because they are too old. I don’t believe we do things so intentionally or overtly – but whenever we become very focused on making sure thing are how we want them, we’re probably putting ourselves at the center of the circle, and not leaving room for someone else. Who don’t you see in your community? This week I encourage you to think about who we don’t count in society – who don’t we even notice? Maybe it’s a waiter bring your food to the table, or a bus boy cleaning up your dirty dishes. Maybe it’s the person collecting your trash, or checking you out of the grocery store. Maybe it’s the immigrant we overlook, or the teen dressed in something we can’t understand why they’d wear, or the person trying to discreetly buy food with food stamps. Jesus wants us to welcome them, welcome them, by putting them at the center of our attention. And the only way we can do that, is if we get out of the middle of the circle, and take a spot on the edge, so that there’s room, a place, for the ones who don’t get counted. And then, we serve.

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me.” Amen.

Sermon for Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, "Be Followers"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:18:54 PDT

Sermon 9/13/09, James 3:1-12, Mark 8:27-38

Be Followers

This week, at the eighth anniversary of September 11^th, 2001, like many people, I thought about where I was and what I was doing when I first heard word of what was unfolding in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC. I was in my second year of seminary at the time, in Madison, NJ, and I had just started my internship at the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, the ecumenical and interfaith agency of the United Methodist Church, which is located in Manhattan. I had worked just two days so far, and was feeling pretty brave for commuting into the city, making my way on the subway, and getting to the busy location of my workplace. Now, September 11^th was not one of the days that I was in the city – but going back to my job afterwards – there was such a climate of fear and anxiety, I can’t even explain to you. Every time a subway car stopped on the tracks between stations, people were afraid. When we had a fire drill in the building where I worked, people were afraid. When the train back to NJ had an anthrax scare, people were afraid. For the first time in many people’s lives, there was a realization that perhaps we weren’t really safe. We feared, in a way we hadn’t before, for our safety. For our personal safety, our physical safety, but also for our sense of national safety, safety for our society, a way of life we’d gotten used to. We desire, hope for safety in our lives – safety in our homes, schools, communities, on our streets, in the air – aren’t we seeking after a world that is safe?

Thinking about these issues of safety, keeping those thoughts in your mind, we turn to our text from Mark’s gospel. It’s another text that appears more than once in the lectionary, and we usually associate this passage with the season of Lent – when Jesus talks about denying ourselves and taking up crosses – that’s imagery that fits in with giving up or taking up something for Lent. But here it is, at the edge of fall, and we find this passage again. Our scene opens Jesus asking his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They answer truthfully that some speculate that Jesus is John the Baptist back from the dead, or that he is Elijah in his second coming, or at least one of the prophets. Then Jesus asks a more personal question: “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answers, “You are the Messiah.” This is the first time that Jesus is so identified by the disciples in Mark’s gospel. Peter has identified Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, for the first time. Jesus wants to know: what do I mean to the people? Who am I to them? And who am I to you? And the people, the crowds, the religious leaders – they’re confused, questioning. They all misname Jesus, misidentify who he is and what he is about. But Peter, for once, gets the answer right - You are the Messiah, he tells Jesus. Peter's answer shows that he knows who Jesus is.

But just as soon as Peter makes this identification, we find ourselves in the second section of this scene – Jesus describes for the disciples the events that will happen in their coming time together – the Son of Man will undergo great suffering and eventual death, and then rise again. Mark notes that Jesus “said all this quite openly.” Peter wasn’t pleased, apparently, with such openness. He takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. But Jesus turns the tables back on Peter, with blunt words. “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.” Then Jesus calls the crowds and disciples together. “If any want to become my followers,” he says, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lost it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”

Denial. Crosses. Saving and losing lives. Gain and forfeit. Jesus’ words are tongue twisting and circular and confusing. To save our life we must lose it, and if we lose it, we save it. What does it mean? For answers, perhaps we can look to the first part of this passage again, where Jesus has a rebuking showdown with Peter. What triggers Jesus’ reaction, I wonder? If someone you loved told you that all sorts of terrible things would happen to them, even if they thought those things were necessary, wouldn’t you want to stop these things from happening? Wouldn’t you insist that it wasn’t true, that they were just pessimists, with bad outlooks on the future? Isn’t Peter just trying to get Jesus out of this negative state of mind?

But then, on the other hand, I wonder: Are Peter’s motives really so selfless? Does he rebuke Jesus just because he does not want to hear about what his master will have to endure? Is he really just unable to bear hearing what Jesus will endure? If that’s the case, why does Jesus respond to him so harshly? Wouldn’t Jesus know Peter was speaking and reacting out of love? I wonder, then, if perhaps Peter was speaking out of fear – not for Jesus, but for himself. He has been following Jesus day to day, step to step. Now Jesus is talking about a path of suffering, rejection, and death. Won’t Peter have to follow Jesus on this path, too, to continue his discipleship? Perhaps Peter is not ready to give, or give up, what it takes to follow Jesus. Jesus is offering salvation – but perhaps Peter is looking for safety instead.

This is the crux of the passage. This is what I’ve been wondering about as I’ve been thinking about 9/11 this week. Are we looking for salvation? Or just safety? Because I think there is a big difference between being saved and being safe. Being safe means that we are protected from threats, protected from harm. But being saved – the word save is connected to the world salve, as in a healing balm. Being saved is something that brings wholeness, wellness, and life. But there’s no guarantee of safety. The thing about following Jesus is that he never promises that it will be safe to follow him. He’s very clear about that with Peter and his disciples in our text today. Following Jesus involves denying ourselves and taking up a cross, and actually following Jesus. There’s nothing safe about that at all. It’s risky, actually. But Jesus is taking about saving our lives, when we stop hanging onto our safety.

Are you looking to be safe? Or saved? If we think about the ways that we give – of ourselves, our money, our time, our possessions, our talents – we usually are willing to give so long as it doesn’t make us change our usual patterns and behaviors. I’ll give as long as I don’t have to give up something else. We serve, but within our comfort zones. We love, but with limits to protect ourselves. We risk, but not so much that we’re really be in trouble if things don’t work out. We, like Peter, fear being asked to give more than we’re able – to give our very selves. We can think of the motto, “Give until it hurts.” This sounds like an apt description of Jesus’ plan for us, doesn’t it? Laying down our lives? Taking up a cross?

But Jesus doesn’t see it this way. He turns our usual understandings upside down and inside out. To live you must get rid of your carefully constructed safety nets so that Jesus can actually save you. And to save, you must lose. After all, Jesus asks us, what can you give that equals the gift of your life? Not giving until it hurts. Giving until it gives you life. Unless we give up what we’re holding onto so tightly, unless we stop hanging on for dear life to our safety, we won’t be free to take up the cross that Jesus is offering to us. And we want to take that cross, though it seems hard to bear. Because if we don’t take up that cross, there is only so far we will be able to follow Jesus, only so far he can travel with us, before our paths must part. His path leads to the cross and beyond – to salvation – wholeness – life. His path may seem painful, but it is the path to the fullest kind of life we could desire. It is the path that will meet our deepest hopes. It is the path of abundant life. What can we give to walk such a path? Everything! “If any want to become my followers,” he says, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lost it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Jesus gives us the choice, as he gave to Peter and the disciples. Safe, or saved? Safe, but empty, unsatisfied? Or saved, risky, but whole, well? Your life, your real life is at risk. And saving it is worth giving everything. Amen.

"Whoever wants to be frist must be last of all and servant of all."

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:53:56 PDT

From the lectionary this week: "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Mark 9:35b

I've posted this quote before, but in light of this week's scripture text, I've had it on my mind, without being able to really work it in to my sermon:

From Kent Carlson's Soul Journey: "I am convinced that personal ambition, and a pastoral ethic centered around productivity and success is brutal to our souls and destructive to the souls of the people we lead. I believe there is a better way. But it requires us to walk right into the messiness of our own ambitious hearts, ready to die to those ambitions. We must become skilled at detecting the odor of personal ambition, then flee from it as if the church's future depends on it. For I believe it does."

Sermon for Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:51:08 PDT

Sermon 9/6/09, James 2:1-17, Mark 7:24-37

Be Opened

This week, we’re starting a new focus in worship, centered on asking ourselves the question: Who and what is God calling us to be? Who are we meant to be, each one of us? Who are we meant to be as a congregation? Each week, through October, we’ll look at a different aspect of what God seeks for us to be, and think about how we can live out God’s hopes for us. This week, we start with a challenging beginning.

No matter how many times I read this gospel lesson from Mark, I can’t quite come to terms with it. I’ve read commentaries and articles and scoured sources for inspiration. Nothing satisfies me. I want a clear explanation of the passage. Tell me why Jesus says what he says to this woman, please. I even find myself going back and forth in my own understanding and interpretation of the passage. This text appears in more than one gospel, and so it shows up in the preaching cycle every year. I’ve preached a few times on this passage, in some form, and it never fails to stretch me. The first time I preached on the passage, I thought perhaps that Jesus had simply had his understanding of his own mission widened by a persistent woman who demanded attention. She shared grace with him. A role reversal of sorts, but one that foreshadowed the universal nature of the gospel message that would come in the fullness of time. Another time I preached on the text, I figured that actually, Jesus gave in to the woman’s demands so easily that he could not really have meant to not heal her daughter in the first place. Jesus was somehow playing a role or something. And somewhere in the process of struggling with this strange text, I barely even remember to study the second half of our passage for today – a second healing, where Jesus opens the ears of a man who is deaf.

Let’s look at this strange set of healings more closely. Our passage begins with Jesus setting out after his teachings to the scribes and Pharisees, disciples and crowds, about what is clean and unclean, the lesson we heard just last Sunday. Jesus reminds them that it is what is inside a person that can make them clean or unclean, not what is outside, external, what goes in. It is not the superficial that makes us unclean or clean, but the contents of our hearts. Jesus reprimands the religious leaders for holding onto human traditions so tightly that they miss the point of the commandments of God to love.

After this confrontation, we find in our text for today that Jesus has set out for the region of Tyre. Tyre was a region that was primarily inhabited by Gentiles – by non-Jews. We’re told that he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there. But, as usual, “he could not escape notice,” and a woman comes to him with a “little” daughter who has an unclean spirit. She comes to him because, we read, she “immediately” heard about him when he came into town. She falls on her knees before Jesus and begs him to heal her child. Jesus’ response? “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” he says. Meaning has changed somewhat over time, but calling a woman a dog – even, in this situation, something like a ‘puppy-dog’, wasn’t exactly nice then either. Jesus seems to be saying that she doesn’t count as one of the children he’s trying to feed, but is like a dog begging for their food. But the woman has her own snappy comeback for Jesus – “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” This somehow suits what Jesus was looking for apparently, because he says to her, “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.” After this healing, Jesus takes an awkward route by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee. Here, a man who is deaf and who has a speech impediment is brought to Jesus. Jesus heals with a command – “Ephphatha – be opened.” Jesus tries to keep the healing quiet, but of course the news spreads quickly. People say of him, “he has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

When I’m confused about the meaning of passages in the Bible, it often helps me to check the immediate context – what happens right before and right after this passage. Knowing where the story falls in the overall scheme of things can help point us to what the story means, instead of trying to take a passage out of context as a stand-alone teaching. In context, we can ask: Why is the story here? Does it illustrate a point made in an earlier scene? Is it setting the stage for what comes next? If we look at the ‘before’ to today’s passage, and remember that Jesus was talking about it being what is inside, not what is outside, that makes a person clean or unclean, and then see him interacting with a woman who was, well, a woman, and a foreign woman, a Gentile woman, a woman of a different race, a woman with an unclean, demon-possessed daughter, a woman begging on her knees, strike after strike against her, according to ritual, custom, tradition, practice – where is this story leading us? If Jesus had been teaching about what really defiles a person, and how people weren’t unclean for the superficial reasons the Pharisees insisted on, and then he went from there directly to a region where the majority of people were foreigners, unclean under purity laws, for no apparent reason, what can we suspect about Jesus’ intentions with the woman? Despite appearance to the contrary, it seems Jesus must have gone to Tyre on purpose to interact with non-Jews. He must have at least anticipated a non-Jew coming to him for healing. And though his first words to her are at first hard to hear, what strongly held belief against healing her could be so easily overthrown after a one sentence exchange? I must believe, given the positioning of these two passages, that Jesus’ trip to Tyre is an illustration, a demonstration of his point about what – who – is clean and unclean, unaccepted and accepted in God’s terms over human terms.

If we turn to our epistle lesson for today, the meaning of the interaction between Jesus and this woman becomes even deeper. This letter is one of my favorite books of the bible, written by James the brother of Jesus, but it is almost overwhelming in its depth of convicting teaching. Today, we read his most famous words: “Faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” James, much in the vein of last week’s gospel lesson, is writing that it is not a person’s outside appearance, outside status, outside position that matters in the eyes of God. Such a simple lesson, isn’t it? Haven’t we known this since we were children? Been taught this since kindergarten? Perhaps in a way, James’ text can seem to us patronizing, or even, at least irrelevant. Do we really need someone to tell us not to judge people by what they’re wearing? We must really be advanced from the folks of Biblical times by now, right? But I suspect that actually we are often like I was in show and tell all those years ago. We’re ready to dole out expert advice because we’ve read the Book, but we’ve never actually put its contents to use yet ourselves. What does our living say about our believing? James says, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

James’ understanding of faith and works can be applied even to Jesus’ ministry. Faith by itself without works is dead. Teachings about what is right, knowing and being able to say what is right, means absolutely nothing if you don’t actually do what is right, and live rightly. How many followers do you think Jesus would have had if he had talked all this good talk about who was clean and unclean and then refused to be in ministry with those who were outside the typically accepted community? If such leadership cultivated followers, we could all have our own disciples, because we’re mostly very good at knowing the basics of faith. It is the living-out-of-faith part that causes us to stumble, where Jesus did not.

The problem with our understanding of “loving your neighbor” is that we have sculpted our lives until our only neighbors, the only ones we interact with, are people who look like us, who dress like us, who shop where we do and own the same kinds of things we do and who generally believe the same kinds of things we do. Despite Jesus’ living examples to the contrary, despite his habit of literally walking miles out of his way to find himself among people different from himself, we always seem to define neighbor in the narrowest, most literal ways possible. Hey – living, as I do, above a quiet insurance agency, on a block that has only two other homes, one of which is empty, I can declare that I get along with all my neighbors perfectly. But Jesus literally traveled across the country to find examples of what he meant by neighbor. He went from region to region to show us the full scope of what it means to love your neighbor, putting into practice all that he was teaching.

If we finally go back to the second part of the gospel lesson, where Jesus heals a deaf man, I’m now struck in particular by some phrases in the text. Jesus says, “Ephphatha – Be opened!” And the people react, “He has done everything well; he makes even the deaf to hear.” God’s words seem so often to be lost on us – we’re unwilling to hear what God is shouting, unwilling to accept God’s love for ourselves and God’s love for others. But even those of us that are seemingly deaf to God’s calling to us, Jesus has, can, will open us. How does God need to open your heart? To whom do you need to be opened? Whose voices are you unable or unwilling to hear? Will you let Jesus help you hear God’s persistent calling?

Let’s not be distracted from the heart of the message this week – don’t be so caught up in how Jesus addressed this bold Syrophoenician woman that you miss the bold things Jesus did for her. He crossed a boundary, and reached out a hand, and extended God’s grace, where no one else deemed the people worthy of receiving it. He has done everything well. Let us go and do likewise.

Amen.

Sermon for Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, "Inside Out"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:50:05 PDT

Sermon 8/23/09, James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Inside Out

Are you all familiar with the story and music from Fiddler on the Roof? When I was in high school, I was in a community theatre production of Fiddler, and have most of the lyrics and choreography permanently imprinted in my mind. In the opening scene, Tevye, the lead character, a poor milk man, asks the question and gives the answer that frames the whole story: “How do we retain this fragile balance in life?” He can tell you in just one word: Tradition! Throughout the musical, Tevye’s three daughters marry in turn, but each match poses a challenge to Tevye’s sense of tradition and how things are meant to be done. His oldest daughter, Tzeitel, asks her father to be let out of the arranged match for her, so that she can marry the man she truly loves, Motel, the tailor. Tevye groans and complains, but finally agrees that they can marry for love. Then his second daughter, Hodel, wants to marry revolutionary Perchik. When the approach Tevye, they tell him they are not asking for permission, only for his blessing. Again, Tevye is distressed and refuses at first, but finally gives in. And then finally his youngest daughter Chava falls in love with a Christian man, Fyedka. She, too, seeks to change her father’s heart about her match, but Tevye says “enough” – he has bent enough and let go of too much tradition. Here he will not bend. Near the end of the story, he does pray God’s blessing on Chava and Fyedka. Tevye is not able to accept Chava and her marriage with open arms, but he is at least willing to keep Chava connected to his life.

As enjoyable as Fiddler is as a musical, as much as the songs make you (or me at least) want to sing along, and as much as the script makes you laugh, the questions asked are serious ones, important ones. How far should you change traditions to meet the demands of an ever-changing world? How far is too far to bend? When do the traditions hold us to what is good and important, and when do they keep us from moving forward, from growing and changing in healthy ways? What traditions are based on simple habits that have extended over generations, and when to they represent the unchanging truth?

Traditions can be such wonderful parts of our lives. We take comfort in traditions. They give us identity, and order, and bind us together when traditions are shared. No doubt you have favorite traditions that have shaped your childhood, your adulthood, your family and identity. I remember with clarity and affection the traditions, for instance, that guided our Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations. I remember being in charge of making the place cards every Thanksgiving – decorating them with stickers or corn kernels, while watching the Macy’s parade. I remember spending every Christmas Eve at my grandparents, first eating dinner with them, then going to church with them, and then opening presents from them. But these traditions eventually changed. The process of change was sometimes hard – indeed, is still hard. My youngest cousin is in high-school now, and it is extremely difficult to gather the full extended family together for holidays, as once was commonplace. And I’m still getting used to my brother and sister-in-law staying home with my nephew Sam on Christmas morning, rather than spending the night at my mothers! It’s hard to let go of these things that have brought us so much joy. But today, my family celebrates new traditions. For a few years, we’ve been going to my aunt’s in Cortland for Thanksgiving, and it turns out she’s wished for years that she could have a chance to play hostess! My Christmas Eves look quite different these days too, naturally. Traditions are so important, so powerful. But there are circumstances and situations that call us to reconsider what has been tradition.

Today we finally leave John 6 and return to Mark in our gospel lesson, and Jesus is gathered with the some of the scribes and Pharisees, and tradition is the underlying topic. In Mark’s account, this scene happens just after the feeding of the five thousand, which we read about in John. The Pharisees and scribes right away notices that Jesus and his disciples are eating with unwashed hands – defiled, ritually unclean hands. Mark goes on to elaborate how concerned the Pharisees are with following the tradition of the elders when it comes to these rituals of cleanliness, rituals prescribed since the days of Moses. The scribes and Pharisees call Jesus out on his behavior – why don’t you and your lot follow tradition and wash your hands before you eat? Why eat with dirty hands? Jesus responds by calling the Pharisees out too – “You hypocrites,” he says. And then he quotes from the prophet Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’” Jesus concludes, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” And then Jesus calls the whole crowd into the conversation. “Listen,” he says, “understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” In the verses we skip in our passage today, there is more of the same – Jesus says to the Pharisees, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!”

Today when we read gospel lessons featuring the Pharisees, we tend to think of them as the bad guys in the story, because Jesus is usually calling them hypocrites and telling them they’ve got their beliefs and practices all mixed up. But we have to remember, the Pharisees were the religious folk of the day – the active folk in the community of faith, who dedicated their lives to studying God’s word. In other words, they were the first century equivalent of active church-goers. Whenever we read a scripture passage featuring the Pharisees, it easy to fall into a pattern of scapegoating these religious leaders. We know we’re not supposed to do what they do. But we should always seek to see in ourselves the Pharisees that Jesus so challenges. How are we like the people he describes? How do we engage in the same practices Jesus talks about here?

As I think about this conversation with the Pharisees, I’m struck that what they’re saying to Jesus isn’t so crazy at core – after all, we certainly would recommend washing your hands before you eat, washing your food, and washing your dishes! The practice itself is not what upsets Jesus. It’s that the practice they’ve developed has become more important than the reason they were meant to do it in the first place. While our washing practices are centered on hygiene, the Pharisees valued cleanliness because these acts of cleaning were part of the law that they sought to follow to the letter. But in following the law so carefully, they forgot that for them, the meaning underneath their rituals was symbolic of being pure in heart when coming before God. They’d forgotten that though, and were following the rules – and enforcing those rules – without caring anymore whether the reason behind the practice was in tact. They may have had clean hands, but Jesus wasn’t convinced about their pure hearts.

I wonder if sometimes we, like the Pharisees, don’t lose sight of why and what we’re meant to be doing, because we’ve become so focused and concerned with making sure we get the details of how we going to do it “right.” I only just recently learned, for example, that the coverings that we use over the cup and bread during communion came into usage simply to keep flies off the food and out of the chalice. They didn’t begin with any spiritual significance. But now covering the elements is seen as a sign of respect, perhaps even indicating the veiled nature of the mystery of the gift of communion. There’s no problem with viewing the communion coverings with this extra layer of meaning, but only as long as we don’t confuse the tradition of the practice with something that God is actually worried about whether we do or not!

For Jesus, the way in which we do something, how we go about doing it, is never as important as actually doing the thing in the first place. It’s about following God’s commandments to us – that’s much more important than how we follow, the details, the practices. Jesus told us that the greatest commandments are that we love God, and that we love one another. But too often, we worry so much about how we will implement a plan for following those commandments. We become obsessed with the details, the plans, and the right ways to do it. We get upset when others won’t agree to our plans. We’re sure we’ve got the best way figured out. And somehow, before we know it, we’ve spent a lot of time figuring out a good system for loving God, and loving others, and spent very little time actually loving. Jesus calls us, as he calls the Pharisees, to put things back in the right order. The way we do things isn’t unimportant. And Jesus isn’t saying you should change things for the sake of changing. But the methods and practices we use to carry out our mission, following God, can never become the most important thing. Because whenever we hold too tightly to how we want things to be done, we end up not having room in our hands for God’s grace, and then, we are really in trouble.

Jesus reminds us that it is not the things outside ourselves that make us who we are. Our practices, traditions and rituals can and should show our love of God and our service to God, but God does not love us because of our traditions. Who we are is what is inside of us, and God hopes that what is inside of us is love. Love for ourselves, love for God, love for one another, without condition. Let us live as God’s precious children, a life of love from the inside out. Amen.

Sermon for Twelfth Sunday after Epiphany

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:47:39 PDT

Sermon 8/23/09, Ephesians 6:10-20

Dressed for Success

I have to admit to you that when I first read our passage from Ephesians, when I first skim this text again after not having considered it for some time, my first response is always a bit of a cringe of dislike. This is the closing passage of Paul’s letter to the community of Ephesus, the last chuck of major teaching for this new community of faith before he signs off with some personal words and a benediction. And here we find a sort-of “dress code” for the Christian believer. The imagery is vivid, certainly, painting bold pictures as we hear and read about putting on the whole armor of God. We read, “Put on the whole armor of God . . . our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rules, against the authorities, against the cosmic power of the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Paul then continues by describing six pieces of this armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes to proclaim peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit. These pieces of armor, donned by the Christian believer, are to guard against evil, and provide strength.

I cringe at this passage because I struggle with such an image of a Christian warrior. For example, we as Christians in the United States don’t feel the same kind of threats against our faith that the early Church felt. Whatever we might feel about the place of Christianity in the US, we are not persecuted in a way that compares with that of the early church, not threatened systematically, not martyred and tortured if we won’t renounce our faith in Jesus. Do we need these warrior images? And, in the midst of all that is happening in the world today, with civil war in regions of Africa, with men and women from this country serving in the military, stationed in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where lives of the military and civilians alike are at risk, where whole nations are indeed caught up in a time of chaos and disarray, what are we to make of an image of a Christian warrior, dressed in God’s armor?

If anything, it seems we as the church have been trying to move away from such image, trying to disassociate ourselves from images like this one that unfortunately have described us all too aptly in the past. True, the earliest Christians had to worry about persecution by the Romans and other groups, but once Christianity started to spread, Christians were too often the perpetrators of violence and war against non-Christians. Is this what is meant in this letter to the Ephesians? I wonder, what kind of warriors are we meant to be?

So what is Paul saying in this passage from Ephesians? Let’s return to the text and listen closely to the words. We read, “Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

Actually, after reading these words more closely, when we dig into them, it sounds like Paul here is actually offering a counter-image of a warrior to us, the readers. This is no regular warrior described. This warrior carries no harmful weapons, has no deadly equipment. This suit of armor is one that is equipped for proclaiming the gospel of peace. This is a different kind of warrior – not one who seeks to conquer or who seeks victory, but one who seeks to spread God’s word, the word of peace, love and grace. What Paul does here completely subverts our normal concepts of a warrior’s armor, and creates for us a whole new understanding of what it means to be dedicated to serving Christ, providing a sort-of instruction manual for us: as people of faith, we clothe ourselves in truth, justice, peace, faith, salvation, and God’s Spirit and Word.

In Paul’s day, people would have been very familiar with the image of a soldier. The Jews and these early Christians lived under Roman military rule. I wonder if they, too, would start to read Paul’s words and wonder at what kind of armor he was encouraging them to don. Was Paul going to urge them to fight back against occupation? Seek revenge? Many would have wanted to. But instead, Paul is reminding them that their biggest struggles were not about dealing with these “enemies of blood and flesh,” not about dealing with the Romans, or those who ridiculed their beliefs, or even those who would commit violence against them. Their biggest struggle would be against the forces and powers of darkness, anything that acted to put a wedge between them and God. Paul wanted them to equip themselves carefully, dress themselves carefully, so that they were prepared for the spiritual challenges they would face. So that meant dressing themselves with truth, peace, and faith, rather than with armor, shields, and weapons.

So what can this mean for us – for 21^st century Christians, living here in Central New York. What are the threats that we’re facing? What’s our equivalent struggle today to the “rulers,” the “authorities,” and the “cosmic powers of this present darkness?” As I read Paul, I see him as trying to turn our attention from the outer struggle to the inner struggle, from worrying about equipping ourselves for living in the world, to worrying about equipping ourselves for living as disciples in God’s world. If we’re worried about the outer struggle, equipping ourselves, preparing ourselves for a world that’s business-as-usual, we’ll find ourselves focused on different things than Paul has in mind. We’ll be protecting ourselves with possession, money, and anything that seems like it brings us security and safety. We’ll be focused on getting ahead, even if it means someone else is falling behind. We’ll be looking out for self first instead of neighbor. And we’ll be accepting the false promises of happiness from things other than God, things that really leave us empty, because those things are sometimes easier than the path of discipleship that God calls us down. But Paul has a different vision of what it means to be equipped – equipped for the inner struggle, the spiritual struggle. How can we equip ourselves for that?

To me, making disciples, calling disciples, encouraging people to begin a path of discipleship, a journey of following Jesus, is, of course, our primary work as a community of faith. We’re here to make disciples – that’s the mission God calls us to. But in order to be disciples, and especially in order to grow as disciples – which is, actually, just a word that means students – so to grow in knowledge as students of Jesus our teacher, we have to be equipped. We have to take advantage of the tools that we have to be able to be the best students we can be.

How, then, do we seek equip ourselves with truth, justice, peace, faith, salvation, and God’s presence in word and Spirit? My hope is that this congregation will make efforts to help people, to offer opportunities, for equipping disciples. This can happen in so many different ways. We worship through words and songs and prayers and more, praising God and being equipped with truth and salvation. If you need to equip yourself with faith and God’s word, I hope that you will commit to participating in a study or small group – we already have some active groups, and I will be leading some new studies this fall. We have Sunday School, and are investing in a youth program, and sponsor our children for camping programs because we are in the ministry of equipping them too – they are disciples, students of Jesus. If you need to be equipped for peace and justice, there are an abundance of ways that you can push yourself, stretch yourself, to engage in service here, in the community, and in our global neighborhood, and there are resources from two denominations just waiting for us to take advantage of.

The point is this – we know we’re called to be disciples. But sometimes we forget that God puts right in our reach so many tools to help us prepare for being workers in God’s kingdom. If we’re seeking to grow in our faith, we need to make sure we’re ready, prepared, equipped, trained. My challenge to you in the coming months is that you find at least one new way that you can equip yourself for discipleship. Paul certainly followed his own advice, and made it his life’s work to seek after the very truth and peace and justice and faith he speaks of in this passage, and so equipped, he was able to share the good news of God’s grace and love with boldness, just as he prayed he would be able today.

That’s my prayer for us too – I pray that we can be a bold congregation, bold in sharing the gospel of peace, the mystery of God’s unfailing, life-changing love for us. Let’s prepare ourselves well for the task. Amen.

In honor of Exploration 2009: My Call to Ministry

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:14:14 PDT

Today many UM Young Clergy are writing about their call as part of an encouragement for young people who are attending (or still thinking about attending) Exploration in November, which is a discernment event for 17-24 year olds thinking about ordained ministry in the UMC.

I think sharing my own call story can be both frustrating and encouraging for others considering a call to ministry. Frustrating and encouraging, because for me, everything about hearing, responding, and following through with my call to ministry went well. I have very little in the way of discouraging horror stories about people trying to prevent me from seeking to become a pastor. I have a story about what happens when everything goes like it is supposed to.

As a small child, I attended Westernville United Methodist Church, in a little, two-road town. Somewhere at about age 5, I thought I wanted to be a pastor, and started collecting the bulletins after worship each Sunday. I kept them in a pile on my corner shelf in my room, so they'd be all ready for me when I was the pastor. Of course, that desire went away, as I soon wanted to be a truck driver, ballerina, actress, and other things. But the huge benefit I received from that tiny church was that I had, by the time I was in 6th grade, experienced at least 3 clergywomen. Women often got appointed to little churches like that - appointments, I learned as I got older - that no one would want - it was part of a three-point charge and must have drained the energy out of every pastor that went there. But for me, it meant that I had no idea at all that it was unusual in any way for women to be pastors. So I am very grateful for that. I also have pastors in the family - including one uncle who is still active in ministry. They didn't all love the ministry in the same way, or model pastoring in the same way to me. But again, the idea of being a pastor was just not unusual to me in those early years, and I can't imagine how much they contributed to my call.

In addition to those foundational pieces, I also grew up believing that I was called to something. That God would call me, and I would have to listen for what that was. Thanks Mom! So, I had the advantage of being on the lookout for God's call from the start.

It was really during my time at Rome 1st UMC that I heard and answered God's call. The pastor during most of my time there was Rev. Bruce Webster, now, unfortunately, retired. Bruce was so encouraging and supportive - not just of me, but of everyone who had something they wanted to try. He was very permission-giving in his leadership. I had been thinking about camping ministry, working at our church camp, Aldersgate. When that wasn't clicking quite right, I was thinking about youth ministry instead. Bruce let me plan and lead a youth service at church - and he really just let me run with it. People started making comments about me attending seminary, which I brushed off. I was *not* headed for seminary. Obviously.

Searching for a college to major in youth ministry was where that plan fell apart. I was, even then, aware that I was theogically - well, I guess I wouldn't have used the word liberal or progressive then - but I was finding it hard to not to feel totally - wrong and out of place - in some of the Christian colleges that offered youth ministry. Bruce helped me again - pointing out some UMC-affiliated schools, including Ohio Wesleyan. Ohio Wesleyan didn't have youth ministries, but it had a pre-theology track, and by the time I started in the fall of 1997, things had just fallen into place, and I was sure I was called to be a pastor. It's hard to recount exactly when and how that shift happened. But once it did, I hardly cast a backward glance.

My journey through the ordination process and accompanying schooling was a positive experience for me, with only the occasional paperwork mix-up. I had a supportive home congregation, who affirmed me and gave me chances to work and learn and experience and preach. Just before I was appointed, I was filling in for a then-very ill new pastor, and the same folks that saw me as a 6th grader were willing to let me preach to them week after week. My first congregation was a bunch of people practically made to support a candidate through the provisional-member process. And here I am, somehow in the blink of an eye, in my 7th year of pastoral ministry.

And so, my call may be frustrating or encouraging. Frustrating if it hasn't been so clear to you. Encouraging to know that sometimes things do fall into place and go smoothly.

What I would most like to lift up though, is that while God might be calling you into ordained ministry (or not,) God might also be calling you to show someone else that they're called. Helping someone see that God is calling them - that's a ministry that is so essential. Who do you see God calling? Can you help them hear?

Thank you, to so many people who helped me hear, and then encouraged me on my journey: Mom, Bruce. The clergywomen who served Westernville UMC: Polly Burdett, Jody Watson, Gail Eddy, and Crystal Markowski. Freddie Stanulevich, and Rich Hartz, my Sunday School teachers. Ruth Dietrich. Jane Butters. Dave Hays. Tom Weiss (whose frequent-flyer miles sent me to Exploration in 1996) and Beth Benham (who talked about Exploration at Annual Conference that year.) Bertha Holmes. Uncle Bill, Uncle Bob. Rev. Van. Rome 1st, Oneida St. Paul's. Thank you.

Sermon for Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, "Wise Up"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:45:21 PDT

Sermon 8/16/09, Ephesians 5:15-20

Wise Up

Some of you may know that one of my responsibilities for the extended-church – the church-beyond-the-local-church, is my role as Conference Youth Coordinator for the youth in the North Central New York Conference of the United Methodist Church. I oversee the youth programming for 7^th-12^th graders on the conference level. This past week, I spent some time planning for one of our upcoming events: A small group of young clergy will be leading interested youth and young adults to an event in Texas in November called Exploration. Exploration is an event for young United Methodists who are considering whether or not they are being called into ordained ministry. It’s an event to help them figure out, or at least dig deeper into the question of how God is calling them. It’s an event I went to twice myself – when I was in high-school, and then college – and it was so exciting for me to see hundreds of other young people thinking about becoming pastors.

The event, Exploration, is all about discernment. Discernment, in regular use, means being able to figure out, to comprehend, understand, something that seems obscure. And in a theological sense, it means essential the same thing – to discern is to figure out what God’s will for our lives is, something that sometimes seems obscure and hard to grasp, certainly! Discernment is the process of figuring out what God is calling you to do. It isn’t always easy to talk about what gifts and talents we think we have, but I can tell you that I think discernment is one of my gifts, and one of my passions. I love being able to help someone figure out how God is calling them, love helping a person see where God is leading them. I’ve certainly had to decode God’s call on my own life, and I love seeing God’s plan unfold in the lives of others. I have a passion for working with young people, as you know, but one of the main reasons I love working with youth so much is because I so enjoy being there at a time of life when they are doing so major discerning. I don’t believe God ever stops calling us – God has a call for each one of us in this room, right now! But I think young people, because of all the changes going on in their lives in such a short time, tend to be more open for listening to God’s call, more open to believing God has a purpose that they can fulfill if they choose to follow.

Today in our Old Testament lesson, we find some words about discernment. After some weeks of following King David, this week we hear of David’s death, after 40 years as King of Israel. He is succeeded by his son, Solomon. We read that Solomon “loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David,” and that Solomon was devout in offering sacrifice and praise to God. During one such sacrifice, God speaks to Solomon, saying, “Ask what I should give you.” In other words, what blessings do you want from me? Solomon responds that he knows God showed steadfast love to his father David because of David’s faith. And Solomon says he is like a little child, not knowing “how to go out of come in,” and that he has been chosen as God’s servant to govern many people. So Solomon asks for “an understanding mind to govern [God’s] people,” and the ability “to discern between good and evil.” God is very pleased with Solomon’s request, and because Solomon asked for this, the gift of wisdom and discernment, and not riches or victory over enemies, God will grant him wisdom and discernment, as well as riches and honor and long life, as long as Solomon walks in God’s ways.

When we think of Solomon in the scriptures, if we know anything about him, we’re likely to think about him as someone with wisdom – “the wisdom of Solomon” is famous – he’s known for being just and fair and knowing what is right in difficult situations. But I believe that more particularly, what Solomon asks for and receives in this passage is not just the gift of wisdom – not just knowledge, or good use of that knowledge – but Solomon actually asks for and is given the gift of discernment. He’s given the ability to understand situations, to discern between good and evil, and to know what God would have him to in a given situation. Solomon gets the gift of discernment, and I think his wisdom comes from knowing to ask for such a powerful gift.

I hope discernment is something I can teach you and help you to seek after as Solomon did. I told you that I see discernment as one of my gifts – it’s a gift from God, but I believe that it’s also a gift God shared with me through my mother. All my life, my mother instilled in me and my siblings a sense that God calls each one of us. We might have to figure out what God was calling us to do, she said, but she made it clear that God would call each of us, have something in store for each one of us, if we would follow. So I grew up believing, confidently, with certainly, that God would call me. I searched for God’s call on my life, listened for it, and tried to prepare for it. My search led me to consider camping ministry and youth ministry before I found my spot in pastoral ministry, and it led me to different work experiences and educational plans before I made it to seminary and then my first congregational appointment. But never in the process, even when I wasn’t sure of the details, did I consider that I might not be called by God to do something.

It wasn’t until I was an adult and leading a congregation of my own and trying to help people hear God’s call in their lives that I realized that not everyone grows up with the same understanding about being called that I was raised with! Many people, too many, it seems, really don’t feel that God has called them, or don’t even believe that God will call them, to anything in particular. Maybe when we talk about being called by God, we tend to think of it too exclusively as something that it meant only for calls into pastoral ministry. But if that’s our understanding, we need to broaden it. God calls us to be disciples – and that’s a call that is extended to each one of us. And because we are unique, individual, each one different – God’s call to us is unique too. What is it that you are called to do?

Frederick Buechner , a theologian with a great sense of humor, has written about God’s call in a way that I like. He says: [Vocation] comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a person is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren't helping your patients much either . . . The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. (1)

So where does your deep gladness meet with the world’s hunger? The process of figuring out that answer – well, that’s discernment. And it’s my passion. And it’s my plan, my intention while I am here with you to help you understand first, that God is calling you, and then, how God is calling you, and of course, how to actually answer that call.

So what are you called to do? What is God asking of you? What has God got planned for you, if you are ready to follow? If you don’t know how to answer those questions, I suggest that first, like Solomon did, you pray for God to give you an understanding heart and mind. And second, I suggest that if you happen to know someone who has the gift of discernment, that you talk with that person if you’re struggling to hear God’s call, and listen for what they see in you, how they see God moving in your life. You should pay attention when someone points out your strengths and talents and wonders if you’ve ever thought about doing such and such thing – God speaks through us – and I had a number of people encourage me right into God’s call for me. And finally, if you have the gift of discernment, or if you think you can see God’s plan for someone else, I urge to speak up. You might be the voice of God’s call for someone else – God can use you to encourage someone who can’t quite understand where God is leading them.

God is calling. Let’s wise up, and figure out what God is trying to tell us. Amen.

(1) Buechner, Frederick, Wishful Thinking.

Sermon for Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, "Building Up"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:16:00 PDT

Sermon 8/9/09

John 6:35, 41-51, Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Building Up

Some of you may know that as a part of my ministry here with you, the Transition Team and I have been working on a covenant – a commitment on my part and your part to talk about our goals, our hope and dreams for this congregation, and to outline, in some broad strokes, what we’ll need to do together to live into God’s plans for us. Together, we’ve identified a few areas of focus – for example stewardship, and working with young people, especially at the start of our new endeavor with our new Children and Youth Ministries Coordinator. But today I want to focus on my goals over the next several months at least: Building relationships and Connecting with the Community. These might seem like pretty generic ministry goals. Of course I need to get to know you and the community in which we do ministry, right? But as “general” as these goals may be, they are also essential – not just for me, but for all of you as well – to be in the ministry of disciple-making, which is what we’re all about. Today I want to speak to you a little more about these ministry goals and what they mean to me.

But first, I want us to look at this passage from Ephesians. A covenant is a promise made by two parties about how to live with one another. In the scriptures, we usually see covenants between God and God’s people, and while God never breaks covenant with us, the scriptures are full of stories of the people breaking their part of the agreement – they worship other gods, when they’ve promised to worship God alone, or they make false idols, or forget what God has done for them, and end up wandering away from God. Fortunately for us, though, God is always extending a new covenant for us, giving us second chances. But here in Ephesians, the apostle Paul is putting forth a sort of covenant for how this new faith community in Ephesus will function. This is a community covenant for living with one another, with this section in particular probably directed at new converts to the faith, where the parties in the covenant are members of the congregation, you might say. It’s a covenant, an agreement for a way of living together, that Paul is helping them to establish.

This passage is filled with words from Paul that seem both simple and deep at once. Let us all speak truth to our neighbors, says Paul, for we are members of one another. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Work so as to have something to share with the needy. The only kind of talk you should speak is that which is useful for building up the community, that your words give grace to those who hear them. Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. But put away bitter thoughts and instead be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving, as Christ has been with us. And to sum it all up, be imitators of God, like beloved children, and live in love, as Jesus loved us. Paul’s words are so straightforward, and so powerful, and they’re all about relationship, and community: how people of faith live and work together, and more than that, how they love and support one another.

Paul starts this passage with one of his major themes, a theme we see in his other writings, when he writes that we speak truth to our neighbors because “we are members of one another.” Hopefully, that language – “members of one another” – sounds familiar. Thinking of the church as One Body of Christ of which we are members is a foundational theme of Christianity. You might be familiar with the famous passage in 1 Corinthians 12 in which Paul compares the body of Christ to a human body, saying that we can no more function without each other than a human body functions without its various members – a nose can never be an eye, and an ear can never be a hand. “If one member suffers,” Paul says, “all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” As members of the One Body, what each of us does affects every other person in the body. So, in today’s passage, Paul reminds us – we’re members of one another. You are a part of me, and I’m a part of you. And if you turn in your seats and look around the congregation today, and if you think about those who are part of our church family who aren’t here today, an underlying principle for our covenant is remembering that we are members of one body, members of one another, and what we do impacts each other person in this little piece of the body of Christ. With that in mind, Paul has started us with the idea that since we are so very intertwined, we will want to take extra care of how we treat one another.

Skipping ahead a few verses, Paul shares my favorite words in this passage, the words that kept catching my attention as I was preparing my sermon: “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” Only what is useful for building up, so that our words may give grace to those who hear. I just love this verse. Grace, which is God’s free gift of unconditional love – well, there’s not much of a better thing for us to communicate to others. Even though grace is free and offered to all, many people, for many reasons, have a hard time accepting God’s love. So what if, by our words, and by the actions that go with them, we could finally help God’s grace sink into a person? Words are amazingly powerful – the can hurt and devastate, and they can heal and, as Paul says, build up. Last year at a district day in New Jersey, our speaker, Lovett Weems, really encouraged us as pastors to spend more time in our congregations verbally building up our people. He said he knew that pastors and congregations got frustrated with the problems they faced – declining attendance, or inactive members, financial problems, conflicts within the church – but that if we, as pastors, spent more time on affirming what was going well, more time on lifting up ministries that were supporting our mission and vision, we’d find that some of those other problems would start to turn around.

Perhaps it sounds simplistic, but I’ve found many instances when this is true in my ministry. Words are powerful, and so often, too often, we use them to hurt one another, or to threaten, or tear down. Think of world leaders, and how we analyze every word they say, how nations can imply so much to each other by the words their politicians choose in speaking to one another. Or think over your own life – there are some exact, detailed scenes I can recall where I said something I wished I hadn’t, or where someone said something that was hurtful. Out of the millions of experiences we have over the years, for something to stick in our minds so exactly tells us that words, even words spoken carelessly by us, can have a huge impact on those who hear them.

Because of this, then, Paul urges us to imagine the good power we can have when we speak in ways that build one another up, so that we can actually share God’s loving grace simply in the way we engage one another. Words can change lives for the better, too. Think of the powerful positive words you have spoken or heard. I can think of words that encouraged my journey to seminary, words of love, words of comfort when I experienced loss. How can we live together, be in relationship in the congregation, and with the community, in a way that we are building each other up by our very words? This week, I want to challenge you: I want you to find three people in this congregation that you don’t interact with as much, or spend as much time with as others, and find words this week to speak to them that will build them up. What can you say to remind them that they are a precious child of God? What can you say to affirm the gifts that God has given them? And I want you to do the same in the community. Find three people in the community – at work, at the gym, at the store, wherever – that you wouldn’t normally spend time in conversation with. And find a way to build them up with the loving words you say. If you’re a little shy, write a note. Send a card or an email. But take the time to speak grace. I think you’ll be surprised at how much your words can communicate God’s love to one another.

Finally, Paul concludes this passage saying, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us.” You know the expression, “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” In other words, there’s no better way to show someone you like and admire them than by trying to copy them and do what they do. Paul asks us to imitate God, like children do. Most of us have probably had a young child copy us doing something, sometimes to the point that will drive you crazy! Just this week, my nephew Sam was following my brother around so closely, matching his every step, wanting to do everything he did, and loving every minute of being around him. That’s how Paul hopes we are with God, as we follow Jesus, and seek to imitate him. Paul hopes we take the attitude of beloved children of God, as we are, and not seek to imitate Jesus in a way that makes it a burdensome task for us, a hardship to be a disciple, but that we try to imitate Jesus because we love him and want to be like him and just can’t get enough of spending time in his company. Imagine how our congregation would be transformed, and how we could help transform the world, if we approached following Jesus with the same joyful abandon as children do.

Friends, when I think about building relationships as a goal for ministry, or think about how I will invest myself in the community I’m serving, I see more than just learning names and learning my way around town. I dream of the kind of community that Paul laid out for the Ephesians. A covenant community, where we are members of one another, deeply affected and enriched by the lives of each other person in our midst. A covenant community, where our words and deeds build each other up, here in this building, and out in the world where we live. A covenant community, where we all take joy in following Jesus wherever he leads us.

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” Amen.

Sermon for Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, "Changing Directions"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:27:55 PDT

Sermon 8/2/09, 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a

Changing Directions

During undergrad, students were required to take two semesters of a language as part of our core requirements, and since I already knew I was going to go to seminary, I decided to study Ancient Greek, the language of the written New Testament of the Bible. Unfortunately, Ancient Greek bears little resemblance to Modern Greek, so after several semesters of study, I still can’t actually use my language skills to speak to another living person. But I absolutely loved learning Greek, because reading the New Testament in the Greek truly deepened my experience of reading the scriptures. Take the word repentance. We’re probably all familiar with the word – in the Bible, in the New Testament in particular, we’re called to repent. It’s what both John the Baptist and Jesus himself say they’re all about when they begin preaching. Jesus says, “repent and believe the good news.”

When you hear the word “repent,” what do you think? What are we being asked to do? Typically, repentance is understood as admitting that we’ve done wrong, that we’ve sinned, and then asking for forgiveness for our sins, and promising to try to sin no more. We might think of Jesus as a Savior particularly in that he saves us from the consequences of our sins. But while that might be a pretty typical understanding of what it means to repent, somehow, we’re still not very good, as human beings, at saying “I’m sorry,” either to one another or to God. When we do something wrong, we’re much more likely to say that we’ve made a mistake, that hey, we’re only human, rather than saying that we’re sorry, and that we’ve sinned.

That’s why we make confession a ritual, a part of our worship service almost every week – because we need to remember, to say out loud, to say it right in front of each other, that we’re sinners. That we don’t listen to God. That in fact, we do the very opposite of what God asks us sometimes. We need to admit, out loud, that more than just making mistakes, we sin, and hurt one another, and try to put distance between each other and between ourselves and God. So together, in our prayers, in our worship, and especially in our preparation to come to the communion table, we confess – not that we’re just faulty humans who can’t help ourselves. But that we’re sinners. And we have to let ourselves experience the weight of that before we can more on.

In my first congregation, I was teaching a Bible study on the Old Testament, and I was trying to get the class to describe King David based only on his negative qualities. How would they describe David based on the sins that are recorded in these chapters in 2 Samuel? Well, they just couldn’t do it. They couldn’t speak two sentences without trying to throw out some of David’s good qualities too. I was trying to teach that class that God chooses us for service not because of our goodness, but because of our willingness to follow God. But the class was sure that David must be good because he was chosen by God to be King. Even when it is not we who are doing the sinning, it seems we have a hard time sitting with our sin. But we have to own up, ‘fess up, to come to the point of repentance.

That’s where our text for today comes in. Last week, we listened in as David lusted after a married woman, committed adultery with her, and had her husband killed in battle as a cover-up. Our scene today picks up right after that, and we read that after some appropriate time of mourning, Bathsheba moves to David’s house, marries him, and bears his son. Yet, we read, “the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” Nathan, the prophet, comes to David and paints a scenario where a rich man takes a poor man’s lamb for his own use. David is enraged at this act of injustice and says this rich man who took what was not his deserves to die. And Nathan says, “You are the man!” Nathan goes on to confront David with his adultery and murder. And finally, our text today closes with an act of repentance, as David confesses at last: “I have sinned against the Lord.”

But, back to the beginning. You might have noticed, if you were following me closely through all this, that I never told you why I loved that Greek word for repentance. How my understanding was deepened. It’s the literal meaning of the word that I find so compelling. The word in Greek for repent is metanoia, which means literally “a change of direction of the mind.” In other words, it’s taking our life, whatever path we’re on, and doing a 180° turn. It’s turning away from sin, away from selfishness, destructiveness, and whatever else has separated us from God, and returning to God who waits for us with forgiveness and open arms. It’s not just being sorry about mistakes we’ve made, repentance is committing to whole new outlook, a whole change of mind that will take our lives in new directions. If repentance is really repentance, our life shouldn’t look the same after the fact as before it, because we’re going a totally different direction than we were before. Repentance. A change of direction of mind, heart, soul.

My mother is known by her friends and family for having a simply awful sense of direction. For years, my mother would get distressed when she was travelling on the thruway, trying to figure out whether she wanted to go towards Albany, or Buffalo, which as you know, are usually the two signs posted if you get on the thruway around here. For my mother, unless she was actually going to Albany or Buffalo, these signs were useless. She had no idea which way to go if she wanted to get from Rome to, say, Rochester, because that wasn’t one of the choices listed. Now that she’s travelled more, she’s learned to navigate a bit better, but mostly she has just memorized directions. She doesn’t actually know where she is, and it isn’t shocking for her to accidentally end up in the wrong state. But this past Christmas, my little brothers bought my mother a GPS for Christmas – that’s a global positioning system that uses satellites to figure out exactly where you are and tell you exactly when to turn in real time while you’re driving. Now, my mother isn’t very tech savvy either, so it has taken her a while to get the hang of it. But she’s getting there, and I feel so much better knowing that if she gets lost, she’s got something to help her find her way back to the right path. Because the nice thing about a GPS is that when you take a wrong turn and get off the course it has mapped out for you, it immediately readjusts, recalculates, and gives you a new way to get back on the right path. Of course, you have to turn your GPS on for this to work. And you have to give it a destination – you have to know where you want to end up. But if you do that – the GPS will eventually get you on the right path, even if it takes a lot of twists and turns to make it happen.

If “to repent” means “to change the direction of our minds” and our lives so that we’re going on God’s path, rather than our own path, we have to remember that like a GPS works, God will always, always provide us with a path to come back to God’s way for us. Whatever wrong turn we take, however far we get from the original plan, God can always help us correct course and find a way back. We just have to know that back to God is where we want to go – we have to know that into God’s waiting embrace is our destination. King David wandered farther and farther off course, as we saw between our lessons last week and this week. Each step he took away from God, there was a point where David could make a decision to repent and return to God, or keep going down the destructive path he was creating. For a long time he kept sinking deeper. But when he finally was ready to turn back, repent, and change direction, and return to God, God was ready with a way back. The last verse from today’s lesson is the first verse in David’s journey back to God’s path, and it starts with repentance, which is always coupled with God’s forgiveness.

As we celebrate communion today, we come as people who have confessed our sins, and been reconciled to God because of God’s forgiving love. As we celebrate, God is calling us together to this table. And when we come to this table, we’re coming back onto God’s path, if we’ve lost our way, turning back to God’s direction for ourselves and for our congregation. We have sinned. We have wandered away. We have been sure we could do it better on our own. But today, in the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven, and found. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Mine

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:37:10 PDT

Some of you know that I just returned from spending a week in Cape Cod with my family. One of the best parts of the trip for me was spending time with my 2 year-old nephew, Sam. I have to say that being an aunt is one of the greatest joys in my life. Sam is so precious, so wonderful. One night, my mom and I took Sam out to dinner so that my brother and sister-in-law could go out for dinner on their own. My mom and I took Sam out for dinner too – but after running around and playing and go-go-going in his new vacation home, a tuckered out Sam fell asleep before we even got to the restaurant. While we waited for our table, and for the first 10 or 15 minutes before our food arrived, I held a perfect sleeping Sam on my lap, and enjoyed all the smiles from staff and patrons admiring Sam’s sweet face. As I was holding him, I was just really overwhelmed with how much I adore Sam, and I was just thinking: “Sam is mine.” Mine. Not as in ownership, obviously, but as in connection. Deep, unbreakable bond. Relationship based on unconditional love.

Sam is not the only person I feel this way about, although he’s pretty darn special. I tend to feel this way about my parishioners too – I remember sitting at an elementary school graduation for some children in my first appointment, and watching as my church girls received award after award, and I was sitting there thinking, “they’re mine.” As the Conference Youth Coordinator for the North Central New York Annual Conference, I look at the young people I work with, and watch them leading worship, and speaking about God at work in their lives, and I think: “Mine.” Just this week I visited one of our church camps, Casowasco, and saw several “former youth” of mine who are now on staff at camp, becoming objects of inspiration to a whole set of young people on their own, and I just felt so happy seeing them in action, in ministry, and I thought, “They’re still mine.” As you may also know, our annual conference will soon be merged together with three other annual conferences in New York State. This June, just before I started at First United Church, I spent a week a training camp for youth from all four conferences. And after a week together, I left feeling like the number of youth who I count as “mine” had just quadrupled. I once baptized a woman a few days before she died from ALS, a most horrific disease. I didn’t know her very well at all – she was a friend of a friend of the congregation. But as I sat with her and said those words: “I baptize you,” I was thinking, “and so now you are mine.”

Mine. As I was thinking about that amazing bond that we can feel with others, imperfect though we are, I thought I was starting to understand, or at least get a better hint at how God feels about us. I think of my love for my nephew Sam, which is certainly one of the most powerful feelings I’ve experienced, and I can only imagine a bit of how much my brother and sister-in-law feel about Sam, their child, who they created, and who is, in every way, made from them, part of them, even while he is unique and all his own. How much, then, must God love us! I think of the chorus of one of my favorite songs from The Faith We Sing, called, “You are Mine,” by David Haas. “Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you each by name. Come and follow me, I will bring you home; I love you and you are mine.” God must look at us, and think, “Mine!” My beloved children. Created in my image. So unique. So wonderful. So precious. Mine. God must just treasure us.

Sometimes, we lose sight of that. We can’t see ourselves as God sees us, and/or can’t see one another as God sees. But if you can remember the love that swells inside you when you look into the eyes of your child, or grandchild, or niece or nephew, or godchild, or student, or friend – I hope you can catch a glimpse, a hint, of how beloved you are, knowing that you belong to God.

Sermon for Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, "Kings"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:56:20 PDT

(Sermon 7/26/09, 2 Samuel 11:1-15, John 6:1-21)

Kings

As we begin our ministry together, my goal is, over the next several weeks, to preach on some key themes, some foundational pieces that I feel are important for you and for me to think about as we start out. What’s at the core of what we do? Why are we in ministry together? What does God want from us? We’ve already talked about Welcome, and what that means, although it is surely a theme we will return to in the Fall. Last week we talked about how we sometimes try to create God in our image, rather than letting God create us, plant us, build us up. Later this summer we’ll be talking about repentance, discernment, and setting priorities, and I’ll talk about the goals that I’ve set for my first year in ministry with you. This week, we’re looking at another key theme: leadership. What makes a good leader in the church? Who is our leader? Of course, we know from Children’s Time last Sunday that God is our leader, that we’re followers of Jesus. But what can we learn about leadership from the way Jesus leads?

To look at the issue of leadership, we have two scripture lessons today about Kings – a human king, in the most famous and beloved Old Testament King, David, and a king of another kind altogether – Jesus. Our lesson from 2 Samuel describes a scene with King David that reads like a gossipy news story: “It happened late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch,” we read. He sees from his roof, a typical place to relax in an ancient Hebrew home, a woman bathing, and he sees that she is very beautiful. Here is where the story could have stopped. David could have let things alone, and put the woman out of his mind. He was a married man. But he was also a man with a great deal of power, and few who would question his actions. David didn’t leave things alone. Instead, he sends someone to inquire about the woman, and hears a report back: She is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. Again, David could leave things alone – he’s married – and she is married. But instead, he sends for her, and sleeps with her, and soon after, she tells David she is pregnant.

The story just seems to get worse: instead of now owning up to his wrongdoing, David tries for an elaborate cover-up. Bathsheba’s husband Uriah is a soldier, in the midst of war. David calls for him, and encourages him to go home and be with his wife – so that Bathsheba could let Uriah believe that he was the father of her child. Uriah will not, however, when so many others are at war, enjoy the comforts of home. When this plan fails, David makes the most chilling decision of all – he has the commander of the forces send Uriah to the front line, to the worst region of fighting, and directs the forces to then back off from Uriah, leaving him alone and vulnerable, so that he will be killed. That’s where our text stops today, but I can tell you that Uriah is killed in war as David plans, and that David then takes Bathsheba as his own wife. This is a portrait of a king – the most beloved king of Israel. True, it is one horrific set of events for an otherwise devoted servant of God. But it is a warning, a reminder, of what can happen when someone has power, and authority, given by God, and takes them and uses them instead for their own gains, their own purposes, exploiting others in the process.

And then we have a completely different story, a complete change of scene, as we read the passage of the feeding of the 5000. Jesus has been preaching, teaching, and healing in a large crowd of people who’ve been following Jesus and the disciples around the countryside. And rather then sending them on long treks back home, Jesus wants the disciples to provide them food. When the disciples seem clueless, Jesus gathers 5 loaves and 2 fish from a small boy, blesses it, and hands it out. Everyone finds they have enough to eat. But whatever miracle took place here isn’t our focus this time around – today I want us to focus on how the crowds responded to Jesus and the meal they ate. He fed them, and the people suddenly started calling Jesus a prophet. “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world,” they say. And we read that they want to make Jesus their king, on the spot, but he flees the scene: “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”

The crowds want to make Jesus king, this man who can provide for their physical needs – heal them and feed them. And it is hard to blame them. First-century Jews were living in an occupied land. The Romans controlled their homeland, put limits on their religious practices, taxed them, and controlled their government. The Jewish people wanted independence. They wanted the Romans out. And for many of them, they were ready to do whatever it took to make this happen – they wanted revolution. A political revolution. An uprising, where Rome was removed from power, and holy rule was restored. A return to a King like David. And in Jesus, they see someone who has power and authority. And so they want to make him king.

Do we understand this – this compulsion the people had to make Jesus king? Can we relate to the feelings of those in the crowds who were ready to use any means necessary to get Rome out of power, out of their sacred and holy lands, out of control of their lives? Can we put ourselves in a first century mindset for a minute? Jesus keeps preaching about the kingdom of God being at hand. That’s the good news Jesus is always talking about. And here he is, healing people from disease and sickness, providing food for hungry people, and teaching with a wisdom and authority that not even the religious leaders of the day seem to have. Wouldn’t you want Jesus to be the king? And really, what would have been so wrong with that? After all, the golden days of Israel, the good old days that everyone would have talked about were days when a good king ruled over mighty Israel – the days of King David. And isn’t Jesus even from the House of David? Who better to be made king? Finally, things can be restored, the holiness that once was can be regained, things can be right for God’s people again. If you start to think about it this way, doesn’t it make sense for Jesus to be made king? If God wants God’s kingdom on earth, isn’t Jesus-as-king a good way to make it so?

Understanding the first century mindset is the first step to learning from our texts. The next is to ask ourselves if we’re really so different today. Maybe we don’t think we’d want Jesus to be our king. But I wonder if things have really changed so much. Aren’t we in fact in desperate need to fix our mess? To overhaul the crises we are currently facing as a nation? If we could find a leader who could end wars, bolster the economy, give us jobs, bail out companies, save our homes, shore up our Social Security, provide health care at low cost, fix the environment, give food to the hungry, educate the children, and keep us the nations of nations, wouldn’t we elect that person? In fact, isn’t that what we expect, in some way, our president to do? And don’t we think about the good old days? I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about former presidencies, and the way things used to be. And we certainly have those conversations in the church – not just this church, but the Church with a capital C – don’t we? About the golden era, when the pews were full? Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who could just fix things? Make it right? And what would we do, what would be willing to do, to make such a thing possible? If we thought we had a person who could make things right, what wouldn’t we do to get that person into the position of power? Maybe we’re not in first century Jerusalem. But maybe we can understand exactly why the people would want Jesus to be king.

So maybe the better question is this: why didn’t Jesus want to be king? Why didn’t Jesus want to be the next King David? Why didn’t Jesus ask God to command legions of angels for him? Why didn’t Jesus mobilize those huge, waiting crowds, to get rid of Rome? If Jesus is the Savior, why didn’t God put him in place to fix the mess we’ve been making of things? Wouldn’t that have been simpler than trying to get this whole kingdom of God thing to spread by word of mouth through faulty disciples who deny and betray Jesus at every turn? Why leave so much up to us? How is Jesus saving us, exactly, if things are still so bad, and if we still have no one in charge who can make it better?

Well, we may not have Kings today, not in the way people in biblical times experienced them. But we certainly have people in charge – authority figures that we have to deal with and recognize and reckon with, don’t we? Who has authority over you? Your employer has authority over you. The Bishop of the North Central New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church has authority over me, to appoint me as pastor where he would like. The Book of Discipline, the United Methodist book of order and church polity, has authority and power over me. This congregation has authority over me, even as I exercise authority in the congregation – our relationship is reciprocal. The government has authority over aspects of our lives. The IRS has power over us. Police officers have authority over us. Elected community officials exercise authority. The military has authority and power to exercise. But where does this power come from? What is the source of this authority? How do these people get this power?

In almost all these cases, we give authority to others to have over us, either directly or indirectly. We elect our government officials. We elect most of our church leaders. My authority as a pastor comes hopefully with God’s blessings, but was given to me at my ordination after gaining approval from a staff-parish relations committee, a district committee on ordained ministry, a conference board of ordained ministry, and an executive session of the clergy at annual conference. Even the IRS gets its authority over us indirectly from us. And whenever we have authority like this, power over others like this, that power is subject to becoming corrupt. We see corruption in the government at time in all levels. We’re reading today about the corruption of power in King David, who was one of the best Kings the Bible has to offer us. And the church is certainly and unfortunately not immune to abuse of power either. What’s the famous quote? “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

How, then, does God have power? How can Jesus have power and not have this power become corrupt? At last, we come to the crux, the key, the core. In the cross, in Jesus’ crucifixion, in his willingness to submit to death, in his commitment to God’s will that caused him to not resist but instead to give his own life, we see authority that is not given by us. We see power that is not lorded over us. Because, as usual, God turns things upside down from what we expect. God’s power, Jesus’ authority – this authority comes not from strength, but from weakness. This power that Jesus has comes not from exalting over others, but from being humbled before others. By emptying himself, Jesus became full, and by submitting to God’s will and the power others sought to have over him, Jesus was filled with true authority. So Jesus is King – not as the people wanted, but as the truest leader leads – by bringing himself low, where he is most needed, not by raising himself up over us, beyond our reach.

When we talk about leadership in the church, the community, the world, we’re looking for leaders who lead like Jesus led. And that means that we’re looking for leaders who are ready to be servants of all. We’re looking for those emptying out their own plans and ambitions so that they can fill up on God’s plans. We’re looking for those want to be filled with God’s power, not possess power of their own. We’re looking for those who are at the end of the line, making sure no one is left behind or lost, rather than those who are first and up front. That’s how Jesus led, and we still call him king.

Amen.

Sermon for Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, "God in a Box"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:53:58 PDT

(Sermon 7/19/09, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, 2 Samuel 7:1-14a)

God in a Box

I told you last week that in the midst of this transition, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to say, “welcome.” Another thing that has been on my mind these days is the idea of “home.” Since I left for Ohio Wesleyan University a dozen years ago to begin college, I haven’t really had a lot of input over the place I called home. I lived in dorms through college, where I had a choice of roommates and a preference form for which dorm, but there were many limitations on where I lived. I lived in campus housing all through seminary. And in my first two pastoral appointments, I lived in parsonages. Lovely parsonages, for sure, but they were homes that were chosen for me, not by me. And of course, before I left for college, I was always living in my family home. When I was appointed here, and realized I would be receiving a housing allowance that would allow me to choose where to live for the first time in my life, I was excited and anxious and overwhelmed all at once. I found it hard to wade through all the possibilities and figure out exactly what I wanted, but exciting to choose a neighborhood and location, a kind of place to live, to visit apartments and make the ultimate decision for myself. It’s so nice to find a place to call home, and to settle in, unpack, and have a place really start to feel like it is home where you belong.

And yet, this week as my brother Tim packed up his car and drove to Portland, Oregon, I’ve also been thinking about people who live life in transition all the time, never really settling, always on the go. Tim drove to Portland with not much of a plan, I’ll admit, other than staying with some friends and looking for a job. My brother Todd, who is an actor, once had a six month job that toured from city to city, and required Todd to pack a bag and live out of hotels. He was very happy when that particular job was over, but he just has a career of short-term situations ahead of him as a stage actor, where it is unusual to have a show last more than sixth months to a year. He has a home base, but more often than not, he’s on the road. I’m not sure I could do it. I like to travel, but I like to be home – in my own space, and in my own community, and near my family, which is one of main things that drove me to leave New Jersey and come back to Central New York. I wanted to be home.

I’ve been thinking about these things – being at home, and being on the road – as I read the scripture lessons for this week. Last Sunday, we read about one of Jesus’ brief stops at home. But more often than not, Jesus was always travelling, always in motion, always going somewhere. He even commented once about the “Son of Man [having] no place to lay his head.” Jesus never really stayed in one place. He certainly didn’t seem to have a house of his own – just parents and siblings he visited from time to time. In our text today, Jesus is simply seeking a quiet place to rest with his disciples for a few hours, because so many people were moving in and out of Jesus’ sphere that he and the disciples had no time even to eat. But as they cross the lake for some peace and quiet, the crowds follow them and are waiting when Jesus steps off the boat. Now most of us, looking for a bit of rest, would see the crowds and be bowed down with fatigue. But Jesus looks at them and has compassion for them. This phrase, Jesus looking at the crowds with compassion, is repeated in the gospels, and it means that Jesus’ insides are literally turned over with feeling for the people – it’s a gut thing, he’s moved to the core when he sees their need. He sees that they are like sheep without a shepherd, and so he begins to teach them. Afterwards, they again cross the water in the boat, and again, people recognize him, meet him, and ask for healing. “Wherever he went,” we read, people seek healing from Jesus, and all who touched him found themselves made whole. But for Jesus himself, there is little time for rest and relaxation. No comforts of home. Jesus in ministry means Jesus always on the move.

Our lesson from 2 Samuel also deals with being at home verses being on the move, but this time, we’re talking about whether God is at home or on the move. Our passage opens with a newly-installed King David in Jerusalem speaking with his spiritual guide, the prophet Nathan. David is living in the palace in Jerusalem, and comments, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” The ark carried the Ten Commandments, and symbolized God dwelling in the midst of the Israelites. David wonders if it looks good for him to be living in a cushy royal estate while God, essentially, lives in a tent. Nathan encourages him to pursue building a home for God – a temple. But then God speaks to Nathan, saying, “Go and tell my servant David: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt . . . Did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel . . . saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” In other words, God wants to know why David suddenly thinks God needs a house. God isn’t asking for a house. That’s all David’s idea. God continues speaking through Nathan, turning the tables: “I have been with you wherever you went . . . I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place . . . The Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.” We don’t need to build a place for God – we need to have God build a place for us – plant us.

I really resonated with King David’s desire to build a house for God. I think his intentions were good – he didn’t want to have for himself what he didn’t offer to God first – but how quickly David’s plan would – and did go wrong. David never built a temple for God, but his son Solomon did, and it seems like even with the best intentions, we are forever trying to build walls around God. In the scripture text, we may be talking about literal walls, but I don’t think our struggle is so much with our church buildings today. While we tend to love and take pride in our church buildings, with all the love and sweat and labor that usually goes into them from the congregation, we generally agree, don’t we, that we haven’t built a place that God has to stay inside of. While we feel God’s presence here, we feel it because God is always everywhere, and because we quiet ourselves enough while we are here to actually take notice of God who is always present. But I’m thinking about the metaphorical walls we are always putting up around God, while we kid ourselves into thinking we’re just creating a nice place for God to stay.

See, I think, despite our best intentions, we tend to try to put God in a box in our lives, while convincing ourselves that we’re just making a nice home for God. It’s been a struggle for me, I can tell you. I’ve always been a person of faith – I never went through a time where I was truly questioning God and my Christian worldview. While my other friends in high-school and college were exploring whether their parents’ faith was truly their own faith, I was already preparing to go into the ministry. And I’ve always been a person who’s liked having the answers. I like knowing the right answers to questions. So imagine my surprise when, in my first year of seminary at Drew, if found myself having a real struggle. See, I’d gotten in a place where I felt like I knew the answers about God. I was going to be a pastor, after all! I could tell you who God was, about how God worked, what God wanted us to be doing. And then all of a sudden, I was confronted, in a theology class, with a whole lot of questions I couldn’t answer. And I was overwhelmed with the realization that I just wouldn’t be able to have all those answers. That I couldn’t pin down God like I wanted, and be sure that I just knew everything about God. Maybe it sounds a bit presumptuous of me anyway, but I have to tell you, to be able to tell myself that God is Mystery and that there are some things I just can’t know – it took a long time for me to get to that place in my spirituality. That’s the box I was trying to put God into. What’s your box for God look like?

Some of us put God in a box because there are areas of our lives where we don’t want God to interfere. We want to be disciples, sort-of, to follow Jesus, but we don’t want to have to change certain things about the way we’re living. We like what our job is, our how our family is, or the lifestyle we have, or the place we live, or the things we own, or the way we spend our time and our money just how it is. We don’t want God to get too involved in certain aspects of our lives and tell us we need to change. And so we tell ourselves that we’re just settling God into a lovely corner of our hearts. But really, we’re just sweet-talking God right into a box. But I warn you, God won’t be held there. Some of us build walls around God when we build walls between ourselves and other people. When we decide that we know who God loves and doesn’t love, or who God accepts and doesn’t accept, or how God judges and measures a person other than our selves, we’re really just trying to box God in, and decide for God how God can be in relationship with other people. It is we, God’s children, who seem to struggle with getting along, with putting up walls between us and our neighbors based on race, sex, nationality, religion, lifestyle – whatever we can think of, really! But God, creator of each one of us, doesn’t have such a hard time with unconditional love as we do.

And sometimes, we find ourselves attempting to box God in when we’re talking about our congregation. One of the biggest struggles churches have is when the pastor and members lose sight of the main thing, and that always results in putting walls around God. When we talk about finances, the main thing, of course, is providing resources to make disciples. When we talk about worship, how we do it and who does it, the main thing is praising God. Whenever we find ourselves struggling with decisions and direction at the church – which we will, of course, as a part of working together as the body of Christ – as long as we remember what we’re about, and who is in charge (that’s God, by the way), we’ll do well. But if we realize we haven’t left a place for God at the table in discussions, or we’re thinking more about which of us gets to make a decision rather than listening for God’s voice, then we’ll get ourselves into trouble, because God won’t stay in a box, and we cannot thrive when we try to put God there.

At the heart of it, we must remember that it is we who are created in God’s image, not God who we create in our own image. And so, as God declared to David, it is God who will be building us a house, planting us, right in the heart of God – if we’re willing to have God lead us. When we’re not, if we can’t led God be God, the results will be as chaotic as children’s time, which may be fun for a while, but will never bring us the abundant life Jesus promises us. But if we just led God be God, while we are God’s precious children – we can’t even imagine the places that God will lead us. No walls, no boxes.

Amen.

What We Believe

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:33:18 PDT

Henry Neufeld has a great post at his blog: "Do We Live What We Believe?"

He's been editing a book called The Jesus Paradigm, and has been reflecting on a statement in the book - "The key to church renewal is very simple: every follower of Jesus is to live what is believed."

Neufeld then reflects on this statement, writing, "What I do question is how God can be especially present at so many worship services with so little impact. People go back again and again to experience the presence of God and then leave and go on living in the same way.

Either we are not experiencing the presence of God as much as we say we are, or that presence is having much less impact on us than it should.

I’m afraid it may come back to belief. We need to practice what we believe. That’s true. But is there another dirty secret in many of our churches–that we don’t actually believe the stuff we claim. I’m not talking here about doctrinal statements or theological propositions. I’m talking about belief that there is a God and that he does have expectations, that he might get involved in our lives in some way...

So let me ask one question, of myself as well as of my readers:

Do we really believe what we say we believe?"

His post made me think of a Tracy Chapman song that I love, "Change." She sings, "If everything you think you know made your life unbearable, would you change?" I love this line, my favorite line, because it is such a challenge. Don't we find our lives unbearable, sometimes, when we hold up what we believe next to how we're living? Would we change? Well, not very often, right? As Neufeld points out, the gap between what we believe and how we live is immense.

I was also thinking about this theme during Lent this year, when I preached about Pontius Pilate. Biblical accounts and literary portrayals of Pilate ever since tend to be somewhat sympathetic to Pilate - a man who knew in his heart what Jesus was, but felt his hands were tied. But to me, if we believe that Pilate believed Jesus was someone special, what we know is that what Pilate believed didn't really matter to him more than his status, his position, his life the-way-it-was. He would literally see another person crucified, who he suspected was innocent, rather than risk his position.

But Pilate isn't really any different than us - or than me, at least. I believe, or claim to believe, some pretty specific things about Jesus and how I am called to live because of how Jesus lived. But do I change? And if I don't, why is it? Because I don't believe it, really? Because what I believe doesn't matter enough to me? Because I believe other things more deeply?

Good food for thought...

Hat tip: John Meunier.

Sermon for Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, "Welcome"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:52:06 PDT

(Sermon 7/12/09, Mark 6:1-13)

Welcome

What does it mean to welcome someone? What do we mean when we say welcome, “you’re welcome”? It’s a word we use often, hopefully. My two year old nephew already knows how to say “you’re welcome,” although he occasionally confuses it in place with “thank you.” He has a sense that it’s a word he’s meant to use when he’s giving something, or that is said to him when he gets something, but I wonder what he really thinks it means. Do we know what it means to talk about welcome?

“You’re welcome.” I had to look up a little history of the phrase. After all, in many other languages, when someone says “Thank you,” the response is not exactly “you’re welcome” but something more like “it’s nothing, don’t think of it.” “You’re welcome” is a relatively unique phrase. I discovered that something like “You’re welcome” has been used for hundreds of years, with Shakespeare using something close in his plays, but as a standard response, only dates back to about 1907. But the word welcome on its own is from two words of Old English origin – willa – which means will or choice, and Cuma – which means guest. Welcome literally means then “one whose coming or arrival is in accord with another’s will.” (1) In other words, welcome means something like, “I’m glad you are here, because I think we want to go the same path together.”

Welcome. That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, as you might imagine, in these last couple of weeks. I’ve certainly experienced many ways of welcome here already: I’ve had emails from people sharing that they’re excited for my beginning in ministry with you, I’ve had kind words and offers of lunches from clergy colleagues in the area, I’ve had an interim pastor willing to share and encourage me in the transition, I’ve had help preparing and arranging my office, and meetings to get to know people. I’ve had people showing me around the church, helping me to find the things and the information I need to get started. I’ve felt an eagerness from you to begin a new phase in the ministry of this congregation, an eagerness to begin our journey together, and it has certainly been a welcoming feeling to know that people are so ready to have me here. Welcome. “I’m glad you are here, because I think we want to go the same path together.”

We find this theme of welcoming in our gospel text for today, in our gospel lesson from Mark. Technically, this scripture was in the lectionary, the schedule of scriptures, for last Sunday, but when Rev. Johnson chose a different text, I decided to use this one for our first service together, because although it may not seem like it at first, I think it is a great text for getting started in ministry together. It’s a tricky text – Jesus’ teachings are always challenging to us. But in his words, as always, are life, abundant life, for us.

Our text begins with Jesus returning to his hometown after having been away for the beginning of his preaching and teaching ministry. He’s already been out healing and changing lives and going through the towns and villages. He’s called his disciples, who have followed him home. He’s already got a bit of a buzz about him, an excitement about his name, curiosity about what he’s doing. And on the Sabbath, he comes to the synagogue, the gathering place for studying God’s word, and he begins to teach. And the people are astounded, and begin to chatter about this Jesus they’re seeing in this role of power and authority. After all, they remember him as a child! They’ve known his parents – Joseph the carpenter, Mary, his mother, and his brothers and sisters. They saw him grow up – from a little child, as an awkward teen, as a young man. And now he’s teaching them? We read that “they took offense at him.” The word here is actually the Greek word skandalon, which sounds like our own English word ‘scandal’. It meant a trap or snare or a stumbling block. They heard Jesus preaching and teaching and since they couldn’t accept this message from one they knew as a boy, Jesus was like a stumbling block to them, to their way of life. He tripped them up. And so Jesus notes that prophets are never welcome in their own home town, and he heals some, but mostly is amazed at the unbelief he finds, and our passage continues.

Jesus leaves his hometown again, and now prepares to send out the twelve disciples into the area villages to teach about the good news that God’s kingdom has come near. He gives them authority over unclean spirits. He tells them to take nothing for their journey. He tells them if they don’t find themselves welcome somewhere, to simply shake of the dust from their sandals, and move on. And so equipped with Jesus’ words, but little else, the disciples go out, and call people to repent – a word we’ll talk more about later this summer.

So what does this passage mean for us? Well, even though Central New York is home to me, I don’t think we connect into the hometown part of this passage – after all, none of you ever knew me in my kindergarten days. And I don’t think this passage means that if I don’t feel welcome enough, you should expect to see me packing my office back up and shaking the dirt off my shoes. I think this passage says more than that if we take a look at the passage again. As Jesus sends out the disciples, we can take note of what he does to learn how we are called to live.

First, Jesus sends them out two by two. He sends them out in pairs, not alone. With such a small group of disciples in this first missionary journey, he could no doubt have reached more people with his message about God’s kingdom if he’d sent the disciples separately, with servants, with other recruits. But Jesus sends them in teams. They must work together. As we begin our journey together, we also must go together rather than each our own way, pastor and laity, or this committee and that, this group and that. We’re meant to go together, the same way, the same direction, with the same purpose. Remember, that’s at the heart of the meaning of welcome: people going together who have the same will, the same pleasure. For this congregation, you’ve already spent time figuring out your purpose in crafting your mission statement: "Growing together in our knowledge and love of God through Jesus Christ and sharing this with others.” Now, our task is to make sure that when we’re involved in different programs and projects, we can see how, at the center, they’re working to live out our mission of growing in and sharing this knowledge and love of God through Christ. We have a common purpose, and so we go together in our work, listening to each other, supporting one another, and encouraging each other to be servants of the living God.

Jesus sends the disciples with authority. That’s another powerful word that we’ll need to look at more closely down the road. Jesus gives the disciples authority. He gives them power to do things – we read that they, imitating Jesus’ own actions – bring healing and wholeness to many people they encounter. We, too, have different kinds of authority to be in ministry. When I was ordained as an a clergywoman, then-Bishop Violet Fisher laid her hands on me and said, “Take thou authority.” I was given the authority to celebrate communion and baptism, to care for the order of the church and to serve and lead in pastoral ministry. When you are baptized or confirmed, you are given authority as members of the body of Christ to use the gifts God has blessed you with. We minister with authority that we must learn to use as Jesus used his authority, with humility and confidence. We, like the disciples, must seek to imitate the Christ we serve, living as he lived, with an authority that seeks to serve the neighbor rather than rule over.

Jesus also sends the disciples empty-handed: He tells them not to take anything for their journey except a staff – no bread, no bag, no money, no extra tunic. Imagine leaving for a long trip without packing a suitcase, making detailed plans of what to do and where to stay and how to get there, and making sure you had enough money and resources to make the trip! We’d consider it quite foolish to do such a thing. But this is how Jesus sends the disciples out into ministry, and it is certainly intentional. Jesus puts them in a position where they cannot rely on themselves and their own means. They must work with, interact with, depend on others in order to survive, in order to sleep, eat, and live through their mission work. We tend, particularly living in America, to prize our independence and privacy. We like doing things on our own, and not having to ask for help. But Jesus sets up a situation where the disciples must ask for help. They must trust God, they must be in relationship with those they serve in order for this whole plan to work, and they must be willing to risk setting out on this journey without having all the answers.

These same things are key for our ministry together as well. We must learn to rely on God, and God’s direction, rather than our own plans and desires. We’re disciples of Jesus Christ, and so we seek after where God leads us, not where we’d like to go ourselves. And we must be in relationship – really learn to trust and know each other – pastor and congregation, member to member, and member to those we seek to serve. And we must be ready to take some risks, even when we don’t have the answers and can’t see clearly how things will work out. If you and I are always comfortable and sure about how things are going to go as we vision and dream and hope for our future, then we probably are following our own plans, and not God’s. We have to be ready to be risk-takers, trusting that God who sends us out in love will give us a purpose worth serving.

In the end, when Jesus tells the disciples that if a place will not welcome them, to shake the dust of their feet and move along, he’s not telling them to make people either get with their program or forgot about them. Jesus, who was filled with such deep compassion every time he saw the crowds, certainly never behaved that way himself. What I think he’s saying is that the work he’s sending the disciples out to do is so important, so critical, that they can’t get bogged down when people are not ready to go the same way – they have good news to share, they have God’s love and grace to tell about, they have a message that’s waiting to get out. And so they need to keep at it, keeping working at it, keep following Jesus. And when they find those who are ready to go the same way – that is, God’s way – that’s a welcome indeed.

So friends, I’m glad to be here, to be welcomed here, because I think we’re ready to go the same path: God’s way – together. Welcome.

Amen.

(1) http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=welcome

from Dan Dick: "Cranky Christians"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:23:31 PDT

It's been forever since I've blogged - in the meantime I've moved from Franklin Lakes, NJ to Fayetteville, NY, to serve a church in East Syracuse, NY. I will hopefully write about my transition soon! But meanwhile, here's another great Dan Dick post, called "Cranky Christians."

Excerpt:

How the worship bulletin is designed, where the baptismal font is placed, who gets to choose the hymns — these are only important issues to those who have no real understanding of the gospel. Those who reduce our faith to such insignificant issues are those who have no real desire to be the body of Christ — laity or clergy. How to make a difference in the world, how to save a person’s self respect and dignity, making sure a person has a safe place to sleep or a warm meal — these are the things our faith tells us God is interested in...

The reason this came to mind is a short email I received last week that asked me the question, “Why are you so dedicated to helping people who don’t live good lives, when there are so many good Christians that need comfort and care?” I don’t know how to answer this questions. Those who are Christian have got it all. The people who need us are the whole reason we exist! I can’t waste time dealing with coddled malcontents. My ministry is to the lost, the damaged, the sick, and the oppressed. I thought that was what it was all about…

Cranky Christians? I’m trying to love. The world? I wish I loved it better. My goal? To make those who know Jesus care more about those who don’t.

Sermon for Third Sunday After Pentecost, "Open Wide Your Hearts"

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:59:25 PDT

Sermon 6/21/09

2 Corinthians 6:1-13, Mark 4:35-41

Open Wide Your Hearts

I feel like I should have been able to connect in with the gospel lesson from Mark this week, set in the midst of a windstorm and waves on the sea with the disciples’ boat being swamped, what with the nearly nonstop rain we’ve had this week, this month really. But I’ve been caught, as I mentioned in my newsletter article this month, by this final phrase in our passage from 2 Corinthians: “Open wide your hearts.” What a beautiful verse, and what a perfect focus for my last Sunday here.

As I began looking at this passage more closely, I realized that it was even more appropriate for my last Sunday with you than I thought. Paul was really the first itinerant pastor, serving in different faith communities for periods of time and then moving on to establish new ministries elsewhere. His time in Corinth? 18 months. If my time here seems brief to you, remember, I’ve got Paul by nearly half a year! Paul does visit Corinth again, while he’s serving in Ephesus, but this 18 months is the time he builds his main relationship with them. But of course, he continues to hold them in his heart, and continues to seek out the best for them as a growing community of faith. 2 Corinthians is written after he has spent his time in Corinth, probably while he’s serving in yet still another community, like Philippi or Thessalonica in Macedonia. They’re words of wisdom that he’s sending their way to keep them on the straight and narrow as they struggle to be faithful disciples.

Our reading from 2 Corinthians picks up immediately following our passage last week, about being made new creations in Christ when we start to see things not from our human point of view, but from God’s point of view. Paul starts by urging the Corinthians not to accept the grace of God in vain, not to accept God’s grace without, in a sense, putting in good work and reaping the benefits. “Now is the day of salvation!” Paul says, quoting from Isaiah. Paul then goes on to describe the suffering he’s been through for the sake of the gospel, which is where I lose my ability to compare myself to Paul(!), telling the spiritual means by which he has remained faithful: he’s been through afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, treated as imposters, punished, and more: but Paul and his companions have sought to remain pure, knowledgeable, patient, kind, holy, genuine, and truthful by the power of God. Then Paul concludes this section saying, “we’ve spoken frankly to you; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return – I speak as to children – open wide your hearts also.”

I’ve been thinking about what Paul says here – that he and his colleagues have no restrictions on their affection – their hearts are wide open. He wants the Corinthians to do the same – to open wide their hearts. This is what Paul means when he speaks at first about not accepting God’s grace in vain. In order to get the full effect of God’s grace, God’s free love, your hearts have to be open wide enough to receive it. No restrictions. And so I’ve been wondering, how wide open are our hearts?

In my newsletter article, I told you about a young woman in my congregation in Oneida who was having a particularly hard time with my move. She was convinced that she would not like the new pastor, and that nothing would ever be the same again. But I knew she would like the new pastor, and I told her why: We are created by God, who is love, to love one another – to love and to be loved. And so, even though she would try to keep herself from liking a new pastor, I knew she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from loving yet another spiritual leader in her life, and letting yet another person into her heart. I can tell you that she’s spending this summer working as his intern. When I see her, I’m happy to say to her, “I told you so.” Our hearts expand like that, just as God’s heart has infinite room to expand to love and hold each one of us, flaws and all. Our hearts aren’t meant to function with restrictions. They’re meant to be wide open. Actually, you can even think of the medical, physical analogy when we think about our hearts: people get sick when their arteries are clogged, when their heart can’t pump blood through our bodies like it is supposed to. The heart works best when all the avenues in and out are free and clear and wide open.

So, the question for us, what we have to ask ourselves is: Do we have restrictions on our hearts, or are they wide open? In our ministry, here or there, in our faith journeys, in our discipleship, that’s the question to ask: are there restrictions on our hearts? What if, at the core of everything we do, every decision you make as a congregation, every choice we made as individuals, every juncture we came to, we asked ourselves: how would “opening our hearts wider” look in this situation? Are there any restrictions here? What could we do here to open our hearts wider?

Imagine what that might look like in different situations we encounter as a congregation. A new person or family comes to worship here. How do we respond? How would we open our hearts to them? Opening our hearts is more than just being friendly and polite of course. How do you open your heart? Look around you in your pews – who is it that you don’t know well, or haven’t met even. What does it mean to open your heart to them without restriction? What does it mean to keep our hearts open, after the Sunday they join the congregation, after they’ve been here a few months, but don’t know this community of faith yet like we do? Imagine what might happen if, in all of our outreach programs, with CUMAC, with the homeless shelter, with CROP Walk, with all of them, we asked ourselves: “How can we open our hearts, and remove any restrictions?” when we were thinking about how to get involved, how best to support these missions? Imagine what might happen to this congregation if there were never restrictions on our loving. Imagine what might happen in your life – to you, to me – if we never put restrictions on love but just opened wide our hearts?

To me, this is really what the journey of discipleship is about – we follow Jesus best when we work on opening our hearts wider and wider. I believe that Jesus was God’s son because Jesus most opened his heart to God’s love, God’s will, God’s plan. Jesus opened his heart so wide that there was room for everyone – everyone in his heart. And so if we want to follow Jesus, if we want to be like him, if we want to know what God wants us to do, it’s simple really: open your hearts. Wherever you find yourself, whatever you’re doing, ask yourself how you can be more open in your heart. Sometimes, we’ll find that opening our hearts is a risky thing. Paul certainly did. He literally put his life on the line to open his heart. He wasn’t always popular. He was run out of town more than once. He was thrown into prison. He made other church leaders mad. But Paul didn’t consider those things particularly important, because he wanted most of all to take full advantage of the grace given him by God.

Don’t you, too, want the full measure of God’s grace? Then open wide your hearts. It might be risky. Sometimes you’ll find it easier to put restrictions – subtle or explicit – on your heart, who you love, how you love them, when you love, how much you love. Sometimes, opening wide your heart will put you in conflict with others who aren’t ready for it. But I promise, an open heart is worth all the risk, because an open heart is something God can fill up again, and again, and again, when we realize our amazing, limitless capacity to love and be loved.

Open wide your hearts.

Amen.

Sermon for Second Sunday after Pentecost

noreply@blogger.com (Elizabeth) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:05:20 PDT

(Sermon 6/14/09, 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17, Mark 4:26-34)

The Eye of God

Point of view. I think it’s somewhere during late elementary school where you first start learning about different points of view in writing. There’s first-person narrative, where the story is told by a narrator, using the “I” pronoun – “I want to tell you about what happened to me last summer.” There’s a much rarer second-person narrative, maybe used in something like a choose-your-own-adventure book. “You find yourself in a big room with three doors and you wonder which one you should take.” And there’s third-person narrative, using pronouns of he/she or they. “He had something really important happen to him last summer.” There are some other aspects to narrative modes, as the chart shows, but these are the main ones we encounter in literature, and it’s what we usually call “point of view” – whose eyes, whose mind, whose perspective are we viewing a series of events through?

Point of view is important, of course, because we know that point of view dramatically affects the story being told. If you read five different newspaper accounts of an event, you’ll get five different perspectives. When detectives try to piece together what happened in a crime, several witnesses are interviewed because each one has a different point of view, a different perspective, on what happened. Even in our own scriptures, we see points of view at work: We have four gospels that all describe the same three years of Jesus’ life. But they are dramatically different gospels, aren’t they? Even the same events are told in starkly different ways by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And while it is hard to reconcile all the details together into one account, most of the time, their accounts are just emphasizing different pieces of the same story. Mark is brief. Matthew wants to highlight Gentiles. Luke wants to be comprehensive. John wants to be philosophical. Points of view are important. What’s your point of view? What shapes the way you look at things?

We have three scripture lessons to study today, and all three focus on how we look at things. Our passage from 1 Samuel focuses on the process of choosing a new king for Israel. God first chose Saul to be King, but Saul has turned away from God, and corrupted the office of king. So God sends Samuel, a prophet and spiritual advisor to the king, to anoint the new chosen king from among the many sons of Jesse. Samuel assumes that the oldest, best looking, tallest son will be anointed king. But God says to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” So Samuel continues looking through all of Jesse’s sons, until finally, the youngest, a youth who is out tending the sheep, has to be called in to be presented to Samuel. And God says, “Rise, and anoint him; for this is the one.” We read that spirit of the Lord comes mightily upon David from this day forward. And so it is that David, the most famous and beloved of the kings of Israel, is chosen by God for the throne.

In our lesson from 2 Corinthians, Paul is talking about being “at home in the body” and “away from God” – in other words, Paul is talking about this human life, where we are away from God, in a sense, and the hope we have to be “at home” with God, when we will be away from the body. But Paul says that wherever we are, our purpose is to please God, urged on by the love of Christ. Paul wraps up the passage saying, “From now on, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Paul argues that once we become followers of Christ, we start to see things not from our own point of view, but from God’s point of view. And from God’s point of view, everything is a new creation.

Finally, we turn to our gospel lesson from Mark, where we find Jesus in the midst of teaching a series of parables. He’s got a crowd gathered around him as he’s teaching by the lake, and he’s talking mostly, as usual, about the kingdom of God and what it is like. And specifically, in this passage, Jesus is talking about seed, talking about how the kingdom of God grows and moves in ways no one knows. Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which, he says, “is the tiniest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shades.” Here Jesus is exaggerating – the mustard seed in neither the tiniest seed nor does it grow into the greatest of all shrubs – Jesus is overstating, but he’s obviously trying to make a point – the kingdom of God can grow into something quite large, pervasive, even from the tiniest starting point. We might see a tiny mustard seed, of little use. But Jesus sees the potential of the kingdom of God.

I see these three texts as dealing with a similar theme – points of view – and more particularly, the difference between our point of view and God’s point of view. In our Old Testament lesson, through the account of the choosing of David as King, we’re reminded of our human tendency to focus on the surface things when we’re looking at someone. We only have to think of the recent rage about Susan Boyle, a contestant on Britain’s Got Talent, to believe that we still tend to judge books by their cover. Boyle didn’t “look” like a singing sensation. And so when she opened her mouth, everyone was astonished at her powerful voice. We tend to look at the surface levels of a person. But God looks at heart and soul.

Paul, in Corinthians points out that looking with a human point of view is for those who don’t know our loving God. God looks and sees all things as new – new creations in Jesus Christ – while we tend to look and see the same old thing, without seeing new possibilities. Just this week in the news I read a story about a young girl who diagnosed herself with Crohn’s Disease while looking at her own intestinal tissue in her Advanced Placement science class. Her doctors had tried and failed to diagnose her for some time. Pathologists had missed the diagnosis using the very same slides that the girl used to discover her disease. In the article, one expert noted that sometimes you really need fresh eyes to look and see something new in the same old thing. The young girl brought fresh eyes, and was able to make a diagnosis that will help her get the treatment she needs. We look over our own lives sometimes with tired eyes that see the same old, same old. But God looks at us, and asks us to look, and see that in God, in Christ, all things are made new. Can we look with fresh eyes?

In Mark, Jesus teaches and preaches about something familiar but does it in a way that makes us listen in, and “look” at the picture he’s painting again. As I said, when Jesus talks about the mustard seed, he’s exaggerating greatly. And the crowds would have known it – they would know, as we might not, without googling it, that a mustard seed does grow into a good sized plant or bush, but it is certainly not the tiniest seed or the greatest of all shrubs. So Jesus’ first hearers would quickly tune in to Jesus’ exaggeration and ask what he meant by his hyperbole. The kingdom of God can come in life-changing ways with even the smallest of starting points. One of my pastor friends recently shared with me a project in her church where people were given $10 as “talents” like the parable of the talents to use however they wanted for the church. An 8 year old in her congregation asked his parents to help him organize a talent show with his $10, during which he gave a sermon on overcoming fear with faith. The event not only raised money, and garnered great publicity for the church, but it also touched people in the community in special ways. Can we look and see how much God can do through us with the things we see as so insignificant that we tend to overlook them?

These three passages are about our point of view in this world. Can we see beyond the surfaces? Can we see new plans and dreams made possible by our new birth in Christ? Can we see the kingdom of God in the tiny seeds planted in our lives? Jesus wants to change how we see. He wants us to see with God’s eyes. How do you think God sees you? Sees your neighbors? See your enemies? How do you think God sees this congregation? I hope if you reflect on those questions, you come to the conclusion that God can see more hope, more goodness, more potential, more life in us, in those around us, and in this congregation than we can. And so our aim, our challenge, is to start rereading our lives and our experiences from a different point of view – from God’s point of view.

After all, Paul reminds us that as followers of Jesus, “we walk by faith, not by sight.” It’s a different point of view. What might happen if we could let ourselves see as God sees? When Samuel saw like God saw, he anointed David as King. Because Paul sought to see as Jesus saw, the church at Corinth became a thriving community of faith. What can happen here if we see, as Jesus sees, that the kingdom of God can come where there are tiny seeds of hope? What can you do, what can you be, how can you live with God’s eyes as your eyes? Who do you see that you didn’t? What do you see in yourself or in this congregation that you didn’t see before?

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” What’s your point of view?

Amen.