Adventures In Revland

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 - Sermon - Walking the Walk Part II

2012-02-09T16:10:00.001-05:00

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Walking the Walk: Part II

02-12-12

Here is the second of three installments on this little sermon series entitled Walking the Walk. Last week we heard from Paul about how we are to interact with those in the world. We are to accept little differences, respect the otherness of others in order to win as many as possible for Christ. Today we hear a sports analogy about the Christian life and how we are to approach this journey in front of us.

Out of my three sisters, currently my youngest sister, Jodie, is the craziest. I jokingly say that with all love and admiration for all three of my sisters but Jodie, the youngest is crazy. She will be running the Keys 100 in May at the, that is right in the Florida Keys she will be running 100 miles. The race starts May 19^th at 6:00am. She predicts that it will take her anywhere from 24 to 32 hours of running to finish. Did you get that? She will finish the race Sunday morning or afternoon. The plug will be pulled at 36 hours. That is a day and a half of running. 100 miles. That is leaving the church here and running to the Tanger Outlets in Mebane and then turning around and running back.

I asked her to give me a little insight to the wackiness that is inside her head. I asked her what is driving her to do this. Anything over 26.2 miles is called an Ultra Marathon. David Embler ran a 40 mile race a couple of years ago so we have one of these people in our midst today. What is driving my sister to do this is the idea of the impossible becoming possible. She wants to see if she can push herself to do this. She has run a lot of marathons and loves them because of the challenge involved and after reading about the Ultra Marathons she was ready to put herself to the task.

In this passage in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he is doing the same thing. We pick right up with where we left off last week. Paul says he does everything for the sake of the gospel and then gives this sport analogy. He talks about runners and boxers. When there is a race what is the purpose of the race? To win the prize. When we watch sports on TV or play them ourselves what is the goal? To win. Ask any professional athlete and I am sure that they will tell they play because they love the game but that all of them would love and desire to win the big game. I don’t think Tom Brady was happy only to play in the Super Bowl, no he wanted to win it. Let’s face it Carolina players really wish they would replay the last two minutes of Wednesday night’s game. Although they played really well and mopped the floor with Duke for most of the game, the one who walks away a winner is the one who has the most points at the end, no matter if it is 15 or 1.

Paul wants us to be ready for our race. To call ourselves a follower of Christ is not a simple thing. To say we are Christ Followers means we have to put effort into it. We cannot simply accept Christ and then think we are finished. When we say the Lord’s prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we are professing our calling to help the Kingdom of God exist in this world. When we call ourselves Christians we have to walk the walk and to do that means we have to train ourselves in order to become better. A leaner, cleaner, fit, fast, agile, mobile, and wise follower of Christ. That takes practice.

My sister’s husband is one of those people who can sit on the coach for a couple of months and then think to himself, “I think I am going to run a couple of miles,” and then he does it. His body can handle that most of the time. I on the underhand am not like that. I ran one road race. I ran the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, SC in 2006. It was a 10K or 6.2 miles. I struggled but walk/ran it and was proud of myself. My struggle is the mental part of running. It is the telling yourself you can keep going and then keep going. I have that great feature inside my head that when something starts to hurt I stop doing it but that is not what a person who is going to run 100 miles thinks. They have to get themselves out of that mindset.

My sister says the endorphin high you get from running is pretty great and that is what keeps her coming back to it. There is joy and excitement found in crossing a finish line. But how can you keep yourself going when you pass the mile marker for the first marathon and know there are three more to go? Hardcore running is more mental then it is physical. Christianity is a lot more mental then people give it credit for as well.

Now you might be thinking I am mental in that statement but the truth is how we live out our Christian lives starts here in the brain not just in our heart. We have to train our brains to start to think like God before we can see the world like God and then act like he commands. Think of it this way. We live in the south where racism still exists. We may not like it but it is still around. Today, racism is moving from a black and white thing to a black, white and brown thing. It is now an English speaking vs. Spanish speaking thing or even a strait vs. gay thing. But the lines that were drawn 50 years ago still exist today. But no matter what the color of our skin the Bible tells us we are created in God’s image. We are created and loved and if we want to be true followers of Christ we have to start seeing everyone, EVERYONE like they are a child of God. That takes mental toughness to look around at the people we are raised to hate and to think, “how does God see that person? That is a child of God who was made in God’s image.”

John Wesley concentrated a lot of his ministry on the pursuit of holiness. In his eyes we could achieve perfect holiness, or Christian Perfection. This meant that if a Christian pushed him or herself to the limits he or she could be made perfect in love of neighbor and of God. John Wesley said this about being made perfect, "to be 'sanctified throughout;' even 'to have a heart so all-flaming with the love of God,' (to use Archbishop Usher's words,) 'as continually to offer up every thought, word, and work, as a spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God through Christ.' In every thought of our hearts, in every word of our tongues, in every work of our hands, to 'show forth his praise, who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.' O that both we, and all who seek the Lord Jesus in sincerity, may thus 'be made perfect in one!'"

We have an end goal, we, as Christians, desire to have eternal life with God. But until then we need to work on living this life to the best of our ability. We need to look at what we need to do to be the best person that God has called us all to be. That is found in this idea of Christian perfection. We have to believe that every thought, word, and work in our head can be acceptable to God through Christ. If we don’t then what is the point. It would be like playing professional baseball and never wanting to win the world series or being a pitcher who never wants to through the perfect game. That is just insane. No one competitively runs a race hoping to never finish or to finish last. Even those who know they will never be fast enough to beat a Kenyan in a marathon have personal goals to beat to run their own perfect race. If we are not seeking that perfect game, that perfect goal then what is the point? Lukewarm and mediocre? I don’t think God calls us to the mediocre and we are told in Revelation that those who are lukewarm will be spit out? If we don’t believe it can be so then it will never be.

Paul states that we have a purpose. We don’t run the race with out a goal. We don’t box like we don’t have an opponent. As he says in verse 27, “Rather I’m landing punches on my own body and subduing it like a slave. I do this to be sure that I myself won’t be disqualified after preaching to others.” Paul calls us to find self-disciple for the purpose of the gospel; in order to be better followers of Christ.

As Jodie is now less than 100 days away from her 100 mile race her training is starting to pick up. She says, “The toughest part for me with the 100 miler training is the amount of training. During the week is pretty manageable, but the weekends are just unreal. Last week I did a 31 mile race here in Charlotte as my training run. I've run every other hour from 6am to 6pm (running the last 2 hours) and covered 34 miles total in that 12 hour time span. This weekend I will not sleep on Friday night. I have to keep myself awake all night long and then run a half marathon (13.1) on Saturday morning. It's a great mental test and helps me to get a feel for how it will be to run exhausted. That's not it though, Sunday afternoon I will run another half marathon (13.1 miles). Monday it's back to work. The balance between regular life and training can be hard. But I push through because I know each and every training is important. They are small building blocks to prepare me for the big event.”

How are you training to run the race in front of you? What are you doing to build yourself up and ready yourself for your own match? How will you gain perfection within this life? We start where Paul tells us to, with self-discipline. It is self-discipline that make or breaks the mental game that we all play in our own heads. It is telling yourself that reading that chapter in the Bible before bed is much better than watching the late show. It is deciding it is more important to find time to pray daily because when you do you feel better about life in general. It is coming here to worship in a community and to remind yourself of the goal we have in life to welcome in the Kingdom of God here and now and to ready ourselves for eternity in God’s presence. It is seeing the people that surround us as God sees them. It is reaching out to the least and the lost. It is living into the example that was perfectly given in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jodie also said these words which I think I needed to hear this week. “Pain is another factor. All this exercise takes a toll on my body, especially big weekends like last weekend with 31 consecutive miles. I see a chiropractor/sports therapist once a week. I also get a massage from his assistant after big events like last weekend. That's helps with the physical side of things. Usually the mental side is bigger. For me it's quite simple - I just have to keep moving forward. No matter how much my feet already hurt after running for 5 hours, I have to keep them moving. Even if my legs ache and my muscles are getting tighter with each passing minute, I have to keep moving forward. No matter how slow I become (because as the hours pass by my body naturally gets slower and slower), I just have to keep moving forward. As long as I don't stop I know I can finish. Sometimes my mind is consumed with how much something hurts. I may have to take an extra walk break or my run becomes more like a slow jog. Even as I dwell on how much something hurts - I still move forward.”

Life can get us down. It can tear us apart and make us not want to do anything for God. We can take punch after punch and feel like we are running mile after mile while life keeps bringing the hurt. But we still need to move forward. We still need to realize we are not alone and God is walking, crawling and even at points carrying us through our lives. We are never alone and we are always loved. No matter how hard the fight is, we can rest assured that we can continue on. We can make it a little bit further. We can live the life God calls us to live no matter how big the sacrifice, no matter how impossible it sounds or feels in our hearts. We can, because God made the impossible possible through his Son and we are called to pick up our own crosses and follow him. We continue to walk the walk, mile by mile and sometimes inch by inch, but always forward towards our prize.

And all God’s people said…Amen.

WNCC Clergy Stats - Part II

2012-02-07T15:15:00.000-05:00

Thank you to Lovett Weems (via Facebook) for sending me to the report below. (I apologies for the name dropping but I thought it was cool how social media can bring ideas/people together and that Weems does check, update, and communicate through that medium.)

Click here to viewthe Lewis Centerfor Church Leadership Update: 2011 Clergy Age Trends Report.

As you can tell by the image here, younger clergy have increased by 1% over these last decade. This is good news that there has been a decrease but we are not seeing the numbers for people to hold a steady number of clergy as Baby Boomers retire and pass away.

This report came out last May and has probably been discussed elsewhere on the web. What I learned as I read through it was the data which I got from my conference (Western North Carolina) equaled what the Lewis Center published. They were able to pull data from the entire denomination within the US. Not only can you look at how your conference matches up with others but you can see the denominational trend.

For example here are two graphs from their report. This one gives the Median, Average, and Mode Ages of Elders in our denomination. (There is information on deacons and local pastors as well in the report but I will concentrate on Elders on this post) Our median and average age as a denomination has increased dramatically over the last 26 years. As a denomination we have moved from middle age to getting an AARP card.

Taken from the Lewis Center report on Clergy Age Trends in the UMC 2011

This graph shows the number of Elders and their age breakdowns over the last 26 years. There has been a 70% decrease in the number of Elders under 35 within these years, going from 3,219 in 1985 to 951 in 2011. This also watches the young clergy of 1985 move across the spectrum into the last column of Elders aged 55-72. They move from being only 15.06% of the clergy population to 51.84% of it. I believe that movement will have a dramatic effect on how the transition of power will go over the next decade or two. (more of that to come)

Taken from the Lewis Center report on Clergy Age Trends in the UMC 2011

To bring this to a conference level, it was interesting to see that the Western North Carolina conference has the most Elders of any other conference with 762 and a total of 1,081 when you include Deacons and Local Pastors. The next closest conference is Virginia with 670 Elders and a total of 979. That puts WNCC 92 more clergy than any other conference in our nation. Yet we are not even in the top ten of conferences when it comes to the number of clergy under 35 (Young Clergy). With the dramatic changes coming to our conference (going from 15 districts to 8 by 1/1/13) and over the next decade within our leadership it will be interesting to see how we approach these changes.

Here are some other things I found interesting that came out of the report. Read on if you are needing a nap.

Here are the Top Five Conferences of Total number of clergy:

Elders:

1. Western North Carolina = 762

2. Virginia = 670

3. North Georgia = 578

4. Indiana = 565

5. West Ohio = 556

Deacons:

1.North Georgia = 58

2. Virginia = 48

3.Alabama-West Florida = 37

4/T. Oklahoma = 35

4/T. Tennessee = 35

Local Pastors:

1. North Alabama = 333 (almost a 1 to 1 ratio between Local Pastors and Elders)

2.North Georgia = 313

3.Virginia = 279

4.Western North Carolina = 271

5.Mississippi = 262

Here are the Top Five Conferences with the Total Number of Clergy under 35:

(includes all Elders, Deacons and Local Pastors)

1. Virginia = 77

2. Western North Carolina = 74

3. North Alabama = 57

4. North Georgia = 65

5. Mississippi = 55

Here are the top ten conferences when it comes to the percentage of Young Clergy midst:

1. Oklahoma

2. Holston (# 1 in 2005)

3. Mississippi (# 1 in 2010)

4. North Alabama

5. Kansas West (new to the top 10)

6. Central Texas

7. Virginia

8. Texas (new to the top 10)

9. North Carolina (new to the top 10)

10. Northwest Texas (new to the top 10)

Tiquan Underwood was released ... for what? - CBSSports.com

2012-02-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

Something that slid under my radar this Super Bowl was this story below.

Tiquan Underwood was released ... for what? - CBSSports.com

It is a shame that people are treated as pawns, but I guess that is something you live with in that profession. How did Tiquan deal with this you might ask. The people of the second chance have that story here.

It is great to see that there are people with strong moral character out there. I'm not sure I would have reacted being cut from the team with 24 hours before the biggest game I could be involved with. I hope something good comes out of it for Tiquan and he gets to experience the big game again.

1 Corinthians 9:16-23 - Sermon - Walking the Walk Part 1

2012-02-03T10:35:00.000-05:00

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Walking the Walk: Part I

02-05-12

As you can tell by my sermon title this is part 1 of a short three part sermon series I will be doing entitled Walking the Walk. Over the next three weeks I will be concentrating on Paul’s words from his letter to the Corinthians. In these scriptures we find guidance on how to live out our Christian faith in our daily lives. We learn ways we can build ourselves up, proclaim our faith to others and respond to normal people out in the world. What does it look like to walk the walk of the faithful? Let’s see what Paul tells us today…[Read 1 Corinthians 9:16-23]

This past week I met with some other clergy in Thomasville to plan out our Lenten services. This year six United Methodist Churches will be coming together to celebrate Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We gathered together at a local Mexican restaurant and shared some laughs over some sweet tea or diet coke and some good Mexican food. Later on that day as I thought about what I was going to preach on I laughed at the idea of contrasting that ministerial meeting with another one I attended.

The way the British Methodist Church is set up and organized is that a small group of ministers are in charge of all Methodist churches in a small town. I had three of the thirteen churches in the Ashton-under-Lynn circuit. There were five ministers, four ordained and one equivalent to our local pastor to cover all those churches. It would be like the five pastors who came to lunch that day in charge of all eleven churches within the city limits of Thomasville. Each quarter the ministers would get together to come up with the preaching plan. This plan would dictate who preached where and when for the next three months. As the token American with the strange accent I was ushered around to all thirteen churches during my ten months there.

What made me laugh a little was not how different the polity of our situations was but where our meeting took place. Both meetings involved food because where two or more pastors gather there is food or at least coffee. This week our meeting took place in a Mexican restaurant, a popular choice of cuisine no matter where you live in America. In England we at a pub that was down the street and I think instead of two enchiladas like I had Thursday, I’m pretty sure I ordered bangers and mash for that meeting. Not only that, but something that made me smirk, was we all had a pint of beer.

As we met I told them how this would never happen in America. Methodist clergy over there usually wear clerical collars. So there we were sitting at a table with three out of the five wearing a ministerial dog collar drinking beer at noon on a Tuesday. Here if ministers were getting together to drink beer they would do it far away from their local congregation and never would do it wearing something that would easily identify them as clergy. But in England that is never even looked at as weird or wrong. That is because although we share a similar language the cultures of America, especially the southern “Bible Belt” states and Great Britain are very different. If we shared a pitcher of cerveza at our meeting this week while we poured over our United Methodist Book of worship, I am sure someone would have said something to someone else who would share it with someone on our Pastor Parish Relations Committees and a meeting would have been called for Sunday. Our culture here is different.

When Paul is writing the Corinthians he is attempting to smooth out some practical matters of living out this new faith that is sweeping the area because of his mission work. The passage I read today seems to be linked with the conversation he started back in chapter 8. In that chapter Paul talks about whether or not it is right to eat meat that is sacrificed to idols. This is understandable back then. In the streets of ancient Corinth the market would have been full of people selling the animals that were just offered up to be sacrifices to idols of that Greek culture. The Christians of that area were wondering if it was okay to eat it. For example if a sacrifice of a lamb was given for the worship of the Greek god Apollo, it might be burned but then sold for meat later that day. Say some new Christians were craving lamb chops that night and as they walked in the market they decided to buy them from the lamb that was just offered up earlier that day. Some Christians believed that if someone did this it meant they were worshiping Apollo. Others believed it was okay because it was only meat.

Paul in the 8^th chapter says, “7 But not everybody knows this. Some are eating this food as though it really is food sacrificed to a real idol, because they were used to idol worship until now. Their conscience is weak because it has been damaged. 8 Food won’t bring us close to God. We’re not missing out if we don’t eat, and we don’t have any advantage if we do eat. 9 But watch out or else this freedom of yours might be a problem for those who are weak. 10 Suppose someone sees you (the person who has knowledge) eating in an idol’s temple. Won’t the person with a weak conscience be encouraged to eat the meat sacrificed to false gods? 11 The weak brother or sister for whom Christ died is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 You sin against Christ if you sin against your brothers and sisters and hurt their weak consciences this way. 13 This is why, if food causes the downfall of my brother or sister, I won’t eat meat ever again, or else I may cause my brother or sister to fall.” Paul says there is nothing wrong with eating the meat unless it causes some of the weak minded to lose faith in God. He would rather go without the meat then let a brother or sister lose faith.

Now in the 9^th chapter we hear more of this train of thought. Paul says “act like a Jew to the Jews, so I can recruit Jews. I act like I’m under the Law to those under the Law, so I can recruit those who are under the Law (though I myself am not under the Law). 21 I act like I’m outside the Law to those who are outside the Law, so I can recruit those outside the Law (though I’m not outside the law of God but rather under the law of Christ). 22 I act weak to the weak, so I can recruit the weak. I have become all things to all people, so I could save some by all possible means.” Paul is like a chameleon who changes with the people he is with to gain as many people as possible for God.

This passage is so relevant for us in 2012 it is almost funny. We live in a culture that likes to draw lines everywhere. Are you Republican or Democrat? Which ACC team do you root for? Are you pro-choice or pro-life? What denomination are you? What religion are you? Our culture also drives us to only see those things that we agree with. If we truly listened to some political pundits, if you are Republican than you should not be hanging out, interacting with or making eye contact with any Democrat because they are from the devil. It can go the other way as well. The church has had a history of this. You don’t have to go far into our past to find Catholics and Protestants killing each other over their religious views.

How do we live out our faith if it differs from other people we interact with? If our believes are different than our friends, our families, our neighbors, what do we do? Paul says we are to be like the other. We are to act like Jews to the Jews, weak to the weak. Does this mean that we are to be Democrat to the Democrat and Republican to the Republicans? Are we to be pro-choice to the pro-choice and pro-live to the pro-live? Are we to be fans of the Tar Heels when in Chapel Hill, then Blue Devil fans in Durham, Demon Deacon fans in Winston-Salem, and Wolf Pack fans in Raleigh? There is something weird feeling about it. It sounds like Paul is asking us to be hypocritical and for us to give into whatever idea the people around us have.

I was talking with a person who went on a trip to Armenia with one of our previous Bishops. Our conference, through Project Agape, helps the Methodist Church over there and this was one of the trips our Bishop took to see how things were going over there. While they were there they met with equivalent of their Bishop. During their meeting there was a lot of laughing and praying. Then the Armenian Bishop pulled out a special bottle of vodka. It was one of those bottles that people hang on to only to bring out for special occasions. It was clear this was a very special bottle of vodka and the Bishop wanted to honor this meeting by offering everyone a drink. He poured it into glasses and gave it to everyone in the room and everyone drank. What would have happened if the people from our Conference denied the gift the bishop was offering? This bottle of vodka that he had been holding onto for years that he finally opened because he wanted to share it with his fellow Christians from America, would he be offended if they didn’t at least take one drink from it? It probably would have been offensive because in his culture that bottle was something to be honored and cherished.

What Paul is saying here is we have to make sure we are looking at the big picture that unites us when we interact with people and not the small stuff that divides us. The big picture is that everything we do is “for the sake of the gospel.” We are to win as many people as we can for Christ. The best way to do this is to look past our little differences. We are humans created in God’s image and given free will. Because of this we will all look at the world differently. We will not all agree on everything. If we did the world would be boring. But that doesn’t mean we cannot approach, talk, discuss, worship, and interact with those we disagree with from a sense of love for one another.

This is what Paul means when he says, “Although I’m free from all people, I make myself a slave to all people, to recruit more of them.” Yes, our Christological Theology frees us from the law and enables us to do many things. But we also live within a culture that views the world in a certain way as well. We can do more damage than good if we try to flaunt our freedom. Those who may view things differently may be hurt because they do not understand or believe the same thing we do.

People all over the world see the world differently. Paul, a Jew who grew up in the Middle East was telling people who were in ancient Greece how to live. He is giving them the freedom to be slaves for their people. We in Thomasville, North Carolina have the same mission as those who live in Kenya, or Armenia, or Australia. We are to hear the Great Commission of Christ, to “therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you.” (Mt. 28:19-20)

In order to do that we must be willing to let our little differences go for the great good of the gospel. The Gospel is not about our personal beliefs and our personal worldview. As the book “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren starts off saying, “It is not about you.” It is about the salvation of the world that came through life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have to stop meeting people in this world with hate and judgment and starting meeting them with love and understanding. Different cultures, different languages, different generations, it doesn’t matter how we are different, we need to start with where we are the same. We all are the children of God made in His image. We need to heed the words of Paul today and stop being divisive for the sake of ourselves but to do all things “for the sake of the gospel.”

And all of God’s people said…Amen

Ministry Matters™ | Articles | The Coming Death Tsunami

2012-02-03T06:51:00.000-05:00

Ministry Matters™ | Articles | The Coming Death Tsunami

The above article is by Lovett Weems and explains how the death rate in the US will change dramatically before 2050. I have posted his video on this topic earlier but this is an excerpt from his new book. Any clergy under the age of 40 really needs to pay attention to this because our whole careers will be focused on this phenomena.

I truly appreciate the idea of looking at the gross instead of the net. I feel that is even true now in small older congregations. Personally in my congregation we had a net gain of 0. We had three die and one transfer but four people joined. I was bummed when our number didn't change but then again I am thrilled at the four that did join, two were through confirmation. This year my confirmation class is 6 youth. For a church that averages 85 in worship, I'll take that number any day.

10 years ago this May I graduated seminary and when I did this was never even in my line of sight. But the fact remains that the majority of my career will be focused on ushering the baby boomers out of the world and scrambling to deal with the consequences of low numbers of Gen X and Gen Y they will leave behind.

Enter the Rainbow

2012-01-26T19:21:00.000-05:00

Here is a great post on the way people handle a negative situation/person/group in a church and then paint the enitre CHURCH with that experience. Thanks for the post Andy.

Here, to wet your whistle and then go visit his site.

I do not begrudge anyone a new expression of church. Actually, I love new expressions of church! Always reforming, always contextualized, always adapting, always creating; the church has been expressing herself in new and wonderful ways for a couple thousand years now and that’s great. So that’s not my point.

My point is this: Please don’t condemn such a broad and diverse group because you have had bad experiences with some people within that group.

Enter the Rainbow

WNCC Clergy Stats - Part 1

2012-01-26T07:45:00.001-05:00

Back in October I wrote about a hypothesis that we may experience a Clergy Death Tsunami in our denomination like Lovett Weems predicts we will experience in the denomination. You can check out my post on that here. Since then I have worked with the conference office to obtain some statistical data on our clergy. Ed Walk has been extremely helpful in providing this information. I'm not quiet sure where I am going with this information, if anywhere, but I thought my four avid readers of this blog might find this interesting. Or I should say, I find it interesting and so I am sharing.

Below is a graph of the age breakdown of some of our clergy in the Western North Carolina Conference. I attempted to concentrate on those who pastor local churches or better said, those effected by the appointment process. This leaves out deacons generally. Plus there are some other clergy out there that don't fit into these four categories but those numbers are really small. For the sake of simplicity I concentrated on four clergy statuses; Elders in Full Connection (FE); Probationary Elders (PE); Full-Time Local Pastors (FTLP); and Part-Time Local Pastors (PTLP). The age ranges are those under 35, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, and over 65.

As you can tell the largest group Elders in Full Connection between the ages of 55-64. There are 303 of them. This doesn't surprise me but it does worry me. Look at the gap in ages. In the FE category each age bracket drops by almost 100 people. As the next decade passes by what will happen? The number of Probationary Elders cannot make up this deficit. Out of all ages there are only 110 of them and the largest number of them are 55-64 too.

In order to pastor the number of churches we currently have in the WNCC something will have to happen between now and 2025 in dramatic fashion. As Baby Boomers exit into retirement, age out, or go on to the church triumphant churches will have to figure out how to deal with less clergy. Will this mean more cooperative parishes? Will this mean more churches on charges? Will this mean more church closings? Will this mean Local Pastors taking a larger role?

I don't have answers but change is coming VERY soon in our conference/denomination. Both on the financial side, which Lovette Weems points out, but also within the clergy leadership within our denomination. This is only the clergy from the Western North Carolina Conference but I have a feeling that other conferences have similar numbers, if not more dramatic.

What are your thoughts? What surprises you, if anything? What questions start to be stirred?

bear witness to the love of God in this world: the church i am seeking

2012-01-23T19:36:00.000-05:00

bear witness to the love of God in this world: the church i am seeking

Ken Carter once again dives into the heart of what Church is about and what is expected of it. Simple, strait forward and very relevant.

Mark 1:14-20 - Sermon - Proclaim and Respond

2012-01-21T08:03:00.003-05:00

Mark 1:14-20

Proclaim and Respond

01-22-12

Bishop Will Willimon tells this story, in the 60s a prominent preacher visited his church. Like revival preacher he kit the topic of his sermon hard and strong, almost a little stronger than the congregation was use to. He preached about God’s kingdom. He told them that God was looking for folks to come forward and be part of God’s new order that was full of love, justice and respect for all God’s children. Once again this was the 60s and he grew up in the south, and the preacher was asking them to love EVERYONE. At the end of his sermon he did an altar call. “He called upon the congregation to get up and come forward, to kneel at the altar rail and give their lives to this new world, to dedicate themselves to live their lives without racial prejudice, to flaunt the world’s standards of goodness and give ourselves totally to God’s standards of goodness, to work for and to witness to racial justice in the South.”[1] Music started to be played and the preacher moved to stand beside the prayer rail. Nobody came forward.

Think though, for those of you who went to church in the 60s here in Thomasville, how would have you responded? How would you have responded if that same sermon was what I was going to preach? Really, raise your hands because I have two directions in this sermon and if no one is going to respond I’m not going to waste my time.

Here in the gospel of Mark things happen very quickly. The author of this gospel has a favorite phrase, and immediately. It is said 42 times in the gospel. Now some translations use different words like the translation I read today which stated the phrase as Right Now. This makes the Gospel of Mark seems fast past, blunt and very important. If Mark was a text message it would be in all CAPS. Here alone the phrase is used twice. But the bluntness of Mark’s Gospel also comes through in these seven verses and it is found in Jesus’ first sermon. Hear that sermon again, “Jesus came into Galilee announcing God’s good news, saying, ‘Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!’”

Sure it is short but there is a lot to learn from this sermon and it could help both you, as the congregation, and me, as the preacher, to take a moment to look at it closely. My preaching professor at Duke said he did not care how many points were made in a sermon just as long as there was at least one. This three sentence sermon is broken up into two parts. We have the proclamation which is the first two sentences and then the response which is the last sentence. Jesus proclaims, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom!” The response is demanded next, “Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” This means there are actions that needed to be taken. We, the listener, have homework to do. We have to change our hearts and lives or as another translation puts it, we have to repent. Not only that but we have to trust in the good news, which was Jesus proclaimed.

I try to remind you each week that you all are involved in the sermon. At the end of the sermon I always say, “And all God’s people said…” and then we say together, “Amen.” I want you to say Amen because you are involved. You are listening. I hope that you feeling God’s Word becoming alive in your hearts and pulling you to do something. By being alert and listening you are taking part of the sharing in the Word of God. I will be the first to admit that what we do here every week is very odd these days. There is really no place outside of school where you sit down and listen to another human being talk for 20-30 minutes. If you are not in school where else does this happen? Sure you can get together with other people and have a conversation and in some congregations it sounds like a conversation as the audience adds their thoughts to the sermon with “Amens,” “come on now,” and the always encouraging “Lord, help him.” But let’s admit the most excited we get in this church is when there is good music and we feel compelled to clap and even then we feel weird. But even in silence a congregation needs to be actively listening to do their part in the proclamation of the Word of God.

But when worship is over, when 12:01 hits and you have already shaken the minister’s hand the sermon is still going on because now you are called to live it out. In the response to the Word of God we are called to do things. Jesus called people to change their hearts and lives and trust in the good news! But what is the good news? We often think of the good news as a Snuggie. Something we can curl up with and get all warm and toasty but then leave on the couch while we are off in the real world. But the good news is not merely the words proclaimed in the service but also the response. As Bishop Willimon said, “The good news is not only announced; it’s got to be enacted. Good news is not simply said, it’s done. Though it’s grammatically awkward to say it, we are meant to go, do good news.

That is what Christ demands when he preached. He demanded a reaction, a response, repentance, a turning around. We can see this in how the first disciples acted when Jesus called them. Once again in Mark’s style this seems like a really weird story but there Jesus is walking along the sea of Galilee and comes across Simon and Andrew. He looks at them fishing and then says, “Come, follow me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” Mark states “and immediately” or “Right away, they left their nets and followed him.” Then the same thing happens with some other fisherman James and John who were Zebedee’s sons. Jesus called and people reacted. There was something preached and there was a response.

It would have been hard to leave the nets behind. It would have been very difficult to look at your father and say, “see you later pop, I’m off to follow this stranger who came along and asked me to follow him.” Who would let their son walk away from the family business without even putting up a little bit of a fight. The way these verses are phrased is seems like the first disciples were simply zombies. Jesus calls out and then they immediately stop what they were doing and follow.

Here is the misconception about the disciples though. Yes it is hard to believe that they simply followed but we also imply, probably in our own heads, that they had it all together as they left to. This is the hard part to understand about the response. They didn’t. All they knew was that a guy, a rabbi, Jesus asked them to follow him and they went. They made a decision to follow but then they had to live into it for a life time.

As a youth who was a little bit of a Jesus Freak, I participated in about every Church activity I could find. I was even invited to come attend some of my high school friend’s activities as well. There was one girl who was in my Bible class in High School, (yes my very public, inner city, High School did have a Bible class) who invited me to a play her church was having. I went and little did I know that I was being invited to a Judgment House. These are very popular and I noticed there is a church here in town doing one too. But they are especially popular around Halloween. Anyway, the main point in these ‘plays’ is to scare the hell out of you. The one I went to went like this, a main character was taken through different skits that showed great sins being committed and then those people being taken to hell. Then there is one or two of ‘good people’ who die and go to heaven. Then that main character, after seeing all this chooses that he would rather go to heaven and accept Christ. Then a minister comes out and asks if anyone else would like to come forward and accept Christ.

I asked my friend if they always had this type of altar call at every service and she said yes. This church and many like it are really focused on the decision part of the response to the good news. They really want you to make that commitment and are willing to do whatever it takes to make you choose the right path. Yet that is not where the journey of discipleship stops, it continues for a lifetime. Simon, later known as Peter, dropped his net and followed Christ that fateful day by the sea. On his journey he had moments when he was praised by God and then others when he was called Satan or disowned Jesus in fear of his own safety. His path was rocky but in the end he became the Rock the church was built on.

There are other churches that concentrate too much on the nurturing the long-standing commitment and never offer up opportunities for people to make a decision. I confess that in my 220 plus sermons here at Trinity I have never really done what we traditionally think of as an altar call. I did one at the Revival I preached this fall, and no one came down. John Wesley concentrated a lot of his ministry on the pursuit of holiness, or the nurturing of the body of believers. When I was in college there was a lot of talk about seeker churches that brought new people into the faith but that always left a bad taste in my mouth because it seemed to only provide a shallow pool for people to wade in. What did it offer the person who has been a Christian all his life and is looking for ways to deepen his walk?

Here is what I know. God’s call is risky. Just look at what happens to John in the beginning. It states that he is arrested and then later on we learn that he is beheaded. All the disciples end up in trouble and having a hard path to follow. When Jesus calls into souls and asks us to follow him, we don’t get all the answers first, we are simply asked to follow. No matter what time you live in that is a hard pill to swallow. But even though the path is hard, the task is daunting, and to truly follow Christ means willing to follow him to the cross, the good news is God is always with us. We never do it alone.

Maybe you are at a time in your relationship with God that you don’t really know where you and God stand. Maybe you don’t know what you believe or what you are willing to let go of to become a follower of Christ. Maybe you believe in him but somehow you have made it to this point of your life and you never really made a commitment to follow him. Maybe you have followed him your whole life but recently with your friends getting sick, and life getting hard doubt and frustration has seeped in. Maybe you know that God is calling you to do something but you keep coming up with excuses yet God keeps knocking.

What ever your ‘maybe situation’ is I am going to propose a moment in our service to respond. The prayer rail is open and Mary Lauren is going to start to play some music quietly. I invite you to drop your nets, stop what you are doing and respond to the good news being proclaimed by our Lord and Savior today. “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” If you are willing, come forward and kneel before the Lord. If you desire prayer, simply hold out your hand and I will come and pray for whatever you need., whether it is for strength or acceptance, or if it is for guidance or forgiveness. But God calls us all to respond in our journey. We are to respond by agreeing to follow.

If you are willing, the prayer rail is open, and all are welcomed.

And all God’s people said…Amen.

[1] Pulpit Resource

MLK Day

2012-01-15T09:25:00.002-05:00

This holiday weekend is always odd to me. Odd not in why we celebrate or commemorate the work that Martin Luther King, Jr did and how he changed our society. Odd in the reaction to it.

I'm white. I have grown up in and ministered to white congregations. Always at this time of year, within my congregation, I hear complaints about this holiday. "Why do we need to celebrate this day?" Growing up I remember hearing horrible jokes (which I confess I laughed at or acted like I agreed with) about this holiday as well. Of course all of these comments and jokes came from whites. They don't see the need and then in turn complain about this holiday. This gives credence to the idea that we have not come very far from the society that MLK Jr. changed.

In my life and ministry I have grown to admire and look forward to this Sunday because it gives me a chance to name and show my congregation what God can do. Whether you are white, black, brown, yellow, green or some shade in between, you have to admire a man who gave his life to a higher purpose, to a higher calling, and changed the world. This doesn't happen that often in our worlds. It has to be something we admire and stop to commemorate.

MLK Jr. was a man of God. He was a minister. It surprises me that in this culture which looks for people to hold up and show the world the power of Christianity (Tebow for example) that more Christians don't celebrate the reality that as a nation we pause and give thanks for the work a man of God did for this country. Thank you Martin Luther King, Jr. for having the courage and audacity to follow your calling.

1 Samuel 3:1-10 - Sermon - I'm Listening, Lord

2012-01-12T16:41:00.002-05:00

1 Samuel 3:1-10
I’m Listening, Lord
01-15-12

One of the last books I read was Jim Collins and Jerry Porras’ Built to Last. This was an in-depth look at visionary companies that have been able to survive countless decades. They have weathered many turns in the market, many out lasting the Great Depression, changes in society and their own leadership. They looked a companies like Johnson and Johnson, Merck, 3M, IBM, Walmart and GE. They asked questions like why they lasted so long when other companies who were in similar markets, similar times and similar products didn’t. It was interesting and one of the things that were most interesting was when the shift in power came.

One of the places companies got into trouble was when it came time for a transition in the CEO position. Some companies were built around the CEOs personality and when that CEO died so did the company. Other companies were able to keep moving forward because they had a succession plan in place and grew their CEOs from the inside of the company instead of the outside. This let the company continue to do what it was built to do. It was able to keep the core values of the company while they went through the transition of power.

This is nothing new. When leadership was transferred from one person to another person in the Old Testament many had to be taught what to do before they took over. Sons learned from the Fathers before their fathers passed away and gave their power to them. Here in 1 Samuel we learn of Eli teaching and rearing up Samuel to know the way of God. This story is a great one because it demonstrates how the power transfer process was happening. Before we get there though let’s refresh or maybe introduce they two key players in this story.

First off we have the mentor, the teacher, the master, Eli. Eli was second to last Judge in Israel’s history. A Judge was a person that God appointed to watch over the Israelite nation. They would help hold the nation accountable to God’s will carry out justice when necessary. You can read about them in the book of Judges, which if Quinton Tarantino was going to direct a book of the Bible it would be the book of Judges. There are some gruesome stories in that book. But as we get to 1 Samuel you can start to see a change in the nation of Israel. They are hungry for some different type of leadership, instead of Judges they are starting to think they want a king.

Eli was the high priest of Shiloh and had two sons who lived into every horrible stereotype of “Judges Kids” you can think of. They would go into the temple and take the best cuts of meat from the sacrifices that were being offered. They slept with women who were working in the temple. One section describes Eli’s sons as scoundrels. Their names were Hophni (Haff-nai) and Phinehas (yes, like Phinehas and Ferb). As they wreaked havoc in and around the temple throughout the years Eli did nothing to stop them. Because of this God got mad and told Eli that his sons would die on the same day and that he was going to call up a new priest to help his people that would not be a part of his family.

God decides that a young boy named Samuel will do perfectly in this role. When we read about Eli and Samuel they are just starting off in their training together. They are sleeping in the Temple, which is where Samuel would be doing most of his training as he learned what the ins and outs of being a priest would be. But he was young and inexperienced so he had a lot to learn and Eli turned out to be a good teacher. After this story Samuel goes on to be the last judge of the Israelites, a priest and then Israel’s first prophet. Samuel is also known as the kingmaker. He crowns Israel’s first king, Saul and then anoints the second one too, David. But today we get the start of his path, the beginning of the journey which starts in the quiet of the night.

It is funny what happens in the silence of the soul. When we are quiet and when we are not expecting much sometimes God moves the most. John Wesley kept a very detailed journal. On May 24, 1738 he wrote these words, “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” He didn’t really want to go to Aldersgate that night and all he was doing was listening to Martin Luther’s preface to the book of Romans, talk about boring. But in that listening he left the tingle of God’s in his life. After that he was on fire for God and his ministry went full steam ahead.

Since we are celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday tomorrow his calling into ministry was a little like Samuel’s as well. King wrote in one of his papers about his calling and states that it was a response to an ‘inner urge’ which called him to serve humanity. It wasn’t a 2x4 smacking him across the forehead that told him to become a minister and to then stand up to the injustices of a segregated and racist America. Instead it was a quiet voice that called his name.

My calling story is similar. Truthfully I envy those who have a cool calling story. One where they found themselves on the roadside of some cornfield and a light from heaven came down and told them to go into ministry. Or like Saul’s conversion when Jesus comes in a bright light, blinds him, knocks him off his horse and then he believes. No, like so many throughout history and our Bible, God called me in the quiet of the soul.

I tell you what, there are a couple of places that get really creepy at night that seem warm and inviting during the day, churches and schools. Walk the hallways, alone, at night, of either a school or church and things start to feel a little different. Noises get amplified and shadows look like they move. I am sure as Samuel slept there on the floor near the ark of God probably felt a little uneasy. Then all of a sudden he hears his name being called out. The only other person in the whole temple was Eli so Samuel runs to him. Eli tells him it wasn’t him and to go back to sleep. This happens again and on the third time Eli in his vast experience and wisdom understands what is happening.

When there is a transition of power, a time of succession there needs to be a time for the younger leader to learn from the older leader. Any Kung Fu movie has a student and a master. There needs to be a time for ‘grasshopper’ to learn the ways and then make them his own. John Wesley used to tell his new preachers to preach only his sermons until they gained enough experience and wisdom to start to preach their own. A blacksmith doesn’t just post a sign outside of his shop and pronounce himself a blacksmith simply because he has the tools. No they usually had and may still have to, go through being an apprentice first. Being an apprentice teachings the student, the inexperienced one, what to do by using the wisdom and experience of someone who has been doing it for a long time.

The ordination process within the United Methodist Church is an extremely long process and takes about a decade to go through if you go strait though. When you start the process you are given a mentor. That mentor walks through some material with you and asks you questions about your calling, your passions in ministry, and sees if this is something that you really should be doing. Then there are yearly meetings with District Boards and then finally two grueling meetings with conference boards before you are approved to be ordained. It is a LONG vetting process but the point is to verify, check, encourage, and help name that you are called by God to be an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.

For a Jewish boy wanting to become a Rabbi there is a similar situation. The boy studies the Torah, starting when he is very young, and then goes to be a student of a rabbi. After years and years of learning from this Rabbi, about when the student is thirty years old, he can leave his rabbi and become one himself. Samuel was in the beginning of that process. The scripture says, “Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD: The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.” (verse 7) He didn’t know how to listen for God’s voice and what to do when he heard it. It was because of Eli that he grew to understand how and what to do.

This is why it is so important to have multi-generational churches. If a church has only one or two generations then it is doomed to die because it will stay like it is until it is no more. But those churches with multi-generations, three, four and even five, they will flourish because they have the wisdom of the elders mixed with the excitement and energy of the young. Both are needed yet both don’t seem to understand each other at times.

In every time generations hate each other. The older ones don’t understand why the younger ones do what they do and the younger ones don’t understand why the older ones do what they do. But when they can come together great things can be accomplished. Their has to be mutual respect for each other. Eli was old, he was going blind, and he knew God was going to take his power and authority away. He could have done nothing and been a lame duck judge but instead he took Samuel under his wing and guided him in the right direction. Samuel could have dismissed Eli. I am sure many people talked about this person who was a high priest but failed as a father. Samuel could have simply waited for Eli to die and then do whatever he wanted but he didn’t. He soaked up as much wisdom and guidance as he could before that happened.

We, in the modern world, can relate to where Eli and Samuel were in that time. It says “In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.” We don’t live in a world where God shows up in pillars of smoke and fire. We don’t see waters parted or people walking on it. But that doesn’t mean the Lord isn’t at work. Remember it is in the silence that God can move our souls.

We are sleepy sometimes. I look out in the congregation while I am preaching and I find people being just like Eli and Samuel, asleep in the middle of Church. But there are others who are spiritually asleep and who would love nothing more than to hear the call of the Lord in their lives. There are others of you out there who have heard God’s calling. So you went to another country to see what he was doing. You started a ministry to help those in need. You volunteer your time helping children learn to read. You have heard God calling. You are the Elis of our congregation. There are those who wish they could be like you but they don’t know how. They want to learn to hear God calling but they just don’t know how. When we can learn from each other. When we can stop looking at the other generation as out of touch or misguided we can move forward and into the life that God calls us to.

May we stop every once in a while and listen. May we share our wisdom with others so they can start or be encouraged on their own journey. May we open our ears and our hearts to see if God is calling us to do something more, to be something more.

And all God’s people said…Amen.

Mark 1:4-11 - Sermon - Water Born

2012-01-06T10:29:00.000-05:00

(Here is my rough draft for this week's sermon, enjoy and please ignore all typos)

Mark 1:4-11

Water Born

01-08-12

There is a technique out there to help children learn to swim. I’m sorry, not children, little tiny babies. It is designed for families who have a pool and small children. It is a survival technique so that those who have pool can rest a little easier that if for whatever reason the child falls in without their parents knowledge that the baby can survive. There are videos up on YouTube showing this technique and it is amazing. Those infants, those babies under a year old, will be basically thrown in a pool and then they float to the top, flip over, and float with their heads above water. It is one of the scariest and unnerving videos I have ever watched. The first time I watched one Dean was about a year old and that night I couldn’t sleep because the image of this baby in the water, looking like he was almost drowning was stuck in my head. The video went on for about ten minutes and the baby simply floated and was fine. There was an adult right outside of the camera and all I could think of was pick the kid up, grab that baby and take it out of the water. Are you crazy!!!

There is a pretty famous study that came out of San Francisco about children and expectations. The study proved that you can have a smarter child, it all depends on your expectations as a parent. In this study, “All the children in one San Francisco grade school were given a standard I.Q. test at the beginning of the school year. The teachers were told the test could predict which students could be expected to have a spurt of academic and intellectual functioning. The researchers then drew names out of a hat and told the teachers that these were the children who had displayed a high potential for improvement. Naturally, the teachers thought they had been selected because of their test performance and began treating these children as special children.

And the most amazing thing happened -- First graders whose teachers expected them to advance intellectually jumped 27.4 points, and the second grade spurters increased on the average 16.5 points more than their peers. One little Latin-American child who had been classified as mentally [disabled] with an I.Q. of 61, scored 106 after his selection as a late bloomer.”

“Eliza Doolittle says in My Fair Lady, "The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated." You see, how a child is treated has a lot to do with how that child sees herself and ultimately behaves. If a child is treated as a slow learner and you don't expect much, the child shrugs her shoulders and says, "Why should I try, nobody thinks I can do it anyway!" And she gives up. But if you look at that child as someone who has more potential than she will ever be able to develop, you will challenge that child, work with her through discouragement, and find ways to explain concepts so the child can understand. You won't mind investing time in the child because you know your investment is going to pay off! And the result? It does!”[1]

There are moments in our lives as parents that we have to ‘let go’ of our children and let them do something on their own. I remember the look on my parent’s faces as they said goodbye and drove away leaving me at my first day of college. There is a great commercial out there where a three year old is sitting behind the wheel having a conversation with her father. The father is rattling off all this precautions and directions about driving. You are wondering what a three year old is doing behind the wheel until the last shot of the commercial comes and the three year old turns into a sixteen year old. You realize the three year old is the way the father sees his daughter. In reality she is sixteen and driving away for the first time. For those of you parents who have lived through that moment I am sure you can relate and know the fear and hesitation in a parent when their child takes off driving alone for the first time. I am not looking forward to that moment.

Some recent colleges are stating that parents are having a harder time letting go than in past generations. This is going to sound really funny to me as these words leave my mouth, “When I was in college,” the only way we could call home was doing so long distance from the phone in our dorm room. Way back then cell phones came in a bag and weighed the same as a brick. I had a calling card that I used to call home. If I wanted to talk to my parents or better yet if my parents wanted to talk to me they had to catch me in my dorm room. If I was out all they could do was leave me a message to call them back. Now with cell phones being attached to our ears and thumbs parents can contact their college kid and ask how they are doing, how the test went, how the date with that girl they asked out went, how they slept last night or what they ate for breakfast. We the ever present cell phone and texting parents are not letting go of their children which some people in higher education say limits the college student’s development into an independent person.

But they are our kids. These are the children we raised since birth. As my screen saver plays through all the pictures I have of Dean and Campbell throughout their lives, each one brings back distinct memories and feelings. I can see Dean as eleven months old taking his first steps in the kitchen of the parsonage. Or Campbell taking her 10:30 nap on my chest every evening in her first few months. But I also remember one of the most spiritual moments I have ever had in my life, when I placed water on both of their heads and said the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Each time I had to muster up all the strength in my soul to force those words out of my mouth.

We were reading Dean’s Bible this week and as I was flipping through it I asked him if he wanted to read the stories that we would be doing here in worship this week. He agreed and we read the story of the Magi visiting Jesus and then we read the story of Jesus’ baptism. At the end of each story in his Bible there are some questions to take the story farther. The questions he was supposed to ask were, “Are you baptized? Do you know anyone who was baptized? If you were baptized as a baby ask someone to tell you the story.” I asked him if he was baptized or not and he said no. I said, yes you were. I baptized you when you were a baby, like I do with other babies of the church. I told him about the water I placed on his head and the words that choked out of my mouth. I said “I promised God that as you grew up I would teach you to follow him in his ways.” He laid his five year old head on my shoulder and said, “Oh.”

Turn to page 35 in your hymnal. On the top of the page it says in red, the pastor addresses the congregation. I think we forget or maybe simply take for granted the role the congregation plays in the act of baptism. There is so much happening in this sacrament that sometimes this can be lost. Before the water is poured and prayed over the minister asks the parents and congregation if they are willing to nurture this child and help them grow to know Christ someday. Both the parents and congregation agree.

What struck me as I prepared this sermon was the act that follows all the prayers and the blessing over the water. It is suttle and I never thought about it until now, but what happens after the prayer over the water is said. I hold out my hands and ask for the child. Or I ask the confirmand or adult to kneel. In that moment the baby is taken away from the parents. The confirmand steps away from the parents. The adult steps away from his loved ones and stands alone. Parents have to let go. Adults have to let go. And in that moment we are reminded of the independence of that person, that person’s individuality.

Our Book of Discipline explains baptism like this, “Baptism is God’s gift of unmerited grace through the Holy Spirit. It is incorporation into Christ which marks the entrance of each person into the church and its ministry.” When we participate in this sacrament we are opening ourselves to accept “God’s unfailing grace.” No matter if we are a baby, a pre-teen or a full fledge adult we acknowledge that God’s grace has and will be in our lives. We are reminded that we are not our own but we are God’s and we are part of God’s family now. God does not have grandchildren but claims every generation, ever person as his child, his very own son or daughter. Through the sacrament of baptism he looks at each one of us and echoes his phrase he said the day his son was baptized. “This is my child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

In this sacrament we, the Church, promise that “we will surround these person with a community of love and forgiveness, that they may grow in their trust of God and be found faithful in their service to others.” We are let go and free to move into right relationship with God with the help of our loving family of faith. We are freed from original sin in order to move into a deep, committed live that looks like the life of our Lord and Savior. As parents we are entrusting the care, the nurturing, and ownership of our child to the greater Church. Every baby baptized in this congregation is no longer just the child of the parents but our child who we promised to raise.

Joe and Chris are starting their first semester of college tomorrow. Both kind of dragged their feet until they were pushed by people in this congregation to sign up and go to college. That is living into the promise of their baptisms. As we celebrate the life of Helen this week we surround her family and her with our love as we live into the promise that was made at her baptism. These are ways that we take our promise seriously and live into it

The joy found in the gift of baptism is knowing that at some point God looked at each one of us and let us go as we put on flesh and were birthed into the world. He looks at us, children born through water and the spirit, and calls us his own. As we let the baptismal waters drip down our heads or after we come up out of the water ourselves God looks down and smiles because another one of his children are home.

Today during communion you will have a chance to remember your own baptism. After receiving communion you are invited to make your way to the baptismal font where I will dip my thumb into the blessed water and place the sign of the cross on your forehead. It is a reminder that through these waters we are no longer our own, but through the grace of God we are called a child of God and we are loved.

And all God’s people said…Amen.

[1] http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/p/parenting.htm; Kay Kuzma, Family Times, Vol. 1, No. 3, Fall, 1992, p. 1.

Blessed are the un-cool

2012-01-06T07:10:00.000-05:00

This is a great post by Rachel Held Evans about what church she desires. I toy with the same feelings. It feels like the mainstream church culture would place a thirty-something in a church with 'modern' worship because I am close to the same age as those attending. But I am more drawn to the traditional worship and all the joys/problems of a entrenched 100 year old congregation. But I guess it doesn't matter if your church is modern or traditional or contemporary or emerging, if your congregation looks and acts like the Kingdom of God you are doing it right. I have never been cool and nor do I want to, there is too much 'fun' in the un-cool.

Rachel Held Evans | Blessed are the un-cool

Wesley's Covenant Service - Sermon - 01/01/12

2011-12-30T15:29:00.000-05:00

Wesley’s Covenant Service

01-01-12

The phrase, “This year will be different,” was probably said more times than people can count last night. “This year will be different because I am going to the gym at least twice a week.” “This year will be different because I will finally have the nerve to stand up for myself at work.” “This year will be different because I will finally have the courage to leave him the next time he hits me.” “This year will be different because I do more to help others.” It is the time of year to set those New Year Resolutions. Those attempts to change things in our lives that we want to change but only change for a month before it is too hard and we give up. A resolution is simply an intention that is announced. There isn’t much binding to it.

Covenant though goes deeper than a resolution. A covenant is a binding promise to do or not to do something. It seems to be an old word that isn’t used very much in our everyday language. We don’t hear of people signing a covenant anymore. We may talk about the marriage covenant between two people but beyond that the word and idea seems ancient. Today, we will be moving into a covenant with God as we promise to follow him in this coming year and move into a deeper and more intimate relationship with him.

First of all let’s remind ourselves of what a covenant means. There are five great covenants in the Bible. The first one we usually learn in Sunday School when we were children. After God flooded the world but saved Noah and his family from it through the ark God made a his first covenant. Genesis 9 says, “God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “I am now setting up my covenant with you, with your descendants, and with every living being with you—with the birds, with the large animals, and with all the animals of the earth, leaving the ark with you. I will set up my covenant with you so that never again will all life be cut off by floodwaters. There will never again be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the symbol of the covenant that I am drawing up between me and you and every living thing with you, on behalf of every future generation. I have placed my bow in the clouds; it will be the symbol of the covenant between me and the earth.” God made a covenant not to flood the entire world again and has kept his promise.

A few chapters later in Genesis we receive the second great covenant between God and Abraham. The first three verses of Chapter 12 say, “The LORD said to Abram, “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name respected, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, those who curse you I will curse; all the families of earth will be blessed because of you.” God promises Abraham that his decedents will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. His family will be God’s special people and God will never forget them.

Eventually Abraham’s decedents turn into slaves in Egypt. As they are suffering under the Pharaoh’s regime God remembers his covenant with them and promise to save them. He uses this man named Moses to bring his people out of Egypt and then for 40 years they walk the wilderness learning to be God’s people. It is while they are in the wilderness that God calls Moses up to Mt. Sinai and gives him their covenant. Exodus 19:3-6, “The LORD called to him from the mountain, “This is what you should say to Jacob’s household and declare to the Israelites: You saw what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you up on eagles’ wings and brought you to me. So now, if you faithfully obey me and stay true to my covenant, you will be my most precious possession out of all the peoples, since the whole earth belongs to me. You will be a kingdom of priests for me and a holy nation. These are the words you should say to the Israelites.” For the next five chapters Moses gives the Israelites the law. The Ten Commandments start it off but it keeps going after that. The law was God’s covenant between Him and his people, but as you know they were not too good at keeping it.

What is unique about this covenant is that it is temporary. Through the prophet Jeremiah God says, “The time is coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It won’t be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant with me even though I was their husband, declares the LORD. No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the LORD. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the LORD!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.” God promises to open up his covenant to include all of humanity, and erase all sins from the world.

Then when David was King God made another covenant to bring forth this idea of a new covenant. We read about it during this time of year. 2 Samuel 7:12-13 state, “When the time comes for you to die and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your descendant—one of your very own children—to succeed you, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a temple for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever.” This lineage that God sets up is found in the first part of Matthew and Luke’s gospel. Matthew and Luke follow the lineage of David to prove that Joseph is from line of David. Both of these lineages prove that Jesus followed the covenant that God had planned out. If not Jesus could not have been the Messiah because God would have broken his covenant with humanity.

Then on Christmas morning, God put on flesh and dwelt among us. It is in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we receive a new covenant. As Hebrews 9:15 puts it, “This is why he’s the mediator of a new covenant (which is a will): so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance on the basis of his death. His death occurred to set them free from the offenses committed under the first covenant.” In our liturgy for communion we echo this idea. I hold the cup up and quote from 1 Corinthians 11, “He did the same thing with the cup, after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Every time you drink it, do this to remember me.”

God’s new covenant is found in his Son. It is what his son did that makes it possible for God to fulfill all the previous covenants with humanity. It is through Christ that God can call anyone his people because it is through the Word that became flesh that we can be called children of God. It is through his suffering, death and resurrection that our sins are forgiven and we can be restored. God loves us. God loves you. And it is through his Son that we learn of this great love for everyone.

The purpose of this service is to remind ourselves of our commitment to God and to reaffirm our promise to follow him. John Wesley adapted this service and wrote about it many times in his journal. On New Year’s Day in 1775 he wrote, “It was, as usual, a spiritual experiences…I do not know that ever we had a greater blessing. Afterwards many desired to return thanks, either for a sense of pardon, for full salvation, or for a fresh manifestation of His graces, healing all their backslidings.” Usually when Wesley would visit a Methodist they would hold this service while he was there. Traditionally they are held on New Year’s Day in order to start off the year right by telling God that we will make a covenant with Him to follow him and do his will.

Let us take a moment to prepare ourselves to make this covenant. You will see the liturgy for the service in your insert and please follow along. It is very interactive and you have a lot of things to say. But please do not say them haphazardly. Say them with meaning and say it from your heart. At the end of the service there will be another time of silence when you can sign this covenant. Then take it home and put it someplace where you can you will be reminded of this promise you made to God for the rest of the year. So now, let us ready our hearts and souls to make a covenant with God for 2012.

(Read liturgy from page 290 of the United Methodist Book of Worship)

John 1:1-14 - Christmas Eve Sermon - Incarnation

2011-12-22T07:54:00.002-05:00

John 1:1-14

Incarnation

12-24-11

Last Spring I coached my first soccer team. It was Dean’s Upward Soccer team from Fair Grove UMC’s program. I had a blast coaching these little four and five year olds how to kick a ball, do a throw in, and how to get in there and attack. It was a lot of fun because I have distinct memories of playing soccer at that age too. But there is something I noticed, I’m not as young as I think I am. As I ran the field with the team, trying to herd cats, or as I crouched on the sidelines at the bench to talk to the players, I was a little slow to get up. My knees now make this grinding sound as I move from a catcher’s stance to standing straight up. I know what you are thinking, just wait Jim, your only 34.

Last Wednesday we had Young and Restless at Loflin’s and gathered around the table were three people in recovery. We had Dorcas who had just been a car accident and was healing from fractured ribs and sternum. Across the table was Ronnie who walked in on a cane because of surgery on his femur and hips after falling. Next to me was Pricilla who had fallen off the trailer during IMPACT Community and broken ribs and her collar bone. We talked about being able to sleep, driving, and slow process of healing.

My grandmother will be coming to the parsonage tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with us. She is in her mid-eighties and doesn’t walk very well. She is usually in a motorized wheelchair at the nursing home she lives in but when she visits us she uses a walker. After knee and hip replacements and a couple of falls throughout the years she doesn’t move very well and any task, like moving to the table for dinner, is a two person operation. Sometime last year my Mom came to visit and she had recently tweaked her knee. It healed fine but the way she favored the other leg reminded me of how her mother moves and I said to her, “Mom, you are starting to walk like Gram.” I got slugged in the arm for some reason.

Before our cooperate prayer during worship we are flooded with requests to pray for those people who have cancer and who have had surgery. We are constantly reminded that our bodies have limitations and if you don’t think so, play outside with our all children one afternoon in the playground and you will be reminded that your body cannot do what it use to do. That is the joy of getting old. Our bodies have an expiration date. As we gain age we are reminded of that date especially as it gets closer. Eventually for all of us our flesh fails us. This body of flesh and bones trap us and we see no other way out.

I have always been captivated by the author of John’s gospel opening chapter. It is beautiful poetry. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That is simply one of the most beautiful and most theological statements ever. The Greek word that John uses here for “word” is logos. Now for the Greek language words can have meanings on top of meanings. They can mean one thing but also have implications or significance beyond that meaning as well. It would be like one of our unique and gentle southern phrases, “Bless her heart.” Now when this is used it truly means that we would like to bestow a blessing on that person. Okay, sorry, but usually it doesn’t mean they want to bestow a blessing. In fact when that phrase is used we are calling that person out on being a little slow or just plain dumb. It is a southern way of insulting someone without sounding like it. It is like another person recently said, “If I say it with a smile, I’m not saying anything bad.”

I’m not suggesting that logos is God’s way of insulting us without us knowing but it goes beyond the meaning of ‘word.’ Its meaning is more like “the rational principle of the universe.”[1] It means the fabric that holds the universe together. It is the unseen link between all of creation and humanity. “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people.” The Word, the Logos created everything, including us. We are born from the Word and the Word is in us. We carry the image of the Word in that fleshy muscle we call our heart and that unseen thing we call our soul.

But what does this Word do? It loved what was created through him. It looked down on this fragile pile of flesh and bones and saw something good, something lost, something seeking, something worth saving. The Word looked into the world and loved it, loved it enough that he put on skin and bone, put on the limitations of a human body and “made his dwelling among us.”

Tonight is always a special night. It is a time when we proclaim that the Word has come to earth. We proclaim the incarnation. God sent his only Son to come into this world. We celebrate the babe in the manger and the chorus of angels that sing about this glorious moment. Yet we also confess that when we think of God we think of something beyond flesh. We think of something spiritual, up there, far away from the limitations of our own lives. But we forget that today God came to earth and put on the very thing we hope to escape someday.

We are happy with our bodies as long as they do what they should do. We are happy with our flesh as long as it works the way it is supposed to work. Yet we live in a fallen world and our sin soaked souls know that everything fleshy doesn’t last forever. But it is while we are in this flesh that we can experience the one who put the same thing on for our sake. In other worldviews gods did different things. The Greek gods would slip into human form and interact with humans. This is not what our God did tonight. Tonight God became human, became a person, became a real face, a real man with a specific name. Jesus came to be with us.

We will come in contact with this flesh in a little bit as we take his body given for you and drink of his blood as a sign of the new covenant. It is because God became flesh that we can celebrate our salvation. Not that we can escape the realities of this world but the fact that we can meet the risen Lord who was born in a manger in the midst of our own reality.

Bishop Will Willimon summed it up best, “The incarnation – Christmas – should be a yearly reminder that our salvation is something that God devises, not something that we achieve. What else does God have to do to tell us, “This is not about you, this is not about something you are supposed to think or feel or do. This is about me, something that I give you”? A virgin birth? To say that Jesus was born is to say that Jesus was a human being. To say that Jesus was born “of a virgin” is to say that he was God. We could not climb up and lay hold of the greatness of God, so God climbed down and laid hold of us as we are.”[2]

Thanks be to God for making his dwelling among us in order for us to dwell one day with him.

And all God’s people said…Amen.

[1] Willimon, William. Pulpit Resource, Vol. 36, No. 4, Year A & B, p.55.

[2] Ibid. p.56.

emergingumc: What Brings People to Church? The Survey Says...

2011-12-20T14:47:00.000-05:00

Interesting surveys let us know that most people come to church when other laity invite them. Not the preacher/minister/clergy of the church. People are 6x more likely to come because of laity invites. Wow.

Also the church's internet presence doesn't matter as much to the current poll's population (don't know if that will change in then next decade or not).

emergingumc: What Brings People to Church? The Survey Says...

2 Samuel 7:1-3 - Sermon - Open Up...Yourself

2011-12-17T16:03:00.001-05:00

2 Samuel 7:1-3

Open Up…Yourself

12-18-11

You can find the service of Las Posadas in our Book of Worship. It is a unique service but it reminds us what the holy family went through when they arrived in Bethlehem. If we did this service here at church there would be people playing Mary and Joseph and then all the children and youth would be outside the church. The rest of the congregation is on the inside. Let’s do a little bit of the liturgy for the service: The right side of the church, you are those on the outside, the left side of the church, you are those on the inside.

Those Outside: In the name of God, we beg: will you let us enter? We are tired and we are cold. May we please have shelter?

Those Inside: You look dirty and you smell. Will you please keep moving. For your kind there is no place, for our inn is decent.

Those Outside: It is not by our own choice that today we travel. But the emperor has said that all must be counted.

Those Inside: For your reasons we care not, every room is taken. Can’t you see the place is full? You are bad for business.

It goes on for a little bit with those on the outside of the sanctuary explaining to those on the inside why they should be let in, using scripture to back up their claim. Finally those on the inside let them use a stable because the rooms are for rich travelers. To quote the cold looking Cub Scout in the picture, “It would have been nice if you really let them in and see if they really are nice.” This was the whole theme of our Advent Devotional. I’m sorry I forgot to label it as such but the theme was “No Room in the Inn.” Many of this year’s devotions asked us to look into ourselves and see if we too would let Jesus in. Do we have room for Jesus this season?

The innkeeper is a unique character in the Nativity Story because he is never mentioned. We don’t have a piece for scripture that explains anything about him. We don’t include him with our Nativity Scenes. Luke is the only Gospel that has the birth story in it and all it says is, “She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” As we have told the birth of Jesus throughout the generations we have implied that there must have been an innkeeper who turned them away. But whether there really was an innkeeper or not doesn’t matter the fact still remains. There was no room for them so they settled for what they could find.

Can we fault the innkeeper? Can we fault those who were working at the inn? That person didn’t know this was God’s son being born. That person just knew another baby was coming into the world to a young couple and he was all booked up. There was business to attend to. There was money to be made. Who has time to deal with a woman having a baby, which happens everyday. Is this innkeeper a bad guy? No, he is simply trying to make a living, look after his guests, and making people happy. What else could we expect. Anyway you look at it he missed out. The innkeeper was inches away from God’s son, from God himself, and never knew it because he was spiritually far away.

In today’s scripture we hear about the King David who is sitting in his cedar palace on a spiritual high. There was a lot happening in the early part of the book of 2 Samuel. In these first chapters David is fighting with to take his rightful place as the ‘anointed one’ and king of Judah. Those who were fans of the first King, Saul, didn’t like this and they went to war against each other. David’s house won out after sons were murdered and other great soap opera like stuff happens. David becomes king of all Israel and then conquers Jerusalem and then beat back the Philistines. David was on a military high. He had defeated his defectors, his rivals, and his enemies all because he was the one God anointed to be king.

David decides to bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. The Ark contained the tablets the Ten Commandments were written on (at least version 2.0), some manna from the time the Israelites spent in the wilderness, some of the first scrolls of Moses and Aaron’s rod. This was the most sacred thing of all the Israelites. It was kept in the Holy of Holies which was the back section of the tent inside the tabernacle. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, which held God’s spirit, and he did so only once a year. David loved the idea that now this piece of God’s law, this symbol and God’s presence would find a place of rest in Jerusalem, the City of David. David was so happy that the Ark and the Tabernacle was coming into his city, his new capital, his new place of great power as King, that he danced in his underwear in front of the processional. (Don’t believe me, look up 2 Samuel 6 and then Google ephod.)

David was on a spiritual high because under his leadership the Israelites had everything they had hoped for. They had their kingdom, their new capital, and now the Ark of the Covenant in their presence. Then while David was settled in his palace he has this thought, “Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.” Scripture doesn’t give us his direct plans but we can tell by the rest of chapter 7 that the idea David has is to build a more permanent home for God’s presence. David’s idea is backed up by the prophet Nathan who tells to go with it because God is with him. Yet God has other ideas and informs Nathan to pass on the message to David that his idea won’t happen but God will see to it that David’s house and kingdom will endure forever before God and that his throne will be established forever (v.16).

We are only a couple of weeks away from the Iowa Caucus which officially starts the 20 year long process of voting for a new President of the US. As we have followed the 20 some odd debates the republican candidates have already had we can hear the pandering and the promises coming out. Between now and that first Tuesday in November we will here even more from everyone involved. For many of us it is really hard to hear all of these promises and claims and think they are all genuine. People may have good ideas, great concepts, and solid thinking but how much of that is tied up into their political ambitions. How much of it is them simply telling us what we want to hear so we vote for them and then they will do whatever they want for whoever pays them the most? It is hard to see through that political smokescreen.

Many people look at David’s idea here and think the same thing. He is on the high of his life. Politically, he is on fire. Spiritually, he is coming down off a mountain top experience. Economically, this are going great. Militarily, no one in the region can touch him. Is his idea to build a house for God to capitalize on this grand moment politically so he can be known for building God a house instead of a tent? Or is because he wants to honor God the best way he knows how. The thing is the way we think we should honor God isn’t always the way God wants to be honored.

This is how God answers. David is God’s ‘anointed one’ which in Hebrew is the word, messiah. In the Greek the word is pronounced, Christ. God promises David that he honor him forever because the one who will come will be from his line. Out of the house of David the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ will come. The one that comes is born in a manger, in a stable, wrapped up in clothes because there was no room in the inn.

I am sure that when Nathan talks to David later and says that God thinks his idea is a bad one he was disappointed. How many times in our lives are the plans and thoughts of what we would like God to do not match up to what God really does? How many times do our plans match God’s plans? The trick is not to get so caught up in how God deviated from your plans but to rejoice that God is at work.

Think of a pair of glasses. Glasses help us see the world. We have tons of glasses to view the world through. We can view it from our family’s glasses. We can view it from our political affiliation. We can view the world through the glasses of our the things we hate, or the things we have to do. And we are blessed to be able to put on glasses that will allow us to see the world as God does. We can wear many of these glasses at one time. What God desires us to do is to put God’s glasses on first and then the others. If we see things through God’s eyes more often we will be surprised on what God has planned and what he is doing.

We need to have moments like David. Moments when we look around at our lives and we see how blessed we are. We need to have moments of dreaming big for God but we need to know that God also surprises the faithful. In the service of Los Posadas the insiders are surprised at the outsiders. David is surprised that God was fine being in a tent for how. The innkeeper was surprised, I’m sure later, to know that the Son of God could have been born in his inn, but instead he was born in a stable. God is full of surprises and enters our lives in so many ways that it doesn’t make sense to us very much.

But here is the good news, God moves in our lives. He stirs our souls and he wants us to be ready for the surprises he has in store for us. As we walk through this final week of Advent we remind ourselves that it is not Christmas yet. Next week will come soon enough. As we leave here today let me ask you a few questions, questions from the choir’s anthem today.

“Would I Miss the Miracle?”

If angels filled the skies tonight, would I hear them sing?

Would tomorrow find my saying it was all a dream?

Would I leave my bed and go outside to hear their song?

Would I go on sleeping until the morning dawned?

If a stranger knocked upon my door tonight in deepest need,

In my life would there be room for anyone but me?

Would I hear the voice of God within a Baby’s cry?

Would I open up my heart, and welcome Him inside?

Would I miss the miracle? Would I see the King?

Or would my life be so consumed with ordinary things?

Would I miss the wonder, the hope that Christmas brings?

Would I miss the miracle? Would I see the King?

And all God’s people said…Amen.

Ministry Matters™ | Blog | 7 Reasons People Disappear from Church

2011-12-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

This is a great list of why people leave and the effect it can have on the pastor.

Ministry Matters™ | Blog | 7 Reasons People Disappear from Church

Many career changers are ending up in the ministry | JournalNow.com

2011-12-12T12:06:00.000-05:00

Interesting Read

Many career changers are ending up in the ministry | JournalNow.com

Tebow and God

2011-12-12T11:19:00.003-05:00

To say there has been some chatter about Tim Tebow's success in his six comeback victories is an understatement. The world is a buzz. Sportscenter of course will cover it but Tebow also made a couple of minutes on The Today show as well. There is now a website out there that asks people to bring in pictures of them "Tebowing", this is when you take a knee and put your hand to your head in prayer. This Heisman Trophy winner, turned comeback king, is flooding the popular culture and sparking quiet a following.

This post is not to hate on Tebow. I am thrilled that a devout Christian is getting this much publicity and acknowledgement. I am happy for him and he is really FUN to watch. This post is about the Christian response to him.

After yesterday's game Facebook was little up with chants, accolades, and support for Tebow. Here are a couple of samples I read, "Talk about the favor of God." "I love listening to these sports commentators trying to explain what's going on with Tim Tebow...Let me break it down for all you football folks--it's JESUS!!"

I am sure if I had more friends on FB I could get similar Tebow posts. On the Today Show Tebow was referred to as "God's Quarterback." After these comments and the talk around his faith I'm a little hesitant on linking the success of an overpaid sports player with the God Almighty. What will happen if the Broncos start to lose? What happens when Tebow doesn't pull it out at the end of the game? What does this say about the faithful Christians who were playing against Tebow these last six games? Does he have more 'favor' with God than they do? Does this mean God's power doesn't exist?

There have been other religious NFL players but have they seen the same type of treatment? Reggie White, the Minister of Defense, had a stellar football career and was a leader in a couple of churches before his untimely death the day after Christmas in 2004. Tony Dungy, Kurt Warner, Walter Payton, Emmitt Smith, Chris Carter, Mike Singletary, and even more (see a complete list of Team Jesus here) have all had a deep faith in Jesus Christ, but I don't remember the popular culture stating that their success was because of God's favor.

I'm proud when those in the limelight take a moment to thank God for how wonderful their life is. Whether it is during an acceptance speech at an awards show or after a big play during a game. We need to give thanks to God who gives us everything we have in life. But to say the Broncos are winning because the have God on their side is slippery theology. It starts to head into the ideas and thinking of the Prosperity Gospel. Those who link our personal success with our relationship with God. The better our relationship the more we will succeed and the richer we will be.

If we are going to claim who side God is on we need to look beyond the NFL, beyond sports, beyond ourselves. Desmond Tutu said it best in an article in TIME, "God is not evenhanded. God is biased, horribly in favor of the weak. The minute an injustce is perpretrated, God is going to be on the side of the one who is being clobbered." God is on the side of the poor, the weak, the orphaned, the oppressed, and the helpless. I really don't think God cares if the Broncos make it to the playoffs or win the next three. If we want to truly see God's favor let us look at the ashes of humanity and see who God has pulled up from there.

Tebow is fun to watch and I wish Cam Newton would learn a thing or two about how to close a game from him. But when we place the face of Christianity on an individual who is not Christ himself, we will only be lead to be disappointed.

Isaiah 61:1-4 - Sermon - Open Up...Family

2011-12-08T14:20:00.001-05:00

Isaiah 61:1-4

Open Up…Family

12-11-11

I think this is a wonderful story on how something wonderful can come out of tragedy. I could not imagine learning that my daughter died, let alone at the hands of a drunk driver, let alone in a far off and distant country. Yet this family decided to do something out of their grief. They knew the need in Armenia before their daughter’s death. To think they knew nothing of her six years worth of work would be silly. But it was because of their grief that they became more passionate about those children in Armenia. It was then that they started to collect coats in Carrie’s name. It was then that they started to take five trips over there and gave out coats to eleven remote villages and warmed up 400 children’s lives. It was their grief that stirred them into action and their action that made Carl say, “I could feel Christ’s presence and that is a wonderful feeling.”

As we approach the last part of the Advent season we are reminded that what happens on Christmas, the incarnation of God, God putting on flesh, is transformative to the human race. We will hear more about this next week but the fact that God is born in human form completely changed the course of human history. Nothing was the same after Jesus came. On some level many people believed in this but they were expecting a different type of Messiah. They wanted a militaristic ruling Messiah but instead they received a suffering servant. Instead they received a Messiah that lived into this passage from the prophet Isaiah.

It is in this passage that we hear some echoes from last’s week passage which was twenty some odd chapters before this one. Isaiah is once again letting us know that what is will not always be. There will be a change coming. Something will happen in the world that “bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to comfort all who morn and restore places long devastated, and renew ancient cities.” (mixed parts of Isaiah 61:1-4) On this third Sunday of Advent, when we light the candle that represents Joy we find it in the knowledge that the one who comes and can do all these things has already blessed the earth with his presence and all of this is now possible. It is no longer prophesy but reality.

In the lectionary texts this week the Psalm is Psalm 126. It is only six verses long but as most Psalms do, it gives a link to the emotions many of us feel. Here are the first couple of verses, “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’” The psalmist states that when the Lord restores the fortunes of Zion it will be like a dream. When God raises people out of the ashes, many of them would have told you they only dreamed of being on the other side of the tragedy, dependency, or conflict they were in. If you asked Carrie’s parents when they were first dealing with her death if they expected to be fulfilled in following her footsteps and helping the children she held close to her heart, they would have probably said you were crazy. But now they look with great joy upon those five trips as life changing moments for both them and the church they are a part of.

Joy is something deeper than happiness. Joy is rooted in a firmer foundation than simply being happy. I am happy when my coffee pot has fresh coffee in it in the morning. On Wednesday I was heading out to come back here to practice with the Men’s Ensemble and I yelled to Campbell as I walked out the door, “I love you.” She yelled back, “I love you more!” I am still overjoyed by that comment coming out of the mouth of a two year old. Fresh coffee is fleeting but an honest, visceral and smiling “I love you more!” from my daughter is pure joy.

The epistle text for today comes from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians which starts with these two words, “Rejoice always.” Once again, this seems to grow out of the idea of joy. You can only rejoice always if you have joy, happiness only equals rejoice occasionally. Going back to what the Psalmist, when we realize God’s transformative work in our hearts, when we have that joy bubbling in us, “Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.”

There was a cantankerous, crabby old man. His neighbors avoided him. His four boys moved away from home as soon as they could. You get the picture. His poor wife was longsuffering in her presence. One night he went to bed and just slipped away. His four boys were called in. What should they do? "He was hard to live around, and no one could get along with him, but he was our pa. We owe him a decent burial, out in the meadow beyond the field."

So they went out to the barn and found some boards and made a casket. They put the box on their shoulders and carried it out past the barn. As they passed through the gate, one of the boys bumped into the post and this caused them to drop the box. The casket broke open and the cantankerous, crabby old man sat straight up. He had only been in a very deep... sleep!

Well, life got back to normal. He lived two more years, just as ornery and mean, cantankerous and crabby as ever. The boys could go back to their homes, but his poor wife had to stay with him. Then one night he went to bed and just slipped away. His four boys were called in. What should they do now? "Well, he was hard to live around, and no one could get along with him, but he was our pa. We owe him a decent burial, out in the meadow beyond the field."

So they went out to the barn and found some boards and made a casket and put the old man in it. They put the box on their shoulders and started out of the house. And as they did their mother, the old man's wife said, "Boys, when you get out by the barn...be careful going through that gate.”[1]

Doesn’t laughter bring joy to the soul?

The theme for this week is Family and the question that we are asked is who is in our family. We have those people we call family that we have no choice in. We are born into a group of people and for better or worse they are our family. There is the family you are married into. You have a little more choice over that but still not as much. Then there is the family of our neighbors, friends, classmates, colleagues, and Facebook. These are the ones we get to choose. They are the ones we welcome in because we like them not because we were born into relation with them. As we approach this Christmas time we approach a time when we are with family the most.

Christmas is on a Sunday this year and many of you will stay home because you feel it is better to be at home with family on that morning than in church. You are not alone. I know churches that are canceling services on that morning in order for people to simply stay at home and enjoy their families. What family will we spend time with on Christmas, our relatives or our chosen families? And do either of those look like the family of God?

Our closet family are the people we want around us for major life events. We want them there to enjoy our life moments because they are important to us. We invite them over for holiday dinners, birthday parties, and graduations. We surround ourselves with these people, the family members, because we are built up, encouraged and full of joy when they are near us. This got me thinking, who did God invite to his major life moments? The first people who were there to witness the savior of the world being born were not the rich and famous but shepherds.

We have this preconceived notion of what shepherds were. This is what we think of [<---] when we think of shepherds. We think of the nativity shepherds all dressed up and looking all cute. But this looks nothing like the shepherds of the ancient Middle East. They were the blue collar workers of the day. Think about it for a little bit. Have you ever smelled sheep before. Not the best fragrance yet that is probably what people who watched them all day and night eventually smelled like too. Here is a picture of what a current Middle Eastern shepherd looks like. [----->] This is probably closer to what the people who first witnessed the birth of Christ looked like. They looked dirty, smelled like sheep manure, but that is who God invited. The most modern day equivalent I could think of was coal miners. Coal miners are probably dirtier but [---->] is this a person you want sitting at your table on Christmas morning?

When Jesus was starting off his ministry he eventually made it back to his home synagogue. They asked him to speak and he stood up and opened up the scriptures to this section of Isaiah. He read the four verses we read and then he sat back down. He began to preach and he told the people he grew up with, who knew him as a baby, who probably watched him grow up his whole life, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” They were completely upset. They were so upset that they attempted to throw this child they knew for the past thirty years off a cliff.

One of the commentaries I read this week said that they were upset because what Jesus implies when he starts to preach on this text is that the promise that Isaiah gives is intended for those outside. The brokenhearted, those who mourn, those who are blind, and held captive are outside the walls of the synagogue. They are the Gentiles, the rest of the world, and God wants them to come to know the work he is doing through Jesus Christ.

We get the joy of being witnesses to God’s love, compassion and concern. We see people, know people and are people who have been transformed by this incarnate God. We come to church to praise God for this transformation and to feed off the hope, peace and joy we remind ourselves about during this holy season. Yet we also are reminded that the Church is the only institution that exists for those who are not apart of it. We exist for those who are not here, who haven’t started coming, who are outside these walls and need to hear the promise found in Isaiah, the promise fulfilled in our Savior Jesus Christ.

What we have to be careful with is the turning into a Nazareth Church. They hear the message strait out of Jesus’ mouth and they attempted to throw him off a cliff. We need to be willing to participate in the ‘Good News.’ We need to be willing to preach the good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom to the captives and rebuild and renew what has been ruined by the world. That is the work that God is doing in this world and as followers of God we need to have our hands dirty by doing the same thing. Carrie’s parents understood that and got dirty passing out coats, boots, and hats to 400 cold children halfway around the world.

We have the pleasure of doing this on Christmas Day. Thomasville Medical Center is extremely excited that we are willing to come over on Christmas Day and do the exact same service we would do if we had it in this building. The only difference is we are doing it there instead of within these walls. I have no clue if any of the patients will make it down or if any of the staff will find a moment in their busy day to participate. But we will be there to share and to be a “garment of praise” for people who are away from their families on this holy day of celebration. We will be there to be imagebearers of God who can do a little to “bind up the brokenhearted.” Yes, it is different. Yes, we will be surrounded by Christmas Trees instead of these four walls, but we will be stepping out and sharing the joy of Christ with others. We will be opening up who we call family that day and accepting those who God holds closest to his heart. I pray that at the end of that service we can look at each other and say the same words that Carl said in the video, “I could feel Christ’s presence and that is a wonderful thing.”

And all God’s people said, Amen.

[1] http://day1.org/3360-the_hand_of_god_on_the_shoulder_of_a_troubled_world#_ftn2

Ministry Matters™ | Articles | War on Christmas

2011-12-06T10:42:00.000-05:00

This sums up well my whole thought on this annual 'tradition' for people to bicker about "stuff" that doesn't really matter.

Ministry Matters™ | Articles | War on Christmas

Isaiah 40:1-6 - Sermon = Acceptance

2011-12-02T11:59:00.001-05:00

Isaiah 40:1-6a

Acceptance

12-04-11

I will have to admit that this is only one of a couple of sermons I have ever preached on Isaiah. In my ten years of ministry I have attempted to stick with the Gospel texts within the lectionary but I have wondered here an there into the epistles, and the Old Testament once in a while. We may go for a long time without hearing anything from this Prophet within our modern Church but this is a very important book for the Hebrew people.

Isaiah was alive when the Jewish kingdom was split. There was Israel or the Northern kingdom and then there was Judah or the Southern Kingdom. Isaiah spoke with the classic southern drawl and did most of his ministry in the southern kingdom. There he was an advisor for the kings. He went through four kings until the last one got tired of him and had him sawed in half. During his reign as advisor he prophesied that the wealth and flourishing nature of the kingdom would not last forever. There would be a time of reckoning and judgment. The people of Judah needed to turn away from their wicked ways, repent and follow God. This is what many scholars call First Isaiah. It is only one book, so it is not like 1 and 2 Corinthians, but within the book of Isaiah there are two distinct sections. First Isaiah has a tone of a Sidewalk Preacher who is calling his community to task.

“But the people have not returned to him who struck them, nor have they sought the Lord Almighty. So the Lord will cut off Israel both head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day; the elders and prominent mean are the head, the prophets who teach lies are the tail. Those who guide this people mislead them, and those who are guided are led astray. Therefore the Lord will take no pleasure in the young men, nor will he pity the fatherless and widows, for everyone is ungodly and wicked, every mouth speaks vileness. Yet for all this, his hanger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.” (Isaiah 9:13-17) First Isaiah is full of warnings, threats and prophecies that the kingdom will come to an end.

Then in this 40^th chapter Isaiah’s tone and focus switches. Instead of being a hard hammer hitting people over the head, Isaiah turns into a more gentle, compassionate, and loving prophet. In his messages there is a sense of hope and a deep promise of final deliverance. Isaiah has been called the Shakespeare of Hebrew Literature and the New Testament quotes from Isaiah the most over all other books; more than the Psalms, or even the first five books of the Bible, the Torah. Every year at Advent we also dive back into the promise that comes from this prophet, the promise that what is, will not always be.

Jump ahead about 800 years or so and you we meet a man who is extremely excited. He had just worked up enough courage to ask his girlfriend, Mary, to marry him and she said yes. They had run through the town they lived in sharing the good news with everyone, “We’re going to be married!” Their checks were still sore from smiling. In the Jewish custom there was something called betrothal, we still sort of use that word today. It was meant a type of relationship that was more committed than what we call engaged but not as far as marriage. As my study Bible put it, “A betrothal was more binding than an engagement; it could only be broken with an act of divorce. And if a betrothed woman became pregnant, she was regarded as an adulteress.”[1]

You can see how this man who was very excited to finally be taking their relationship to the next level was crushed when he heard the words come out of Mary’s mouth. “I’m pregnant.” I wonder if he heard anything else that followed. “I didn’t cheat. I’m still a virgin. God sent an angel to tell me that I will carry God’s Son into this world. I promise Joseph, I am still a virgin.” I don’t care who you are, that is not a story many people will believe from the mouth of a teenager.

But Matthew’s Gospel tells us he was a righteous man. He “did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” This was the kindest, most honorable, and loving thing Joseph could have done in this situation and in this time. You can tell that Mary and Joseph held a deep and committed love for one another, even deeper than Edward and Bella. Last week we put ourselves into the shoes of Mary, talking about the feelings of expectations. This week kick those shoes off and try on Joseph’s. What kind of feelings would you have dedicating yourself, and raising someone else’s child? What about the social stigmas he had to face as his friends, family and neighbors put two and two together that this kid named Jesus wasn’t his? People can do the math. They had a June wedding but Jesus was born in December?

But Joseph went through with the marriage and relationship because he was a man of God and when an angel told him to do what he did. Even though there was a celestial confirmation I guarantee that there were moments when Joseph felt like he was walking in the middle of the wilderness. Have you had any of those moments? You are walking through life but you have no clue the direction, the destination or even the next step you are to take. Joseph was in the middle of that wilderness but there was something there with him.

If we look back at the history of the Hebrew people, we know that Isaiah’s prophesies came true. Soon both the northern and southern kingdoms were taken away in what was called the Second Exile. This time, instead of going to Egypt, they headed to Babylon. Their history, their promised land, their heritage, and their temple were all taken away. They walked through the wilderness into Babylon only to live in a spiritual wilderness for many generations to come. Yet, like the Israelites who crossed the Red Sea before them and Joseph who wandered in the wilderness of step-parenthood, there was something there with them.

As we sink into the middle of the Advent season there are many in this world that this time of year does not bring the joy and splendor as it does other. It is not a Scrooge or Grinch thing. It is the fact that in our lives there is immense pain. There is sorrow. There is mourning. There is an empty house that once was full of life. Where there use to be someone sitting in the chair across from us, or next to us on the coach or in the car, now there is no one. The kids and spouse that used to fill the house with joy have moved away. The marriage that once was, this Christmas will be celebrated at two different houses. Like in the video today, there are those who are in our community who are new, people who are escaping, searching, lost and hungry. There are others who will be kicked out of their houses or sit down to the dinner table and not have food. If any of this describes you, you may say, “I’m in the wilderness, a wilderness filled with high mountains, deep valleys and full of darkness and decay.”

We lit the second Advent Candle today. Last week the candle represented hope. This week it represents peace. We have this notion that we can make peace. Peace seems like a commodity we can trade or something we can purchase. Yet that is not necessarily. We build up walls, put up barbed wire, watchtowers and armed men in order to “keep the peace” and this is just when our mother-in-laws visit. We go through metal detectors at football games, start wars to stop violence, and hurt others to make ourselves feel better. All in the name of peace.

Yet here is the secret about peace. You can’t get it by yourself. True peace is not the kind that comes from watching a sunset, looking over an overlook at the Parkway, or having the waves hit your feet at the beach. That is only sentimentalizing peace. True peace, the inner peace is only found in right relationship with God. It is a gift from God. Peace is the knowledge that you have been accepted by God and that you have accepted the life you have.

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a prayer that speaks to this; we know it as the Serenity Prayer. “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Joseph looked at his life, listened to God, and then accepted the wilderness path he was on. Isaiah prophesied to Judah that the time would come when their people would be marched out of the Holy Land but then we hear the words today, “Comfort, Comfort my people.” The wilderness is a place God can mold us but it is not the place we stay forever.

The peace that we receive in the manger at Christmas is the peace in accepting the fact that what is, will not always be. What has come to pass, will pass. The sorrow we feel, the mourning, the hurt, the struggles, there will be an end. We will know peace and that is our promise. Isaiah turns in this chapter from the past tense to the future tense. The don of Cambridge, George Steiner says that when we dare speak in the future tense, when we use the words “to be,” the power of death has been negated.

Everything that leads us to the birth of Christ points beyond this moment and beyond itself. It moves us from the present and into the promised future. This future, the one where “every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain,” will come to be. That is our promise as God’s people and there is peace in accepting that as our truth.

And all God’s people said, Amen.

[1] NIV Study Bible, note on Matthew 1:18.

Simplifying Advent

2011-11-28T11:11:00.001-05:00

Ken Carter has a great article out about 11 ways to simplify Advent. It is well worth your time and worth putting into practice.

Mark 13:24-37 - Sermon - Expectations

2011-11-23T14:16:00.001-05:00

Mark 13:24-37

Expectations

11-27-11

I know you were thinking while I read the scripture this morning, “Where have I heard this before?” In the great movie Ghostbusters, Dan Aykrod quotes verses 24-25 to explain the buildup ghost activity in the New York City area. Reading this passage does bring some doom and gloom to a season that is supposed to be full of cheer and joy. Why does the lectionary start off the Advent season talking about the End Times and Jesus’ second coming? Or to continue using Churchy words, why do we focus on Jesus’ second Advent on the first Sunday of the season that we are preparing to celebrate his first Advent?

In this sermon series, Outside the Box, we will be concentrating on a focus word each week. We will be focusing on the idea of expectations this week. As I was writing this sermon I was in the waiting room of Flow Automotive in Winston-Salem. My car needed a new water pump and since they would fix it for free I spent 4 hours in that room waiting on it to be fixed. This turns out to be great inspiration for this first Sunday of Advent because Jesus’ message today is about waiting. That is the joy we receive today, we get to wait.

Most of us hate waiting. I am always amazed when I am in Walmart that the “speedy checkout” lines always have three or four people in it. The other lines either have one or none. It is the idea that this line will get you out of the store faster is so attractive to people that they will stand in line longer. We get impatient waiting for traffic lights to change, for commercials to be over with, and even for people to stop preaching so they can get to lunch. We spend so much time annoyed and agitated with the idea of waiting that we forget there can be joy in it. There can be purpose in it and it can be fulfilling. William Congreve says, “Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life.” Would you agree?

Jesus tells us to be alert, to stay awake, or to watch out five times in the last six verses of the text. Usually if Jesus repeats himself that means we need to listen very carefully. We need to sit up and pay attention when repetition comes out of his mouth. Let’s sit up a little straighter, let’s turn our ears on and let’s be on alert.

We start off the Advent season at the end. We begin at the end of the story. It is like starting a book by reading the last paragraph first. We do so for a couple of reasons. For one thing by looking forward to the time when Jesus will come again, we place ourselves in the mindset of those who were waiting on Jesus to come the first time. For those who lived in a year ending with BC, they were constantly waiting for the Messiah to come. For every country that occupied the Jewish people they looked to God to send the Messiah who would save them from the people who were oppressing them. As the first century Jews grumbled their way to their home town for the census they wondered when God would save them from these troublesome Romans. They waited in great anticipation and most of them missed it. We start off the season of Advent, the season of preparing ourselves for Christmas, by reminding ourselves that we are waiting for Christ to come again. We are told to stay alert, to watch out, in order not to miss out.

In order to stay alert we need to be actively waiting which is the other reason for this text this first Sunday of Advent. There is a huge difference between passively waiting and actively waiting. A hunter passively waits for the season to start. There is nothing he can do to speed up the arrival of bow or rifle seasons, all he can do is sit back and wait. Yet once the season starts and he sits in his stand he is actively waiting for the deer to cross his blind. A fisherman cannot hurry spring, so he passively waits for it to arrive. Yet while on his boat in the lake he actively waits for the fish to bite. The tension on his line is tight and his senses are focused to feel the slightest tickle from a fish. Then when the deer crosses into the clearing or the fish takes the bait, the hunter and fisherman strike and claim their prey.

Actively waiting is also like standing on the side of the street waiting for a parade. If you were standing there waiting for a bus you may not be thinking about anything. You aren’t really excited to get on board and take your familiar route, but when you are waiting on a parade, things change. You started to wonder and anticipate what the floats might look like. You may be on constant lookout for when your child will be appearing or your friends. There is a sense of anticipation and of expectations.

When we think of the things we wait for, many of us can relate to the expectations of a new mother. Mary was expecting her first child but it came at a time when a pregnancy out of wedlock was even more taboo than it is now. If it was not for the love that Joseph had for her and some angels confirming the divine conception of the child in her womb, she would have been left high and dry to have and raise that child on her own. Think of what went through your mind when you heard you were expecting. There was excitement and joy. There was trepidation and uneasiness. Maybe if your pregnancy was not planned there was shock, awe, fear, and worry.

No matter how you became expecting, once you were things had to be done. There are the doctor appointments, prenatal vitamins, throwing up every morning, afternoon and evening. It is a chaotic time and those ten months of pregnancy, eight of which you knew you are, life is completely different and all focuses on that time when the baby will arrive. This is what we are doing here in Advent and these four full weeks of waiting for Christmas.

However Christmas started back around Halloween didn’t it? When we were picking out our costumes for Trunk-r-Treat there were Christmas Trees up, so Christmas had started. The house across the street had their lights up a week before Thanksgiving and many of you already put up your Christmas Tree, scheduled the Christmas parties, and hopefully will be cooking lots of cookies for the Cookie Walk this Saturday. There is so much in this world that points to the fact that Christmas has already started. There is already so much busyness and chaos, hasn’t Christmas already come? Yet while the world’s December rush may point towards Christmas it usually doesn’t point to the Christ Child.

The main purpose of the season of Advent is to prepare. This season asks us to sit back and understand that our lives are made different because of God coming to this world as a human baby. But if we get caught up in the hurry of the shopping season are we truly prepared? Are we truly ready for the Christ Child?

We live in a unique time in history, we live in the now and not yet. We live in-between the advents of God. We live in the in-between times. Jesus Christ has already come into the world thousands of years ago and he promises that he will come again and that hasn’t happened yet. We have access to Jesus’ teachings, life, example, and miracles through the Word but the time when the world will be made right again through his judgment has not happened yet. As a commentary I read this week put it, “Already Jesus has established the means through which we are drawn into relationship with God, but not yet do we live in complete communion with God. Already the realm of God is evident, but not yet is that realm fully established. ”[1] We are in the midst of now and not yet.

But what does this have to do with our waiting? What does that mean as we prepare for Christ Child? It means that our job is to stand a little counter cultural. If you want to see this in action come to the worship meeting when we plan out the Advent Season. I dig my heels in every year and attempt with all my being for us to hold off singing Christmas Carols as late into December as humanly possible. Sure our radios have been blasting Justin Bieber’s version of Silent Night since mid-November but that night has not come yet. Christmas is a 12 day season starting on December 25^th and going to January 6^th or Epiphany. If we don’t stand against the reality of the world at times we will lose focus on the true meaning of this season. Instead of preparing and expecting the Christ Child we will go back to simply welcoming in Christmas.

This is a naturally hectic, hurried, and chaotic time of the year. It may seem impossible to believe that God can bless or even be found in this congested time of parties, school work, plays, performances, shopping, wrapping, writing, and eating. I cannot imagine doing the play that was in the video today; all those personalities and all those parts working together in a chaotic moment. Yet if we go back to the very beginning of the Bible, to the first two verses of Genesis say, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” There was one thing that existed before all others, chaos. I don’t know how else to describe an earth that was formless, empty, and dark. Whatever you call it chaos seems appropriate. Yet out of the chaos God created everything; the day, the night, the sun, the moon, the earth, plants, animals and eventually us. God looks at the chaos and the impossible and see possibilities.

No matter how busy our lives get this season; no matter how chaotic it feels, God sees possibilities to create something good. Mary’s pregnancy was disordered and confusing, more than probably any of ours. She didn’t know if her finance would stick with her, if her family would claim her, and then while bringing Jesus to term she had to travel. In the rush of trying to find a place to stay they found refuge in a stable surrounded by who knows what kind of smells, noises, and confusion. Yet in that chaos God put on flesh and dwelt among us. All those in Bethlehem at that time were rushing around in the demanding event of the census. As they rushed here and there they missed the birth of the Messiah.

St. Augustine preached a sermon in which he said, “The first coming of Christ the Lord, God’s Son and our God, was in obscurity. The second will be in sight of the whole world. When he came in obscurity no one recognized him but his own servants. When he comes openly he will be known by both the good and the bad. When he came in obscurity, it was to be judged. When he comes openly it will be judged. He was silent at his trial, as the prophet foretold…Silent when accused, he will not be silent as judge. Even now he does not keep silent, if there is anyone to listen. But it says he will not keep silent then, because his voice will be acknowledged even by those who despise it.”[2] When he comes again we will know. But we will ready?

Growing up my Boy Scout Troop took High Adventure Trips every couple of years and I got the pleasure of going to Yosemite. As we hiked and camped in that beautiful piece of God’s creation and some of our parents were able to come with us. One of my friends Dad strapped on a backpack and took this adventure with us. As he hiked he did so with a camcorder and camera around his neck. Like a fifteen pound yoke around his neck he traveled here and there waiting for the right moment. His goal was to document the existence of these things called bears which we were warned were highly prevalent in the area. No one in our group had seen one in the week we spent in the woods until one day when my friend’s Dad glanced over and saw one a few feet off the trail. He stood there in awe at this massive creature that looked at him and then bounded off into the deep woods. This was his story of course. With that camcorder and camera around his neck he didn’t capture anything of this so called bear. With all his preparation he still missed capturing the moment.

Will we be ready to celebrate his first Advent on December 25^th again? Will we be ready to welcome Christmas or the Christ Child? As we actively wait with great expectations, my prayer is that you let God in. Let God into this four week journey filled with expectations. Read the wonderful devotional that was put together and let the words and activities transform this time of waiting into a time of God creating something out of the chaos. It takes work, like any pregnancy, like any major life event, yet when we are ready we can capture the moment and experience God who is already in this world and will come again.

And all God’s people said…Amen.

[1] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, Martin B. Copenhaver, p. 25.

[2] Pulpit Resource, Vol. 36, Year A & B, October, November, December 2008, Jason Byassee, p.40.