Sorry for the hiatus -- you, my faithful reader. Here is the latest. --mbb
The Patience of a Great God
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him, even though I used to blaspheme the name of Christ. In my insolence, I persecuted his people. But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. Oh, how generous and gracious our Lord was! He filled me with the faith and love that come from Christ Jesus. This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life. All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen. Timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you, based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they help you fight well in the Lord’s battles. 1 Timothy 1:12-18
Every day brings us an array of things that try our patience. Mom’s, you know what I’m talking about. You buy something that needs to be assembled and the instructions don’t make sense. You toss 16 socks into a clothes dryer and you get only 15 back. How about all those people who annoy us? Poky drivers in front of you when you are in a hurry. People who let their dogs bark all night. Or the person ahead of us in the 15-item express line at the supermarket who puts 19 items on the belt, chats with an incredibly slow checkout clerk, fishes for a checkbook only after everything has been rung up, and then wants to review the bill. Strangers try our patience in lots of little ways, but they’re no match for members of our own family. The prime cases of annoyance are domestic. “When two humans have lived together for a while,” says C. S. Lewis, “it usually happens that each has facial expressions and tones of voice that are almost unendurable to the other.” I think we understand. It’s not that your family member does anything wrong, exactly. It’s just that once in a while she lifts her eyebrows in a certain way that drives you nuts. It’s just that he whines even when he’s not complaining.
How about those people who do the same annoying thing over and over again. They know it bothers you. They might even ask your forgiveness. But they just keep making the same mistakes.
But wait a minute. That describes all of us, doesn’t it – doing the same things over and over and over again . . . making the same mistakes all the time. Do you ever wonder if God gets tired of us–if God ever loses patience? Here is God, patiently trying to correct our behavior and help us grow up into the people we were created to be – and here we are, going our own ways, doing our own things, messing up, asking forgiveness, and then repeating the same old sins. In my own life, I rarely need to invent new sins. I just keep repeating the same old sins. At times I feel clumsy and foolish and useless. And at times I convince myself that there’s no way God could possibly forgive me again for the same things for which I’ve already asked forgiveness -- that just doesn’t make sense. I mean, eventually God has got to lose patience with me and just go ahead and give me a good whack upside the head. Right?
The Apostle Paul says no -- that’s not the case. God has unlimited patience. And no matter how many times we blow it, if we seek God’s forgiveness, God promises to forgive us again, and again, and again -- it’s unlimited.
Now let’s be clear. I’m not saying that God doesn’t take our sin seriously. Sin is deadly serious. And I am not saying that God doesn’t have standards. God clearly calls us to live lives that conform to the values of the Kingdom. There are real consequences in our lives when we disobey the standards that God has set in place. Our sin matters to God and brings pain and brokenness to our lives. But our sins, no matter how often repeated, can never come between us and the forgiveness offered in Jesus Christ -- because God has unlimited patience for you and for me.
Maybe you think your sin is too great for God to forgive. Paul certainly could have thought that. Listen to how he describes himself, a blasphemer, a persecutor -- a violent man. And then, just to make sure you understand just what a really lousy person he is, he calls himself the “worst of sinners.”
I bet you could come up with a list of sins in your own mind.
• You’ve let emotions like anger or selfishness or a judgmental spirit enter into your relationships.
• Or, you’re trapped in a cycle of addiction that you can’t seem to overcome and you feel like a failure.
• Or, you’re involved in a relationship that you know is destructive to you and your family.
• Or, you’ve taken some shortcuts at work or at home that you know aren’t ethical.
• Or, you’ve drifted away from God and you really don’t have a whole lot of desire to find your way back.
You’ve got your list, I have mine. Maybe you are thinking, “Worst of sinners? -- yeah, I know something about being the worst of sinners, and there is just no way God could possibly forgive the worst of sinners. There is no way God could ever forgive me for the things I’ve done.”
Notice Paul doesn’t say I “was” the worst of sinners. He says, “I AM” the worst of sinners, -- present tense. I am the worst of sinners, but here’s the good news -- that’s why Jesus Christ came into the world. Jesus Christ came to save sinners like Paul and sinners like you and sinners like me. And there is no sin that you or I could possibly commit that would be so great that it would exceed God’s unlimited patience and capacity to forgive.
There are some of us who have trouble with this idea of God’s unlimited patience because we think that God’s capacity to forgive is too small. And maybe we do that because we compare God’s capacity to offer forgiveness with our own ... and again, that’s just wrong thinking. God isn’t reluctant to forgive us -- God delights in forgiving us. God forgives all our sins, no matter how little and no matter how big.
Despite our mistakes, despite our pride and self-sufficiency, despite the times we turn away from God -- our sins aren’t too big for God to handle. God doesn’t put conditions on forgiveness. When we make the same mistakes over and over again, it doesn’t max out God’s patience.
And so Paul writes to Timothy:
I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life. (1 Timothy 1: 16) And here is where the story comes home to you and to me. It’s as if Paul is saying:
If you don’t believe anything else, believe this: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I’m proof -- Public Sinner Number One. I never could have made it apart from the love and grace of Jesus. And now God shows me off -- as evidence of endless patience. I am an example for those who are right on the edge of trusting God forever.
And maybe that describes some of us here today. Maybe we are right on the edge of trusting Jesus Christ forever and all we need to do is receive the grace and forgiveness that He freely offers.
Some of us are sitting here today and we know that we really are the worst of sinners ... and maybe we believe our sins to be too big or God’s forgiveness too small -- and we’ve never received the unlimited gift of love He offers. God’s gift is ours. We only need to turn to God and accept it. I don’t know what you’ve brought here with you today -- what sins are on your list or on your mind and heart. But I do know this: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And so let me invite you, as we close in prayer, to take a few moments of silence, and in those moments, I invite you to come to God -- to turn to Jesus Christ and lay all your failures and all your mistakes and all your sins before Him. God really does have unlimited patience. God delights in pouring out love and grace and forgiveness on the worst of sinners -- like you and like me.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Sermon for December 19, Advent 4
Doing the Right Thing
The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn't know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.
While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God's angel spoke in the dream: "Joseph, son of David, don't hesitate to get married. Mary's pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God's Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—'God saves'—because he will save his people from their sins." This would bring the prophet's embryonic sermon to full term:
Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;
They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for "God is with us").
Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God's angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus --Matthew 1:18-25 (The Message)
These reflections were part of a service based on a spiritual practice called Lectio Divina. We listened to Matthew 1:18-25 three different times, and I offered three various perspectives on the passage after periods of rest and silence.
The next morning, she turned to her husband again and said the same thing, "I just dreamed that you gave me a diamond necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" And her husband said, "You'll know tomorrow."
On the third morning, the woman woke up and smiled at her husband, "I just dreamed again that you gave me a diamond necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" And he smiled back, "You'll know tonight."
That evening, the man came home with a small package and presented it to his wife. She was delighted. She opened it gently. And when she did, she found-a book! And the book's title was How to Interpret Your Dreams.
Advent is a season of dreams. What have you been dreaming about lately? Some of us are dreaming about wonderful possibilities. We're dreaming new possibilities, new toys, and new beginnings. I hope all those dreams come true! During my regular sleep time, when I’m not on cough medicine, my I dreams fall into two major categories. The first I call worried dreams. In these dreams, I am stand in a pulpit, for instance, with nothing to say. Or I’m late and the service is running an hour over, and I can’t get the buttons to my robe together. In another dream I’m back in college and I show up to a college class unprepared, or I can’t register for the one class I need to graduate. Another form of this is the chase dream. Someone is out to get me – hunting me down. Sometimes there is aircraft involved, but I think that’s from the new furnace fan that drones all night long under our bedroom. These are nights that I spend wrestling with my spirit.
Sometimes my dreams are refreshing. I dream about reconciliation. I dream that my enemies and I are living at peace. I dream of flying through the air or swimming like a fish. I dream of new opportunities. These are nights where my hope is renewed.
What is the reason for dreams, those strange stories that bounce along our brain waves? We wake suddenly, and reality itself seems like a different world. Today's gospel lesson is about a dream -- the dream of Joseph. Not Mary's dream, but Joseph's dream. Today we get to consider his point of view. Joseph dreams something wonderful. God will enter the world. God will be born to his fiancée, as crazy is that was to understand. Joseph has some serious trusting Joseph has to trust that the voice of God is speaking to him. Joseph has to trust Mary is telling the truth. Joseph has to believe in dreams and then get out of the way.
I want us to consider a gift that we can give others this season. It’s the gift of believing in someone else's dreams. The greatest gift you can give is to have faith in someone else. Believe in the dreams of the person you love. Believe in the dream of your husband. Believe in the dream of your wife. Believe in the dreams of your children. Believe in the dream of your hero, your leader, your friend. Believe in their dreams! Believe in dreams this Christmas, and Jesus will be born again. Believe in dreams this Christmas, and God will appear.
“What if you get hungry?” the father asked.
“Then I’ll come home and eat and then leave again!” said the child.
“And what if you run out of money?”
“I will come home, get some money and then leave again!” replied the child.
“What if your clothes get dirty?”
“Then I’ll come home and let mommy wash them and then leave again,” he said.
The Dad shook his head and exclaimed, “This kid is not running away from home; he’s going to college.”
Christmas can be a time that brings the worst out of us. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the stress of maintaining traditions. Maybe its all the added stress we put on ourselves to shop, and bake, and entertain, and party. Maybe it’s time with family or the in-your-face consumerism that stands in stark contrast with global suffering. Something about Christmas brings the realities of life into new focus. Some of us would like to run away from Christmas. So let me ask a question: What are you looking to get from the Christmas story? Are you looking for a Disney style story that helps you run away from the realities of life or are you looking for an affirmation that life is tough and God is with us? Are you looking for the romantic myth of a virgin birth or the stark reality of a young couple trying to make the best of a confusing situation? Are you looking for the sugar-coated story of angels with golden wings floating in from outer space with divine messages, or the reality of a frightened couple trying to follow their instincts and discern some meaning in their struggle?
Most of us don’t live sugar-coated lives. The sickly sweet fairytale Christmas story that is often presented offers little to the harsh reality of our lives: teenage pregnancies, loveless relationships, global poverty, religious rivalry, family betrayals, personal demons and workplace anguish.
The historical context which paints a more accurate backdrop to the beginnings of Jesus’ life says something profound to the realities of life. From the time Mary became pregnant, to the decisions of a family struggling to make ends meet, to the life of a struggling revolutionary, the Christmas a story is the beginning of a tale about survival against the odds. The real-world Christmas story names the struggles of your life and the horrors of our world. In the raw, the real, the radical, earthy struggles of the family of Jesus, we hear echoes of life as you know it to be. You don’t need to run away. You have all you need right here and now to live fully and survive against any odds, and to be an angel of compassion in the world.
But there’s so much more to Joseph’s yes to God. In naming Jesus, Joseph claims him as his own and raises Jesus as his own son. Joseph will watch over Jesus. He will listening in the night. He will worrying about him. He will do all he can to keep that baby safe. Joseph will love Jesus and teach him his trade. Think of it. Think of the role Joseph played in Jesus’ life. Imagine what Jesus learned from Joseph.
Imagine the two of them at the carpenter’s bench . . . Joseph teaching Jesus how to use tools . . . Joseph telling stories from the Bible, sharing the parables of old . . . singing the psalms . . . singing of a father’s love.Imagine Jesus watching Joseph . . . seeing how Joseph treats the people others ignore . . . noting Joseph’s kindness . . . how Joseph goes out of his way to make others feel welcome . . . seeing the tenderness Joseph shows to Mary.
Imagine Joseph telling Jesus stories about the Romans. We can almost hear him muttering about the way the Romans treated the Israelites — the heavy taxes, the hillsides crowded with crosses, the arrogance of power. Imagine Joseph instilling in Jesus a passion for justice. Imagine him sharing his longing for peace with Jesus. Think of it. Think of the role Joseph played in Jesus’ life. After all they were together almost thirty years.
And think of the role Jesus played in Joseph’s life. Think of how Joseph’s yes to God rearranged his life; think of the richness it brought him; think of how that yes to God stretched Joseph into new possibilities, new relationships, new ways of being in the world. God comes to us as God’s angel came to Joseph, inviting us to take God’s child into our homes and into our hearts. Inviting us to claim that child as our own and to live as Joseph did into the fullness of God’s dream for us. God gives each of us an opportunity to say “yes”—to say yes to God.
Maybe we can live a little more like Joseph did. We do our best to live our faith out, in word and deed—in the little things we do, in the way we lead our daily lives.
Sources:
Thanks to the following pastors and thinkers who inspire my thoughts and lead me to think about Scripture in different ways:
http://day1.org/1070-believe_in_the_dreams_of_the_person_you_love
http://www.c3exchange.org/archive/running-away-from-christmas/
http://www.trinitysonoma.org/Sermons/Sermon-Dec23-2007.pdf
The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn't know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.
While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God's angel spoke in the dream: "Joseph, son of David, don't hesitate to get married. Mary's pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God's Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—'God saves'—because he will save his people from their sins." This would bring the prophet's embryonic sermon to full term:
Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;
They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for "God is with us").
Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God's angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus --Matthew 1:18-25 (The Message)
These reflections were part of a service based on a spiritual practice called Lectio Divina. We listened to Matthew 1:18-25 three different times, and I offered three various perspectives on the passage after periods of rest and silence.
--Part One--
It was a few days before Christmas. That morning, a woman woke up and told her husband, "I just dreamed that you gave me a diamond necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" Her husband replied, "Oh, you'll know the day after tomorrow."The next morning, she turned to her husband again and said the same thing, "I just dreamed that you gave me a diamond necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" And her husband said, "You'll know tomorrow."
On the third morning, the woman woke up and smiled at her husband, "I just dreamed again that you gave me a diamond necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" And he smiled back, "You'll know tonight."
That evening, the man came home with a small package and presented it to his wife. She was delighted. She opened it gently. And when she did, she found-a book! And the book's title was How to Interpret Your Dreams.
Advent is a season of dreams. What have you been dreaming about lately? Some of us are dreaming about wonderful possibilities. We're dreaming new possibilities, new toys, and new beginnings. I hope all those dreams come true! During my regular sleep time, when I’m not on cough medicine, my I dreams fall into two major categories. The first I call worried dreams. In these dreams, I am stand in a pulpit, for instance, with nothing to say. Or I’m late and the service is running an hour over, and I can’t get the buttons to my robe together. In another dream I’m back in college and I show up to a college class unprepared, or I can’t register for the one class I need to graduate. Another form of this is the chase dream. Someone is out to get me – hunting me down. Sometimes there is aircraft involved, but I think that’s from the new furnace fan that drones all night long under our bedroom. These are nights that I spend wrestling with my spirit.
Sometimes my dreams are refreshing. I dream about reconciliation. I dream that my enemies and I are living at peace. I dream of flying through the air or swimming like a fish. I dream of new opportunities. These are nights where my hope is renewed.
What is the reason for dreams, those strange stories that bounce along our brain waves? We wake suddenly, and reality itself seems like a different world. Today's gospel lesson is about a dream -- the dream of Joseph. Not Mary's dream, but Joseph's dream. Today we get to consider his point of view. Joseph dreams something wonderful. God will enter the world. God will be born to his fiancée, as crazy is that was to understand. Joseph has some serious trusting Joseph has to trust that the voice of God is speaking to him. Joseph has to trust Mary is telling the truth. Joseph has to believe in dreams and then get out of the way.
I want us to consider a gift that we can give others this season. It’s the gift of believing in someone else's dreams. The greatest gift you can give is to have faith in someone else. Believe in the dreams of the person you love. Believe in the dream of your husband. Believe in the dream of your wife. Believe in the dreams of your children. Believe in the dream of your hero, your leader, your friend. Believe in their dreams! Believe in dreams this Christmas, and Jesus will be born again. Believe in dreams this Christmas, and God will appear.
-- Part Two--
A young boy was in big trouble with his Dad. The boy was sent to his room, where he stayed for an hour. When the Dad came in and found the boy packing some of his clothes, his teddy bear and his piggy bank. The boy said indignantly, “I’m running away from home!”“What if you get hungry?” the father asked.
“Then I’ll come home and eat and then leave again!” said the child.
“And what if you run out of money?”
“I will come home, get some money and then leave again!” replied the child.
“What if your clothes get dirty?”
“Then I’ll come home and let mommy wash them and then leave again,” he said.
The Dad shook his head and exclaimed, “This kid is not running away from home; he’s going to college.”
Christmas can be a time that brings the worst out of us. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the stress of maintaining traditions. Maybe its all the added stress we put on ourselves to shop, and bake, and entertain, and party. Maybe it’s time with family or the in-your-face consumerism that stands in stark contrast with global suffering. Something about Christmas brings the realities of life into new focus. Some of us would like to run away from Christmas. So let me ask a question: What are you looking to get from the Christmas story? Are you looking for a Disney style story that helps you run away from the realities of life or are you looking for an affirmation that life is tough and God is with us? Are you looking for the romantic myth of a virgin birth or the stark reality of a young couple trying to make the best of a confusing situation? Are you looking for the sugar-coated story of angels with golden wings floating in from outer space with divine messages, or the reality of a frightened couple trying to follow their instincts and discern some meaning in their struggle?
Most of us don’t live sugar-coated lives. The sickly sweet fairytale Christmas story that is often presented offers little to the harsh reality of our lives: teenage pregnancies, loveless relationships, global poverty, religious rivalry, family betrayals, personal demons and workplace anguish.
The historical context which paints a more accurate backdrop to the beginnings of Jesus’ life says something profound to the realities of life. From the time Mary became pregnant, to the decisions of a family struggling to make ends meet, to the life of a struggling revolutionary, the Christmas a story is the beginning of a tale about survival against the odds. The real-world Christmas story names the struggles of your life and the horrors of our world. In the raw, the real, the radical, earthy struggles of the family of Jesus, we hear echoes of life as you know it to be. You don’t need to run away. You have all you need right here and now to live fully and survive against any odds, and to be an angel of compassion in the world.
-- Part Three --
Joseph. A decent man. A righteous man. A good man facing an impossible choice. A man wanting to do the right thing. A man caught on the horns of a dilemma—torn between his love for Mary and his lifelong habit of living by the law of God. When he hears that Mary is pregnant, Joseph does the best he can. He resolves to let her go quietly so she doesn’t have to face the law’s punishments for pregnant unmarried women. And then, in the midst of a restless sleep, an angel of God comes to Joseph and asks him to take Mary as his wife and to name her child, claiming that child as his own. We know the story. Joseph says “yes”—yes to God. That’s often where the story ends.But there’s so much more to Joseph’s yes to God. In naming Jesus, Joseph claims him as his own and raises Jesus as his own son. Joseph will watch over Jesus. He will listening in the night. He will worrying about him. He will do all he can to keep that baby safe. Joseph will love Jesus and teach him his trade. Think of it. Think of the role Joseph played in Jesus’ life. Imagine what Jesus learned from Joseph.
Imagine the two of them at the carpenter’s bench . . . Joseph teaching Jesus how to use tools . . . Joseph telling stories from the Bible, sharing the parables of old . . . singing the psalms . . . singing of a father’s love.Imagine Jesus watching Joseph . . . seeing how Joseph treats the people others ignore . . . noting Joseph’s kindness . . . how Joseph goes out of his way to make others feel welcome . . . seeing the tenderness Joseph shows to Mary.
Imagine Joseph telling Jesus stories about the Romans. We can almost hear him muttering about the way the Romans treated the Israelites — the heavy taxes, the hillsides crowded with crosses, the arrogance of power. Imagine Joseph instilling in Jesus a passion for justice. Imagine him sharing his longing for peace with Jesus. Think of it. Think of the role Joseph played in Jesus’ life. After all they were together almost thirty years.
And think of the role Jesus played in Joseph’s life. Think of how Joseph’s yes to God rearranged his life; think of the richness it brought him; think of how that yes to God stretched Joseph into new possibilities, new relationships, new ways of being in the world. God comes to us as God’s angel came to Joseph, inviting us to take God’s child into our homes and into our hearts. Inviting us to claim that child as our own and to live as Joseph did into the fullness of God’s dream for us. God gives each of us an opportunity to say “yes”—to say yes to God.
Maybe we can live a little more like Joseph did. We do our best to live our faith out, in word and deed—in the little things we do, in the way we lead our daily lives.
Sources:
Thanks to the following pastors and thinkers who inspire my thoughts and lead me to think about Scripture in different ways:
http://day1.org/1070-believe_in_the_dreams_of_the_person_you_love
http://www.c3exchange.org/archive/running-away-from-christmas/
http://www.trinitysonoma.org/Sermons/Sermon-Dec23-2007.pdf
Sermon for December 12, 2010
Choosing Life
Advent is a time of waiting. Preparing. But what are we waiting for? For what are we preparing? For happier times? A better world? For our longing for peace and justice to be stilled? Advent is a time of waiting and wondering, looking back and looking forward. Advent is a time of hoping and searching. Advent is the time of light shining in the darkness, peace overcoming conflict and war, and warmth entering the cold of the world we live in. Advent is a chance of new beginnings – often small, but almost always significant. Keep this in mind as we hear today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel.
John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And tell him, ‘God blesses those who do not turn away because of me.’” As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began talking about him to the crowds. “What kind of man did you go into the wilderness to see? Was he a weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind? Or were you expecting to see a man dressed in expensive clothes? No, people with expensive clothes live in palaces. Were you looking for a prophet? Yes, and he is more than a prophet. John is the man to whom the Scriptures refer when they say,
Christmas excitement is building up in the Braddock house. Two more weeks to go and it is Christmas again. Two more weeks to get everything done. We make plans with friends and family. We decorate the house. I look for strange gifts for my family and friends. We do all this because we are supposed to remember what this season is about: joy, peace, light and happiness. These are God’s gifts to us. But they don’t come to us easily. We all know that this time of the year is not necessarily a happy one for everyone. This can be one of the loneliest times of the year for some. It can be awful and cruel and painful. Memories of deaths, of hurt, of broken relationships and lonely journeys through times of darkness ask to be taken seriously, as we start this journey through Advent.
We prepare. We wait. We are get ready. And we don’t want to miss it… the joy that is promised and the joy available, when we eventually grasp that Jesus comes in a different way than the one we’d expected.
Our Gospel lesson today leads us right in the middle of all that: waiting, hoping, working for God’s purposes in this world. We hear this story about John the Baptist. It’s a lot different than last weeks story. Last week, John the Baptist burst on the scene with fire and vengeance, full of confidence and certainty. He announced the coming of Jesus with great hope and expectation. But, today, John reminds us about another side of Advent. In today’ story, John is tired. He is discouraged. John the Baptist is like us. He has questions. He even has doubts. He even has doubts about Jesus. He isn’t sure Jesus is the one he prepared the way for. He needs to find out. As he sits in prison, he struggles. He questions. He doubts. He wonders.
He might have been thinking, "Lord, where did I go wrong? I did what I thought you wanted. I said what I thought you wanted me to say. You told me that the Messiah was coming. But where is he? Where’s the fire? Where’s the judgment he’s supposed to bring? And why, if he’s here, would he let me stay in this dungeon? I’ve heard rumours about Jesus. I thought I knew him well. I remember that glorious day in the Jordan when I baptized him. I knew it was all beginning then. God’s whole plan was being put into play. But, where is he now? Why isn’t he doing what I said he would do? Is he really the one or should I look for another?”
Questions. Wondering. Doubts. Is that all okay? Are we afraid to doubt? Who of us have not cried out with John,” Are you the Christ, or shall we look for another?”
…when life gets tough and we see innocent people suffer.
…when the bad so often succeed while the good fail.
…when we face a world locked in the death grip of one meaningless war after another;
…when we witness the destruction of nature as greed and desire for comforts drain the earth of her natural resources;
…when we choke on pollution and stumble over wrecked lives of people struck down by drugs and alcohol?
Is it not tempting to cry out, “If you are the Messiah, why this? Are you the one who can change all this, or shall we, look for another?”
No, John is not so far away from us, is he? Sometimes we wake up and realize that faith does not have all the answers. Faith is a risk. Faith is a life of trust, not of certainty and security. God never promises answers to all our questions. God never promises life without stress. God only promises to give God’s self to us, with all the dangers and risks and blessings that come with it. I can speak from experience and say that when I am in those times of doubt, when I am journeying in those dark nights of the soul, when it seems that God has moved or that the box I was trying to trap God in was disintegrating, those are the times I grew the most.
In so many ways, doubt can be good for us. It can motivate us to study and learn. It can purify false beliefs that have crept into our faith. It can humble our arrogance. It can give us patience and compassion with other doubters. It can remind us of how much truth matters.
John had his doubts. He questions. He wonders. But, he does not stay with those doubts. He seeks answers. He sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the one. Listen again to the answer Jesus gives. He says:
Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.
Jesus did not come with just the grim news of repentance, fire and judgment. Jesus responds with a love that says you are forgiven, you are to be made whole, you are good just as you are. Jesus says, "Look around, see what happens, and decide for yourselves. What does the evidence show? What do you think? Is Jesus the one?”
Jesus does not fit John’s expectations. In his actions, Jesus shows that he ‘s the Messiah …that the world is changing, that God’s great plan of salvation unfolds. Only John did not really understand. John’s whole life had been focused on his belief that he was the herald, preparing the way for the one who was to come to fulfil the promises and affirm the faith of the people. Now he sits in prison. He must know that his chances of getting out alive are slim.
Behind John’s question was nothing less than the search for the meaning of his whole life. I hope John, just shortly before his beliefs cost him his life, could see and understand that his life was not in vain, that Jesus was the one he’d been preparing the way for. I hope John could see that Jesus fulfills the highest expectations of human values,. I hope John could accept the outstanding, and the wholeness Jesus brought to people, the healing of body and soul, the forgiveness and the new self-respect to the sinner, the dignity and acceptance to the outcast… All that and so much more.
I hope that John could hear the voice of Jesus inviting him and claiming him and all of us as God’s beloved children. I hope that John could hear what Jesus did not express in straight forward words: I am he… I am the one to whom your unrest points. I am he – the one to come. I am the one for whom you and so many have hoped. I am the fulfillment of the promises given to generations of people living in fear and dark, holding fast to the dream of salvation.
I hope we all rise from our questions and doubts and believe this good news. Jesus Christ comes to release people. He releases us from our inner prisons of fear and meaninglessness, and shows us where to go!
May he come to each one of us on our journey through Advent, through this season. May this be the time when we transform the way we live. May this be the time when we transform the world into a place where power is shared, and all have what they need, a world in which people can live in relationship, in celebration, in joy and in peace.
As we see the brokenness of our world, may we also see the unexpected chances of change and healing. May this allow us to continue to work for justice and peace in our world – bearing John’s questions in mind and affirming Jesus’ answers by the way we choose to live: waiting and wondering, hoping and searching, and making a difference.
Advent is a time of waiting. Preparing. But what are we waiting for? For what are we preparing? For happier times? A better world? For our longing for peace and justice to be stilled? Advent is a time of waiting and wondering, looking back and looking forward. Advent is a time of hoping and searching. Advent is the time of light shining in the darkness, peace overcoming conflict and war, and warmth entering the cold of the world we live in. Advent is a chance of new beginnings – often small, but almost always significant. Keep this in mind as we hear today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel.
John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And tell him, ‘God blesses those who do not turn away because of me.’” As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began talking about him to the crowds. “What kind of man did you go into the wilderness to see? Was he a weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind? Or were you expecting to see a man dressed in expensive clothes? No, people with expensive clothes live in palaces. Were you looking for a prophet? Yes, and he is more than a prophet. John is the man to whom the Scriptures refer when they say,
‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,“I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he is! -- Matthew 11: 2-11
and he will prepare your way before you.’
Christmas excitement is building up in the Braddock house. Two more weeks to go and it is Christmas again. Two more weeks to get everything done. We make plans with friends and family. We decorate the house. I look for strange gifts for my family and friends. We do all this because we are supposed to remember what this season is about: joy, peace, light and happiness. These are God’s gifts to us. But they don’t come to us easily. We all know that this time of the year is not necessarily a happy one for everyone. This can be one of the loneliest times of the year for some. It can be awful and cruel and painful. Memories of deaths, of hurt, of broken relationships and lonely journeys through times of darkness ask to be taken seriously, as we start this journey through Advent.
We prepare. We wait. We are get ready. And we don’t want to miss it… the joy that is promised and the joy available, when we eventually grasp that Jesus comes in a different way than the one we’d expected.
Our Gospel lesson today leads us right in the middle of all that: waiting, hoping, working for God’s purposes in this world. We hear this story about John the Baptist. It’s a lot different than last weeks story. Last week, John the Baptist burst on the scene with fire and vengeance, full of confidence and certainty. He announced the coming of Jesus with great hope and expectation. But, today, John reminds us about another side of Advent. In today’ story, John is tired. He is discouraged. John the Baptist is like us. He has questions. He even has doubts. He even has doubts about Jesus. He isn’t sure Jesus is the one he prepared the way for. He needs to find out. As he sits in prison, he struggles. He questions. He doubts. He wonders.
He might have been thinking, "Lord, where did I go wrong? I did what I thought you wanted. I said what I thought you wanted me to say. You told me that the Messiah was coming. But where is he? Where’s the fire? Where’s the judgment he’s supposed to bring? And why, if he’s here, would he let me stay in this dungeon? I’ve heard rumours about Jesus. I thought I knew him well. I remember that glorious day in the Jordan when I baptized him. I knew it was all beginning then. God’s whole plan was being put into play. But, where is he now? Why isn’t he doing what I said he would do? Is he really the one or should I look for another?”
Questions. Wondering. Doubts. Is that all okay? Are we afraid to doubt? Who of us have not cried out with John,” Are you the Christ, or shall we look for another?”
…when life gets tough and we see innocent people suffer.
…when the bad so often succeed while the good fail.
…when we face a world locked in the death grip of one meaningless war after another;
…when we witness the destruction of nature as greed and desire for comforts drain the earth of her natural resources;
…when we choke on pollution and stumble over wrecked lives of people struck down by drugs and alcohol?
Is it not tempting to cry out, “If you are the Messiah, why this? Are you the one who can change all this, or shall we, look for another?”
No, John is not so far away from us, is he? Sometimes we wake up and realize that faith does not have all the answers. Faith is a risk. Faith is a life of trust, not of certainty and security. God never promises answers to all our questions. God never promises life without stress. God only promises to give God’s self to us, with all the dangers and risks and blessings that come with it. I can speak from experience and say that when I am in those times of doubt, when I am journeying in those dark nights of the soul, when it seems that God has moved or that the box I was trying to trap God in was disintegrating, those are the times I grew the most.
In so many ways, doubt can be good for us. It can motivate us to study and learn. It can purify false beliefs that have crept into our faith. It can humble our arrogance. It can give us patience and compassion with other doubters. It can remind us of how much truth matters.
John had his doubts. He questions. He wonders. But, he does not stay with those doubts. He seeks answers. He sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the one. Listen again to the answer Jesus gives. He says:
Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.
Jesus did not come with just the grim news of repentance, fire and judgment. Jesus responds with a love that says you are forgiven, you are to be made whole, you are good just as you are. Jesus says, "Look around, see what happens, and decide for yourselves. What does the evidence show? What do you think? Is Jesus the one?”
Jesus does not fit John’s expectations. In his actions, Jesus shows that he ‘s the Messiah …that the world is changing, that God’s great plan of salvation unfolds. Only John did not really understand. John’s whole life had been focused on his belief that he was the herald, preparing the way for the one who was to come to fulfil the promises and affirm the faith of the people. Now he sits in prison. He must know that his chances of getting out alive are slim.
Behind John’s question was nothing less than the search for the meaning of his whole life. I hope John, just shortly before his beliefs cost him his life, could see and understand that his life was not in vain, that Jesus was the one he’d been preparing the way for. I hope John could see that Jesus fulfills the highest expectations of human values,. I hope John could accept the outstanding, and the wholeness Jesus brought to people, the healing of body and soul, the forgiveness and the new self-respect to the sinner, the dignity and acceptance to the outcast… All that and so much more.
I hope that John could hear the voice of Jesus inviting him and claiming him and all of us as God’s beloved children. I hope that John could hear what Jesus did not express in straight forward words: I am he… I am the one to whom your unrest points. I am he – the one to come. I am the one for whom you and so many have hoped. I am the fulfillment of the promises given to generations of people living in fear and dark, holding fast to the dream of salvation.
I hope we all rise from our questions and doubts and believe this good news. Jesus Christ comes to release people. He releases us from our inner prisons of fear and meaninglessness, and shows us where to go!
May he come to each one of us on our journey through Advent, through this season. May this be the time when we transform the way we live. May this be the time when we transform the world into a place where power is shared, and all have what they need, a world in which people can live in relationship, in celebration, in joy and in peace.
As we see the brokenness of our world, may we also see the unexpected chances of change and healing. May this allow us to continue to work for justice and peace in our world – bearing John’s questions in mind and affirming Jesus’ answers by the way we choose to live: waiting and wondering, hoping and searching, and making a difference.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sermon for November 28, 2010
Reflections
Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again -- rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:4-9
I’ve been struggling this week to find the right words for today. I have a lot I want to tell you before I leave TCC, and I have also dreaded having to stand in front of you all to say my goodbyes. Instead, let me tell you some stories. I want to tell you about two of my grandparents.
My grandfather was named James Elton Hudson, and he was born in Jerico Springs, MO to a farming family. Sick of the country life, he enlisted into the Navy and fought in the submarine service in WWII. He left MO at 18 years old and vowed that if he lived through the war, he would not return until he had made a success of himself. After the war, he and one of his Navy buddies moved to CT and started their own contracting business. By the time I came along, their business was quite successful. He built condos and office complexes. After he made a success of himself, he did return to MO. He actually got his pilot’s license and flew out there in his own plane, landing in the bumpy cattle fields with his new bride beside him. The new bride didn’t know that while my grandfather was visiting, she would have to stay inside with his mother and learn how to cook big farm dinners in the sweltering Summer heat. She made meat, ‘taters, and pies while James Elton was out in the fields doing “man stuff” with his father.
My grandfather was a mysterious man to me. He never said too much, but when he did speak, we listened. I’ll never forget the time he caught my cousin and me on the roof of his barn. When we finally came down, he was ready for us. He told us that if he ever caught us up there again he would kick and blister our behinds. I believed him. His care could be ferocious. But he could also be tender. In the face of family tragedy, he would stop and listen to his kids. He was also a stubborn man. Every carpet and blanket in the house had cigarette burns, which attest to his bad habit of falling asleep while smoking in bed. Mostly, I remember him sitting at the head of the dinner table for hours, listening to the chatter and laughter of his family, smoking cartons of cigarettes (True Blues), drinking coffee with two saccharine tablets, eating Velveeta and smoked sausage, and looking impassive.
He never took care of himself, and when his health deteriorated, we all took turns begging him to do something. He waved us off with shake of his head and a pass of his hand – always with the lit cigarette that made long wisps of smoke curl around his head. He said he was fine. So, in 1993, when Grandpa died of a sudden heart attack on the front steps of his house, we realized that he wasn’t as fine as he thought. In the pain-filled weeks after his funeral we realized that his business wasn’t as fine as we thought, either. He left the family a half a million dollars in debt. Banks started foreclosing on all his properties, including the house. To make it worse, it was discovered that some of the debt was from the financial support he gave to the family of a woman with whom he was having an affair.
All these years later, there is still so much I don’t know about Grandpa’s life. I do know that I had many chances to try to make it right with him while he was still alive, but it never happened. Maybe it was his nonchalance. Perhaps it was my fear of him. It doesn’t matter. The moment is gone. He died when we weren’t ready for him to go, and I never really took the chance to say goodbye.
My grandmother was named Lorraine Teresa LaRose Hudson, the daughter of French Canadian immigrants. She never enjoyed robust health. She and her siblings faced cancer and other health problems throughout their lives. But that never stopped them from enjoying their weekly poker games. She grew up near the tobacco fields of northeastern CT to a poor, stern parents. Her mother was a fierce lady who was always old to me. We called her Meme. I’ve confessed before, everyone was terrified of Meme. I still remember meme beating my cousin for making a runny bowl of tuna salad. Meme died at 103 years old. Despite her meanness, she lived with my grandparents for as long as I can remember. Even though Meme could make life difficult, my grandmother still managed to find some joy in it all. My grandmother was a nurturer. In fact, I never called her grandma. I called her Mom. We all did. There was my mother, and then there was Mom–my grandmother. Mom just seemed to understand me. Sometimes she was sympathetic. Sometimes we disagreed, especially on politics. The wonderful things about Mom was that she always welcomed people into her home. She functioned as a Mom to all of us. Her kids, grandkids, neighbors, family friends. Her house was always busy, and always full.
Mom died on October 31, 2002. With congestive heart failure at 72 years old, she was told that she needed surgery or her heart would eventually shut down. She elected for the open heart surgery. Her heart pumped fine after the operation, but other organs began closing down and she was eventually put on life support. By the time I got there she was unresponsive. In a drug-induced coma, she laid on the hospital bed, swollen beyond recognition, surrounded by machines and tubes and weeping relatives. With her children and grandchildren standing by her hospital bed, Mom was taken off life support. 15 of us were there in her room, holding her and each other, crying, and praying as she died.
And yet, at her death I felt some peace. I had been with her two weeks earlier, and I extended my stay because I just knew that this was my last time with her. As I drove her to doctor appointments, we talked about her family and her memories of her sisters and brother who had died before her. I asked her if she had the choice between dying on a hospital table or dying at home surrounded by her family, which would she choose. She chose surgery and she knew the risks. We shared our appreciation for one another, and found some strength in one another. So when she died, as sad as I was, I knew that I could let go. I new she was going to die, and I had a chance to prepare. And I said what I needed to say. I made peace with her death because I can look back on Mom’s life and see all that was good, and beautiful, and praiseworthy. I am thankful that we were part of each other’s lives. I still think about her a lot, and I hope that all the good and wonderful parts of her life live on in me.
I guess I’ve been getting in touch with my own grief as I begin to say goodbye to you all. I’ve been allowing myself to experience sadness and anxiety over my decision to resign. And I’ve been thinking about Mom and Grandpa – my grandparents. I think about death. Letting go. Saying goodbye. In a sense, my departure feels like a kind of death to me. Not a sudden death where a loved one is suddenly snatched away, but the kind where you’re told how much time is left before the end arrives. And knowing that, I want to make sure that I say what I need to say before I go.
I have been changed by knowing you. I have been transformed by a church family that has been warm, generous, and loving. I have been changed because we took the risk of being vulnerable with each other. At least I know I did. There was a point in my ministry – a number of years ago – when I thought to myself, “Matt, you can keep professional distance and be effective but aloof, or you can invest yourself in relationships.” I chose the second option. I chose to get to know you and let you know me. I did it because I think that’s how we allow ourselves to be transformed by God. We give each other all the respect and love it takes until we can see the image of Christ in one another. Vulnerability is about sharing our woundedness with one another. That’s what Jesus did for us. Of course, when you share such love and vulnerability it makes it harder to say goodbye. But I would rather leave knowing that we shared significant relationships rather than having treated you as my professional clients and you have treated me as a figurehead.
You have let me into your lives – to mourn with you, to party with you – just to live life together with all that life throw at us. Thanks for laughing with me – or at me – when I forget to let the choir sing or skip something in the bulletin. Thanks for putting up with my scatterbrained forgetfulness. Thanks for not taking it personally when I’ve done something that you didn’t like. Thanks for helping me learn – and for learning with me along the way.
I am thankful to our God, and I will continue to reflect on all that is good, lovely, excellent and praiseworthy about you all. In some of my sadness over leaving, I am learning to make peace. I can look back on our life together and see all that was true, honorable, and right. I am thankful that we were part of one another’s lives. I think about you all a lot, and I hope that all the good and wonderful parts of you will live on in me.
I will miss this sanctuary. In this sanctuary I have wrestled with God and wept and laughed. I have preached and listened. I found solace and have felt my heart break. I have been filled with joy. I have felt scared and stretched and ill at ease. I have been welcomed. I have been blessed. I have met God here, so many times and in so many ways. I have sat in silence in here. I have blessed marriages and said many final goodbyes. I have taken — and offered — the bread and the wine here I have felt the presence of Jesus here.
I will miss the people who make this place special. II have made mistakes and said the wrong thing and hurt people. I have been forgiven. I have felt stretched to my maximum. a times I’ve felt frustrated, misunderstood, and attacked. Other times I’ve felt nurtured, supported and encouraged. No matter what, I’ve found that my heart has grown bigger.
One of the reasons we’re leaving TCC is because Chris and know that we need a different kind of community in which to raise our family. There is another reason. Over the past few months, I’ve become convinced that there is something especially sacred for me to do in Silver Spring, MD. I have some more learning and growing to do as a pastor, and I need to be responsive and responsible to that calling.
I think the sadness of leaving is worse when we become afraid of saying goodbye. I know that’s how it is in my life. I think life takes on a new quality when we are able to let go of our fears. I would rather have a place for us to be able to continue to share our wounds. I think when we do, we begin an important process together. As we do, I think God’s presence and peace with come.
If you have things you need to say to me, give me a call or come visit. I want to know what you are thinking and what you’ve observed. If you are sad or angry and you want to tell me, please do. If you are overjoyed you can tell me that, too. Say what you need to me. Ask questions. And I promise I will just listen without judging or getting angry or hurt. I’ll give you honest answers and be a friend.
Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again -- rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:4-9
I’ve been struggling this week to find the right words for today. I have a lot I want to tell you before I leave TCC, and I have also dreaded having to stand in front of you all to say my goodbyes. Instead, let me tell you some stories. I want to tell you about two of my grandparents.
My grandfather was named James Elton Hudson, and he was born in Jerico Springs, MO to a farming family. Sick of the country life, he enlisted into the Navy and fought in the submarine service in WWII. He left MO at 18 years old and vowed that if he lived through the war, he would not return until he had made a success of himself. After the war, he and one of his Navy buddies moved to CT and started their own contracting business. By the time I came along, their business was quite successful. He built condos and office complexes. After he made a success of himself, he did return to MO. He actually got his pilot’s license and flew out there in his own plane, landing in the bumpy cattle fields with his new bride beside him. The new bride didn’t know that while my grandfather was visiting, she would have to stay inside with his mother and learn how to cook big farm dinners in the sweltering Summer heat. She made meat, ‘taters, and pies while James Elton was out in the fields doing “man stuff” with his father.
My grandfather was a mysterious man to me. He never said too much, but when he did speak, we listened. I’ll never forget the time he caught my cousin and me on the roof of his barn. When we finally came down, he was ready for us. He told us that if he ever caught us up there again he would kick and blister our behinds. I believed him. His care could be ferocious. But he could also be tender. In the face of family tragedy, he would stop and listen to his kids. He was also a stubborn man. Every carpet and blanket in the house had cigarette burns, which attest to his bad habit of falling asleep while smoking in bed. Mostly, I remember him sitting at the head of the dinner table for hours, listening to the chatter and laughter of his family, smoking cartons of cigarettes (True Blues), drinking coffee with two saccharine tablets, eating Velveeta and smoked sausage, and looking impassive.
He never took care of himself, and when his health deteriorated, we all took turns begging him to do something. He waved us off with shake of his head and a pass of his hand – always with the lit cigarette that made long wisps of smoke curl around his head. He said he was fine. So, in 1993, when Grandpa died of a sudden heart attack on the front steps of his house, we realized that he wasn’t as fine as he thought. In the pain-filled weeks after his funeral we realized that his business wasn’t as fine as we thought, either. He left the family a half a million dollars in debt. Banks started foreclosing on all his properties, including the house. To make it worse, it was discovered that some of the debt was from the financial support he gave to the family of a woman with whom he was having an affair.
All these years later, there is still so much I don’t know about Grandpa’s life. I do know that I had many chances to try to make it right with him while he was still alive, but it never happened. Maybe it was his nonchalance. Perhaps it was my fear of him. It doesn’t matter. The moment is gone. He died when we weren’t ready for him to go, and I never really took the chance to say goodbye.
My grandmother was named Lorraine Teresa LaRose Hudson, the daughter of French Canadian immigrants. She never enjoyed robust health. She and her siblings faced cancer and other health problems throughout their lives. But that never stopped them from enjoying their weekly poker games. She grew up near the tobacco fields of northeastern CT to a poor, stern parents. Her mother was a fierce lady who was always old to me. We called her Meme. I’ve confessed before, everyone was terrified of Meme. I still remember meme beating my cousin for making a runny bowl of tuna salad. Meme died at 103 years old. Despite her meanness, she lived with my grandparents for as long as I can remember. Even though Meme could make life difficult, my grandmother still managed to find some joy in it all. My grandmother was a nurturer. In fact, I never called her grandma. I called her Mom. We all did. There was my mother, and then there was Mom–my grandmother. Mom just seemed to understand me. Sometimes she was sympathetic. Sometimes we disagreed, especially on politics. The wonderful things about Mom was that she always welcomed people into her home. She functioned as a Mom to all of us. Her kids, grandkids, neighbors, family friends. Her house was always busy, and always full.
Mom died on October 31, 2002. With congestive heart failure at 72 years old, she was told that she needed surgery or her heart would eventually shut down. She elected for the open heart surgery. Her heart pumped fine after the operation, but other organs began closing down and she was eventually put on life support. By the time I got there she was unresponsive. In a drug-induced coma, she laid on the hospital bed, swollen beyond recognition, surrounded by machines and tubes and weeping relatives. With her children and grandchildren standing by her hospital bed, Mom was taken off life support. 15 of us were there in her room, holding her and each other, crying, and praying as she died.
And yet, at her death I felt some peace. I had been with her two weeks earlier, and I extended my stay because I just knew that this was my last time with her. As I drove her to doctor appointments, we talked about her family and her memories of her sisters and brother who had died before her. I asked her if she had the choice between dying on a hospital table or dying at home surrounded by her family, which would she choose. She chose surgery and she knew the risks. We shared our appreciation for one another, and found some strength in one another. So when she died, as sad as I was, I knew that I could let go. I new she was going to die, and I had a chance to prepare. And I said what I needed to say. I made peace with her death because I can look back on Mom’s life and see all that was good, and beautiful, and praiseworthy. I am thankful that we were part of each other’s lives. I still think about her a lot, and I hope that all the good and wonderful parts of her life live on in me.
I guess I’ve been getting in touch with my own grief as I begin to say goodbye to you all. I’ve been allowing myself to experience sadness and anxiety over my decision to resign. And I’ve been thinking about Mom and Grandpa – my grandparents. I think about death. Letting go. Saying goodbye. In a sense, my departure feels like a kind of death to me. Not a sudden death where a loved one is suddenly snatched away, but the kind where you’re told how much time is left before the end arrives. And knowing that, I want to make sure that I say what I need to say before I go.
I have been changed by knowing you. I have been transformed by a church family that has been warm, generous, and loving. I have been changed because we took the risk of being vulnerable with each other. At least I know I did. There was a point in my ministry – a number of years ago – when I thought to myself, “Matt, you can keep professional distance and be effective but aloof, or you can invest yourself in relationships.” I chose the second option. I chose to get to know you and let you know me. I did it because I think that’s how we allow ourselves to be transformed by God. We give each other all the respect and love it takes until we can see the image of Christ in one another. Vulnerability is about sharing our woundedness with one another. That’s what Jesus did for us. Of course, when you share such love and vulnerability it makes it harder to say goodbye. But I would rather leave knowing that we shared significant relationships rather than having treated you as my professional clients and you have treated me as a figurehead.
You have let me into your lives – to mourn with you, to party with you – just to live life together with all that life throw at us. Thanks for laughing with me – or at me – when I forget to let the choir sing or skip something in the bulletin. Thanks for putting up with my scatterbrained forgetfulness. Thanks for not taking it personally when I’ve done something that you didn’t like. Thanks for helping me learn – and for learning with me along the way.
I am thankful to our God, and I will continue to reflect on all that is good, lovely, excellent and praiseworthy about you all. In some of my sadness over leaving, I am learning to make peace. I can look back on our life together and see all that was true, honorable, and right. I am thankful that we were part of one another’s lives. I think about you all a lot, and I hope that all the good and wonderful parts of you will live on in me.
I will miss this sanctuary. In this sanctuary I have wrestled with God and wept and laughed. I have preached and listened. I found solace and have felt my heart break. I have been filled with joy. I have felt scared and stretched and ill at ease. I have been welcomed. I have been blessed. I have met God here, so many times and in so many ways. I have sat in silence in here. I have blessed marriages and said many final goodbyes. I have taken — and offered — the bread and the wine here I have felt the presence of Jesus here.
I will miss the people who make this place special. II have made mistakes and said the wrong thing and hurt people. I have been forgiven. I have felt stretched to my maximum. a times I’ve felt frustrated, misunderstood, and attacked. Other times I’ve felt nurtured, supported and encouraged. No matter what, I’ve found that my heart has grown bigger.
One of the reasons we’re leaving TCC is because Chris and know that we need a different kind of community in which to raise our family. There is another reason. Over the past few months, I’ve become convinced that there is something especially sacred for me to do in Silver Spring, MD. I have some more learning and growing to do as a pastor, and I need to be responsive and responsible to that calling.
I think the sadness of leaving is worse when we become afraid of saying goodbye. I know that’s how it is in my life. I think life takes on a new quality when we are able to let go of our fears. I would rather have a place for us to be able to continue to share our wounds. I think when we do, we begin an important process together. As we do, I think God’s presence and peace with come.
If you have things you need to say to me, give me a call or come visit. I want to know what you are thinking and what you’ve observed. If you are sad or angry and you want to tell me, please do. If you are overjoyed you can tell me that, too. Say what you need to me. Ask questions. And I promise I will just listen without judging or getting angry or hurt. I’ll give you honest answers and be a friend.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Sermon for November 14, 2010
Habits of Healthy Churches: Boundaries
Would you ever eat a snake? There’s a story in the Bible about the apostle Peter and a snake. God shows Peter a vision of a banquet coming down out of heaven. In the vision there’s a snake and a bunch of reptiles on a picnic blanket and God tells Pete to kill himself some and have a bite. I don’t know if anyone here has ever eaten snake before. Some people say it tastes like chicken. In case you’re interested, I scoured the Internet and found a recipe for an East Texas fried rattlesnake dinner that contains all four food groups.
1. Bake a chocolate cake. This is the 1st food group.
2. Fry two pounds of bacon in a cast iron skillet. Bacon is the second food group. Leave ½ pound on the drainboard to munch on while you’re cooking, and put the rest in the fridge.
3. Go outside and find a big rattlesnake. Kill the snake. Nail its head to a tree.
4. Go in the house, skin and boil six large potatoes. Go back outside and cut the snake down the middle being careful to not ruin the rattles. Cut the skin away from the head. Pull down hard and steady. Lay the skin in the sun to dry and instruct the dog to leave the snakeskin alone. Slice the snake meat into half-inch thick patties. Pour a lot of flour onto two plates, and scramble three eggs in a bowl.
5. Put black pepper and some cayenne pepper into the plates. When you think you have enough pepper, add some more. After all, you’re about to eat a rattlesnake. Dip the meat into the plates of flour and then gently lay the battered meat into the hot grease. If done correctly you’ll not get burned. If done wrong, you’ll learn.
6. Leave the meat in the grease until it’s brown on the bottom, then turn it over. Meanwhile, fork-test the potatoes. If they’re done, drain off the water, add a stick of butter (3rd food group) and some milk.
7. Put two cans of peas in a big bowl with a half stick of butter. Put the bowl in the microwave and nuke them.
8. Leaving the fire low, slowly sprinkle the left over flour into the left over grease and scratch it around until the flour is cooked. Slowly add whole milk, while squishing out the lumps. Don’t add too much milk. The final consistency resembles grayish-brown wallpaper paste. This process takes some practice, but eventually you will scratch through the lumps and have the fourth food group: gravy.
9. Take the peas out of the microwave and the bread out of the oven. Put everything on the table. Call everybody to eat. Feed them fried rattlesnake while you eat mashed potatoes, gravy, peas and chocolate cake.
The outdoorsmen of the world tell us that snakes, alligators, racoons, possum, squirrels -- all that stuff is tasty when it’s prepared correctly. I’ve only had the raccoon, and I wasn’t a fan. Kind of slimy. Apparently, Peter was disgusted by it all. Maybe Peter just didn’t have a good recipe.
In the first century, the great question facing the church was about boundaries. Who could be in and who must stay out? Where would the lines be drawn that would determine who should hear the gospel and who would not? Believers assumed that God’s recipe was limited to those who followed the commandments and rituals of Judaism. The first great learning of the early church was that God’s recipe had more ingredients in mind -- it was more inclusive than even the most devout believer could imagine
The church started out as a Jewish sect. Its members were men and women who called themselves Jews. They worshiped like Jews, and they had an encounter with a Jew named Jesus Christ who expanded their ideas of who God was. The early followers of Jesus didn’t hang out with anyone who was not Jewish. It was against the law to be in contact with Gentiles. A Jew considered it unclean and idolatrous to eat a gentile’s food. The early Christians kept kosher homes and obeyed the Jewish laws, and the law said that no Jew was allowed to eat things like pigs, or reptiles, or certain species of birds or shellfish. So, you can imagine how horrified Peter must be when he receives a series of messages from God. First he is told to eat unclean animals. Then he’s told in a vision to go to the home of a man named Cornelius who is a gentile AND a Roman army officer. Cornelius is doubly defiled. Peter goes to this man’s house and tells him the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Cornelius and his entire household are immediately filled with the Holy Spirit and they convert to Christianity. This blows the minds of the good Jewish followers of Christ. It is unbelievable to them that God’s love would actually reach out to unclean, heathen gentiles. Peter is called to task before the other Apostles; and this is what he says. His speech comes from Acts 11.
Healthy churches learn to expand their boundaries in order to include people in what God is doing. People need to know that they are loved, even when they are unlovable. One way to do this is to tell people the simple truth that God loves everyone. This doesn’t mean that God just loves those who are popular, or good looking, or the ones who have it all together. It means that God loves those whom the world labels as ugly or incompetent. For the early church, God’s love was extended to those who were seen as low-lifes; the poor and oppressed, the lame, and even the Gentiles. You see, the church is not supposed to be a club for people who have it all together. The church is for “rejects.” It is a place where people who have been isolated from God can come and hear life-saving news. The church is a place for people with real pain to hear words of healing and hope. This place is here because all of us have been unfaithful, unworthy, undesirable and unsure, but because of Christ we have never been unloved.
An inclusive vision of the church means that we commit ourselves to preaching and teaching the message of God’s love restlessly. We don’t do it out of pride. We don’t do it to swell our membership roles or bank accounts. The message that people both inside and outside this church need to hear is that God loves you and every person with equal passion and devotion -- that God has made the immensity of divine love known in Jesus Christ. People will never hear this life-saving message if we don’t tell them, and we can’t tell them if they are not welcome among us. Who will invite others in and tell them just how much God loves them? It can’t be just me, or just a few individual random people. If we want to see the church have an impact in our families and in our community, it can begin with each of us being personally committed to telling others about how God changed our lives, and how God longs to include all people in transforming love.
God needs us not only to tell, but to show God’s love. Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel to all the world, and if necessary, use words.” Words alone can be empty and meaningless, unless they are backed with actions. For instance, what does a visitor see when he or she attends worship here? Do we look bored and fidgety, or do we show that we are engaged in actively worshiping our Savior? If we look like we can’t wait to get out of here, then our actions might show that we are here just out of mere routine. If we act like we love God and enjoy the presence of God and one another, we confirm that our faith has actually had an impact on our lives. The truth is that our neighbors, our families, our children, and even complete strangers are watching you, and they want to know if all this talk about Jesus and church really makes a difference in your life. The church can become an inclusive community when we back up our words with integrity-filled actions.
In 1999 a little church in Decatur called Oakhurst Baptist Church was ejected by the Georgia Baptist Convention for a variety of issues having to do with Biblical interpretation and inclusiveness. In the 1960's this congregation had taken a stand against segregation and had lost two-thirds of its members. In the 1980's the church opened its doors to the homeless, who have been welcomed and have worshiped there ever since. In fact, the pastor tells of the time when he and his young son were visiting another church facility and his son asked, “Dad, where do the homeless live here?” He assumed that you could not have a church without a place for your homeless friends. One day, when the congregation was much in the news, a member of the church, a developmentally disabled young man named John, saw a TV camera and hurried over to offer to be on television. The reporter extended his microphone and asked, “Tell me, John, what do you like about this church?” John grinned and answered, “They love everybody here.”
I have visited similar churches. I think of a church I know that regularly opens its doors to the homeless and developmentally disabled. On any given Sunday you may have business professionals, professors, group-home residents, and homeless people all worshiping together, praying for one another and celebrating each other’s lives. Another church I know sends out what it calls its “Worship Wagon” to drive to the homes of elderly people and others who can’t get to church. They are driven to the worship service and returned home afterwards. Churches like these realize that we are not fully the body of Christ until everyone is included.
Don’t you want to be part of a church that changes the lives of others by modeling love and devotion? Who will invite others in and show them the love of Christ? Who will seek out those who are different from us, those who are disabled or lonely, or hurting, or socially diverse, and show them that we care, that we love, and that we believe in them, because God cares, loves and believes in them?
Do we want to see the church to have an impact on the culture around us? Do we want to see people’s lives touched by God? If so, it means being committed to living God’s vision of an inclusive church. It means more than mere friendliness or hospitality. It means being personally responsible for telling all people about God’s love, and showing them love in action, even if it stretches our comfort zones . . . even if it challenges our faith.
Would you ever eat a snake? There’s a story in the Bible about the apostle Peter and a snake. God shows Peter a vision of a banquet coming down out of heaven. In the vision there’s a snake and a bunch of reptiles on a picnic blanket and God tells Pete to kill himself some and have a bite. I don’t know if anyone here has ever eaten snake before. Some people say it tastes like chicken. In case you’re interested, I scoured the Internet and found a recipe for an East Texas fried rattlesnake dinner that contains all four food groups.
1. Bake a chocolate cake. This is the 1st food group.
2. Fry two pounds of bacon in a cast iron skillet. Bacon is the second food group. Leave ½ pound on the drainboard to munch on while you’re cooking, and put the rest in the fridge.
3. Go outside and find a big rattlesnake. Kill the snake. Nail its head to a tree.
4. Go in the house, skin and boil six large potatoes. Go back outside and cut the snake down the middle being careful to not ruin the rattles. Cut the skin away from the head. Pull down hard and steady. Lay the skin in the sun to dry and instruct the dog to leave the snakeskin alone. Slice the snake meat into half-inch thick patties. Pour a lot of flour onto two plates, and scramble three eggs in a bowl.
5. Put black pepper and some cayenne pepper into the plates. When you think you have enough pepper, add some more. After all, you’re about to eat a rattlesnake. Dip the meat into the plates of flour and then gently lay the battered meat into the hot grease. If done correctly you’ll not get burned. If done wrong, you’ll learn.
6. Leave the meat in the grease until it’s brown on the bottom, then turn it over. Meanwhile, fork-test the potatoes. If they’re done, drain off the water, add a stick of butter (3rd food group) and some milk.
7. Put two cans of peas in a big bowl with a half stick of butter. Put the bowl in the microwave and nuke them.
8. Leaving the fire low, slowly sprinkle the left over flour into the left over grease and scratch it around until the flour is cooked. Slowly add whole milk, while squishing out the lumps. Don’t add too much milk. The final consistency resembles grayish-brown wallpaper paste. This process takes some practice, but eventually you will scratch through the lumps and have the fourth food group: gravy.
9. Take the peas out of the microwave and the bread out of the oven. Put everything on the table. Call everybody to eat. Feed them fried rattlesnake while you eat mashed potatoes, gravy, peas and chocolate cake.
The outdoorsmen of the world tell us that snakes, alligators, racoons, possum, squirrels -- all that stuff is tasty when it’s prepared correctly. I’ve only had the raccoon, and I wasn’t a fan. Kind of slimy. Apparently, Peter was disgusted by it all. Maybe Peter just didn’t have a good recipe.
In the first century, the great question facing the church was about boundaries. Who could be in and who must stay out? Where would the lines be drawn that would determine who should hear the gospel and who would not? Believers assumed that God’s recipe was limited to those who followed the commandments and rituals of Judaism. The first great learning of the early church was that God’s recipe had more ingredients in mind -- it was more inclusive than even the most devout believer could imagine
The church started out as a Jewish sect. Its members were men and women who called themselves Jews. They worshiped like Jews, and they had an encounter with a Jew named Jesus Christ who expanded their ideas of who God was. The early followers of Jesus didn’t hang out with anyone who was not Jewish. It was against the law to be in contact with Gentiles. A Jew considered it unclean and idolatrous to eat a gentile’s food. The early Christians kept kosher homes and obeyed the Jewish laws, and the law said that no Jew was allowed to eat things like pigs, or reptiles, or certain species of birds or shellfish. So, you can imagine how horrified Peter must be when he receives a series of messages from God. First he is told to eat unclean animals. Then he’s told in a vision to go to the home of a man named Cornelius who is a gentile AND a Roman army officer. Cornelius is doubly defiled. Peter goes to this man’s house and tells him the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Cornelius and his entire household are immediately filled with the Holy Spirit and they convert to Christianity. This blows the minds of the good Jewish followers of Christ. It is unbelievable to them that God’s love would actually reach out to unclean, heathen gentiles. Peter is called to task before the other Apostles; and this is what he says. His speech comes from Acts 11.
“I was in the town of Joppa, and while I was praying, I went into a trance and saw a vision. Something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners from the sky. And it came right down to me. When I looked inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of small animals, wild animals, reptiles, and birds. And I heard a voice say, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’This episode changes the course of history. The church is no longer for Jews only, but for all people. God reminds people that the boundaries of the Kingdom reach farther than they could ever dream. This is why we can sit here and call ourselves Christians today. Sometimes, though, I feel that we’ve gotten into the habit of excluding others from the work and ministry of the church. Sometimes our anger towards others gets in the way, or people come into the church who make us uncomfortable or afraid. I think we all need a reminder of who the church is, and what we are called to do.
“‘No, Lord,’ I replied. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean”’
“But the voice from heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’ This happened three times before the sheet and all it contained was pulled back up to heaven.
“Just then three men who had been sent from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying. The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me, and we soon entered the home of the man who had sent for us. He told us how an angel had appeared to him in his home and had told him, ‘Send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. He will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’
“As I began to speak,” Peter continued, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning. Then I thought of the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?”
When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, “We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.”
Healthy churches learn to expand their boundaries in order to include people in what God is doing. People need to know that they are loved, even when they are unlovable. One way to do this is to tell people the simple truth that God loves everyone. This doesn’t mean that God just loves those who are popular, or good looking, or the ones who have it all together. It means that God loves those whom the world labels as ugly or incompetent. For the early church, God’s love was extended to those who were seen as low-lifes; the poor and oppressed, the lame, and even the Gentiles. You see, the church is not supposed to be a club for people who have it all together. The church is for “rejects.” It is a place where people who have been isolated from God can come and hear life-saving news. The church is a place for people with real pain to hear words of healing and hope. This place is here because all of us have been unfaithful, unworthy, undesirable and unsure, but because of Christ we have never been unloved.
An inclusive vision of the church means that we commit ourselves to preaching and teaching the message of God’s love restlessly. We don’t do it out of pride. We don’t do it to swell our membership roles or bank accounts. The message that people both inside and outside this church need to hear is that God loves you and every person with equal passion and devotion -- that God has made the immensity of divine love known in Jesus Christ. People will never hear this life-saving message if we don’t tell them, and we can’t tell them if they are not welcome among us. Who will invite others in and tell them just how much God loves them? It can’t be just me, or just a few individual random people. If we want to see the church have an impact in our families and in our community, it can begin with each of us being personally committed to telling others about how God changed our lives, and how God longs to include all people in transforming love.
God needs us not only to tell, but to show God’s love. Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel to all the world, and if necessary, use words.” Words alone can be empty and meaningless, unless they are backed with actions. For instance, what does a visitor see when he or she attends worship here? Do we look bored and fidgety, or do we show that we are engaged in actively worshiping our Savior? If we look like we can’t wait to get out of here, then our actions might show that we are here just out of mere routine. If we act like we love God and enjoy the presence of God and one another, we confirm that our faith has actually had an impact on our lives. The truth is that our neighbors, our families, our children, and even complete strangers are watching you, and they want to know if all this talk about Jesus and church really makes a difference in your life. The church can become an inclusive community when we back up our words with integrity-filled actions.
In 1999 a little church in Decatur called Oakhurst Baptist Church was ejected by the Georgia Baptist Convention for a variety of issues having to do with Biblical interpretation and inclusiveness. In the 1960's this congregation had taken a stand against segregation and had lost two-thirds of its members. In the 1980's the church opened its doors to the homeless, who have been welcomed and have worshiped there ever since. In fact, the pastor tells of the time when he and his young son were visiting another church facility and his son asked, “Dad, where do the homeless live here?” He assumed that you could not have a church without a place for your homeless friends. One day, when the congregation was much in the news, a member of the church, a developmentally disabled young man named John, saw a TV camera and hurried over to offer to be on television. The reporter extended his microphone and asked, “Tell me, John, what do you like about this church?” John grinned and answered, “They love everybody here.”
I have visited similar churches. I think of a church I know that regularly opens its doors to the homeless and developmentally disabled. On any given Sunday you may have business professionals, professors, group-home residents, and homeless people all worshiping together, praying for one another and celebrating each other’s lives. Another church I know sends out what it calls its “Worship Wagon” to drive to the homes of elderly people and others who can’t get to church. They are driven to the worship service and returned home afterwards. Churches like these realize that we are not fully the body of Christ until everyone is included.
Don’t you want to be part of a church that changes the lives of others by modeling love and devotion? Who will invite others in and show them the love of Christ? Who will seek out those who are different from us, those who are disabled or lonely, or hurting, or socially diverse, and show them that we care, that we love, and that we believe in them, because God cares, loves and believes in them?
Do we want to see the church to have an impact on the culture around us? Do we want to see people’s lives touched by God? If so, it means being committed to living God’s vision of an inclusive church. It means more than mere friendliness or hospitality. It means being personally responsible for telling all people about God’s love, and showing them love in action, even if it stretches our comfort zones . . . even if it challenges our faith.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Sermon for November 7, 2010
Habits of Healthy Churches: Nurture
Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important. Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. For we are each responsible for our own conduct. Galatians 6:2-6
Let’s talk about the ostrich. Did you know that the ostrich doesn’t sit on her eggs to incubate them? She will lay them in desert, kick some sand over them, and then run away to insure her own safety. Not what we would call a nurturer. The mother ostrich, in fact, has become the symbol of the careless mother. The book of Job says this about the ostrich: “She forgets that a foot may crush them, or that a wild beast may break them. She treats her young harshly, as though they were not hers; her labor is in vain, without concern, because God deprived her of wisdom, and did not endow her with understanding.” [Job 39:13-18]. Yet, despite all this bad mothering, the ostrich lays the largest, most beautiful and perfect egg of all. I got thinking about ostriches and I began to wonder if sometimes we see ostrich syndrome in our culture. We look around and see members of God’s beautiful creation, left to fend for themselves in a hostile world. When I think about nurture, I think about Eddie.
I met Eddie in a Boston suburb. He was sixteen years old. His hair was dyed raven black and his nose, lips, and ears with festooned with silver rings. His personality deflected all happiness. Eddie saw the world through dramatic and disturbed eyes, and he carried around with him a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook. He was living in a divorced home, and he had little daily contact with his parents. Not only that, the mother had a new boyfriend. Not only that, the mother and the new boyfriend lived in the same house with Eddie, and Eddie’s siblings AND Eddie’s father. Eddie told me that his parents didn’t care where he was or what he did, as long as he wasn’t dead. You might think this is typical teenage exaggeration, except for the fact that I rarely saw Eddie’s parents. Eddie was in charge of taking care of his siblings. It’s not that he cared about his siblings as much as he was afraid of what his father would do to him if anything bad happened to one of the younger ones. Eddie’s father was a violent man who believed that the best way to raise a kids was to smack ‘em every once in a while. Even though Eddie carried a lot of responsibility for his and his family’s well-being, he had no conscience when it came to his own actions. Like his dad, he wouldn’t think twice about hurting another person who got in his way. He was always worried about betrayal and rejection, so he excluded himself from gatherings of his peers. He preferred to spend his precious little free time listening to Death Metal and fantasizing about what he would do when his court probation was over. His plans included getting revenge on all who hurt him, beginning his parents. I asked him once what his siblings would do without his care when he graduated from high school. He answered with a deadpan growl, “If I graduate, that’s their problem, not mine.”
It’s mother ostrich syndrome. The parents are too busy beating each other up to think about their obligation to raise their young. So, lack of nurture continues the cycle. Eddie became part of the rhythm of non-nurturing parents who allow their children to be eaten alive by bad choices. Psychologists say that parents with low-control and low-acceptance of their children, like Eddie’s parents, produce children who struggle with problems like delinquency and drug abuse. How does the church nurture Eddie? What do we, the followers of Jesus, do to love Eddie and help him experience abundant life in Christ?
Maybe Eddie’s story is too extreme. Let me tell you about Meg. Meg is a widow with four grown children. She loves them fiercely and would give them the world if she could. As a mother, she believes that it was best to let kids make their own choices when it comes to their faith. Meg is part of our country’s non-practicing Christian culture. She believes in God, but couldn’t tell you what God means to her personally. She believes people should go to worship, but she herself won’t go and sit with all the hypocrites. She firmly believed that when her children grew to adulthood, they would choose their own spiritual path, and she didn’t want to bias them or shove religion down their throats. Do you know what her children believe today? Nothing, really. They feel awkward, uncomfortable, and unwanted in church services, so they participate only rarely. Now Meg’s children have children of their own, and the cycle continues. I sometimes wonder of Meg is satisfied with the choices she made.
How does the church nurture Meg and her family? What do we, the followers of Jesus, do to love Meg and help her experience abundant life in Christ?
Is the church a mother ostrich sometimes? Jasmine might think so. Like many teenagers, Jasmine got caught up with the wrong crowd. Her language was vile. She smoked and drank and loved the weekend party life in the basements in town. Many of the troubled kids at school could sense Jasmine’s street smarts and wanted to hang out with her. Jasmine had one friend who was different. Teresa was always friendly to Jasmine and seemed to glimpse the real person beyond her bad-girl vices. Jasmine eventually started attending worship services at Teresa’s church. They went to youth group together, and Jasmine loved it. She even started going out with a guy from the youth group. Life was starting to look good for Jasmine. But she had a very hard time giving up her old habits. One night Teresa called Jasmine crying. “What’s the matter?” Jasmine asked. Teresa sobbed, “There are a bunch of people at church who don’t want you coming to youth group anymore. They think you’re a . . . bad influence.” “Why, because I smoke,” Jasmine defensively replied. “It’s more than that. They say it’s how you dress. They think it’s too suggestive. Some people have complained about your language, too. Even my parents are concerned about our friendship. Really, Jasmine, some of the people you hang out with are kind of scary.” Three weeks later, Jasmine dropped out of church and youth group, and started behaving worse than before.
Sometimes the church is so concerned with outward appearances, we forget that God nurtures the heart and changes the inside first. We become like parents who are authoritarian figures: high in control and low in acceptance. Psychologists say that this kind of parenting can produce offspring who are at risk of compromising themselves to find acceptance from anyone with a better offer. How can the church nurture Jasmine? What do we, the followers of Jesus, do to love Jasmine and help her experience abundant life in Christ?
Today’s reading from Galatians reminds me of what it takes to be nurtures in an age where many are left as spiritual and emotional orphans. There is more to life than just taking care of our own needs while ignoring others’. In Galatians Paul says, “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (6:2). Paul’s assumption here is that we all have burdens that God does not want us to carry alone. You know, some people try to. They think it is a sign of stoicism not to bother other people with their troubles. The Bible says that the opposite is true. You and your problems are not a hardship to your brothers and sisters in Christ. Lightening another’s load is an act of truest love which requires involvement in the troubles of others. The fact is, sometimes there are burdens which are too heavy for one person to bear alone. I think our nation is waking up to this fact as we struggle through the effects of terrorism in our country. Nurture means loving enough to help someone carry their load. Nurture also means we need to accept the help of our sisters and brothers when it comes.
Nurturing the children of God means not running away from the messy, uncomfortable situations we see around us. The truth is, as many of you know, there really is no escape. Nurture means that I’m going to do what I can to help you claim your identity in Christ. Part of being a nurturer means that I’m going to give you every resource you need in order to know the saving love of God. It also means that I’m going to do whatever I can to help equip you to live out your faith in the world. Think about it. What would it look like if the church showed God’s love to the Eddies, Megs and Jasmines in our midst, and put them in touch with the Life-giver? What would it be like if we helped one another put on the armor of God for the daily battles ahead? We would declare to the community that we are a vital church that values abundant life over slow, spiritual death.
Healthy churches nurture people. For instance, at TCC, we nurture our children and youth Our Christian Education program is only meant to be a support system for what you are doing at home. Your home is the number one influence in the life of your child. The average church has a child for 1% of his or her time. The home has him 83% of your kids’ time and the school for the remaining 16%. This does not minimize the need for churches and schools, but it establishes the reality your home is 83% of your child's world and you only a brief amount of time in life to make the most of it.
Do you kids and grandkids see you pray? Do your kids observe you worshiping from your heart? Do they see you as a person of compassion? Do they see you asking for forgiveness when you’ve blown it? Do your kids ever hear you openly and honestly talk about your own faith journey with the living God? Do our children see us modeling compassion with each other? Do they see us taking care of our community and being stewards of the earth? Let’s model these basic behaviors to our children.
We also need to ask ourselves: How do we nurture one another as we live our lives together as the church? A lot of people here today are hurting. Your burdens are heavy, but no one will ever know. It is hard to risk vulnerability. We don’t want to be pitied or looked down upon as weak. It is our job to care for one another. How about making a commitment to reach out to one person today with a warm greeting and a smile of caring? How about, going up to someone and saying, “I’d like to pray for you today. Is there anything I can pray for specifically?” How about praying for someone live and in person? How about a hug, a letter of encouragement, a random act of kindness? Paul reminds us to do good to all, especially to the family of believers.
How do we nurture people whom we wish would just go away? A holy man was engaged in his morning meditation under a tree whose roots stretched out over the riverbank. During his meditation he noticed that the river was rising, and a scorpion caught in the roots was about to drown. He crawled out on the roots and reached down to free the scorpion, but every time he did so, the scorpion struck back at him. An observer came along and said to the holy man, “Don’t you know that’s a scorpion, and it’s in the nature of a scorpion to want to sting?” To which the holy man replied, “That may well be, but it is my nature to save, and must I change my nature because the scorpion does not change its nature?”
There is always going to be someone in the church who stings you. It part of living in community. Paul reminds us that we don’t have to sting back. We live by the law of love, not retaliation. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Don’t be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position.
I could tell many more examples of people who need the nurture of the Body of Christ. I could also tell you stories of people who have come through incredible hardship by relying on the support of the church. The point is, we have something real to offer each other. When we are attentive to how we nurture, we create a church home where people meet Christ, and are given what they need to follow him. I encourage us find ways to nurture one another, and also to take the risk of being nurtured by others. We need it right now. And the world needs us.
Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important. Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. For we are each responsible for our own conduct. Galatians 6:2-6
Let’s talk about the ostrich. Did you know that the ostrich doesn’t sit on her eggs to incubate them? She will lay them in desert, kick some sand over them, and then run away to insure her own safety. Not what we would call a nurturer. The mother ostrich, in fact, has become the symbol of the careless mother. The book of Job says this about the ostrich: “She forgets that a foot may crush them, or that a wild beast may break them. She treats her young harshly, as though they were not hers; her labor is in vain, without concern, because God deprived her of wisdom, and did not endow her with understanding.” [Job 39:13-18]. Yet, despite all this bad mothering, the ostrich lays the largest, most beautiful and perfect egg of all. I got thinking about ostriches and I began to wonder if sometimes we see ostrich syndrome in our culture. We look around and see members of God’s beautiful creation, left to fend for themselves in a hostile world. When I think about nurture, I think about Eddie.
I met Eddie in a Boston suburb. He was sixteen years old. His hair was dyed raven black and his nose, lips, and ears with festooned with silver rings. His personality deflected all happiness. Eddie saw the world through dramatic and disturbed eyes, and he carried around with him a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook. He was living in a divorced home, and he had little daily contact with his parents. Not only that, the mother had a new boyfriend. Not only that, the mother and the new boyfriend lived in the same house with Eddie, and Eddie’s siblings AND Eddie’s father. Eddie told me that his parents didn’t care where he was or what he did, as long as he wasn’t dead. You might think this is typical teenage exaggeration, except for the fact that I rarely saw Eddie’s parents. Eddie was in charge of taking care of his siblings. It’s not that he cared about his siblings as much as he was afraid of what his father would do to him if anything bad happened to one of the younger ones. Eddie’s father was a violent man who believed that the best way to raise a kids was to smack ‘em every once in a while. Even though Eddie carried a lot of responsibility for his and his family’s well-being, he had no conscience when it came to his own actions. Like his dad, he wouldn’t think twice about hurting another person who got in his way. He was always worried about betrayal and rejection, so he excluded himself from gatherings of his peers. He preferred to spend his precious little free time listening to Death Metal and fantasizing about what he would do when his court probation was over. His plans included getting revenge on all who hurt him, beginning his parents. I asked him once what his siblings would do without his care when he graduated from high school. He answered with a deadpan growl, “If I graduate, that’s their problem, not mine.”
It’s mother ostrich syndrome. The parents are too busy beating each other up to think about their obligation to raise their young. So, lack of nurture continues the cycle. Eddie became part of the rhythm of non-nurturing parents who allow their children to be eaten alive by bad choices. Psychologists say that parents with low-control and low-acceptance of their children, like Eddie’s parents, produce children who struggle with problems like delinquency and drug abuse. How does the church nurture Eddie? What do we, the followers of Jesus, do to love Eddie and help him experience abundant life in Christ?
Maybe Eddie’s story is too extreme. Let me tell you about Meg. Meg is a widow with four grown children. She loves them fiercely and would give them the world if she could. As a mother, she believes that it was best to let kids make their own choices when it comes to their faith. Meg is part of our country’s non-practicing Christian culture. She believes in God, but couldn’t tell you what God means to her personally. She believes people should go to worship, but she herself won’t go and sit with all the hypocrites. She firmly believed that when her children grew to adulthood, they would choose their own spiritual path, and she didn’t want to bias them or shove religion down their throats. Do you know what her children believe today? Nothing, really. They feel awkward, uncomfortable, and unwanted in church services, so they participate only rarely. Now Meg’s children have children of their own, and the cycle continues. I sometimes wonder of Meg is satisfied with the choices she made.
How does the church nurture Meg and her family? What do we, the followers of Jesus, do to love Meg and help her experience abundant life in Christ?
Is the church a mother ostrich sometimes? Jasmine might think so. Like many teenagers, Jasmine got caught up with the wrong crowd. Her language was vile. She smoked and drank and loved the weekend party life in the basements in town. Many of the troubled kids at school could sense Jasmine’s street smarts and wanted to hang out with her. Jasmine had one friend who was different. Teresa was always friendly to Jasmine and seemed to glimpse the real person beyond her bad-girl vices. Jasmine eventually started attending worship services at Teresa’s church. They went to youth group together, and Jasmine loved it. She even started going out with a guy from the youth group. Life was starting to look good for Jasmine. But she had a very hard time giving up her old habits. One night Teresa called Jasmine crying. “What’s the matter?” Jasmine asked. Teresa sobbed, “There are a bunch of people at church who don’t want you coming to youth group anymore. They think you’re a . . . bad influence.” “Why, because I smoke,” Jasmine defensively replied. “It’s more than that. They say it’s how you dress. They think it’s too suggestive. Some people have complained about your language, too. Even my parents are concerned about our friendship. Really, Jasmine, some of the people you hang out with are kind of scary.” Three weeks later, Jasmine dropped out of church and youth group, and started behaving worse than before.
Sometimes the church is so concerned with outward appearances, we forget that God nurtures the heart and changes the inside first. We become like parents who are authoritarian figures: high in control and low in acceptance. Psychologists say that this kind of parenting can produce offspring who are at risk of compromising themselves to find acceptance from anyone with a better offer. How can the church nurture Jasmine? What do we, the followers of Jesus, do to love Jasmine and help her experience abundant life in Christ?
Today’s reading from Galatians reminds me of what it takes to be nurtures in an age where many are left as spiritual and emotional orphans. There is more to life than just taking care of our own needs while ignoring others’. In Galatians Paul says, “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (6:2). Paul’s assumption here is that we all have burdens that God does not want us to carry alone. You know, some people try to. They think it is a sign of stoicism not to bother other people with their troubles. The Bible says that the opposite is true. You and your problems are not a hardship to your brothers and sisters in Christ. Lightening another’s load is an act of truest love which requires involvement in the troubles of others. The fact is, sometimes there are burdens which are too heavy for one person to bear alone. I think our nation is waking up to this fact as we struggle through the effects of terrorism in our country. Nurture means loving enough to help someone carry their load. Nurture also means we need to accept the help of our sisters and brothers when it comes.
Nurturing the children of God means not running away from the messy, uncomfortable situations we see around us. The truth is, as many of you know, there really is no escape. Nurture means that I’m going to do what I can to help you claim your identity in Christ. Part of being a nurturer means that I’m going to give you every resource you need in order to know the saving love of God. It also means that I’m going to do whatever I can to help equip you to live out your faith in the world. Think about it. What would it look like if the church showed God’s love to the Eddies, Megs and Jasmines in our midst, and put them in touch with the Life-giver? What would it be like if we helped one another put on the armor of God for the daily battles ahead? We would declare to the community that we are a vital church that values abundant life over slow, spiritual death.
Healthy churches nurture people. For instance, at TCC, we nurture our children and youth Our Christian Education program is only meant to be a support system for what you are doing at home. Your home is the number one influence in the life of your child. The average church has a child for 1% of his or her time. The home has him 83% of your kids’ time and the school for the remaining 16%. This does not minimize the need for churches and schools, but it establishes the reality your home is 83% of your child's world and you only a brief amount of time in life to make the most of it.
Do you kids and grandkids see you pray? Do your kids observe you worshiping from your heart? Do they see you as a person of compassion? Do they see you asking for forgiveness when you’ve blown it? Do your kids ever hear you openly and honestly talk about your own faith journey with the living God? Do our children see us modeling compassion with each other? Do they see us taking care of our community and being stewards of the earth? Let’s model these basic behaviors to our children.
We also need to ask ourselves: How do we nurture one another as we live our lives together as the church? A lot of people here today are hurting. Your burdens are heavy, but no one will ever know. It is hard to risk vulnerability. We don’t want to be pitied or looked down upon as weak. It is our job to care for one another. How about making a commitment to reach out to one person today with a warm greeting and a smile of caring? How about, going up to someone and saying, “I’d like to pray for you today. Is there anything I can pray for specifically?” How about praying for someone live and in person? How about a hug, a letter of encouragement, a random act of kindness? Paul reminds us to do good to all, especially to the family of believers.
How do we nurture people whom we wish would just go away? A holy man was engaged in his morning meditation under a tree whose roots stretched out over the riverbank. During his meditation he noticed that the river was rising, and a scorpion caught in the roots was about to drown. He crawled out on the roots and reached down to free the scorpion, but every time he did so, the scorpion struck back at him. An observer came along and said to the holy man, “Don’t you know that’s a scorpion, and it’s in the nature of a scorpion to want to sting?” To which the holy man replied, “That may well be, but it is my nature to save, and must I change my nature because the scorpion does not change its nature?”
There is always going to be someone in the church who stings you. It part of living in community. Paul reminds us that we don’t have to sting back. We live by the law of love, not retaliation. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Don’t be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position.
I could tell many more examples of people who need the nurture of the Body of Christ. I could also tell you stories of people who have come through incredible hardship by relying on the support of the church. The point is, we have something real to offer each other. When we are attentive to how we nurture, we create a church home where people meet Christ, and are given what they need to follow him. I encourage us find ways to nurture one another, and also to take the risk of being nurtured by others. We need it right now. And the world needs us.
Sermon for October 31, 2010
Habits of Healthy Churches: Experiential
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.1 Cor. 12:4-11
Did you know that God gives us the equipment we need when we are called into service? Today we are going to talk about how God equips us with everything we need in order to join God at what He’s doing around us.
A man named Carl Bates wrote the following words: There came a time in my life when I earnestly prayed: “God, I want your power.” Time wore on and the power did not come. One day the burden was more than I could bear. “God,” I asked, “Why haven’t you answered that prayer?” God seemed to whisper back this simply reply: “With plans no bigger than yours, you don’t need my power.”
How would you measure our congregation’s spiritual impact? Do we clearly demonstrate our core values in compelling ways? Is there an irresistible quality about us? Sometimes I think we have pretty low expectations of what we can be spiritually. Sometimes we don’t realize that God has a God-sized task for us to do. So much of what we do around here has been going on for so long, it’s almost done automatically. It’s natural for us to become content with the programs and ministries that we’ve always participated in.
I’m sensing a new wind blowing at TCC. I’m getting that sense that some of you who’ve been coming here for years want more out of church than a place of Sunday morning worship and education. It’s not so much dissatisfaction with the church, but a yearning for something more. People are committing themselves to acts of service. People want to release worship from its strict formality. Hearts want a place where we can come as we are and know we will be accepted and wanted. They want a church that calls every single person, young or old, man or woman, single, married or committed, to be equipped and sent out to impact our community for Christ. People want a church known for its quality of caring, and its uncontainable eagerness to reach out to those in need. I think it’s exciting.
Here’s the problem. People come up to me and say, “Pastor Matt, wouldn’t it be great if our church had a way to reach out to shut-ins or college-age kids, or unchurched youth, or people who are down on their luck? And we could really use a way to greet and follow up on visitors, and reach out to new potential members. We could also use adult Bible studies and new volunteer opportunities to engage our membership.” Many of you have great ideas for how to reach out with God’s love . . . to which my response is, “That’s a great idea! Go ahead and start your dream ministry, and I will do what I can to support you.” So the great ideas never get started. Instead of being a church that is a ministering community, we often settle for being a community gathered around the minister.
I understand people’s frustration. It’s not just an expectation that the leadership is supposed to do all the work. I think some of you have a gnawing desire to reach out to others. God has placed a certain person or a certain group on your heart and mind. You can picture the God-sized transformation that can take place. You just can’t get it out of your head. But, at the same time, many feel unprepared or unequipped. Insecurity and doubt creep in, and the fire gets extinguished until someone more experienced or talented comes along to light it up. I feel the same way sometimes. I get into situations where I feel way over my head, beyond my expertise and knowledge–beyond my life-experiences. Yet God still asks me to minister to people in those situations. It can be scary. We have all these spiritual gifts that Paul talks about, but we don’t have the skill to use them. In our congregation, there are people with gifts of wisdom and knowledge. There are some with gifts of faith and others with gifts of healing. There are some with the gift of generosity and others with a talent for taking prophetic stands for justice. And many of us are too uncomfortable to put these spiritual gifts to use.
It may be helpful to look at the life of Solomon. Listen to this story from his life.
Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and married one of his daughters. He brought her to live in the City of David until he could finish building his palace and the Temple of the Lord and the wall around the city. At that time the people of Israel sacrificed their offerings at local places of worship, for a temple honoring the name of the Lord had not yet been built.
Solomon loved the Lord and followed all the decrees of his father, David, except that Solomon, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local places of worship. The most important of these places of worship was at Gibeon, so the king went there and sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings. That night the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!”
Solomon replied, “You showed faithful love to your servant my father, David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you. And you have continued your faithful love to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne.
“Now, O Lord my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn’t know his way around. And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?”
The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies— I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have! And I will also give you what you did not ask for—riches and fame! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life! And if you follow me and obey my decrees and my commands as your father, David, did, I will give you a long life.”
Then Solomon woke up and realized it had been a dream. He returned to Jerusalem and stood before the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant, where he sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then he invited all his officials to a great banquet. -- 1 Kings 3:1-15
I get the sense that Solomon must have felt the same way we do. In this story, Solomon has a God-sized task to do. He’s called to rule with justice over God’s chosen people, succeeding his father David, the highly popular and adored king of Israel. Leadership is a God-sized task that Solomon feels totally unprepared for. What does Solomon do? Let’s look more closely at the text.
Solomon acknowledges his need. He’s honest about his limitations and his lack of human ability to properly fulfill what God had calls him to do. At this point he could have given up, “Thanks, but no thanks God. Maybe you should find someone else more capable. It’s not that I’m unwilling. I just don’t know what to do. Call me in a few years.” But Solomon never backs down from his responsibility to obey God. Instead he does something decisive...
Solomon prays according to God’s will. In a dream God says, “Ask whatever you want, and I will give it to you.” Solomon was given carte blanche by the hand of God. He could have had anything. “God, give me money so I can expand my influence. Give me power so people will respect me. Kill all my enemies so we will have peace.” But no, Solomon says, “Lord God, please give me wisdom to govern your people and lead them in doing right.” Solomon prayed for exactly what he needed to fulfill the God-sized task he had been given. As a result...
Solomon received what he needed from God. And because he aligned himself with what God wanted from him, God gave him the money and power as an added bonus. And then something important happened...
Solomon worshiped. Solomon’s response to God’s goodness and generosity was to publicly praise the Lord. Unbridled worship is what one does when one has experienced the power and grace of God.
You may be saying to yourself, “So what?” What does this have to do with me?” Well, let’s make it practical. Healthy churches have an experiential quality about them. They use their varieties of gifts to live out the good news. So, if you feel like God is leading you into a specific form of outreach through this church, don’t be afraid. I am actually praying for it to happen. Perhaps you feel God calling you to begin a neighborhood Bible study, but every time you think about it, you get a nervous, queasy feeling. You feel like you don’t know enough about the Bible or you don’t know how to talk about your faith to other people. Maybe you have felt the Lord asking you to get involved in a social justice issue, but you don’t know where to begin. Maybe you have a great new of way of connecting church members to small groups. I want this church to be a place where you are resourced to fulfill your mission. I’m not going to do it for you. God already has a big list of things for me to do right now. If God has given you vision for a way to reach out, then I’m guessing that God wants you to do something about it. Be strong and courageous, and follow up on it.
Here’s what I recommend:
Like Solomon, acknowledge your need before the Lord. Don’t be afraid of your limitations. You are a human, and you are limited, but God can do awesome thing through you as you yield to the Spirit.
Pray and ask God what he wants from your life. Ask specifically, because I believe God will answer specifically. If you need help discerning what God is saying, make an appointment to come talk with me, and we will listen together.
If you see God moving in your life, if you hear God speaking to you, or of you feel God calling you to a specific outreach, don’t do anything. As someone once said, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” Before you plunge in, sit on it for two weeks.
If, after two weeks, you are still excited and eager about what God would like to do through you, talk to me or a member of an appropriate Board or Committee, and we will help get it moving.
And if God is moving in your life in the way I’m describing, I’m going to be excited with you, and celebrate God’s goodness to the church.
On this All Saints / Reformation Day, I think we are ready for our own reformation. We get so busy funding programs and maintaining traditions. But, tradition serves no purpose unless we are also willing to step outside of that tradition to think about what kind of church this need to be.
Be the church in which all who enter in know of God’s consuming love that will never let us go. Be the place where we can come and be reminded that God knows us each by name. Be the church that experiences the Spirit equipping you for service.
Be the church that’s not afraid of change. Be the church that is able to see where God is moving and knows how to join in. It’s a church that calls forth men and women, parents and grandparents, single people, youth, and children who are equipped and sent out to revitalize families and communities. Be the church that gives people tools to raise their families in faith . . . the church where people are encouraged to reflect God’ s Spirit at school, work, and home. . . the church that sends adds value to the lives of other people.
Be the church that is so vital to the community that it would be missed if it was no longer around . . . a church so blazing in its worship, its quality of caring, it’s eagerness to reach out to those in need, that it can be seen by all and not contained
A healthy church is an experiential church -- a church whose people understand that life is a journey, characterized by experience, learning, personal growth, opportunity, challenge, success and failure, joy and sadness. An experiential church appreciates the opportunity rest and renew their energy and strength, but they always move on to embrace the next phase of their life, whatever those may bring. An experiential church trusts God to equip all God’s people with the gifts of the Spirit!
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.1 Cor. 12:4-11
Did you know that God gives us the equipment we need when we are called into service? Today we are going to talk about how God equips us with everything we need in order to join God at what He’s doing around us.
A man named Carl Bates wrote the following words: There came a time in my life when I earnestly prayed: “God, I want your power.” Time wore on and the power did not come. One day the burden was more than I could bear. “God,” I asked, “Why haven’t you answered that prayer?” God seemed to whisper back this simply reply: “With plans no bigger than yours, you don’t need my power.”
How would you measure our congregation’s spiritual impact? Do we clearly demonstrate our core values in compelling ways? Is there an irresistible quality about us? Sometimes I think we have pretty low expectations of what we can be spiritually. Sometimes we don’t realize that God has a God-sized task for us to do. So much of what we do around here has been going on for so long, it’s almost done automatically. It’s natural for us to become content with the programs and ministries that we’ve always participated in.
I’m sensing a new wind blowing at TCC. I’m getting that sense that some of you who’ve been coming here for years want more out of church than a place of Sunday morning worship and education. It’s not so much dissatisfaction with the church, but a yearning for something more. People are committing themselves to acts of service. People want to release worship from its strict formality. Hearts want a place where we can come as we are and know we will be accepted and wanted. They want a church that calls every single person, young or old, man or woman, single, married or committed, to be equipped and sent out to impact our community for Christ. People want a church known for its quality of caring, and its uncontainable eagerness to reach out to those in need. I think it’s exciting.
Here’s the problem. People come up to me and say, “Pastor Matt, wouldn’t it be great if our church had a way to reach out to shut-ins or college-age kids, or unchurched youth, or people who are down on their luck? And we could really use a way to greet and follow up on visitors, and reach out to new potential members. We could also use adult Bible studies and new volunteer opportunities to engage our membership.” Many of you have great ideas for how to reach out with God’s love . . . to which my response is, “That’s a great idea! Go ahead and start your dream ministry, and I will do what I can to support you.” So the great ideas never get started. Instead of being a church that is a ministering community, we often settle for being a community gathered around the minister.
I understand people’s frustration. It’s not just an expectation that the leadership is supposed to do all the work. I think some of you have a gnawing desire to reach out to others. God has placed a certain person or a certain group on your heart and mind. You can picture the God-sized transformation that can take place. You just can’t get it out of your head. But, at the same time, many feel unprepared or unequipped. Insecurity and doubt creep in, and the fire gets extinguished until someone more experienced or talented comes along to light it up. I feel the same way sometimes. I get into situations where I feel way over my head, beyond my expertise and knowledge–beyond my life-experiences. Yet God still asks me to minister to people in those situations. It can be scary. We have all these spiritual gifts that Paul talks about, but we don’t have the skill to use them. In our congregation, there are people with gifts of wisdom and knowledge. There are some with gifts of faith and others with gifts of healing. There are some with the gift of generosity and others with a talent for taking prophetic stands for justice. And many of us are too uncomfortable to put these spiritual gifts to use.
It may be helpful to look at the life of Solomon. Listen to this story from his life.
Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and married one of his daughters. He brought her to live in the City of David until he could finish building his palace and the Temple of the Lord and the wall around the city. At that time the people of Israel sacrificed their offerings at local places of worship, for a temple honoring the name of the Lord had not yet been built.
Solomon loved the Lord and followed all the decrees of his father, David, except that Solomon, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local places of worship. The most important of these places of worship was at Gibeon, so the king went there and sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings. That night the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!”
Solomon replied, “You showed faithful love to your servant my father, David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you. And you have continued your faithful love to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne.
“Now, O Lord my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn’t know his way around. And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?”
The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies— I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have! And I will also give you what you did not ask for—riches and fame! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life! And if you follow me and obey my decrees and my commands as your father, David, did, I will give you a long life.”
Then Solomon woke up and realized it had been a dream. He returned to Jerusalem and stood before the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant, where he sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then he invited all his officials to a great banquet. -- 1 Kings 3:1-15
I get the sense that Solomon must have felt the same way we do. In this story, Solomon has a God-sized task to do. He’s called to rule with justice over God’s chosen people, succeeding his father David, the highly popular and adored king of Israel. Leadership is a God-sized task that Solomon feels totally unprepared for. What does Solomon do? Let’s look more closely at the text.
Solomon acknowledges his need. He’s honest about his limitations and his lack of human ability to properly fulfill what God had calls him to do. At this point he could have given up, “Thanks, but no thanks God. Maybe you should find someone else more capable. It’s not that I’m unwilling. I just don’t know what to do. Call me in a few years.” But Solomon never backs down from his responsibility to obey God. Instead he does something decisive...
Solomon prays according to God’s will. In a dream God says, “Ask whatever you want, and I will give it to you.” Solomon was given carte blanche by the hand of God. He could have had anything. “God, give me money so I can expand my influence. Give me power so people will respect me. Kill all my enemies so we will have peace.” But no, Solomon says, “Lord God, please give me wisdom to govern your people and lead them in doing right.” Solomon prayed for exactly what he needed to fulfill the God-sized task he had been given. As a result...
Solomon received what he needed from God. And because he aligned himself with what God wanted from him, God gave him the money and power as an added bonus. And then something important happened...
Solomon worshiped. Solomon’s response to God’s goodness and generosity was to publicly praise the Lord. Unbridled worship is what one does when one has experienced the power and grace of God.
You may be saying to yourself, “So what?” What does this have to do with me?” Well, let’s make it practical. Healthy churches have an experiential quality about them. They use their varieties of gifts to live out the good news. So, if you feel like God is leading you into a specific form of outreach through this church, don’t be afraid. I am actually praying for it to happen. Perhaps you feel God calling you to begin a neighborhood Bible study, but every time you think about it, you get a nervous, queasy feeling. You feel like you don’t know enough about the Bible or you don’t know how to talk about your faith to other people. Maybe you have felt the Lord asking you to get involved in a social justice issue, but you don’t know where to begin. Maybe you have a great new of way of connecting church members to small groups. I want this church to be a place where you are resourced to fulfill your mission. I’m not going to do it for you. God already has a big list of things for me to do right now. If God has given you vision for a way to reach out, then I’m guessing that God wants you to do something about it. Be strong and courageous, and follow up on it.
Here’s what I recommend:
Like Solomon, acknowledge your need before the Lord. Don’t be afraid of your limitations. You are a human, and you are limited, but God can do awesome thing through you as you yield to the Spirit.
Pray and ask God what he wants from your life. Ask specifically, because I believe God will answer specifically. If you need help discerning what God is saying, make an appointment to come talk with me, and we will listen together.
If you see God moving in your life, if you hear God speaking to you, or of you feel God calling you to a specific outreach, don’t do anything. As someone once said, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” Before you plunge in, sit on it for two weeks.
If, after two weeks, you are still excited and eager about what God would like to do through you, talk to me or a member of an appropriate Board or Committee, and we will help get it moving.
And if God is moving in your life in the way I’m describing, I’m going to be excited with you, and celebrate God’s goodness to the church.
On this All Saints / Reformation Day, I think we are ready for our own reformation. We get so busy funding programs and maintaining traditions. But, tradition serves no purpose unless we are also willing to step outside of that tradition to think about what kind of church this need to be.
Be the church in which all who enter in know of God’s consuming love that will never let us go. Be the place where we can come and be reminded that God knows us each by name. Be the church that experiences the Spirit equipping you for service.
Be the church that’s not afraid of change. Be the church that is able to see where God is moving and knows how to join in. It’s a church that calls forth men and women, parents and grandparents, single people, youth, and children who are equipped and sent out to revitalize families and communities. Be the church that gives people tools to raise their families in faith . . . the church where people are encouraged to reflect God’ s Spirit at school, work, and home. . . the church that sends adds value to the lives of other people.
Be the church that is so vital to the community that it would be missed if it was no longer around . . . a church so blazing in its worship, its quality of caring, it’s eagerness to reach out to those in need, that it can be seen by all and not contained
A healthy church is an experiential church -- a church whose people understand that life is a journey, characterized by experience, learning, personal growth, opportunity, challenge, success and failure, joy and sadness. An experiential church appreciates the opportunity rest and renew their energy and strength, but they always move on to embrace the next phase of their life, whatever those may bring. An experiential church trusts God to equip all God’s people with the gifts of the Spirit!
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