sanctification – Salvaged Faith

Renegade Gospel: The Red-Letter Rebel

Posted on February 21, 2016Leave a comment

There was a challenge issued TWICE by Mike Slaughter in chapter one of this Renegade Gospel book we are examining during this Lenten season: to read through one of the gospels and pay specific attention to the red letters… to the words of Jesus… spoken there.

I pulled out my bible and started with Luke. Luke is the gospel assigned for this particular Lenten season according to the powers that be. It is the gospel we will be following most weeks during worship.

The very first time Jesus speaks in Luke’s gospel, it is in the synagogue in his hometown and he is preaching.

Jesus reads from Isaiah, explains a bit about what he has read, and makes everyone so angry they drive him out of town and try to throw him off a cliff.

I really hope you don’t try to do that to me this morning!

Now, many of his words, like the ones we find today in the reading (Rod/Natalie) just shared with us, are words of healing or forgiveness or calling.

“Woman, you are set free from your sickness” (Luke 13:12)

But almost every single time, like we found in our reading today, when Jesus does so, he really makes people angry.

He calls the wrong people, he forgives the unforgiveable, he heals on the wrong day…

The synagogue leader, in this particular healing, was “incensed” (as my bible puts it) that Jesus was healing on the Sabbath.

And all of this anger and frustration on behalf of the system was slowly coming to a boil, as we find just a few verses later.

As our reading continues, the Pharisees (the religious leaders) are plotting together with the political leader, Herod, to be done with Jesus for good.

Now, Herod’s father was the one who had tried to kill Jesus as an infant because he thought he might be a threat to his power.

And this Herod has already beheaded John the Baptist.

Both Herod and the religious leaders were upset about the populist movement stirring up in response to the ministry of John and Jesus.

As Mike Slaughter writes in Renegade Gospel:

“Jesus could never be perceived as a protector of the status quo” (p. 27)

I think the same is as true today as it was then.

Jesus is never satisfied with things the way they are, because Jesus has a vision of the way things can and should be.

He is constantly getting into trouble for doing what is “right for the sake of people” … even if it was against “the rules.”

I think, at the core, Jesus is always pushing the status quo, always challenging us to do more and to be more faithful, because his goal is nothing short of the Kingdom of God lived out on earth… and friends, we aren’t there yet!

Those of us gathered in this room are incredibly blessed… even if we struggle… because we have more resources at our fingertips than most people in this world.

But even here, in a great city, in a great state, in a great country, can we agree that we’re not in heaven yet?

And the KINGDOM is the standard Jesus is holding us to. The KINGDOM is the standard Jesus is holding the political and religious leaders to. The KINGDOM OF GOD is the standard.

And so even today, as a modern religious leader of the Christian faith, I read these words of Jesus and I am still challenged and pushed to really think about the teachings I share with you and how I call us to live them out together.

And all of those harsh words Jesus has for the Pharisees…. well, they are for people like me, too. Because too often, as your leaders, we have simply not preached the gospel! We haven’t shared the vision of the Kingdom of God and we haven’t given you the tools to truly be the Body of Christ, in the world, helping to bring that Kingdom to fruition.

And friends… I think that’s what we, the Body of Christ, are supposed to do.

When I re-read Luke’s gospel, over and over again, Jesus asks us to not only hear his words, but to obey them. Just on a glance back through this morning, I counted at least 9 times (Luke 6:47, Luke 8:21, Luke 9:48, Luke 10:1, Luke 10:28 & 37, Luke 11:28, Luke 12:1, Luke 18:22)… Jesus asks us to not only hear but to do them. To live them. To go and do likewise.

We are trying to be faithful Christians and put into practice what Jesus says.

And, here is the good news I discovered in these commands to “go and do likewise.”

Jesus is NEVER angry at ordinary people who doing the best they can to live out their faith.

He never shames them.

He never scolds them.

He invites them! But he doesn’t get mad at them for where they currently are in their journey of faith.

He is never upset with someone if they aren’t ready to do it. Jesus simply sends them on their way. Maybe another day, in a different sermon, they’ll be ready.

In our United Methodist tradition, we call this “going on to perfection.” Discipleship is a lifelong journey and you are wherever you are today without any judgment.

We are called to be like Jesus, and we fully acknowledge and admit that we aren’t there yet!

And why would we be? Jesus is divine! The Son of Man AND Son of God. The standards are the very KINGDOM OF GOD!

We are mere mortals, trying to live up to the standards of the divine.

There is a quote by Barbra Brown Taylor in her book, “The Preaching Life” that has always stuck with me:

Over and over, my disappointments draw me deeper into the mystery of God’s being and doing. Every time God declines to meet my expectations, another of my idols is exposed. Another curtain is drawn back so I can see what I have propped up in God’s place – no, that is not God, so who is God?

It is the question of a lifetime, and the answers are never big enough or finished. Pushing past curtain after curtain, it becomes clear that the failure is not God’s but my own, for having such a poor and stingy imagination. God is greater than my imagination, wiser than my wisdom, more dazzling than the universe, as present as the air I breathe, and utterly beyond my control. (p. 10)

Every day, when we read the gospels, we pull back the curtain, as Barbara Brown Taylor writes, and we discover that we aren’t Jesus yet… we still have a ways to go!

We still have discoveries to make about what it means to be a faithful Christian.

But here is the beautiful and amazing thing about “going on to perfection”…

Every day, we also have an opportunity to grow more faithful.

Every day, we also have a chance to be more loving.

Every day, we also get to be a better Christian than yesterday.

The words of Jesus are NOT easy. The standards he sets for us are incredibly high! You know, Kingdom of God level!

But even in the midst of those Kingdom standards and Jesus’ never ending call for us to respond accordingly, there is grace upon grace upon grace.

One of my favorite lines in the chapter for this week from Mike Slaughter was this:

Although Jesus always called his followers to enter the small gate and take the narrow road to the Kingdom, he repeatedly taught mercy and relationship over rigidity and judgment. (p. 28)

And he points to Peter as the prime example.

You know Peter… the disciple who constantly questioned Jesus motives and got it wrong.

You know, Peter… the one who fell asleep in the garden.

You know, Peter… the one who denied Jesus three times when he needed him the most?

Jesus has ridiculously high standards. But when we don’t meet them… when we fail… and we will… Jesus keeps welcoming us back.

Keeps loving us.

Keeps showing mercy and love.

Keeps pouring God’s sanctifying, perfecting grace into our lives so tomorrow we can pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and try it again.

There is life and power and love and grace and mercy in the red-letter words of Jesus.

Jesus is constantly pushing our world through these words to rebel against what is… in light of what could be.

Jesus is asking us to examine ourselves, our church, our world, and to ask:

Can we be greater tomorrow than we are today?

Can we be more like Christ tomorrow than we were today?

Can this world look more like heaven tomorrow than it does today?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Always.

Thanks be to God.

Momentum for Life: God Loves You Too Much To Let You Stay There

Posted on January 19, 20161 Comment

God loves you just the way you are… and loves you too much to let you stay there.

Those words I heard from Anne Lamott in a lecture she gave at my seminary.

God loves you just the way you are… and loves you too much to let you stay there.

I have really enjoyed diving into Michael Slaughter’s book “Momentum for Life” this January. I think in many ways, he is speaking the same message as Lamott. He is reminding us that God has all sorts of things planned for our lives… a direction, a purpose, a mission.

Slaughter is inviting us to make a commitment and to discover where God is leading us… how God is changing us… through his acronym D.R.I.V.E.

D for Devotion

R for Readiness to Learn

I for Investing in Relationships

V for Vision

and E for Eating and Exercise.

Each of these qualities describe a committed Christian disciple who knows that God loves them just as they are, but who is willing to let God lead them to where they could be.

Over the last two weeks, Pastor Todd has been guiding us through both the concept of Momentum and the first characteristic, Devotion.

So today, we turn our attention to this concept of readiness to learn.

What I find fascinating about Slaughter’s emphasis on learning is that he connects it with our working life. Or maybe to put it a different way, our life’s work.

Now, just a quick survey here.

How many of you have a job you love, that fulfills your life’s passion and gives you a sense of purpose?

And how many of you have a job that pays the bills?

And of course, there are those of us who don’t work, either because we stay at home or are retired or are in school or simply can’t find work at this time.

Some of us are lucky enough to get paid for what Slaughter calls “our life work.” But for others of us, that life work can still be lived out on the job site, in our families, and throughout our communities.

Slaughter describes three characteristics of this life work: that it is creative, redemptive, and innovative.

But I think all three of these can be boiled down to one idea: He is calling us to let God’s sanctifying grace pour into everything we do.

In October, our ten confirmands and their mentors and teachers went on a retreat to Wesley Woods. Over those 48 hours or so, we covered many of the basics of United Methodist theology and teaching… from the creation to the new creation, from repentance to sanctification. We learned a LOT of really big, complicated words over that weekend and to help us remember them, the youth prepared some really amazing skits, drew pictures, and journaled.

But we also had some helpful metaphors to help us.

One of them is a depiction of grace in our United Methodist tradition.

house of grace

We believe that grace is not just a one time thing that happens to us, but is present all throughout our lives.

Before we are even aware of God, prevenient grace is there… preparing us to know and see God. It is like the front porch of a house… there to welcome us and create space for us to enter the Christian life. This idea of prevenient grace is why we baptize even newborn babies… because we believe God is already working in their life. Remember – God loves us just the way we are!

At some point, we consciously choose the grace God has offered to us. We call that justifying grace. It describes the moment when we accept God’s acceptance of us. In some faith traditions, people hold on to and celebrate the day, hour, and minute when they were saved and they are describing the door we have in this blueprint. That door is always open and waiting for us… and some of us walk through early in life and some late and some of us linger in the doorway for a long time.

The last kind of grace, and the one I think Slaughter is referring to in this chapter is sanctifying grace. It is the commitment to keep growing, to keep learning, to keep going on to perfection as we live in God’s grace and love. You see… our Christian journey does not come to an end when we enter the house. We have a whole lifetime of grace awaiting us and God loves us too much to let us stay exactly as we were when we entered.

This grace is what Paul is speaking of in his letter to the Philippians we heard this morning. He starts in our reading to describe justifying grace… the righteousness of Christ he received. But he doesn’t end there. No, he writes:

It’s not that I have already reached this goal or have already been perfected, but I pursue it, so that I may grab hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of me for just this purpose… I forget about the things behind me and reach out for the things ahead of me… God’s upward call in Christ Jesus. (12-14)

Our life work is to let God’s sanctifying grace fill all that we do.

If we close our lives to God’s grace… if we say to God – “Thanks for dying on the cross, thank you for salvation, but I’ll take it from here,” then we are like those described in Psalm 127… we can work and toil all we want, right where we are, and never go anywhere. It’s like we walk through the doorway of grace, but refuse to live in the house!

That’s what Paul had been doing back when he was the Pharisee, Saul. He had all of the right answers. He knew what he was doing and who he was. He was at the top of his game, an expert in the law, and successful beyond all measure.

He thought he knew what it meant to be faithful and thought he had achieved it.

Until he discovered that learning and seeking and changing is more important than having all the right answers.

Until he learned that growing is more important than knowing.

Until he found it’s not what you know, it is who you know.

God loves you just the way you are… and loves you too much to let you stay there.

No matter who you are, or what you do, God can use you. God can pour sanctifying grace into your life to transform even the most mundane or ordinary moments.

And that means we have to keep growing. We have to let go of what no longer works. We have to always seek what God is doing next. “We must forget what lies behind and stain forward to what lies ahead.” One of the practices Slaughter suggests for us is that we are always reading something. We never stop learning. We always are growing in our awareness of what is going on in the world and the new insights that others have to offer.

And it means we choose to participate in God’s redeeming work – to allow God’s love to fill all that we do and every person we meet so that our work is not in the service of money but in the service of God. Slaughter invites us to observe all the time… to look out for those who can teach us, but also to become aware every day of those opportunities to practice God’s redeeming love. In that way, we discover life work that seeks the good for others, instead of simply ourselves.

Finally, we were made to be creative… to dream and imagine, to nurture and to help life grow. You and I… we were made in the image of God and that means God has invited us to be cocreators, to open our minds, to keep pushing forward to excellence. And that means we need to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty… to keep practicing and seeking God every day, never content with what we have already accomplished.

Because even though God loves you just the way you are… God loves you too much to let you stay there.

the wedding garment

Posted on October 9, 2011Leave a comment

When a girl gets married these days, one of the most important decisions she makes is what to wear. On television, you can watch Bridezillas and Say Yes to the Dress and Four Weddings – or even an hour long special on Kate Middleton’s wedding gown – and I guarantee, one of the most expensive items included in any of those celebrations and the one that causes the most anxiety is the dress.

I try not to watch those shows.

And… I tried really hard to “NOT” be one of those girls. I wanted to throw off the shackles of consumerism and find a nice, simple, elegant dress that did not cost me an arm and a leg.

As my mom and grandma and sister-in-law and maid of honor walked into the bridal shop, I made them promise: I was not trying on a dress that cost more than $200. I was not going to fall in love with something that I could not afford.

And seven or eight dresses into the experience, I found the one. It was simple and elegant, understated and yet gorgeous. It was MY dress. And after sashaying around the room and standing in front of the mirror, and picking out bridesmaids dresses that matched, I looked at the price tag: twelve-hundred dollars. I had done it. I had fallen in love with something that was far too expensive.

Unfortunately for the bridal shop, but lucky for me, I am a skilled online shopper. I found the exact same dress for about half the price a few months later. And the dress did make the day. It was and still is – MY dress. And it helps me tell the world who I am. One look in my direction, and people not only knew I was the bride, but also that I wasn’t showy, or stuck-up or traditional.

I love this dress… I really do… but the simple fact is, I can’t wear it to any other wedding. 😉

Wedding garments seem to be the theme for the day, because in our gospel this morning, Jesus tells the crowds a parable about a wedding feast. And he tells them – what you are wearing matters.

Will you pray with me:

We could spend hours talking about the first half of this parable… about how the king threw a wedding feast for his beloved son and how the guests one by one declined the honor, made excuses, and in some cases slaughtered his servants when they showed up with the invitation.

As we have discovered in the past few weeks, there are a number of people in this world who think there are more important things to do than respond to the call of God. There are some who are so caught up in being religious, they forget about who they are accountable to. And as the gospel makes clear, they do so at their own peril.

But for today, I’m more interested in the second half of this story.

You see, when the king’s guests don’t show up, he doesn’t cancel the party. No, he just invites more guests. He has his servants go out and pull people in off the street. Homeless folks, addicts, fishermen, swindlers and thieves, families with children, small town merchants, teachers, retirees… the good and the bad, the simple, the unworthy, the unprepared, the underqualified. You and me.

Never in our lives would any of us ever dream of being invited to a king’s wedding feast. Through the miracles of television, some here got up very early in the morning to watch the latest royal wedding festivities, but our television screens are the closest we are ever going to get to that kind of celebration.

And for most of the people gathered around Jesus as he told this parable, that would have been true as well. They just didn’t bump elbows with those kind of people.

This unexpected invitation, this outpouring of love and acceptance, this grand gesture is one more reminder that God’s ways are not our ways… It is a reminder that the Kingdom of Heaven is opened up to all who will receive the call – the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the good and the bad… as long as we accept that invitation and drop what we are doing to respond.

Here WE are. In one way or another, you have responded to the call of God upon your life… to the invitation from the great King to participate in the holy celebration.

In the church, we often like to talk about how faith saves us. How belief in Jesus Christ and his righteousness leads us into the Kingdom of God. Jesus died for my sins, I accept what he has done for me, bing-bang-boom, one way ticket to heaven.

But you know what… this parable throws a wrench in that simple formula. You see, while everyone was invited… while the invitation and the gospels tell that each one of us is now entitled to heaven through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross… not everyone at the party is allowed to stay.

“When the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” and the man was speechless. Then the King said to the attendants, “bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Sheesh – all because he wore the wrong thing?

If you are anything like me, you are utterly grateful for the grace of God in Jesus Christ that invited you to the Kingdom party. And you were more than happy to drop what you were doing in order to accept that grace and be found worthy of the feast.

We understand that our being a part of the Kingdom of God has very little to do with our actions, but everything to do with the righteousness of Christ, freely given to us through repentance and communion and baptism and faith and prayer. We know we don’t deserve to be here, we know we don’t deserve the grace that has been given to us, and we know that “deserving it” isn’t the point…. Christ is. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, that proves God’s love for us…

But (there is always a but, isn’t there), But, if you are anything like me, in the middle of the party, you start to worry about that guy who wasn’t wearing the right clothes… and maybe you look down at your own clothes.

At weddings today, the bride’s dress is gorgeous, the bridesmaids look lovely and the groom and his men are dressed to the nines. But who really cares what anyone else is wearing. As I have officiated weddings lately, I’ve seen people in suits, people in polos and khakis, jeans and t-shirts, cotton summer dresses, flip flops and sunglasses. And in my experience, no one has been thrown out of any of these weddings I have been to for what they were or were not wearing.

But there it is. At the end of this beautiful parable that has us feeling all warm and fuzzy because we didn’t deserve the invitation, we have a conversation about proper wedding attire.

As scholar Alyce McKenzie reminds us,

Though his actions are harsh, they are not completely unjustified, when understood in the first century context. It was the custom in Ancient Near Eastern weddings, that the guests would wear a garment that symbolized their respect for the host and the occasion. Often the host would provide a rack of such garments at the entryway for guests who had [not] brought theirs. Not to be wearing a wedding garment, when one could have chosen one on the way in, is a sign of disrespect for both host and occasion.

Ahh…. A missing detail from the parable.

When we, the unworthy, accept the invitation and show up for the wedding, we are supposed to “put on” this special garment as we come in the door. AND – it is something that the Lord our King will provide for us, if we only chose to accept it.

I am reminded that there are many places in the New Testament “putting on clothing” was used as a symbol for new life in Christ.

From Galatians 3:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

From Colossians 3:

Since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self… Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience… And over all these virtues put on love.

From Ephesians 4:

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self… to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

In his sermon, “On the Wedding Garment,” John Wesley describes this special clothing as our personal holiness. He claims that while the cross of Christ and his righteousness bestowed upon us entitles us for the Kingdom of God… only personal holiness with qualify us to continue there. The first makes us children of God and heirs of the kingdom… but the second makes us worthy of have the inheritance of the saints.

If we think about all of those New Testament scriptures – they have one thing in common – we are called to put on a different life in Christ Jesus. We are called to actually BE different. As Wesley describes it, “holiness is having ‘the mind that was in Christ,’ and the ‘walking as Christ walked.’”

The righteousness of Christ saves us… but as the parable reminds us, we have to show up… we have to honor the King through our actions… we have to participate in the Kingdom… we have to put on the life that he has prepared for us.

I keep my wedding dress hanging in my closet, in part, as a reminder of our wedding. But I have to admit, that it is also a reminder that I no longer fit into the dress. It is a goal, a challenge, staring me in the face and daring me to start exercising again. This dress has become like a mirror in which to evaluate my physical health.

In the same way, we all need to evaluate our spiritual health. We need to take time every now and then to look at what we are wearing and decide if it still fits. We need to remind ourselves of the wedding garment that God has provided… of the holiness that he asks of us… of the new life that has been prepared for every single one gathered here.

Are you putting on Christ?

Are you practicing patience and gentleness?

Are you humble?

Do you forgive others?

So you seek peace with your neighbors and your enemies?

By the grace of God and the strength of Christ do you seek to love everyone you meet?

Are you walking as Christ walked?

And if not… what are you going to do to get back into those wedding clothes? What are you going to let go of so that they fit once again? Which person in this room will be your accountability partner, pushing you and reminding you and walking along side you?

As John Wesley concluded his sermon, he reminded us that “The God of love is willing to save all the souls that he has made… revealed by the Son of his love, who gave his own life that they that believe in him might have everlasting life… But he will not force them to accept of it; he leaves them in the hands of their own counsel… Choose holiness, by [his] grace; which is the way, the only way, to everlasting life…. This is the wedding garment of all that are called to the “marriage of the Lamb.” Clothed in this, they will not be found naked.

May the power of the Holy Spirit fill us all with knowledge and guidance and strength as we seek to not only be children of God, but to be found worthy through his grace.

How Should We Love?

Posted on April 10, 2011Leave a comment

Last week, we talked about a little place on the southwest side of Jerusalem… does anyone remember what that ugly and awful place was called?

Ghenna!

Ghenna is a trash dump… it is a valley of garbage… it is a place for filth and waste… a place to burn and destroy the refuse of our lives…

And this smelly, disgusting, ugly, awful place is translated in our modern bibles as “hell.”

We spent all of last Sunday talking about ghenna so that we could prepare ourselves for a conversation today. Because that word – ghenna – shows up three times in our passage this morning. One third of all the times Jesus uses the world we now think of as “hell” show up right here.

So let’s dive in, shall we?

And let’s start by getting out the trusty whiteboard and doing some brainstorming…

We are going to assume… although that might be a dangerous thing… let’s assume that none of us wants to live in ghenna – in the garbage dump – in hellish conditions… is it alright if I start with that assumption?

That leads to a question… What kind of a community do you want to live in?

(whiteboard)

Photo by: Jon Wisbey

What makes this community liveable… what makes it desireable… is that love is the center of each of these relationships.

I believe that this ideal is based on what we find right here in our scriptures for this week… it’s based in the summary of the law we find in Deuteronomy and in Matthew… love God with everything that you are and love your neighbor as yourself.

We know, somewhere deep inside of us that this is what we should strive for.

We know, that this is how we were made.

And, we know, that this is where we are headed…

This is the Kingdom of God. Love. Trust. Forgiveness. Honesty. Faithfulness. No more tears, no more pain.

But the question is… how do we get there?

As Jesus walked and talked and lived among us, everything that he did pointed to this reality. As he spoke with people he told them that the Kingdom of heaven was already here… that we have glimpses of this reality… but it is not yet fully here.

And we look around us and know that to be true.

There is death and murder. There is violence and anger. There is lust and revenge and envy everywhere.

It isn’t fully here yet.

I know that.

You know that.

Jesus knew that.

But right here, in this sermon to the people, he refused to let the people off the hook. In this section, Jesus tackles some of the toughest situations we face in our relationships and in the scriptures: murder, adultery, divorce, oaths and promises, revenge…

All of those things that turn this reality into a garbage dump.

In each and every single one of these verses, Jesus challenges us.

Not once does he give us an easy out.

Not once does he justify our actions.

Not once does he say we can ignore the wisdom of earlier days.

No. In every single one of these verses, Jesus takes a simple law and makes it harder.

Don’t just restrain yourself from killing that person… Jesus says – don’t even be mad at them

You’ve been told not to commit adultery, but I say to you – don’t even look at someone who isn’t your spouse with lust.

Divorce has become as simple as writing a letter when the spark has gone – but I say to you unless your spouse has broken the fundamentals of the covenant, and committed adultery, don’t give up on your relationship… and even then give it another try.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Don’t make oaths that are more than just yes and no.

Don’t seek your own revenge but love your enemies, pray for those who seek to destroy you. Turn the other cheek.

And he ends this whole section by saying what I think are the hardest two words in all of scripture: Be perfect.

What?! Be perfect? How do we do that? How can we get there?

There are two main theories about what Jesus is trying to do here.

The first, is that Jesus takes the old testament law and turns it into SUPER law… that to be Christian really requires more morality, more legalism, more demands. To be Christian, you just have to follow all of these new laws, along with the old ones. There certainly are brothers and sisters out there who do just this… who make perfection and holiness and morality the substance of their very being and heap law upon law upon law.

The second main way of understanding these passages is that Jesus makes the law so hard that we can’t live up to it. We can’t do it. All of us have anger in our heart. All of us think our brothers and sisters and idiots sometimes, all of us break promises. This second perspective teaches us that we are utterly helpless when it comes to the law and therefore, we need Jesus to save us from our own downfall. And we all know folks out there, brothers and sisters in Christ who help us to hold our lives up against the law, see our failings, and our guilt and our shame. In this perspective, the law convicts us… but in many ways, the law ceases to matter. As long as we have Jesus to save us, it doesn’t matter if we make mistakes.

I’ve never been a black and white girl. I’m not a fan of either/or choices. So, I want to share with you today a third option… a both/and.

And so what I see happening here in the sermon on the mount is that Jesus is challenging us to be perfect.

He’s telling us we can’t do it, and telling us we need to do it all at the same time.

He’s pointing to this future Kingdom reality and he’s inviting us to live in that reality now.

He knows we are helpless to do it, but he wants us to try.

Jackie has been working with addicts as a part of his new ministry with the CMA. As we talked about these passages in Sunday School last week, he reminded us that the goal of recovery groups is to help you become clean and sober. It is a community of folks who are all seeking the same end goal. Life and life abundant. Perfection. Love.

At the start of the journey, a life of sobriety is almost unimagineable. It isn’t who they are. But they know where they are going. They know who they are seeking to be. And so they try.

Maybe the church needs to be a little bit more like a recovery group. We need to be a group of people, banded together, helping one another get over our addiction to sin and death, and trying to live into this whiteboard reality.

And in order to do so, we have to start letting go of some of the garbage in our lives. We have to throw it out… because in the end, it just won’t do in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus calls us in each of these situations to love. Not mushy gushy love – but real, genuine, difficult, honest love. Love that forgives wrong. Love that seeks peace. Love that refuses to fight back with violence and hatred. Love that is strong enough to overcome.

How do we do that? How is it possible?

Last year, a friend gave me this album and in particular this song – Forgiveness – spoke to me.

I want to share it with you today, because it speaks to the heart of what Jesus asks us to do….

(show video)

Is it easy? No.

Will we get it right on the first try? No.

Are we supposed to try anyways? Yes.

Again, and again and again.

We are supposed to try to live our lives here in the Kingdom… and not out on the garbage dump.

Live into the Kingdom of heaven… where love is our first and not our second impulse.

Where forgiveness is our first and not our second impulse.

Where relationships and not rules determine our actions.

You can go ahead and throw your past and your mistakes and the failings of yesterday on the trash heap. The question is… how do you want to live today? And are you going to let Jesus Christ help you to do it?

the Christian journey

Posted on January 17, 2010Leave a comment

How do you understand the following traditional evangelical doctrines: a) repentance; b) justification; c) regeneration; d) sanctification? What are the marks of the Christian life?

Whenever I think of the Christian life, a quote I heard Anne Lamott give (whether or not it actually originated with her) comes to mind: God loves you just the way you are… and loves you too much to let you stay there. The Christian faith journey is just that – a journey, a process of discovering our true selves as created by God. In many ways, these four doctrines are lacking because they don’t acknowledge one that must precede them – God’s prevenient grace that allows us to see our need for repentance. The wonder of God is that the instant we recognize our sinful state is the same moment justifying grace is extended to us; in acknowledging our sin we are given grace by which we can be transformed. This begins a lifelong process of growth and transformation and practice and mistakes and setbacks and return to God for forgiveness and renewal and going on to perfection that makes the Christian life.

We can see evidence of that growth through the three very basic and simple virtues – faith, hope, and love. Working on these papers, a quote was shared with me from Teresa Fry Brown that claims, “Hope hearing the song of the future. Faith is the courage to dance to it.” I would add that love is inviting others to take your hand and join in. We were created for relationship with God and with the rest of creation. Unless we are willing to take a leap of faith and actively participate in the transformative love of God, unless we are willing to have hope in the promise that all of creation will be renewed, we are denying the precious gift we have been given and continue to be in need of God’s grace.

Photo by: Stephen Eastop

Hebrews Part 5: The Cloud of Witnesses

Posted on November 1, 2009Leave a comment

We have spent the last few weeks wading through some pretty heavy stuff in the Letter to the Hebrews. Like the author makes clear – this isn’t easy material… we dove into the meat, the heart of the substance.

For those of you who have missed our explorations, in the last four weeks we have discovered that even though we at times feel unworthy – God chooses to make us worthy. And that happens through Jesus…

How it happens is another story. We looked at three ways that people understand what Jesus did on the cross: he set us free from sin and death; he paid the debt for our sins; he showed us a better way.

Usually, the church focuses just on the second one – that Jesus pays for our sins on the cross – but the book of the Hebrews talks about them all… Jesus paid our debt because he is the new high priest. But Jesus also shows us another way because he is a prophet of the most high, and Jesus can declare victory over sin and death because he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Now, what we briefly mentioned at the end of last week is that unlike the way we understand grace, the writer of the Hebrews seems to believe that you can only accept Jesus into your life once. After that – if you sin you lose the benefits of what Christ has done. Really – this goes back to the thought that sin is like an addiction and a prison and what we are being asked to do here is to quit cold turkey and be set free. No turning back. No nicotine patches.

And in reality – why should we turn back? We’ve got a clean slate, the grace of God and the power of the holy spirit on our side! Hear how the Message translation puts chapter 10… Let’s do it – let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshipping together as some do but spurring each other on… but you need to stick it out, staying with God’s plan so you’ll be there for the promised completion.

The only way we can do it – the only way that we can quit our former lives cold turkey and urge one another on is by trusting in the promises of God and together reminding each other of those promises. That’s what faith is all about.

Marilyn read for us today from chapters 11 and 12. And it sounds different than all of those chapters before about priests and prophets and blood and sacrifices. Here, Hebrews reminds us that countless people before us have been on this road before. Countless people before us have struggled to trust in God. Countless people before us have been called to have faith.

What you are missing in your inserts today are the names of those people – the pioneers of our faith listed in Chapter 11. People like Noah and Abraham who trusted in God’s promises so much that they took risks. People like Sarah who came to believe in the impossible. People like Isaac and Jacob and Jospeh, Moses and Rahab the prostitute, and David and Samuel… all of these people and countless others lived by faith in the promises of God – and with their own eyes never saw their hopes realized.

As the final verses of chapter 11 share with us – they haven’t received what was promised… yet… because God has a plan that makes sure they won’t be made perfect without us.

Basically – all of us – from the beginning of time to the end of time are all running the same race. We are all going on to the same goal and we are all called to trust that at the finish line glorious things await us. But unlike a race in this world where there are winners and losers, people who cross first and people who cross much later – this glory that awaits us is something we will all get to experience together.

When I traveled to Chicago a few months ago to learn at the feet of a theological giant – Jurgen Moltmann, I was struck by something that he said about death. He said, “I trust that those who died are not dead, they are with us, they are watching over us and we live in their presence. They also… are growing until they reach the destiny for which they were created.”

They are not dead – they are with us… like the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews, they are running with us and are urging us to set aside every weight and sin and to just run free this race together.

Today is a special day in the life of the church when we take a moment to acknowledge that there are others who continue to run this race with us. We acknowledge that the dead are still with us – still waiting just like we are to experience the glory of God.

I am only 27 years old and I have very little knowledge about the mystery of death. No amount of book learning can prepare us for what awaits. What I can say with certainty are some promises that we have in the scriptures.

One of those promises comes to us from the Wisdom of Solomon – the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and no torment will every touch them… they seem to have died, but they are at peace… their hope is full of immortality.

One of those promises comes to the thief crucified beside our Lord – he is promised that today he will be with Jesus in paradise.

In the book of Revelation we have the promise of the day of resurrection – when we will all be raised and clothed in our recreated bodies and there will be weeping and crying and pain no more.

And then we have our gospel reading from John. After their brother has died, the sisters Mary and Martha are besides themselves with grief… each one pleads with Jesus – if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

Martha knows in her heart – she trusts in the promise that on the last day her brother will be raised again. She knows that he and she and all of us are pressing onward toward that goal and that Christ is the Messiah – the Son of God who will bring us to the other side.

And surely her sister Mary understands this also. But that doesn’t take away their pain and grief at the loss of their brother in this life. No longer can they reach out and touch him or hear his laughter or look into his eyes. While they trust in the promises, it doesn’t take away their sorrow.

It doesn’t take away the grief that Jesus himself feels as he weeps before the tomb of his friend Lazarus.

What Jesus then does for us is that he gives us a glimpse of the resurrection. As Lazarus – who had been dead for four days – is called out of the tomb, we are reminded of what awaits us all.
We are reminded of the glory of God to come.
We are reminded to have faith and to trust in the promises.

This year, we have said goodbye to five people who were a part of this church family. In a few minutes we will light a candle in honor of each one of them as we remember that they are now a part of that cloud of witnesses who wait with us for the day of resurrection.

They join the countless other faithful who surround us with love and encouragement. They join the company of saints that we praise God with and that we feast with at every communion table. They join with those who have throughout history woven the fabric of our story – of our relationship with God.

I want each one of us to take those ribbons that we were handed this morning. These ribbons represent those saints in our lives who have and who continue to encourage us on in the faith. They are names that should be added to that list in Hebrews 11 – the names of people who took risks and showed us what trust was, people who taught us the faith, people who lived through tough times and survived, people who refused to give in, people who were kind to us when no one else was, people who believed in miracles.

Their stories are our stories. As we remember them, as we remember the promises that they trusted in, we find the strength to carry on.

Our table this morning is empty. The bread and the cup are here and are ready to be placed – but something else is missing. The stories of those who are also with us. The communion of the saints.

I want to invite you to come forward and to place your ribbon on the table. We are going to weave these names together into an altar cloth that will remind us every time we gather around the table that we do not gather alone.