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Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve

Posted on December 4, 2016Leave a comment

In the beginning…

Most years when we get to the season of Advent, we dive deep into the gospel texts. We want to hear about the shepherds and angels, about Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, the magi and the star.

Yet, as Heidi Haverkamp will share with us in this week’s reflections in her book “Advent in Narnia”, the medieval church also focused on Adam and Eve.

They went all the way back to the beginning to remember who we are and why God needed to come to redeem us. December 24^th was the feast day of Adam and Eve… a time to rehearse once again the story of the creation and the fall.

And that tradition continued in the seasonal Lessons and Carols of Kings College… which will be presented next Sunday at Simpson College. There, too, the story of love and light begins where it should… in the beginning.

In the first chapters of the book of Genesis, we find out who we are. We were created by God. We were created for relationship and to care for this world. And having been given the world, we want more, we desire more, we test our boundaries and more often than not… we cross them.

This is the human condition. It is our story.

And so maybe it is not so surprising that when the Pevensie children stumble into Narnia and the magical creatures of the land discover these humans, they are called the “Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve”.

They, and we, are full of goodness and knowledge and love.

Last week, we met Lucy, the youngest child whose heart is full of longing and hope. Her love was so strong that it cut through the fear of Mr. Tumnus and helped to transform his life.

The prophecies of Narnia talk about how these four children will bring hope to the land and break the power of the White Witch…

But they, and we, are also full of temptation, mistakes, and sin.

The next child who makes his way into the wardrobe has a much different experience.

Edmund is the next youngest and he often feels left out and unappreciated. He is jealous and hurt and when he finds himself in Narnia the first to cross his path is the White Witch.

We find in their encounter a parallel to our story in Genesis chapter 3 this morning.

First, there is this figure that is on the edges of our main characters story… a figure that at first seems completely neutral.

On the one hand, we have the serpent, the craftiest and most intelligent of all the creatures who strikes up a conversation with Eve. The serpent asks questions, raises intrigue, and starts Eve wandering about that tree in the middle of the garden.

The White Witch is beautiful, arrives on a sleigh and plies Edmund with warm beverages and questions. She invites him up onto her sleigh and tempts him with his favorite treat: Turkish Delight.

Both are lured in by what is pleasing to the eye and good to eat…

But even more than that, they are both lured by the possibility of what might away it they say yes.

Eve is told by the serpent that she will not die as she supposes, but she will become like God – knowing good and evil. All of creation is at her fingertips, and yet she longs for the one thing that has not been given to her. She is not satisfied with the blessings that surround her.

Edmund is likewise tempted by power… and a life apart from his siblings. “It is a lovely place, my house,” said the Queen. “I’m sure you would like it. There are whole rooms of Turkish Delight…. I want a nice boy whom I could bring up as a Prince and who would be King of Narnia when I’m gone.” As the youngest son, he glimpses in this offer approval and power, love and prestige… to finally have the chance to lord it over his brothers and sisters.

Overcome by the temptation, he agrees to lure his siblings to the palace.

And like Adam and Eve, as soon as Edmund is away from the witch and realizes what he has done, he begins to be filled with shame.

He encounters Lucy in the woods, who tells him the truth about the White Witch and he begins to feel sick to his stomach… That, and he ate too much Turkish Delight.

As we continue our story over the coming weeks, we will experience Edmund’s journey. He will make more mistakes.

Like any good Christmas movie, there has to be a bad guy… a Scrooge, a spinster, a grouch…

But eventually Edmund will experience mercy and forgiveness, life and love. The delight of a Hallmark Christmas move is to watch that characters life turn around. Scrooge finds his generosity. The Grinch’s heart grows. A prodigal son returns home.

We are the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. We have an infinite capacity for good and for evil residing in our souls.

Maybe that is why some of our most popular Christmas songs ask us to reflect upon the state of our souls.

“He’s making a list and checking it twice, Gonna find out whose naughty and nice….

He sees you when you’re sleepin’ He knows when you’re awake.

He knows if you’ve been bad or good… so be good for goodness sake.”

The truth is, we are both.

We are simultaneously sinners and saints.

Our lives are full of mistakes and missteps, but also acts of kindness and generosity.

We are tempted by the glitz and glam and our comfort zones, but occasionally find our way out to be in real relationship with people who are struggling.

The reality of our souls is not as simple as making a list of who is good and who is bad.

And the good news is that while we were yet sinners… while we were still weak… while we are this complicated jumble of goodness and evil… God entered our lives to redeem all of the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve

As we sing in “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” we yearn for the Christ Child to be born in our midst to cast out the sin of our lives. We yearn for new life, for joy, for an end to the tears and the loneliness and the pain.

This season is about transformation and embracing what is good and holy and pure… letting go of the past that has haunted us.

God has come to offer us mercy and forgiveness and life abundant.

Thanks be to God.

Livin’ on the Edge

Posted on November 27, 2016Leave a comment

This morning, we are hanging out in liminal space…

That’s a funny word isn’t it… liminal….

Say it with me… liminal.

It comes from Latin and means “threshold.” It is the space in between. It is transitional.

Our country is in that liminal space between an election and the swearing in of a new president.

The United Methodist Church is in a liminal space – knowing that we can’t be what we were and aren’t yet sure what we might become.

Many of us are in personal liminal spaces… a time of discomfort, of waiting, of transformation. We are experiencing transitions in relationship statuses, or maturing from childhood to adulthood. We are waiting for test results that might forever change our world or experiencing losses that already have.

The theologian Richard Rohr describes liminality this way:

It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer.

Or, if you’d prefer the theologians Aerosmith:

There’s something wrong with the world today

I don’t know what it is Something’s wrong with our eyes

We’re seeing things in a different way

And god knows it ain’t his

It sure ain’t no surprise

Livin’ on the edge

Every single one of us is dealing with something in our personal lives that looms large on the edges. Job insecurity. Financial woes. Racism. Personal loss. Illness. Depression. Sexism. Addiction. Work or School stress. Bullying.

Whatever it might be for you… It’s there on the edges.

We don’t talk about it… but it’s there.

And it was there for Edmund, Peter, Lucy, and Susan in the Chronicles of Narnia.

As we enter this Advent and then Christmas season and beyond, we are going to be following these four children in this magical land and hear what the author C.S. Lewis has to teach us about what it means to be people of faith in tough times.

And the story starts with this magical threshold… this doorway between two worlds that the littlest girl Lucy discovers.

We focus on the magic of that doorway… but what we sometimes overlook is the difficulty that brought all of the characters to this place in this time.

These children are in a liminal space.

The story is set during the middle of the London Blitz of World War II. Their home in the city was no longer safe. Like children in Aleppo, in Syria, today, every day they lived in terror that a bomb would drop on top of their home or school or the hospitals.

Yet these children were able to make it out of the city. They were sent away to the countryside, sent away from their parents, into a big lonely house.

Everything they knew was in turmoil… and they didn’t yet know what might happen on the other side of the war.

This summer, as we preached through the prophets, we heard the passage we shared this morning from Isaiah. About the people who lived in the land of deep darkness.

Those who lived in the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali knew what it meant to live through wars and conflict. Their tribal home had been ravaged for so long that they didn’t know what hope was anymore.

There’s something wrong with the world today

The lightbulb’s gettin’ dimmed

There’s meltdown in the sky

If you can judge a wise man

By the color of his skin

Then mister, you’re a better man than I

Livin’ on the edge

Right there… on the edge… where hope had ceased and the shadows seemed longer and longer, light was promised.

Those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.

And so in the midst of this liminal season of her life, Lucy hides in a closet and discovers a magical doorway between worlds.

She finds herself in a forest, surrounded by snow, and she sees a light shining in the distance.

It is a lamppost.

A light shining on the edge.

“It is a beacon in the face of the dark, cold spell that lies on the land,” writes the author of our devotion Advent in Narnia.

Both lands. All lands.

London and Narnia. Syria and Israel. The United States. The World.

The lamppost, which stands there at the boundary between Narnia and the “wild woods of the west” remains shining in the darkness. The power of the white witch who has taken over Narnia… the darkness of despair, sin, and death which threatens to overtake our lives… it cannot put that light out. It shines. Always has… always will.

As we will hear read on Christmas Eve, the gospel of John reminds us that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.

And we hear… that the people loved the darkness more than the light.

As the Message puts it… the light entered the world “and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to his own people and they didn’t want him.”

In the midst of our story of light, we are reminded that that we are human.

It is so often our sin that is the cause of the world’s darkness.

Hatred and greed. Nationalism and pride. Consumer impulses that fail to recognize the cost to others and this planet.

That is why we are reminded in the gospel of Luke that the door is narrow and few will enter it.

Mr. Tumnus is the perfect example of this reality. He is working for the witch, even though he knows it is wrong because he is too afraid to do otherwise.

We are too struck by the darkness.

We are too consumed with ourselves.

Something right with the world today

And everybody knows it’s wrong

But we can tell ’em no

Or we could let it go

But I would rather be a hanging on

Livin’ on the edge

My colleague Dan Dick has some challenging words for people of faith right now. He writes as Advent begins:

Do we need a Savior? Do we need a Messiah? Yes, oh yes, but we really don’t want one – not if he/she is going to expect us to live up to our confession of faith. If we have to honor the promises made for us at baptism and the promises we have made ourselves since then, well…, we will take a pass on the Messiah, thank you very much… we really can’t afford/tolerate the Son of God coming to mess things up. (https://doroteos2.com/2016/11/26/wanted-savior-some-experience-required/)

We have a chance to say goodbye to the darkness and let go of our own sin and anger, disappointment and loss, frustration and hatred and focus on the light, the hope, the love, the promises of God.

There is light and right and good in this world… if only we would open our eyes to see it, open our hearts to experience it… open our hands to live it.

There is something so right in this world today and we are too scared, fearful, consumed to believe it!

But as Jesus instructs the people in chapter 13 of Luke’s gospel – unless you change your hearts and lives… unless you repent… unless you turn away from the darkness you will never enter that narrow door.

Mr. Tumnus was out there in the liminal space… hanging out by the lamppost.

We don’t know what brought him to that moment, but what we do know is that in the story, he finds a child.

A child that offers him hope and light, love and forgiveness.

A child that gives him the courage to turn away from the shadows.

This Advent season, we have a chance to enter that narrow door.

We have a chance to enter that liminal space of transformation.

Friends, all I ask is that you open yourself to the possibility.

I ask that you step outside of your comfort zone.

I pray that you will enter and journey in Narnia with me this season.

Come live on the edge. Come experience the light. Come and wait for the coming of our savior.

It just might change your life.

Never Go Hungry

Posted on November 21, 2016Leave a comment

We are gathered here tonight, as one community of faith, to give thanks.

Throughout this month, I’ve been preaching about gratitude and giving thanks and one of the things that we have highlighted is that God wants us to give thanks for the differences among us. It is only by being grateful for someone you disagree with that you can ever move beyond those differences into community.

And our three churches probably don’t agree on everything. I think that’s a good thing. We all play a different role in this great big body of Christ. And we choose to view one another not as competitors, but as partners in the amazing mission and ministry of God in this world.

For that, I’m grateful.

We choose to gather around this time of year in particular because of our national celebration of Thanksgiving.

While the fuller history of this gathering is far more checkered and controversial, one thing is certain… there were at least three days of community and peace between the pilgrims at Plymouth and the Wampanoag Nation (Wahmp – uh nahg). The colonists had barely survived the first winter and it was only through the charity and hospitality of these Wampanoag people that this feast occurred. They made sure that they would not go hungry.

Our scriptures call us back to an earlier time of Thanksgiving, however.

Gary Roth draws the connection between the early pilgrims, dependent upon the mercy of the native peoples and the Israelites, who were utterly dependent upon the grace and mercy of God.

As our text from Deuteronomy reminds us – “My father was a wandering Aramean…” The Israelites were brutally oppressed in Egypt, and God heard their cries of distress. They were led out of the land of Egypt, sustained by daily bread from heaven, and eventually came to the land promised to them by the Lord. God made sure that they would not go hungry.

And these Israelites were called to give thanks and to remember that the land and everything it produced was a gift from God.

The first fruits of the land were set aside as an offering of thanks and the people were called to celebrate their blessings and to share them with all.

We, too, are utterly dependent upon God.

And we, too, have been blessed.

As Jesus reminds us in the gospel of John, those Israelites wandering in the desert relied upon manna, bread from heaven to sustain them daily.

We like to imagine that we are self-sufficient and don’t need anyone’s help, but that simply is not true.

Every breath of air that fills our lungs is a gift from God.

Every ray of sunshine and drop of rain that nurtures our crops is a gift from God.

Every grain of wheat is a gift from God.

And so is the bread of life… the love and mercy of God… the incarnation and death and resurrection of Jesus that provided the gift that none of us could even imagine… true life, eternal life, life with God.

Because of God, we will never go spiritually hungry. And so we must give thanks.

The question is, what does a thankful life look like?

What does it mean to live in gratitude, knowing that is only by God’s grace we are sustained?

In Deuteronomy, we discover that one way to live in gratitude is to pay the gift forward again and again.

The Israelites remembered that their father was a wandering Aramean… and then they looked out at the immigrants and refugees who were among them and shared the first fruits with those in need.

The book of Leviticus is full of instructions to leave the gleanings of the harvest and the edges of the field for those who were in need.

We live out our thanksgiving by making sure that others have enough.

Enough food.

Enough water.

Enough grace.

Enough love.

Whether it is spiritual or physical bread… God invites us to share it with others as a mark of our gratitude.

Talk about the DMARC / CWS offering for the Karin people… A Christian community from Myanmar/Burma that has found a home and a refuge here in the greater Des Moines area.

We can give thanks today by sharing God’s love and mercy and physical sustenance with these immigrants and refugees in our community. We can make sure that they will never go hungry.

But we also are challenged to think about sustaining gifts that go beyond immediate needs and create life-sustaining conditions. So the CWS offering will go to help the communities in Myanmar that are most at risk so that they don’t have to flee their homeland in the first place.

Let us give thanks to the Lord for all of our blessings.

And let us never cease to pass them on to others.

Amen.

Transferred into the Kingdom

Posted on November 20, 2016Leave a comment

Over the last two weeks in worship, we have talked extensively about how we should give thanks for one another…

Because of our differences, we give thanks.

We gave thanks as we broke bread together.

We gave thanks around the waters of baptism.

We should give thanks always and everywhere for the people of this world who help us claim our inheritance, who help us overcome division, and who teach us how to practice what is true and holy, just and pure.

Today, we explore one more of Paul’s letters.

Today, we are reminded to give thanks to God who is the reason we all share in the Kingdom.

Let us pray:

This past week, the annual Bucksbaum Lecture at Drake University was given by Krista Tippet.

Many of my Sunday mornings, as I drive in to church, I listen to her broadcast, “On Being,” and I listen as she asks people from all sorts of traditions and backgrounds what it means to be human.

Recently, I picked up a copy of her book, “Becoming Wise,” and like she starts so many of her interviews, she starts by exploring her own background and faith tradition.

One of the interesting things about Tippet’s story is that she served as an aide to the American ambassador in Germany while it was divided.

She writes:

More riveting to me in the end than the politics of Berlin was the vast social experiment its division had become. One people, one language and history and culture, were split into two radically opposing worldviews and realities, decades entrenched by the time I arrived. I loved people on both sides of the Wall that wound through the heart of the city.

I keep thinking about the division of Berlin… the division of Germany after WWII… and the division of our own nation in this moment.

Especially in regards to our letter from Paul this morning.

As Paul writes to the Colossians, Gentiles who lived in what is now modern-day Turkey, he writes to encourage them in their faith… to help them grow into this new relationship they have found with Jesus.

And as Paul talks about the transition, the shift they have experienced in their life by accepting Jesus, he uses this really interesting phrase.

God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. (1:13)

Transferred us into the Kingdom.

As Neta Pringle describes this word – transferred, she writes that:

His image conjures up pictures of refugees, rounded up after battle and taken to the victor’s land, of Israelites marched far from home to live in Babylon – a kingdom so different, so far from home in both geography and style. Here the rules are different, the ruler is different. All assumptions about the way in which life goes on – indeed about its very meaning- are different. (Feasting on the Word)

Transferred into the Kingdom… much like those who found themselves on the eastern side of the wall in Berlin suddenly found themselves living in a different country, under different rules.

Transferred into the Kingdom… much like after an election a nation wakes up to a world where different people are in charge and different priorities come to the front.

You don’t always have to physically shift your location to feel like the world has changed all around you. For better or for worse.

Except, Paul is not writing here about a temporary shift in power that comes and goes with various political leaders and world events.

Paul is writing about a cosmic shift…

God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.

And not just the people of Paul’s day and time. Not just the Colossians, or the Ephesians, the Philippians, or the Romans.

All of us.

We have been rescued from the powers of evil, sin, and death.

We all have been transferred into the kingdom of forgiveness, redemption, and life.

Thanks be to God.

Today in worship, we celebrate that Christ is King. That he is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.

We celebrate that through his death on the cross, the blood of Jesus rescued humanity from its captivity to the powers of this world.

In the cross, in the resurrection, Jesus declared victory over the powers over evil, injustice, and oppression.

And friends, in that great and glorious act, we have been transferred into God’s kingdom.

We have been transferred into the Rule and the Reign of God.

We are no longer merely citizens of this place, of Iowa, of the United States… Jesus is Lord.

Thanks be to God!

To emphasize this new reality, Paul continues his letter by breaking out into song.

While we don’t know the melody, while it isn’t a familiar tune to our ears, these lyrics in Paul’s letter would have been as familiar to the Colossians as Amazing Grace is to us.

They might have even started singing along.

And this song reminds the people in familiar words that when we look at Jesus, we see God.

They remind the people that in Christ all things in heaven and on earth were made.

They remind these new citizens of God’s kingdom that everything… every nation, every King or President, every Prime Minister or Governor, every Mayor and every Councilperson… everything is from God and finds purpose in God.

From the clouds in the sky to the microorganisms in the dirt beneath our feet, God in Christ holds everything together.

And Jesus is in charge of it all.

From beginning to end, Alpha and Omega, this kingdom will never end.

Thanks be to God!

And like any change in leadership… whether temporal or heavenly… the rules under which we live change a bit.

So this letter to the Colossians is a reminder that them and us that we are called to grow in love and faith.

Paul encourages us to bear fruit in every good work and grow in the knowledge of God.

And we are reminded that just because Christ has already won, does not mean that evil death and sin are forever gone. Paul’s letter, in fact, is full of the reminder that we will be made strong in Christ and is meant to help us endure with patience the trials and tribulations that will come.

That is why when we gather around the baptismal font and we welcome new ones into our midst we make these familiar pledges:

We pledge to renounce the spiritual forced of wickedness and evil powers of this world.

We repent of our sin.

We accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice and oppression, in whatever forms they present themselves.

And we must hold one another accountable to the rules of God’s kingdom.

All because we confess Jesus Christ as our Savior.

All because we promise to serve him as our Lord.

When Krista Tippett talks about life in Berlin, she also talks about the day the wall came down. It was her twenty-ninth birthday.

She writes that “no one imagined that it could fall or the Iron Curtain crumble…. The wall finally collapsed with a whimper, not a bang, as fear lifted all at once from an entire nation. I had walked through Checkpoint Charlie hundreds of times, respecting its absurdity as authority. On the night the Wall fell… the entire city walked joyfully through it. The border guards joined them. It was truly nearly that simple.”

While we live under the rule and the reign of Jesus Christ, we work and pray for the day when all people will joyfully walk through the walls of division and hatred.

We work and pray for the day when fear is lifted for all people.

We work and pray for the moment when the powers of this world that keep us apart let go of their last grasp upon our hearts and we are finally free to simply be in Christ.

And until then… we live as people who see all things and all people in their true light… as the ones who already belong to Jesus.

Thanks be to God.

Practice These Things…

Posted on November 13, 2016Leave a comment

Last week, we broke bread in spite of our differences.

We shared at the table of the Lord with people who would vote differently than us and with some who would not or could not vote at all.

And we touched [will touch] the waters of baptism and remember our baptism in Christ and that we are all children of God.

And we did so because our heritage… our inheritance as a church… our tradition as people of God… is to overcome any division among us.

Paul exemplified this in the way he gave thanks for the Gentiles in Ephesus… in spite of the vast sea of differences between them.

In today’s scripture reading, Paul is writing to a different community… to the people of Philippi in Greece.

This, too, was a diverse community, and one of the interesting features is that there were many descendants of Roman army veterans living there.

Later on this morning, we will share together in a potluck meal and celebrate and honor our veterans… all of those who have faithfully served our country, who sacrificed in countless ways for us. Every step of the way, they put the rights, the lives, the needs of other people above their own.

I believe that self-giving spirit… that spirit of love that would cause someone to lay down their life for another person… is part of what has made our country great. We don’t sit back when people are in need, but we show up. We have showed up to fight back tyrants and dictators, oppression and evil… and not always because it was on our doorstep, but because it was on the doorsteps of others.

All throughout the letter to the Philippians, you can see that kind of self-giving spirit we honor in our veterans. Practice these things… practice that holy, radical, sacrificial love… Paul writes.

And yet, the context of Philippi was very different. This was the site, if you appreciate history, where Brutus and Cassius were finally defeated by the armies of Marc Antony. And much of the land was taken away from the original inhabitants and given to the soldiers and their families as a reward.

This was a place of division, dislocation, and disparity and the gospel of Jesus Christ took root in the people who were the most vulnerable in this community.

For some, everything had been taken away from them: their citizenship, their land… everything that made them who they were.

Until they found their identity in Christ.

And as Paul writes this letter of encouragement to these displaced people, that identity, that love, that faith is what he reminds them of over and over again.

In chapter 3 he writes: “All these things were my assets, but I wrote them off as a loss for the sake of Christ. But even beyond that, I consider everything a loss in comparison with the superior value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost everything for him, but what I lost I think of as sewer trash, so that I might gain Christ and be found in him.”

These are not empty words of someone who had privilege… as Paul was. As a Roman citizen, he had rights that many of them had just recently lost and this might have felt like salt thrown onto open wounds…

Except, Paul really did let go of all of his power and privilege for the sake of the gospel.

This letter is being written from a jail cell – because Paul is awaiting trial for preaching the good news of Jesus Christ.

He is living out with his very life every word he writes on the page… including the call to “adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus: though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (2:5-8)

Practice these things…

In every part of this letter, Paul reminds the church at Philippi to put others ahead of themselves. To love fiercely, in spite of what might happen. To overcome conflict and difference, anger and fear.

And friends, that’s not easy.

When there are deep divisions in a community it is easy to hunker down with people who are like-minded, to grumble and argue, to weep and be overcome with discouragement or to hold our victories over one another.

But Paul tells us to be grateful.

Paul tells us to rejoice.

Paul tells us to let love reign in our hearts.

The key to unity we heard last week… the key to overcoming division… is gratitude for the people who are different than us.

It is echoed all throughout this letter, too.

“Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.” (2:2-4)

And in our scripture this morning, from the Message translation:

Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. (4:4-5)

Friends, I need you to know that there is real pain and fear across this nation right now.

There have been acts of hate and violence and aggression in our communities and neighborhoods. And in this neighborhood, there are families who fear they will be separated and there are people who have been targeted because of their gender, or sexual orientation, religion or ethnicity, or even because of the clothes they are wearing. I cannot and will not utter the hateful and horrendous words that have been used to diminish the value of our neighbors.

There have also been acts of violence as a part of generally peaceful protests and marches.

So I need you to know that I am not calling for a unity that blissfully ignores conflict.

Paul is not calling for a unity that ignores the trials and tribulations of our brothers and sisters and siblings OR neglects truth-telling and accountability.

Paul is in prison because he refused to be silent… because he challenged the powers-that-be with the radical love and gospel of Jesus Christ.

No, the type of unity Paul speaks of is a unity of resistance against the forces of this world that seek death, division, oppression, and hatred.

Paul calls us to “be blameless and pure, innocent children of God surrounded by people who are crooked and corrupt. Among these people you shine like stars in the world because you hold on to the word of life.” (2:15-16)

Stand firm in your faith, in spite of your enemies.

Be united in love and compassion.

Be united against injustice.

Be united against hateful rhetoric.

Be united in protection of the most vulnerable.

Put into practice all that we have learned from Paul – and won’t worry about it, don’t be paralyzed by fear, but lift up petitions and supplications and praises to God.

As Paul writes to the people of Phillipi:

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse… (4:8)

So let me close by telling you a story… a first-hand account from a Muslim woman:

Yesterday my husband and I attended a football game, it was Duhur time and we needed to pray.

Finding a place to pray at a football stadium is tough, but we managed to find an empty corner.

I was a bit nervous to pray because it wasn’t private at all, particularly in front of everyone, maybe i’m silly but i’m always paranoid i will get attacked while focused in prayer. My husband started praying and i get approached by stadium security.

I thought in my head, here comes this guy, he’s gonna escort me out and tell us we can’t do this here.

I was wrong…

he came up to me and said “i am going to stand here and guard you guys to make sure nobody gives you any problems, go ahead and pray.”

He allowed us to pray and stood in front guarding us to make sure we are safe. When i finished he came up to us shook our hands and told us to enjoy the game.

The key to unity… the key to overcoming division… is gratitude for the people who are different than us.

The key to unity is to listen with grateful ears the stories of another person… even if it is a story of hurt and fear and pain… it is holding open spaces for people when they are scared… standing by their side when they are in pain.

The key to unity is to seek out someone who is different from you and to tell your story – even if it causes conflict BECAUSE we are grateful they are part of our community and because we want to continue to be in relationship with them.

The key to unity is to practice what is good and true and holy… putting others before yourself and giving thanks to God that they are in your life…

May it be so.

The Electoral College… a view from 17 year old me.

Posted on November 11, 20161 Comment

My husband and I were talking about the electoral college and our shared frustrations about it. I’ve felt this way for a very very long time. The following is a letter I sent to Senator Grassley in the spring of 1999… and I still had a copy of it saved on my computer! That summer I would gain the right to vote. That fall, I would cast my vote for George W. Bush, who won the election not because he won the popular vote, but because he won the electoral college. Even having had my candidate succeed, I still disagreed with how it came to happen. And I felt that way as a resident of a “sparsely populated state.” I’m in a different place today than I was then and support different political perspectives… and can’t help but call back to this letter when, yet again, a candidate has lost the popular vote, but won the electoral college.

March 21, 1999

Dear Senator Grassley,

In the fall of 2000, millions of Americans across the nation will be going to the polls to cast their vote for the next President. I am lucky enough to be one of those individuals who will be voting for the first time. Nothing excites me more than the opportunity to participate in one of the most essential elements in a democracy… the right to vote. I have already begun looking at candidates and deciding which one I think best represents my opinions and moral views. Just when I was getting into it, I realized I was wrong. I will not be voting for a President on November 7, 2000. Rather, I will be voting for a list of citizens who have ‘dedicated’ themselves to a particular candidate or party. I will be voting for electors in the Electoral College.

I had always believed that living in a democracy we should all have the right to vote, and that we should all be represented equally. I was extremely disappointed when I realized that this is not so. “The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address… can only mean one thing- one person, one vote” (Braun and Longley 15). This statement, made in the Gray vs. Sanders case, was what I had always envisioned democracy to be. One person, one vote. After all, we are a government of, by, and for the people. Why is it then that we must have this intermediate stage of the Electoral College? Not only is this process outdated but the small states actually have an advantage in many situations. Another aspect, called the unit system, is unrepresentative of the people’s vote. The current way that we elect our Presidents needs to be reformed or abolished.

The Electoral College was “merely a jerry-rigged improvisation…” says John P. Roche (qt. in Braun and Longley 22). It was the second choice to many from its creation. Some believed that Congress should elect the President and some thought that the direct vote of the people was the right way (Peirce 41). Nevertheless, at that time, the people of the United States were spread out and did not have means of communication. In fact, the candidates could not campaign because it would have taken years to inform the country about their stance, therefore, citizens were incompetent to elect a President. This was the reason that in that time, the elector system seemed to be the best plan. In today’s technological world, information travels around the world instantaneously and we are competent to make our own decisions. “What really moved the delegates to accept [it]… were certain practical considerations dictated not by political ideals but by the social realities of the time- realities that no longer exist” (Braun 25).

One of the biggest compromises in the Electoral College was over the populated states vs. sparse states controversy. The following are three ways in which the sparse states have gained not only equal footing, but also an advantage over populated states. In the original plan, formed by members of a special committee, the states would receive electors according to the number of representatives from both the House and the Senate. This benefited the sparse states because whereas Vermont would have had a 1:4 ratio vote with West Virginia based on population alone, the addition of the two votes made the ratio 3:6, or 1:2. Also, the national average for people per electoral vote is 333,314; however, some less populated states like Alaska and South Dakota have 75,389 and 170,129 respectively. Meanwhile, Kentucky and California are getting the short end of the stick because they have 337,573 and 392,930 respectively (Peirce 263).

Another aspect that the committee decided on was what to do if there was not a majority of votes for any given candidate. They concluded that the House of Representatives would decide the President. To protect the sparse states, each state only had one vote, regardless of population. Then they were on equal footing with the populated states and could not be outvoted.

One of the major concerns of sparse states is that if the Electoral College is changed, they will lose some of their edge and will not have any say in who gets to be President. The twelve largest states could indeed vote and take the election, but all of those states would have to agree unanimously with each other for that to happen. In the history of the United States, there has never been an instance where all of the sparse states were overruled by the populated states. No clear set of different interests has been shown in relation to size. Most of the disagreements are over ideas, economics, and regional issues. One politician has called it the “Great Irrelevancy” (Peirce 262). The truth of the matter is that if we did not have the Electoral College system, we would not even have to worry about what state a person was from. It would be one person, one vote.

One of the most undemocratic aspects of the entire Electoral College is the unit voting system. All of the states except for Maine are currently running under a system that gives all of the state’s electoral votes to the candidate with the state’s majority and none to any of the other candidates. In the 1960 election, Kennedy and Nixon won the two states of New York (45 votes) and California (32 votes) respectively. Although both of these individuals had nearly the same percentage in each state, Kennedy had a larger lead with seven votes, simply because he won the larger state (Peirce 138).

Candidates can easily gain votes by trying to look appealing to a certain group of people: a minority, special interest, or lobbyist group. These organized groups have immense bargaining power, especially in those large states with so many electoral votes at risk. They can dominate presidential campaigns, and invite fraud, corruption, illegal fundraising and such tactics to come into our governmental system (Peirce 152).

Another thing that the Electoral College unit system does is discourage voters from going to the polls. In “safe states” or states where there is an overwhelming majority of a party, either democratic or republican, why would someone want to vote? All of the votes of his state are going to the candidate anyway, so why vote? Furthermore, the party that is in the minority may not feel the need to vote because their votes will not count in the Electoral College. They will end up adding votes to the candidate they were voting against (Politics 94). In fact, from 1908-1945, 372 million votes were cast for presidential candidates. Forty-four percent of those votes, or 163 million, were minority votes that did not count (Peirce 138).

The unit system was added to the 14^th Amendment of the Constitution, but 13 states asked the Supreme Court to look over this system again and require the states to split their electoral votes to reflect the population (Peirce 190). According to this plan, the votes would be divided in each state according to the popular vote (Braun 49). It is an easily comprehendible solution, and at least two parties are encouraged in each state because the votes for minor parties are reflected. In addition, there would be less fraud because you would limit the power of organized minorities or interest groups (Braun 54). However, if we are going to change it this much, why not change it all the way?

The current way that we elect our Presidents needs to be reformed or abolished. Some will say, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” What they do not see is the imminent danger that occurs when there is a close election, like in 1992 where there were three major candidates (Carey). In the elections where a candidate had a 3% or less advantage on the opponent, 30% of the time, he was not elected. According to some experts, there is no better than a 50/50 chance that the President will be the candidate who won the popular vote (Goldstein 34). This is all due to the Electoral College. It was created as a compromise, but is now outdated. The sparse states are given too much power, when we should all be equal. The way that the electoral votes are given to the candidate is unrepresentative of the people in each state. Is this a system that you are willing to allow continue? Am I supposed to just sit back and let others decide for me, or will I actually be able to choose who the next President is? I urge you to bring this to the attention of others. It’s time for a change. It’s time to let the people vote.

Sincerely,

Katie Ziskovsky

From Everywhere to Everywhere

Posted on November 10, 2016Leave a comment

My sermon from the Thanksgiving Ingathering on November 5

This quadrennium, I have the honor of serving on our General Board of Global Ministries:

Tell about opening worship – reading the names of the missionaries who have died. Very white, anglo sounding names.

But that evening, I met missionaries who reminded me that the focus of our global ministries has truly shifted. Katherine fits that traditional model and is from California. She has served through Global Ministries in a variety of far flung places including Japan, Iowa, and now Nepal.

But Alina is a native Bolivian and she is serving in Nicaragua on behalf of Global Ministries.

Luis is from Brazil and will be heading up the new regional Mission Center in Buenos Aires.

Another leader from Brazil will work with the new regional Mission Center in Africa focusing on Portuguese speaking countries.

I also heard there will be an African who speaks Japanese who will serve in the new Mission Center in Seoul, South Korea… although I didn’t get to meet him.

Mande Muyombo is from Katanga, DRC and is the executive Director of the new Global Ministries Connections.

As he wrote earlier this year:

“The theology of our regional structure is based on our sense of mission “from everywhere to everywhere”—while recognizing the shift of Christianity’s center of gravity. Mission used to be thought of as coming from the center (churches in developed countries) and going to the peripheries (people in developing countries). But our sense today is that there isn’t a center anymore—that doing mission lies in mutuality, looking at each other as equal partners and learning from one another. Our heritage from the Wesleyan movement tells us that God’s grace is everywhere and everyone shares in it.” (http://um-insight.net/in-the-church/umc-global-nature/no-center-no-periphery-a-regional-approach-to-mission/)

From everywhere… to everywhere…

Fundamental to the shift in our global ministries is the recognition of prevenient grace.

The idea that God is moving in our lives long before we know who or what God is.

The idea that grace and truth, beauty and holiness, forgiveness and love are not gifts we enlightened people bring to the heathens, but that we can discover God’s work in the midst of people we meet… whether or not they know God, yet.

I think the shift we are experiencing in mission is paralleled in Paul’s ministry in Athens.

As we start the scripture reading today, he is preaching and sharing the good news of Jesus on the streets. And the people don’t get it and they don’t get him.

What is interesting is how the Common English Bible translates this passage… “they took him into custody” like they really don’t get him. Paul is trying to shove something foreign down their throats.

Some translations say they take him, or brought him, others that they asked him, but if you look to the original Greek the word is “epilambanomai” – to lay hold of or to seize. It’s the same word used when Simon the Cyrene was forced to carry Jesus’ cross… and the same word used twice as Jesus grabs hold of someone to rebuke or challenge and heal them.

There is a sense in which Paul is not taken to Mars Hill by choice.

He is taken to the council and he is placed in the middle of the people… (again, this can be translated as either a forceful or wilful act)… and I want you to imagine a light bulb going off above Paul’s head.

Because his language shifts.

He realizes that speaking of foreign things isn’t making and impact.

He starts to contextualize the good news of Jesus Christ.

He recalls an altar he saw, “To an unknown God” and uses that altar… in a city filled with idols… to begin explaining the God he has come to know.

“What you worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you… God made the nations so they would seek him, perhaps even reach out to him and find him. In fact, God isn’t far away from any of us. In God we live, move, and exist.”

In our Wesleyan heritage, the idea of prevenient grace is that it goes before us. God’s grace is all around us. In God, we live, move, and exist. Even if we don’t know it yet. And by grace, some of us reach out and find God.

But there is another side to prevenient grace… that God doesn’t just sit back and wait to be found, but actively seeks us.

We are about to enter the season of Advent… a time of dual purpose where we both remember the coming of Christ into this world as a child and look ahead to the second coming of Christ into our midst.

God seeks us.

God enters our lives and our stories.

God takes on our flesh.

God speaks our words and breathes our air and tells stories about our lives.

The incarnation is as much a part of the good news as the resurrection.

And so Paul, at Mars Hill, adopted an incarnational ministry and spoke the words of the people, pointed to their objects, entered their stories, and saw God.

Or as he writes in 1 Corinthians: “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews… to the weak, I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Cor 9:20-22)

Alan Roxburgh and Scott Boren, in “Introducing the Missional Church,” claim this is the same type of ministry Jesus commissioned the disciples for – sending them out in pairs into communities, inviting them to live deeply in the midst of strangers… eating what they eat, relying upon their customs and hospitality. It was incarnational ministry.

It is the life so many of our United Methodist missionaries take on – going from everywhere to everywhere.

The only question is… why do we set it aside as the work of our missionaries?

Why are we not living out the gospel in our communities in the same way?

Because if our call is really from everywhere to everywhere, then we become aware of the reality that our neighborhood is a mission field, too.

Corey Fields writes, “today, in the attractional model, the church expects the opposite. We program and advertise and try to do just the right thing that will compel others to come to us as the stranger on our turf. It is the church that is to go, however, taking on the flesh of its local context. In the words of Lesslie Newbigin, “If the gospel is to be understood…it has to be communicated in the language of those to whom it is addressed.” (http://soapboxsuds.blogspot.com/2013/05/taking-on-flesh-incarnational-theology.html )

Our churches need to learn more than we teach.

We need to listen more than we speak.

We need to go out into our neighborhoods more than we sit back and wait.

Because only by being present with our communities will we ever see how God is already present and how the people of this place live, move, and exist in God.

In my work so far with Imagine No Malaria and now with Global Ministries I am so proud of the fact that we do not seek to impose our ways upon communities, but partner with people and seek mutuality.

We no longer fly into a community and drop off bed nets then leave… we work with local leaders and build community health workers who can help us explore best practices, learn about customs, and ultimately be that incarnational presence on the ground long after an initial distribution of nets has occurred.

Those same community health workers were also then in place when the Ebola epidemic struck so many Western African countries and we were positioned to make a difference because of the relationships we had already established.

These kits we have collected today… they don’t always represent Western ways of doing things, but connect with the real lived needs of women and children across this world who are eager to learn, seeking healthy births, and who need very concrete resources to maintain health.

Yet, as we go forward, we even must be willing to explore and Global Ministries is currently evaluating how kits like the ones we have collected today can be more contextually relevant… maybe even by purchasing and assembling the kit materials in the places where they are needed to boost their local economies.

In the song we share together – We’ve a Story to Hear from the Nations” we hear these lyrics:

There’s a message we need in each nation,

That God, Creator of all

Is living in Christ among us

And breathing new life and hope.

From everywhere… to everywhere… God is present, God is living, God is breathing new life and hope.

Claiming Our Inheritance

Posted on November 6, 2016Leave a comment

When I came home from our United Methodist General Conference in May, I shared with you these words:

Over these last two weeks, we very nearly split our denomination into pieces. Our differences are stark. Our life together is marred by conflict as much as collaboration. And I’m going to be honest… I’m not quite sure yet what comes after General Conference.

I went on talk about why that was: how the source of dilemma lies in being a global church, in the way we make decisions, and the reality that we can’t agree on some fundamental basics of what it means to be church together, like what we mean by covenant or how we interpret scriptures.

This month, our bishops have not only announced the members of a special commission who will help us find a way forward, but they have also announced their intent to call a special session of General Conference in 2019… one year earlier than we would typically meet. The purpose will be to allow this commission to do their work and then the delegates of our last general conference will gather back together solely for the purpose of discussing and voting on their recommendations. Many imagine that if we cannot agree to a way to hold our differences in creative tension that our church will split at that time.

For the last few months, there has been a tension in my shoulders that I can’t quite shake.

I’m worried.

I’m worried for my country.

I’m worried for the United Methodist Church.

I’m worried for this church.

And the root of that worry is less about who wins on Tuesday or what kind of church we will be on the other side of 2019 or how many people stayed home from worship last weekend…

I worry about how we treat one another and whether or not we see the person sitting across from us as a person of inherent worth and dignity… and that we seem unable to set aside our thoughts and opinions for long enough to actually listen to the truth of another person.

I think the antidote to the worry we collectively are bearing might be found in our scripture this morning.

One of the radical messages of Ephesians that is lost to modern readers of the scriptures is the fact that Paul reaches out and give thanks for people who are outside of his faith.

Historically, the early church experienced great tensions between Jewish and Gentile followers of Christ. They had different backgrounds, different traditions and practices, and yet all claimed to have accepted the good news of God. There was infighting and arguments about who had to give up what part of their heritage in order to be part of the community.

And so when Paul, a Jewish scholar and leader of the church, writes to this Gentile community at Ephesus, it is remarkable that one of the first things he does is emphasize unity.

“We have obtained an inheritance”, Paul writes.

And then he goes a step farther… “I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.”

Paul specifically reaches out to people who are very different from him… people he has never even met before… and tells them that he is grateful for them.

This letter to the Ephesians is fundamentally about unity.

That is our glorious inheritance.

Unity with God in Jesus Christ.

Unity with the saints who have gone before us.

And unity with one another in this present moment.

And as Paul teaches us in these first few verses that you can’t have unity without gratitude.

As we light candles to remember the saints, we are reminded that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we remain connected and unified with all of those saints who have gone before us… and with all who will come after us.

As we break bread, we sing and feast with the saints. This meal is an act of unity. This meal and the hope it instills in our souls is our inheritance.

And as we remember, we give thanks for eight people from our congregation who died this past year: for Lois. Becky. Viola. Ruth. Gary. Mildred. Sharon. Marcia. Thank you, God.

But we also give thanks for the many people, friends and family, who have gone before us.

We give thanks for all of the saints who shaped our lives.

And we give thanks for the multitudes of saints and the historic church that is our foundation. When it feels like the weight of the world is upon our shoulders and that the church will live or die based upon our decisions, it is good to remember that God’s church has been around for two thousand years. It is built upon the prophets and the apostles. The church is far bigger than this congregation or even this denomination. And for that I give thanks…

And I also pray that we might claim this inheritance and that somehow we might be part of passing along this faith to generations yet to come.

Sarah Birmingham Drummond reminds us that the unity we experience is not only across time and generations, but also for this present moment. “Paul’s message of unity was radical in its day, as it suggest unity across divisions that were woven into the fabric of daily life. This suggests that the early church understood overcoming divisions to be part of its mandate.”

Let me repeat that.

The early church understood overcoming divisions to be part of its mandate.

After all, Paul was reaching out to people he didn’t have a whole lot in common with to give thanks. His letter reminded not only them, but also himself, of the unity of Christ that brings all of us together.

That is our inheritance, too.

Today, we will break bread not only with the saints, but also with people who will vote differently than us on Tuesday.

We worship every Sunday morning with people of different ages.

We worship with people who prefer different types of music.

We worship with early risers and people who long to sleep in on Sundays.

Yet overcoming division is part of our mandate as people of faith.

Being a people who overcome difference in order to be in community… that is our inheritance.

That is the faith that has been passed down from generation to generation.

No matter what happens on Tuesday.

No matter what happens in 2019 with our denomination.

No matter what tension we feel as a result of our worship times or classes or studies.

Our responsibility is to look around this room and to give thanks for each soul and get busy making a difference in this world.

That is the inheritance we can claim, right here and right now.

And we do so… we claim the inheritance of Jesus Christ across generations and across divisions because we believe that God’s mission is built upon a church united to transform this world.

Because we believe that God needs all of us… past, present, and future, to bring healing and hope to a broken people.

Because our differences are small when compared to the call God has upon our lives to claim our inheritance.

Because we believe in the immeasurable greatness of God’s power to truly make a difference… right here and right now.