salvagedfaith

The End of the World as we Know it.

Posted on May 1, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Revelation 1:4-8

“It’s the end of the world as we know it… .

It’s the end of the world as we know it…

And I feel fine.”

More than fine, actually.

I feel hope.

I feel promise.

I am clinging to the love of God that is bursting forth alive in this world!

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

As we journey together through this season of Easter, we are going to wade into the elusive and strange revelation shared by John of Patmos.

United Methodist pastor and theologian, Magrey DeVega writes that this book can be used “as a guide to experiencing the resurrected life. John’s vision allows us to see the world, the church, and the Christian life in the way God envisions it: not for how it is, but for how it can be.” (A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series, Vol. 2, p. 197).

The world as we know it, well, it is kind of a mess.

As we lifted up in prayer already this morning, it is a world filled with hunger, violence, oppression, death, disease, and inequality.

I can’t help but think of the opening of the seven seals in Revelation chapter 6, where four horsemen are unleashed with authority “to kill by sword, famine, disease, and the wild animals of the earth.” (6:8)

Persecution and natural disaster are close at hand (6:9-17).

We may not know where to start interpreting or unpacking the verses of these texts, but we don’t have to look far to see the realities they present in moments of crises all around us.

And you see… that is the thing about apocalyptic literature.

It is an unveiling of what is already there.

The Greek word apokaluptein literally means to uncover.

It means to pull back the curtains and let the light in.

It is not necessarily a prediction of the future.

The prophets of our Old and New Testaments spoke God’s truth and power into their time and place as they point to God’s intentions and will for our lives.

It is also a word from the one who is… and who was… and who is coming…

In that sense, they do point towards the future and the kind of actions and behaviors God is calling us to embody as we are formed into God’s people, made into a kingdom, set apart to serve.

The prophets tell us the truth about the world as it is and beckon us to leave it behind…

No, not just that… they promise us that God is in the business of transforming the world as we know it into a new reality, a new creation, a new life centered on God.

Sounds like an Easter kind of story to me.

So why all the strange images and numbers and blood and violence?

What are we supposed to do with all of the weird stuff that we find within the Book of Revelation?

I must confess that our series on Sunday mornings is not going to dive into all of the nitty gritty of every verse and metaphor and vision.

We will skip large sections of this book.

And part of the reason for that is that it would probably take us a couple of years to really take the time in worship to do this right.

But the other reason is that we don’t need all of the details about what this beast looks like or what is in the fourth bowl or what happens when the fourth trumpet sounds to understand the main point of the text.

As the authors of “Crazy Talk” describe it: “No matter how bad it gets, Christ has already emerged victorious and because you are joined in the body of Christ, you will emerge victorious as well.” (Crazy Talk: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Biblical Terms)

What I can do are give you some tools to help think about and interpret the things that we will encounter as we read this text.

The first tool that I want to give us is a key to decipher the meaning of the weird stuff that we find.

I want you to think of it like a political cartoon.

In newspapers today, you’ll find images of donkeys and elephants and those of us living in the United States today can understand that it is not about animals, but about people and positions.

Take for example this political cartoon from World War II.

It isn’t a literal depiction of a baby fighting a three headed giant… but depicts the U.S. as newly entering the war against the Axis powers, using the tools of our allies. We are familiar enough with the images and dates that we can interpret the meaning.

But if we were looking at a political cartoon from 100 years ago… or from Nigeria or New Zealand… we might have a harder time deciphering the meaning.

Philip Long writes that when we look at texts like Revelation, “we need to cross two different boundaries. We need to study the imagery in the proper time and in the proper culture… put it in the right era…. [and] know the cultural cues implied by the art.” (https://readingacts.com/2012/04/05/revelation-and-apocalyptic-imagery/)

Knowing that the book of Revelation is from the late first century, written on a Greek island in a time where Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire, we can start to unpack and interpret some of the vivid and dramatic imagery that we find.

Numbers, for example, have meaning.

The number seven represents completion or totality… the sum of all of the heavens (3) and earth (4)… like the seven days of creation

Twelve represents God’s people… three times four… like the twelve tribes of Israel or the twelve apostles.

We can start to see the beasts as the empire of Rome and its allies and the throne is about where power ultimately resides.

The second tool I want to give you is an orientation in time.

I brought with me this morning a commentary on the book of Revelation that lays out at least four different ways that you can approach this text and then provides at least four different interpretations of a verse based on which approach you are taking.

How many of us here have read “The Late Great Planet Earth” or the “Left Behind” series?

Those authors and some preachers that you might have heard on the t.v. or radio, have a future orientation to the Book of Revelation. They believe that it predicts things that will happen, but haven’t yet.

Or maybe that are happening as we speak.

But just as I wouldn’t take that political cartoon from WWII and use the metaphorical imagery to speak of future events, I don’t think this is the orientation we should take towards Revelation.

It might sell, but I’m not sure that it is truly faithful to the text.

And neither do the leading people who study the Book of Revelation.

In his book “Making Sense of the Bible”, Adam Hamilton writes:

“I’ve got ten commentaries on Revelation in my library, written by some of the foremost scholars to study this book, and every one of them holds some combination of the preterist and idealist perspectives. This is in stark contrast to the views of most television evangelists and many conservative preachers, who favor the futurist view. Most mainline scholars see the book as describing events of the author’s day.” (p.285).

Now, he just threw some big words at us, but the “spiritual” or “idealist” view thinks that the book is timeless… that it uses metaphor to talk about how good and evil constantly battle in this world with the promise that God will ultimately win.

The “preterist” view is oriented towards our past and John of Patmos’s present.

John isn’t reading tea leaves or telling the future, he is describing events that are happening as he is writing and speaking about how God is present in the midst of it.

Many scholars hold those two in tension.

They look back to what was happening in the time of John of Patmos… apocalyptic literature after all is about revealing what is there… but believe we can apply the themes of the text to the struggle between God and the powers of the world we experience and remembering that God will ultimately prevail.

This orientation is probably the most helpful to us today as we try to figure out what to do with this strange writing.

Finally, I want to remind you to keep the main thing the main thing.

The text we began with this morning from Revelation is a sort of overview or introduction to the themes that we will discover within the book.

John of Patmos has received a word, a revelation, from Jesus Christ the slaughtered and risen Lamb and is sharing it with the world.

The message is simple: Jesus is coming and he will sit on the throne and the world and all its powers will not.

Our work is to allow God to make us into a kingdom, to serve as priests, and give God praise.

That’s it.

Those are the basics of this entire book and it is the lens we can use to make sense of every verse we read.

The locusts and plagues and persecution… the worst things will never be the last thing.

And we have a choice about whether we will serve God and worship God or if we will choose to throw our lot in with the powers of this world that bring nothing but disaster and death.

And friends, we know the end of the story!

We know how it turns out!

God wins!

Friends, this is a book of hope and love and life!

These aren’t meant to be texts of terror or designed to confuse or scare us.

As Nadia Bolz-Weber writes,

“originally… apocalyptic literature —the kind that was popular around the time of Jesus—existed not to scare the bejeezus out of children so they would be good boys and girls, but to proclaim a big, hope-filled idea: that dominant powers are not ultimate powers. Empires fall. Tyrants fade. Systems die. God is still around.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/14/were-in-the-midst-of-an-apocalypse-and-thats-a-good-thing/

The world as we know it… with all its trials and tribulations… is coming to an end, and we are fine.

More than that… we have hope because it is all in God’s hands.

Graves into Gardens

Posted on April 17, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 24:1-12

Earlier this week, I was preparing for worship and listening to some of the music selected for our time of worship today.

And, friends, I’m going to be honest, I’m struggling a bit right now.

I’ve got some family stuff that is heavy on my heart.

We’ve got some things to navigate as a church trying to increase our staffing and find our footing in the new normal of the world.

There is a big denominational conversation in limbo.

I have been participating in a church leadership cohort on the topic of how to navigate being overwhelmed and one of the things I realized is that if I were trying to work and care for just one of those situations, it would be a lot.

But when it feels like there are just so many pots on the stove, all needing attention lest they boil over… well, it is exhausting.

And you know what, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve overheard those fragments of conversation happening in the halls of the church, or grocery store, or work or school…

We can all read between the lines of those social media posts that try to be cheery.

We are navigating transition and grief in our families… divorce, loss, moving mom to the care center…

We are experiencing struggles with health and finances.

We watch the evening news and our hearts break.

We keep waiting for things to get back to “normal” because we haven’t wrapped our heads around the way things have changed for good.

After a while, it all starts to add up.

And we start to wonder where on earth God is in it all.

And so there I was, trying to figure out what good news to proclaim this Easter Sunday, when a lyric from one of the songs that we are singing at the Conspire Service just hit me like a ton of bricks and I started to weep.

“The God of the mountain

Is the God of the valley

There’s not a place

Your mercy and grace

Won’t find me again.”

In that valley, in that muck, in the struggle… that is where God is.

God isn’t just a God of the good times and the successes.

God is with us in the valley.

The valley of the shadow of death.

The valley of despair.

The rock bottom where it all feels like it has fallen apart.

That is exactly where grace and mercy find us.

It is where it found the disciples on Easter morning.

You see, this day began in hopelessness and grief.

It began with fear of the unknown.

It began with the gloom of death.

As we heard in the Gospel of Luke, Mary and Joanna, and Mary, and the other unnamed but faithful women who were with them went to the tomb.

They were bringing the spices and oils they had prepared to complete his burial ritual now that the Sabbath day was complete.

They showed up to repeat a familiar ritual practiced by Jewish women for centuries.

Everything they had known and believed had been pulled out from underneath them and there was nothing left to do but pray, mourn, and honor their teacher.

But through that valley of the shadow of death, grace found them.

When they arrived, the stone was rolled back from the tomb and the body of their Lord was gone.

I can imagine the shock and confusion that paralyzed them.

What does it mean?

What has happened?

What do we do now?

But then angels suddenly appeared among them: Why are you looking for the living among the dead?

They spoke once again the words Jesus had shared with them.

Promises of love that conquers death.

Words of hope for a life than cannot be defeated.

The truth that mourning would turn to dancing…

Shame into glory…

Graves would turn into gardens…

And in a moment of startling fear and overwhelming joy – a moment of holy awe – they remembered.

Think about how many times the disciples… men and women alike… heard Jesus share words about his death and resurrection.

But they couldn’t understand the promise because they never believed it would happen.

They simply could not wrap their minds around the idea of his death, much less the impossible miracle of resurrection.

When Jesus shared his final meal with them on Thursday night they let him down and failed to remain faithful.

And when Christ was crucified on Friday afternoon, many were paralyzed by their unbelief and others simply stood at the cross in stunned grief.

They couldn’t see past their own pain and fear and they forgot his promise!

But in one moment, all that Jesus said about life and death is suddenly made real to those women as they encountered that empty grave in the middle of a garden.

They rushed back to the disciples to share all they had experienced.

And they didn’t believe the women.

Couldn’t believe them.

It was nonsense, wishful thinking, confused thought.

You know what, the world around us, just like those disciples in the upper room who first heard from Mary and Joanna and Mary Magdelene, believes that the resurrection is nonsense.

It is wishful thinking. Scientifically unproven. Pie in the sky.

And I have to be honest, there are days that I have my own doubts.

I have an awful lot of questions, and maybe you do, too.

I can’t construct an argument for the resurrection of Jesus that makes sense to a rational mind.

I can’t point to evidence of its reality.

And when I’m down in the valley, stuck in the weeds, wallowing in grief, and holding the pain of the world in my heart, I often wonder where on earth it is.

But I can tell you, as I borrow the words of Debie Thomas, that it is “the foundation of my hope.”

“Without the empty tomb,” she goes on to write, “without Jesus’ historic, bodily return to life two thousand years ago, I simply can’t reconcile God’s love and justice with the horrors I see in the world around me. Death is too appalling a violation. Evil is too ferocious an enemy. Injustice is too cruel and endemic a reality. Humanity, though beautiful, is broken beyond description. I need the empty tomb. I need the promise of resurrection.”

There is so much in this world to feel hopeless and frustrated about, and honestly, I can’t get through it without God by my side.

I can’t prove the resurrection.

But I need it to be true.

I need to know that mourning will turn into dancing.

I need to hope that shame will turn into glory.

I need to trust that graves can become gardens.

Standing here, surrounded by lilies, I have come to discover that the God of the mountain is the God of the valley and that the shadows of fear and despair have been scattered by light and love.

The tomb is empty, the garden is in bloom, the Son has risen.

Grace and mercy are pouring out into the world and I find the freedom and the power to believe.

I have faith that the resurrection is really and truly our reality.

Faith is not just a pie in the sky wish.

It isn’t something pretty we sing to bring comfort.

Faith is a verb: Go. See. Do. Lift Up. Put Down. Heal. Cast out. Bring in. Give. Receive. Remember.

Faith is active.

Faith is out there in the world, sharing the healing love of God with others.

Faith is drying the tears of the grieving.

Faith is holding the hands of the sick.

Faith is that card of encouragement for the person whose life is falling apart.

Faith is planting bulbs as everything is dying, trusting they will bloom in the spring.

Faith is welcoming the stranger and throwing our arms open to embrace others.

Faith is sacrificing our time and our talents and our abundance so that our neighbors might be fed.

You see, the force of resurrection didn’t just bring Christ to life.

It transformed disciples into apostles.

It brought the church into being.

It formed us together into the body of Christ, alive in the world, hands and feet and hearts to carry on the mission and the ministry.

To keep planting the seeds of the kingdom.

To keep pouring out hope for a world in despair.

To keep fighting the weeds of injustice that threaten to take over.

We are here because those women went to the grave full of grief and sorrow and discovered a garden where hope and love and life was in full bloom.

And then they went from that place with faith and shared the good news with the world.

May the hope of the resurrection be the foundation of our faith and may it spill over into everything we say and do in this world. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer: Thine is the Kingdom

Posted on April 10, 2022Leave a comment

Text: 1 Chronicles 29:1, 5b-6, 9-13; Luke 19:28-40

In our confirmation lessons this month, we are exploring the vows that these young folks will make on May 15.

They will stand before this church and pledge to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world and repent of their sin.

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

They will confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and promise to serve him in the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races.

And I can’t help but realize that they will be standing here, proclaiming:

For Thine is the Kingdom…

For Thine is the Power…

For Thine is the Glory… forever and ever.

Today, we wrap up our exploration of the prayer that Jesus taught us.

It is so familiar to us, and yet there is still so much to learn and discover about these few simple words.

And one of the surprising things about the phrase of the prayer we are focusing on for today is that it is not included in the gospels of either Matthew or Luke.

If you were to pull out your Bible, and looked at Matthew, it would, however, likely include the phrase in brackets or italics or even a footnote.

And that is because other ancient sources did include this ending… most notably The Didache… and it was then included in some copies and translations of Matthew as time went on.

Didache literally means teaching and this document is the oldest existing catechism of the Christian faith.

Basically, it is like a confirmation lesson guide for the first Christians!

It teaches Christian ethics, and about the rituals of the church and how the church is organized.

And it includes the version of the Lord’s Prayer… with the ending… that we are all so familiar with today.

In fact, it instructs those in the faith to pray this prayer three times every day… just as we have invited you to practice during this Lenten season.

In the chapter for this week from our study book, Adam Hamilton notes that the language of this ending, this doxology, this praise for God, is inspired by our scripture from 1 Chronicles for today which recounts the words of King David.

“Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all. And now, our God, we give thanks to you and praise your glorious name.”

Yours is the power.

Yours is the glory.

Yours is the kingdom.

Forever and ever.

Our scripture lesson for this morning is actually a sort of altar call or a request for the people of the land to give freely of their own resources to help build the temple of God.

David himself wanted to build this home for God’s presence, but because of his own sin, God replied that it would have to be carried out by David’s son, Solomon.

I think often of the fact that David, this man after God’s own heart, made such terrible mistakes in his life.

He harmed people who were in his care.

And there was probably a bit of pride that tempted him to make up for it by dedicating this temple to the glory of God… a temple that might come with his own name attached to it.

But he let go of his own power and wealth and pride and glory.

He remembers that this is not about him, but about God and David puts his full energy into setting his son up for success in this task.

David begins to gather the materials that will be needed and makes an offering from his own resources and treasures. Then, he invites the leaders among the people to give from their own hearts and treasures as well.

Wealth and riches and raw materials and precious gems are all laid before the Lord.

For as David rightly proclaims, it all comes from you God… we have only given you what already belongs to you.

Which is the same message Paul shares with the Romans, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.” (11:36)

Paul goes on to write to the church:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what [God] wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12: 1-2, MSG)

Take your everyday, ordinary life and place it before God as an offering.

All of which is another way of saying:

Thine, not mine, is Kingdom.

Thine, not mine, is the power.

Thine, not mine, is the glory.

I’m going to offer what I have up to you, O God, because it all already belongs to you anyways.

I surrender to your will.

I will love and care for those people you put in my path.

I will confess the places I’ve strayed and turn my attention back to you so that you can forgive me.

I will let you lead me and guide me, rather than the forces of the world around me.

You will be my focus today and tomorrow and as long as I breathe.

Today is not just the end of our series on the Lord’s Prayer, but the start of Holy Week.

On this Palm Sunday, we recall the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

And I can’t help but think about the disciples and the crowds who gathered to line the streets.

They recognized in Jesus the power and the glory of God.

They were ready and willing to offer up their lives and their resources to follow Jesus and to work for God’s kingdom.

They set aside their own safety and privilege and power in order to praise and worship God.

And all of this because they caught a glimpse of what it truly meant to allow God to take hold of their lives.

John Vest reflects upon the power of this moment and I want to close today by sharing some of his words:

“Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem was more than a show, more than a simple provocation, more than the beginning of a cute celebration.

It was a signal that things are changing, an unmistakably potent message to the powers that be that the world as we know it is becoming the world as it should be.

It was a radical act of defiance directed against those in his day who wielded power through violence, oppression, and tyranny…

This simple ride reminds us – and tells the whole world – that you are indeed coming to make all things new.

You are coming to release those who find themselves in all manners of bondage: chains of injustice… addiction… conformity and apathy.

You are coming to provide for the poor: food for the hungry and shelter for the homeless.

You are coming to assure the dignity and equality of all who are marginalized or oppressed.

You are coming to end violence and divisions, to provide safe communities and opportunities for education.

You are coming to offer healing and wholeness, comfort, consolation, and hope.

You are coming to transform all that we know.

You are coming to save us.” (https://re-worship.blogspot.com/search?q=palm+sunday+meditation)

God’s kingdom…

God’s power…

God’s glory…

It is all breaking into this world.

May we, like those first disciples… and like those faithful leaders… set aside our crowns and pledge allegiance to the only one who can truly save us.

May it be so. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer: Our Daily Bread

Posted on March 20, 2022Leave a comment

Text: John 6:30-35; James 2:15-17

During this season of Lent, we are taking time to dive deep and explore together the prayer that Jesus taught us.

Already, we have thought about what it means to be in conversation and relationship with our Holy Parent.

We spent last week thinking about what God desires and intends for our lives – for all of creation to thrive under God’s reign.

And one of the threads that is woven throughout this entire prayer is that in all of these petitions, our attention is shifted.

We are invited to think bigger… to focus on “Thee and Thine” not “me and mine.”

But that shift is also away from a kind of individualistic “me, myself, and I” to the communal.

Every part of this prayer uses plural pronouns.

We are not just praying for what we want, but are called to be aware of the needs and hopes and yearning of others.

And that is one of the reasons I am so excited that we are joining in this study together.

Some of you have been participating in the small groups in our congregations.

But what you maybe haven’t realized is that other churches in our area are learning and exploring and praying with us.

For these next three weeks, Immanuel, Windsor, and Valley United Methodist Churches are making that connection more explicit as we share our pulpits with one another.

It is my honor to get to speak with you all today and I’m looking forward to how Pastor Lee and Pastor LaTonya will bless us all in the coming weeks.

This morning, we have the opportunity to focus on the third phrase in the Lord’s Prayer:
“Give us this day our daily bread.”

There they are again… those plural pronouns.

The Lord’s Prayer centers us in the body of Christ and our needs and responsibilities towards one another.

After all, food is all about community.

One of the things I have missed the most as a United Methodist over these last two years of Covid-tide is the potluck.

You know – where everyone brings something to the table.

Crocks of hamballs, jello salad, far more deserts than you could possibly imagine…

But even if it isn’t a large communal gathering, in our prayers and blessings for meals, we often invoke the truth that most food before us is only possible because of our shared life.

From the hands that planted crops and cared for animals…

To those who have harvested and butchered and packaged…

To the workers who brought our food to market and the people who work to sell them.

In the modern world, every time we eat, we do so thanks to others.

As the authors of Becoming Jesus’ Prayer write: “bread is a cooperative endeavor.” (p. 53)

We became far more aware of this reality early in the pandemic as so many of these employees all along the food distribution chain were labeled “essential workers.”

I find that particular language intriguing as we think about what it means to ask God for our daily bread.

For those of you who are reading along with us in the study book, Adam Hamilton points out that our English translation doesn’t quite capture the fullness of the original languages.

There is a word used here, “epiousian” which we translate in English as “daily.”

But it is an unknown word in the Greek language.

Breaking it apart, scholars guess that it could mean that which is “necessary” or “that which is needed for us to be”; something that is “sufficient” or even “essential.”

Give us today the food that is essential for life.

Our gospel text this morning comes shortly after the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people.

The disciples are quick to connect this amazing experience with how God provided for their ancestors in the wilderness.

They remembered how the Hebrew people were starving in the desert, having just left the land of bondage, but every day… well, every day but the Sabbath… manna came down from heaven and quails appeared every evening.

Every day, there was enough to fill their bellies and satisfy their hunger.

Every day, their essential needs were met.

But as Jesus responds to this eager group of followers, he tells them that God is not just focused on the kind of bread that fills our bellies.

The gift of bread from God, or the bread from heaven, gives life to the world.

And in doing so, he calls them… and us… to think beyond our individual physical need for food today to what is essential for all people to experience abundant life.

All across the world, there are children of God who do not know if they will eat today.

There are hospitals in war-torn areas running out of medicine and supplies.

We have elderly neighbors choosing between paying for groceries or their medications.

Families are fleeing violence with only what they can carry and are desperate for clothing and shelter.

For them, this prayer is a petition spoken out of desperation and a need for survival.

I confess that every single time I have prayed the words “Give us this day our daily bread,” there has been food in my cupboard and a safe, warm place to sleep.

Growing up, we didn’t always have a lot of resources, but we always had the essentials.

Just a few days ago, I threw out a loaf of bread that had grown moldy.

The truth is, compared to so many people in the world, I have more than I need.

And maybe that has been your reality as well.

And yet, Jesus calls us to pray these words.

And in doing so, they are transformed into a call to action.

I might have enough, but does my neighbor?

How am I called to put this prayer into action?

As part of the body of Christ, how can my hands and feet become the answer to the prayers of my neighbors?

This week, the DMARC offices are closed as they transition to larger facilities here in Des Moines.

This vital partnership between so many area churches, organizations, and individuals, is one way that we make sure that our neighbors are fed.

And more than ever, this partnership and effort is vital.

Food insecurity has continued to grow among our neighbors, rising 80% over six years (https://www.dmarcunited.org/capital-campaign/).

The new facility will triple the available warehouse space, completely change cold storage capacity, and will also house a permanent on-site pantry.

It is just one way that as a community we are putting prayer into action and making what is essential available to our hungry neighbors.

But this prayer calls us to do more than just share our leftovers or extra canned peas with those who lack food.

We are called to adopt this mindset for all that is essential to life.

St. Basil the Great famously wrote:

“The bread that you store up belongs to the hungry; the cloak that lies in your chest belongs to the naked; and the gold that you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor.” (https://www.inspirationalstories.com/quotes/saint-basil-the-bread-that-you-store-up-belongs/)

I am reminded that when God provided manna to the Hebrew people in the wilderness, each day they had enough.

Anything that they tried to save and hoard and store up would rot away.

Maybe part of what it means to pray and work for our neighbors to have what is essential for their lives is to also reflect upon the excess of our own consumption.

It isn’t just the bread that molds in our cupboards.

It is also the dress that is too small hanging in my closet that could benefit a woman newly released from prison.

The bed taking up space in your storage unit that could benefit a family from Afghanistan that has found refuge in our community.

If you are anything like me, your heart has been broken apart over and over again by the stories coming out of Ukraine.

But one in particular that I think exemplifies the spirit of this particular prayer is from a train station in Poland.

Polish mothers began dropping off their old strollers for Ukrainian mothers arriving with nothing but the clothes on your back.

What is essential for life?

What do our neighbors need to thrive?

Every time we say this prayer, we are making a commitment to center our lives around what God intends for all of creation and that means joining Jesus in reaching out to people in need.

Whether it is food, or clothing, or shelter, or the money you have saved up, it all has the capacity to be a blessing to others.

We are praying for the strength to work and give and advocate so that others might have enough.

We are paying for the courage to see other people on the fringes of our community as children of God, people of worth and dignity who deserve food and shelter and health care and relationships.

We are praying for justice for our neighbors.

Our scriptures are full of passages that speak of God’s justice in relation to caring for the orphans and the widows, in concern for the strangers or sojourners, the prisoners, the sick, the slaves.

Because of circumstances beyond their control, each of these groups are kept from full participation in the community and find themselves without access to things that are essential for life.

As St. Basil would say, whenever we keep people from what is rightfully theirs – according to the principle of need – we are committing injustice.

But over and over, scripture tells us that God hears and God responds and God calls us to act as the people of God.

According to the Holman Bible Dictionary – “When people had become poor and weak with respect to the rest of the community, they were to be strengthened so that they could continue to be effective members of the community.”

God’s justice is about meeting the needs of our neighbors and restoring people to community.

It is our task and calling as the body of Christ to care for the poor and the marginalized.

To look out for the least among our siblings.

To band together, to hold one another up, to reach out to those on the fringes and offer each other life and life abundant through the power and grace of Jesus Christ.

We do so through prayer, but we also do so through what we share.

Out of our abundance of food and clothing, time and money, even hope and strength, we can reach out to impact the lives of our neighbors so that every single one of us has what is essential for life.

May it be so.

Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer: Thy Kingdom Come

Posted on March 13, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Isaiah 2:2-5

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

This short phrase is one of the most subversive and radical things that we can say as Christian people.

And we say it every week.

Too often, we rush over the words, practically tripping over them to get to the end, because they are so familiar and bring such comfort.

But are we prepared to accept the consequences of WHAT we are praying?

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done.

On earth as it is in heaven.

If we are going to be daring enough to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth – maybe we should better understand what we are praying for.

Let’s start by going farther back than our own Christian tradition.

Jesus himself is speaking out of a reality and understanding of God’s intentions for this earth.

From the perfection and goodness of the garden…

To the commandments that were to define the people of Israel…

And the glimpses of God’s promised future in the prophets…

The scriptures speak consistently of a reality in which all of creation thrives.

Isaiah holds before us a vision of what this might entail: all people will gather at God’s Holy Mountain.

“God will show us the way he works so we can live the way we’re made.” (MSG)

God’s word will bring about fairness and righteousness and peace for all.

We are invited to live the way God intends for us to live.

But there are two important realities that come into play with this.

First, this is not my kingdom, or your kingdom… my family or yours…

This is God’s household and it supersedes all other ways that we might separate and divide our lives apart from one another.

Every nation is under God’s rule.

All powers and agendas and borders are nullified.

Last summer, this congregation read together through the book of Acts and those early Christians were accused of terrible things by those who didn’t understand their worshipping practices – but something they were correctly accused of was sedition and treason.

They openly confessed in the face of the Roman Empire that they belonged to the Kingdom of God, that their citizenship was in heaven.

And some were willing to die rather than to worship or honor an earthly king.

They got these radical ideas from the gospels. As Daniel Clendenin reminds us:

“The birth of Jesus signaled that God would “bring down rulers from their thrones” (Luke 1:52).

In Mark’s gospel the very first words that Jesus spoke announced that “the kingdom of God is at hand” (1:15).

John’s gospel takes us to the death of Jesus, and the political theme is the same.

Jesus was dragged to the Roman governor’s palace for three reasons, all political: “We found this fellow subverting the nation, opposing payment of taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King” (Luke 23:1–2).””

I am reminded of the moment when Jesus stands in Pilate’s headquarters and is asked a simple question: “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus responds the best way he can. My kingdom is not from this world. If it was, then those who followed me would be fighting tooth and nail to protect me and keep me from being handed over to you. But my kingdom is not from here.

The Kingdom of God is not something that can be mapped out on a piece of paper.

Or that fits in a box of race or ethnicity or belief.

And contrary to much of our contemporary sentiment, it is not simply a place that we go to after we die.

No, we pray every week: Thy kingdom come on earth.

The Kingdom of God may not be from here… but it certainly is for here.

It is God’s intentions, God’s will, for how we are to live in this life.

So, the second reality we must face is that life in God’s household will turn our own expectations about what is good and fair and right upside down and inside out.

Too often, we focus on our own needs and desires and will, but in this prayer we lay aside our pursuit of “me and mine” for “thee and thine.”

We are called to see with the eyes of Jesus the needs and cares and concerns of others – especially those without power or agency.

As we continue to follow the thread of scripture through to the New Testament we are reminded that:

In the Kingdom of God – the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

In the Kingdom of God – you love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.

In the Kingdom of God – you love your neighbor as yourself.

In the Kingdom of God – you forgive one another 70×70 times.

In the Kingdom of God – our ruler is the one who gets down on his hands and knees to wash our feet like a servant.

In the Kingdom of God – the widow and the orphan and the stranger are honored guests at the table.

This vision is not all that different from the one in Isaiah.

Not so different from the Garden of Eden.

Entirely the same as the promises we read about in the book of Revelation – where hunger and crying and pain will be no more.

God’s will and intention for creation is that all would thrive and find a home.

In, “Listening to your Life,” (page 304), Fred Beuchner writes:

“…the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the kingdom of God is what all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis, a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.”

For the last two thousand years, Christians have tried to bring the Kingdom of God to bear in their lives.

There are times when we have been wildly successful – and there are times when we have failed miserably.

There are times when in the name of Christ our King we have brought hope and joy and peace to the lives of our brothers and sisters.

And there have been times when we have subverted Christ as King for our own purposes to seek power and money and land at the cost of our brothers and sisters.

In our lives, we are saturated with information and news about what is happening in the world.

Think about the places of pain, tragedy, or injustice we have seen just this month come across our newsfeeds and headlines:

Trans girls no longer being allowed to play sports.

Tornados that have caused incredible destruction and loss of life.

A deadly shooting outside of one of our area schools.

An indiscriminate war being waged by Putin in Ukraine.

The continued loss of life and strain upon health care systems due to Covid.

When we pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” we are being asked to hold these realities up to God’s light.

Not to declare that it is God’s will – but to ask the question… what IS God’s will in the midst of all that we see and hear?

How is God calling us to respond in a way that will bring about God’s intention for all of creation to thrive?

Where do we need to upend our agendas and expectations to care for the vulnerable and to cross boundaries and borders for the children of God?

How do we allow love and grace and mercy to rule?

What would it look like for us to start turning swords into shovels and guns into garden decorations and to stop planning for the destruction of our fellow human beings?

In the book of Revelation, God’s will and intention for all of creation is fulfilled as heaven comes down and God dwells among us.

“I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God… I heard a loud voice from the throne say, “Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them and they will be his people.”

When we pray Jesus’ Prayer, we are yearning for the home of God to be made among us.

For God’s will to take root in our hearts.

For our lives to be stretched beyond the borders we have artificially made.

For our actions to be rooted in the care of creation.

For the love and compassion we offer to be greater weapons than any tank or bomb or handgun.

For us to find the boldness to feed and clothe and heal our brothers and sisters without waiting for the government to help.

We are praying to be made uncomfortable.

For us to not be content with peace in our hearts until your peace truly reigns over the nations.

For our allegiances to shift from brand names and politicians and parties to the one who is and who was and who is to come.

The Kingdom that Christ is ushering in is not one of military victory and political power, but of human relationships, redemption, restoration and wholeness. And that is the kingdom that we pray will reign over the entire earth.

If we pray this prayer like we mean it… it might just change everything about our lives…

As Daniel Clendenin describes:

peace-making instead of war mongering,

liberation not exploitation,

sacrifice rather than subjugation,

mercy not vengeance,

care for the vulnerable instead of privileges for the powerful,

generosity instead of greed,

humility rather than hubris,

embrace rather than exclusion.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

The Lord’s Prayer: Our Holy Father

Posted on March 6, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 11:1-10

This year as we journey through Lent, we are being led by prayer.

Well, one prayer in particular.

The prayer that Jesus taught us.

We teach it to our children.

We recite it each week in worship.

It is often a prayer that I will recite with families at the bedside of a dying loved one.

We know it by heart…

But has it sunk into our hearts?

I once heard a story about a church and every Sunday when the said the Lord’s Prayer, they turned around and faced the back of the sanctuary.

When a new pastor arrived, she was curious about this practice, but no one could remember why they did it that way.

That is until the church did some restoration work in the sanctuary.

As they stripped back layers of paint on the old walls, they discovered that at one time, the words of the Lord’s Prayer had been painted along that back wall.

In a time without printed bulletins, the church members had turned around to read the prayer from the wall.

Just as that congregation forgot why they said the Lord’s Prayer facing the back wall, sometimes we have forgotten the meaning behind the words that we speak.

We take the words for granted or rush through them without thinking.

Yet, contained within these beautiful verses is everything we need to know about our faith.

It reminds us of whose we are.

It tells us that we are not alone, but a community.

This prayer invites us to place our lives in God’s hands.

It asks for forgiveness and the strength to forgive others.

It calls us to acts of justice and compassion.

It is a prayer that can truly transform our lives… if we let it.

So, throughout this season of Lent, we are going to dive deep into this prayer and learn once again what it has to teach us.

Richard Foster once wrote:

“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.” (Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, p.3)

And that is because prayer is a relationship.

The Lord’s Prayer is recorded in the gospels of both Matthew and Luke.

In Matthew, it is included along with other teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.

But in Luke’s gospel, the disciples are seeking guidance.

As they seek to grow in their faithfulness to God, they ask Jesus how they should pray… and he teaches them.

But then Jesus expands upon this idea of prayer being a relationship.

When we pray, we are asking and seeking and requesting things from the one who created us.

Now, this idea that God as our parent is not new.

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets tell us that God thinks of Israel as a child… often a wayward child… but that God’s love is everlasting and unchanging, in spite of what the people might do.

Yet this prayer is not simply a metaphor.

God is not distant.

Rather at Christ’s own invitation, we join in calling God “Our Father.”

We are invited to approach God in the same way we might our own parent… knowing and trusting that we are loved and cared for and believing that God will respond out of that love.

There is a level of intimacy here, of deep relationship, of ordinary acts of care, that truly is like falling in love.

And at the same time, we are invited into a sort of paradox, for the name and presence of God is to be revered as extraordinary.

God is holy… and wholly other.

I am reminded of Exodus chapter 3, when Moses approaches the burning bush and hears a voice thunder around him… “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

Moses hides his face, afraid to look upon the divine presence.

In the midst of this exchange, God claims the people of Israel as his own.

God has heard their cries and can stand by no longer.

Like a parent who will rush to the rescue of a child who has fallen, God is acting to bring about deliverance for their suffering.

And yet, when Moses asks the name of this God…

When Moses asks, whom shall I say has sent me?

God replies – I am who I am.

A God who is distant, powerful, holy, undefineable…

A God who is close and intimate, full of love and compassion…

Our God is both of these things and more… all at the same time.

And thank God for that!

While it isn’t easy to wrap our heads around this paradox, the truth is that we need a God who is more than just an earthly parent.

The troubles and concerns of this world are far greater than any human could tackle.

The loss of life from tornados…

Deliverance from oppression…

Peacemaking in the midst of conflict – not just in Ukraine, but in Palestine, and Honduras, and Nigeria and in our country and in our families…

Healing and restoration from illness, disease, disaster, and death…

These are not simple requests and are far greater than asking for a loaf of bread.

We can only approach God in prayer with confidence because God is bigger than the problems we face.

But at the same time, a holy and powerful being that holds the life of the world in its hands can itself be a terrifying concept.

I am reminded of the eighteenth century Jonathan Edwards sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

Remember…Moses initially hid his face from God’s presence!

But Moses also came to understand God’s love.

During his time on the mountaintop in the presence of God, receiving instruction for the people, Exodus 34 tells us that the Lord proclaims again his name.

But then the Lord continues… The Lord, the Lord, is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

Coming to understand God as the one who is intimately concerned for my life, my welfare, my needs, allows me to let go of fear and rest in God’s presence.

We can trust that God truly does care about my needs and we are free to approach God in love expressing the yearning of our heart.

God is holy.

God is love and acts with parental love.

I am God’s child.

But there is one final piece of this first phrase that we cannot ignore.

While we do not capture it quite so clearly in Luke’s version of the prayer, it is part of the language we carry forward from Matthew’s gospel.

Jesus does not say “My Father.”

He does not ask us to think of ourselves as individual children.

We say “Our Father.”

Not once in this prayer do we say “I” or “me.”

Victor Hoagland recently shared a story about his close relationship with his eight-year-old granddaughter. She is the youngest of the bunch and they have had a chance to spend a lot of time together.

One evening, he and his wife invited all five of their grandchildren to come over for dinner and Hoagland noticed as they gathered that this little one seemed upset.

When he asked her what was wrong, she answered: “I thought I was the only one coming.”

Hoagland reassured his granddaughter of his great love for her… but also how much love he has for all of his grandchildren and that it was such a great thing they could all be together.

We often find ourselves in the shoes of that little girl.

We claim our relationship with this holy parent for ourselves, but we are not as quick to think about all of God’s other children.

And the truth is that prayer is not just about our relationship with God, but our relationship with one another.

We are called to consider that others are God’s children, too.

People we love, but also people that we can’t stand.

People we disagree with and people who are actively working to harm us.

People we have never met and those whose values and perspectives are vastly different than ours.

I have to admit that this concept hits me in a very different way this week.

Last night, my grandmother, my Babi, died from damage caused to her lungs by Covid.

I am navigating how to be present and offer love and care for family.

But it is hard and messy and complicated.

My family has been separated and split from one another by conflict that has gone unhealed for more than a decade.

And yet, we are all still family. We belong to one another.

But even more than that, we are all claimed by God as children.

Every time we say the words of this prayer, we are speaking into being the reality that we are connected to one another.

Our loved ones… our friends… yes… but even those who have caused us pain… even those we might sometimes think of as enemies… even those we struggle to understand or forgive.

We are all children of God.

And just as my own heart is full of concerns and fears that I bring before this Holy Parent, so too are others.

As the words of “This is my song” remind us:

“this is my song, O God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mind.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

But other hearts in other lands are beating

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”

Our. Holy. Parent.

This opening phrase of the prayer that Jesus taught us invites us to claim three truths:

God cares intimately about what happens in our lives and responds in love.

God is holy and powerful and has the capacity to act and transform.

And we are called not just to think of ourselves, but to recognize that we are connected in one family.

Over these forty days of Lent, we will continue to explore this prayer and learn more about what it teaches us.

But we are also invited not just to intellectually process these words, but to allow them to transform us.

And to that end, for this holy season, I want to invite you to claim a practice with me.

I want to invite you to pray this prayer with me not once per day, not twice, but three times every day.

I want to invite you to make it a part of your living and breathing as you go through your life.

I want to invite you to allow it to fall into your heart and settle in your being.

May it be so.

UMC 101: The Local Church & Membership

Posted on February 27, 2022Leave a comment

Text: 2 Corinthians 3:12-13, 3:18-4:1, 5-6; Book of Discipline 201-204, 214-221

Over the last seven weeks, we have explored together some of the foundational beliefs and practices of the United Methodist Church.

Our focus on grace and faith put into practice.

The call to reach out and share the love of God with all people.

A charge that makes room for difference and invites us to use our brains and celebrates diversity.

All grounded and centered in the core of Christian tradition… praising the God of all creation who became flesh and lived and died so that we might truly know life and who continues to empower us by the Holy Spirit.

As we come to the close of this series, we also come to a transitional date on the Christian calendar: This Sunday before the season of Lent is Transfiguration Sunday.

It is the day that a few of the disciples retreated with Jesus to a mountain top and witnessed the glory of God.

They experienced for themselves the very presence of God, radiating with light, in the person of their rabbi, Jesus.

He shone like the sun and they could hardly take it in… much like Moses before them.

Moses, too, had been to the mountaintop.

He had spent time in the presence of God and for more than just an afternoon.

In the account of Exodus 34, Moses spends forty days and forty nights with the Lord learning about the covenant God wanted to make with the people.

Exodus 34:29 tells us that when Moses came back down from the mountain, his face was radiant. He shone and reflected the glory and the presence of God. But the people were afraid and so he put a veil over his face (34:33).

The Apostle Paul picks up on this idea in his second letter to the church in Corinth.

He describes the law of Moses as a ministry of condemnation, because as individual human beings we couldn’t live up to what it asks of us.

That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a reflection of God’s glory… it was!

But Paul believes that the ministry of righteousness we receive from Jesus through the Holy Spirit is even more glorious, because we are set free to truly reflect God’s glory in all that we say and do.

We are transformed by God’s glory and Paul describes the church in Corinth as Christ’s letter… written not with ink, but with the Holy Spirit.

They are the reflection of Jesus Christ to the world and all who see what they say and do will come to know the glory of God.

That local community and its members reflect the light of the knowledge of God’s glory to everyone they meet.

And so do we.

As our Book of Discipline proclaims, “The function of the local church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is to help people accept and confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and to live their daily lives in light of their relationship with God” (¶202, p. 147).

It goes on to say that the members of the church gather for worship, to receive God’s grace, to be formed by the Word, and then we are sent out to do the work of Christ. (¶203)

Or as that familiar song from our childhood reminds us:

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…
Everywhere I go, I’m gonna let it shine…

That light, however, it isn’t my own light.

It isn’t your light.

It is the light of Jesus Christ.

I was thinking about the solar lamps that I installed in my garden last summer. Every evening they light up the path.

But the lamp has no light of its own… it simply captures and stores up the energy from the sun.

The more time it spends soaking up those rays, the brighter and longer it will shine.

Much like Moses shone radiantly after those forty days and forty nights in the presence of God’s glory.

And to keep our lights shining…

To fill up our lamps…

We need to continually spend time in God’s presence.

So as United Methodists, we don’t believe that membership in the local church is simply a box that we check.

It is a commitment and a covenant we make together with God and with the other members of our congregation.

In the coming weeks, our confirmation students will be exploring these vows deeply, but maybe it is good for all of us to get a refresher.

Membership Vows

Renounce, Reject, Repent
Accept God’s freedom and power
Confess Jesus as our Savior
Serve as Christ’s representative to the world
Strengthen the ministries of the UMC
Participate with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness
Receive and profess the Christian faith

Just as John Wesley brought classes and societies of people together to focus on their spiritual life with one another, our membership vows are a commitment to “a lifelong process of growing in grace.” (¶216.1).

We turn away from sin and evil and turn our lives towards Jesus. Then, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we become ambassadors of Jesus to the world. We see each member as a vital part of the church and we have “method” for helping one another to keep these vows.

First – a local church provides opportunities for a member to grow in their discipleship. From small groups to worship, from mission events to our stewardship campaign, this local church offers ways for you to go deeper in your faith and to discover the will and grace of God. Each one is an opportunity to spend time in the presence of God.

Second – we share a mutual responsibility for one another. We need you, just as much as you need us, and together we shoulder burdens, share risks, and celebrate joys. We encourage one another along in this journey. After all, the people that make up our church are the body of Christ and we also experience the presence of God in one another.

Third – each person is responsible for their own participation. We can have all the opportunities in the world, but ultimately, you are the one who prays, who shows up, who gives, and who reaches out to share God’s love with the world.

However, as part of our Wesleyan heritage, we are called to hold one another accountable to these commitments. Those early Methodist class meetings were designed for members to keep one another on track, it is the responsibility of the local church to reach out in love to invite people to return and to nurture people back into community.

Sometimes that might look like a call or a note from the pastor, but this is the responsibility of all of us.

It is the phone call you make to invite someone to join a small group with you.

It is the note you put in the mail to let someone know you have missed them in worship.

It is the way you speak up if someone in a meeting has said something harmful.

It is the advice you offer when someone seems to be taking a wrong turn in their journey.

We do all of this, because we believe that through these ministries and this community, the glory of the Lord is transforming us more and more everyday into the image of Christ… and that we reflecting that glory to the world.

In Sara Groves’ song, “You are the Sun” she writes:

You are the sun, shining down on everyone.
Light of the world giving light to everything I see…
I am the moon with no light of my own
Still you have made me to shine
And as I glow in this cold dark night
I know I can’t be a light unless I turn my face to you.

The work of the local church and our responsibilities as members of that church is to turn our faces to the Light of the World and let God shine through our lives.

As the Book of Discipline says:
Each member is called upon to be a witness for Christ in the world, a light and leaven in society, and a reconciler in a culture of conflict… to identify with the agony and suffering of the world and to radiate and exemplify the Christ of hope” (¶220).

And we don’t do it alone. We do it together.

The work of the local church is only possible because all of us have gathered our resources and our talents and our time together so that we can reach out to the people in this community, and work to help one another grow. And we also are part of a larger connection, so we partner with other local churches – like inviting students from Windsor UMC to join us for confirmation. We work to be stewards not just of our resources, but of God’s creation as we participate in the mission of the larger United Methodist Church. (¶202, p147-148)

Let us keep soaking up the light of God so that in all of these things, the glory of God might shine through us.

Amen.

UMC 101: An Inclusive Church

Posted on February 20, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 5:17-26, Book of Discipline – Constitution Preamble and ¶1-5, ¶140, and the new 6

Over this last month as we have worshipped with one another, there has been a recurring theme at the core of our tradition: God’s grace and love is for all.

The prevenient grace of God stretches out to all people, inviting them in.

When we become disciples, we are called to reach out in love to do no harm and do good to all we meet.

Grounded in the core of our faith, we create space for difference and open our arms to encounter people with varying languages and cultures and traditions.

We believe that God reigns over all of human existence, and we trust in the Holy Spirit to guide us as we seek responses that share the healing and redeeming love of God with all people.

And we go out, each uniquely gifted and equipped, to make disciples of all peoples and transform the world.

In our statement on inclusiveness in our Book of Discipline (¶140) we say:

“We recognize that God made all creation and saw that it was good. As a diverse people of God who bring special gifts and evidences of God’s grace to the unity of the Church and to society, we are called to be faithful to the example of Jesus’ ministry to all persons.
Inclusiveness means openness, acceptance, and support that enables all persons to participate in the life of the Church, the community and the world.”

In our Constitution, we proclaim that “all persons are of sacred worth” and “all persons without regard to race, color, national origin, status, or economic condition, shall be eligible“ to worship, participate, receive the sacraments, and become members of the church. (¶4)

The church… the Body of Christ… is for all… and needs all.

But the truth is we need these kinds of statements, because we have not always lived out this truth.

As we talked about last week, sometimes we have been more of a fortress protecting those inside, rather than a force out in the world seeking all people.

We have placed barriers on who was welcome and how they could participate.

We have created separations between races, genders, and classes.

Over the last few weeks in our Confirmation class, we have been exploring our United Methodist history. Each student presented on a different topic or person from our past and together we learned about people who did not experience the church as inclusive and open to all.

We learned about Richard Allen, a freed black man and ordained pastor who was sidelined in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He left our denomination due to the discrimination and formed the African Methodist Episcopal – or AME Church.

We learned about Anna Howard Shaw, who felt a call to ministry but was denied ordination in the MEC. In her journal she wrote, “I am no better and no stronger than a man, and it is all a man can do to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil, without fighting his Church as well.” (Story of a Pioneer, p. 123-124). She left the denomination and was ordained by the Methodist Protestant Church in 1880.

The Methodist Protestants themselves had left the denomination after growing concerns about the power of clergy and the exclusion of lay people from decisions.

The Free Methodists broke away from the denomination over their concerns for the poor after New England churches began the practice of charging for your spot in the pew!

Or what about the story of Bishop Andrews who gained slaves through each of his marriages and refused to set them free… his story became part of the rationale for why the Methodist Episcopal Church, South broke away from the rest of the denomination.

When the MEC, MEC South, and Methodist Protestants eventually merged back together in 1939, we learned about the segregation of the African American clergy and churches in the Central Jurisdiction.

We can find throughout our history these stories of exclusion.

But along the way, there were also folks who exemplified the spirit of our scripture reading for today… friends and colleagues who have torn down walls, built new structures, shattered glass ceilings, and burst through roofs in order to bring people to Christ.

Mark and Luke tell us the story of the crowds who gathered to hear Jesus preach in Capernaum. Five friends came together, four of them carrying their friend who was paralyzed.

But as anyone who might be vertically challenged like myself can attest, it is difficult to see over a crowd.

And it must have been even more so for this man on his mat.

The group tried to shoulder their way in closer, but to no avail.

And then they got creative.

They climbed to the top of the roof and began taking a part the tiles to make an opening above Jesus so they could lower him down.

They refused to let their friend sit out on the curb.

He, as much as any other, was a child of God who belonged at the feet of Jesus.

Do you know what I noticed in this pericope reading it this week…

It doesn’t say that they brought their friend in order to be healed.

There are many stories where people specifically brought people to Jesus to be healed, but that phrase is not used here.

The crowds gathered wanted to hear Jesus preach and to hear the good news.

Why would we assume anything different about this paralytic man?

In fact, Mark Arnold reminded me this week of how Jesus responds to this act of home vandalism. “Jesus sees the faith of the man and his friends first and includes him in his ministry of grace and forgiveness… only referring to the man’s disability when challenged about his authority.” (https://theadditionalneedsblogfather.com/2019/09/11/disability-sin-god-heaven/)

He goes on to write, “everyone, including disabled people, are made in God’s image.”

When we talk about inclusiveness in the church, we speak of our call to share the ministry of Jesus with all people and make sure that every person is able to participate fully in the life of not just the church, but the community, and the world. (¶140, p. 101)

It means “the freedom for the total involvement of all persons who meet the requirements… in the membership and leadership of the Church at any level and in every place.”

Our call to inclusiveness does not ask someone to adapt or change who they are in order to have a place at the table. It is a recognition of their faith and gifts and belovedness in God’s eyes… just as they are.

And it entails our commitment to “work towards societies in which each person’s value is recognized, maintained, and strengthened” through basic human rights and “equal access to housing, education, communication, employment, medical care, legal redress of grievances, and physical protection.”

It means speaking out against acts of hate or violence against people based on who they are.

And within the church, the call to inclusiveness means that sometimes we have to tear the roof off the house to make sure that everyone has access… or add a ramp or an elevator to the church.

It means utilizing assistive hearing devices and closed captioning on our facebook live stream.

One of the things that I think we have gained during Covid-tide is broadening how we make our worship accessible for our members who were homebound and we continue to mail the entire worship service to more than fifty homes every week. Where we can’t bring folks to church, we bring the church to them.

It means including youth and young people on our leadership teams and making commitments to protect children through our Safe Sanctuaries policies.

Here at Immanuel, it meant changing our maternity leave policy to a parental leave policy.

And it also means, as we say in our Constitution, that the church “shall confront and seek to eliminate racism, whether in organizations or in individuals, in every facet of its life and in society at large.”

I mentioned before the how we institutionalized racism through the Central Jurisdiction here in the United States. Just as those four friends literally changed the structure of that home, Confronting racism sometimes means changing our denominational structures and I give thanks that the Methodist Church eliminated the Central Jurisdiction with the insistence of the EUB church as part of the merger that formed the United Methodist Church in 1968.

But this also includes learning about and repenting of our history, as well as actively seeking to not just make room at our table for neighbors who are black, indigenous, or people of color… but building new tables – together.

As a predominately white congregation, this might entail intentionally building relationships with people and church neighbors that look differently than us.

And, it means that we bust open the glass ceiling and do the same for women and girls who have faced discrimination in the church. In fact… this new paragraph on gender equality was only added through a constitutional amendment approved in 2016 and then ratified by annual conferences in 2019.

Still, there are more walls to tear down.

Another constitutional amendment failed by just 5% to meet the 2/3 threshold for implementation by annual conference votes.

Currently, our constitution proclaims that “no conference or other organizational unity of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member… because of race, color, national origin, status or economic condition.”

That amendment would have expanded our protected classes in the constitution to add gender, ability, age, and marital status.

We continue to go on to perfection.

As I think about what it means to be United Methodist today, I think about those five friends from our scripture.

I think about how each one of them was beloved by God and a person of sacred worth… just as they were.

And I think about how they worked together to make sure that all were able to be in the presence of Jesus.

Our call to inclusiveness in the church is a call to relationship and faithfulness.

It is about invitation and welcome.

It is about breaking down walls and tearing apart ceilings and fighting so that our friends and neighbors can all gather at the feet of Christ.

But it is also about owning up to the reality that along the way we have not always lived into this ideal and acknowledging the people who either chose to leave or were forced out of the church simply because of who they were.

I am reminded that my access and privilege to even stand here in this pulpit is not something to be taken for granted.

I remember the people who fought to make this a reality and look for ways to use my voice to speak up on behalf of others who are excluded.

May we, as United Methodists, continue to work to ensure that the doors of the church are open to all people, may we embrace one another with love and acceptance, and may we provide the kind of support that is needed so that all of our siblings can fully participate in the life of this church.