Posts Tagged with 1 Corinthians

UMC 101: Our Theological Task and the Quadrilateral

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Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Over the last several weeks, we have been exploring what it means to be United Methodist. 

We’ve talked about some of the core beliefs we affirm, how we came to get our distinctive United Methodist flavor by emphasizing faith and love in action, and both standards for teaching those core beliefs… but also the love, grace, and humility that leaves room for opinions and difference around practices and positions.

After all, as our scripture for this morning reminds us – we could have all the right answers, and do all the right things but if we don’t love – we are nothing.

As long as we seek to love God and love our neighbors, we can join hands for God’s work in the world. 

Does that mean that anything else goes?

Absolutely not. 

I shared with you last week from a portion of John Wesley’s sermon, “Catholic Spirit,” in which we talked about those core essential things and how love gives us guidance for how we relate to others who disagree.  

But he is very clear at the end of that sermon that holding such a charitable spirit that leaves room for others does not mean you are indifferent to other’s opinions.

And, it doesn’t mean that you are unclear in your own thoughts, practices, or community, “driven to and fro, and tossed about with every wind of doctrine.” (“Catholic Spirit”, John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology, p. 307)

In fact, he says if you have a sort of “muddy understanding” with “no settled, consistent principles” that “you have quite missed your way…” (p. 308).

In other words, do your work.

Take responsibility for what you believe, how you act, and the community to which you belong. 

Don’t simply parrot what someone before you has taught, or change your perspective when a new pastor comes along.

You are responsible for diving into the gospel of Jesus and figuring out what impact it has on the world. 

This is the work of theological reflection.

A theologian is anyone who studies God. 

Now, I am a theologian.  I have a Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt University and spent three and a half years studying scripture and ancient texts and history and the thoughts of other theologians.

But YOU are a theologian, too.

A theologian is anyone who “reflects upon God’s gracious action in our lives.” (BoD, p.80)

And United Methodists believe that every single one of us is called to this work.

Every generation has to wrestle with what it means to be faithful in a changing world. 

We have to figure out how to communicate the good news of our faith to people who are hurting and lost and broken.

But we also need to figure out how to see the problems and challenges around us like the climate crisis or sexual abuse or global migration and ask what our response should be. 

And to do that, we need more than just the basic teachings of our faith, or doctrines. 

Doctrine is important, because it helps us remember the core of Christian truth in ever-changing contexts… But our task is to test, renew, elaborate, and apply those teachings in the world. 

You see, we take the love of Christ for this world and we figure out how to share and live out that love right here and right now. 

There are a couple of important things that the United Methodist Church believes are important to remember, and I think that we can think about these through the description of love that the Apostle Paul offers to us in his letter to the Corinthians. 

First, as we do this, we should be willing both take apart and put together our understanding of faith in love.  In other words, don’t strut around with a big head forcing your beliefs on others, but ask if this position is still true, credible, and based in love.  At the same time, we should always be looking forward for where new truth is flowering and helping to creatively put together a message for tomorrow.

Second, the work of theology is both your responsibility and our responsibility. It is about “plain truth for plain people” – every Christian… young and old alike, is called to grow and learn about how to follow God into this world. But we also believe that it is in our conversation and sharing and work together that all of our individual reflections are strengthened.  This is why we come together at our church conferences, and annual, jurisdictional and general conferences to make decisions.  Like a love that isn’t always “me first” and that cares for others more than self, we believe everyone has something to contribute and we should be aware of how everyone is impacted. 

Third, this work of reflection has to be grounded in what God is doing in the world. We believe that God so loved this world that Jesus came to make a home among us… in a particular time and in a particular place.  And we believe that God is still present in our time and in all of our diverse places.  Paul tells us that love should not be envious or boastful… and I think about how important it is for us not to force a practice from one culture onto another, or for a culture to give up their own practices to be more like another. 

Last year, some of us read together, “I’m Black. I’m Christian. I’m Methodist.” and were surprised by stories of how many of these black leaders felt as if they had to become more white in order to be faithful and found great strength as they reclaimed their own identity. 

Finally, if we are going to connect the love of Jesus with the world, then we have to focus on what we do.  We can say all the right words and have endless conversations, but as Paul would say, if we aren’t dealing with love – then we are just noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.  We know what is true when we see the impact in real lives.  United Methodists are all about practical divinity. 

The Apostle Paul describes how our understanding of the truth changes through time as we mature and grow and put aside childish thoughts.  We are continually doing our best to comprehend – knowing that today we can capture the fullness of God’s truth and love only partially. 

But still we try.  And we keep trying to do our best in faith, in hope, and in love. 

As Paul wrote to the Philippians, we can focus our thoughts on what is excellent and true, holy and just.  We can practice what we have learned and received from our mentors and teachers in the faith. 

Our job as a theologian is simple:  What can I say and do that is faithful to scripture as it has been passed down through tradition, and that makes sense in light of human experience and reason?  (Book of Discipline, p.81)

Chalkboard with a drawing of four quadrants for scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.
From https://joshuanhook.com/2018/10/24/how-the-wesleyan-quadrilateral-helps-us-understand-god/

These four theological tools we refer to as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

All four are important lenses to help us see how God is working and moving in the world. 

As we explored a few years ago with our Bible 101 series, scripture is at the center and is the foundation of all that we do so, we had better be reading and pouring over scripture in our lives.

But… and… scripture itself is always being interpreted. 

First, scripture is interpreted by other scripture.

You cannot take a single verse out of context but need to look at the fullness of the entire passage and story.

And, we come to see as we read the bible that there is an overarching story within the scripture itself… a story of creation and redemption, a story of mistakes and forgiveness, a story that ends in the restoration of all things.

In the gospels, religious leaders ask Jesus to interpret scripture for them and his response gives us a general guide for our own interpretation:  how does this verse lead us to love God and love our neighbor? (Matthew 22:34-40)

Next, we have the witness of how people have interpreted that scripture through time. Tradition shows us the “consensus of faith” that has grown out of a particular community’s experience. (p. 85-86)

Not all contexts and communities are the same. The experience of Czech immigrants in the Midwest was very different than that of African slaves in the Deep South. Each community passed on the gospel and created practices of faith that show us how the scripture made sense in their lives. We also connect tradition with the theology of previous generations that have been passed down to us in creeds and writings.

Tradition shows us how communities have understood God, but we also each have or own unique experiences.

Who you are and what you have been through is always with you when you open up the Bible – tragedies and joys, gender, economic reality…

It is why you can read the same passage of scripture repeatedly over time and discover something new with each reading.

But Wesley also talked about how God continues to be revealed through our experiences and the fruit that we are bearing in the world.

One example is how he relented to license women as preachers in the circuits after he saw the  call of God bearing fruit in their ministry. 

Our final tool for theology is reason. As the Book of Proverbs reminds us, each person is called to “turn your ear toward wisdom, and stretch your mind toward understanding. Call out for insight, and cry aloud for understanding. ” (Proverbs 2:2-3)

We believe God reveals truth in many places, not only in scripture, and that we should pursue such knowledge and truth with our whole selves. Science, philosophy, nature: these are all places that help us to gain understanding and sometimes reveal even deeper truths within the written word. 

Why does this matter?

Because as our Book of Discipline reminds us, every day, there are new concerns “that challenge our proclamation of God’s reign over all of human existence.” (p. 88)

A black man is murdered in public on a city street by a law enforcement officer.

A derecho destroys the infrastructure of a community.

A virus takes the lives of 8,501 of our neighbors in this state. 

Where is God’s justice, protection, and healing?

What does it mean to love our neighbor in light of these realities? 

That is the work of theology… seeking an authentic Christian response to these realities so that the healing and redeeming love of God might be present in our words and deeds.  (p.89)

As we affirm in the Book of Discipline:

“United Methodists as a diverse people continue to strive for consensus in understanding the gospel… while exercising patience and forbearance with one another. Such patience stems neither from indifference toward truth nor from an indulgent tolerance of error but from an awareness that we know only in part and that none of us is able to search the mysteries of God except by the Spirit of God. We proceed with our theological task, trusting that the Spirit will grant us wisdom…”

Book of Discipline p. 89

May it be so. Amen.

This is Love: Love that Conquers Death

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Text: Song of Songs: 8:6-7, Luke 24:1-10

In the sensual poetry of the Song of Songs, we hear the tale of a young couple madly in love with one another. Their love is made every more delicious by its scandalous nature, and explodes with emotion and passion. Every time I read through its passages, my mind wanders to the forbidden love of couples like Romeo and Juliet. So taken are they with one another, death itself could not drown out their love.
“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm,” the young woman speaks, “for love is as strong as death, passionate love unrelenting as the grave.”

In some ways, we find the overwhelming love and passion of these verses a little silly and sentimental.
But the truth is, we have known that love.
When we hold the hand of a dying parent or grandparent, we know the strength of the love that cannot be defeated by death.
When we say goodbye to a loved one, to a spouse or child taken too soon, we know the unrelenting passion for that beloved and precious life that will never leave our hearts.
Every birthday. Every anniversary. Every time we come across their favorite flower or song or team, that love pours back into our soul.
For me, it is the smell of lemon verbena. I am instantly transported back to my grandmother’s side and the smell of the lotion that was on the side table. Memories flood my heart with all of those moments of laughter and lessons… baking casseroles in the kitchen… hearing her encouragement for my endeavors.
And then I open my eyes and remember it has been nearly eighteen years since she passed.
We live with the reality of our loss. The love we have for another cannot snatch them from the arms of death. It cannot keep someone breathing or their heart pumping. It cannot bring them back to life.
Our love endures death.
The silence of the grave cannot take away the love we have for another person…
But neither can our love cannot defeat it.

On Good Friday, we carried Christ to the tomb. The stone at the entrance was secured and then we began to sit in lament.
Death is the final wilderness.
It is imagined as a place of suffering, darkness, silence, and nothing.
Our love endures, but the reality of death continues.

That enduring love brought three women to the tomb on Easter morning.
Their beloved teacher and friend… the one who had showed them what it truly means to live… had been taken by the powers of the world and had been executed.
They came to the tomb early that morning with love in their hearts.
Love that caused them to set aside any fears they might have about being arrested.
Love that was stronger than the desire to remain safe.
Love that couldn’t be extinguished by a criminal’s death on a cross.
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James went to the tomb with love in their hearts expecting to encounter death.
They were going to look death square in the face and anoint the body of their Master.
They were going to tell death that it might have taken away their hope, but it could not destroy their love.

They discovered something they could not understand.
The tomb was empty.
His body was gone.
Angels suddenly appeared among them…
“why do you look for the living among the dead?”

On that Easter morning, so long ago, we discovered a love that was stronger than death.
God’s love for the world.
And that love poured out through the cross.
That love entered the reality of death.
It was a love so strong that the forces of death could not contain it.

Our journey through Holy Week rarely spends much time with the reality of Holy Saturday, but I want to take you back there this morning.
You see, the power of death is all around us.
And it can only truly and finally be defeated if it is confronted head on.
God’s love for this world is so great and so deep and so wide that nothing and nobody can escape it.
Not even the depths of hell.

In the Apostles’ Creed, we recite words handed down for centuries that convey the most important realities of our faith.
I actually want to invite you to pull out your hymnals and turn to page 881… or peek into the back corners of your memories… page 881… and recite with me once again those ancient words.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried;*
The third day he rose from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The holy catholic church,
The communion of saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the body,
And the life everlasting. Amen.

How many of you noticed that little asterisks in the printed version in the hymnal.
Look down at the bottom of the page at what words we so often leave out.
After Jesus suffering and death… after he was buried in the tomb… the traditional way we remember this story is that Jesus descended to hell.

In the First Epistle of Peter, we are told that the God who made everything, came to us in the life of Jesus Christ… and that in order for all of us to be brought back into the life and presence of God, God’s love descended even to the depths of hell… even to the spirits who were in prison… and shared with them the good news of life and love and light.

My friend and colleague, Mary Bellon, wrote these words for her Holy Saturday devotion for the Annual Conference

“I think it must have been so quiet
In heaven, when God came home
Dragging with him the souls
Who had been lost, carrying them
On his shoulder and over his back
One by one, up from all pure lost-ness
Into heaven and such still silence,
Nobody wailing or weeping but held now
In the abiding, in the coming home.
For three days, he carried the lost
And shut the door on hell… ”

You see, in the holy moments between the cross and the tomb this morning, Christ was busy.
Christ was busy breaking this world free from its chains.
Christ was busy opening up all of creation to the power of God’s restoring, redeeming, recreating love.
Jesus entered the wilderness of hell itself and rescued the disobedient, broken, lifeless, defeated people from the prison of death.
And when he got up on Easter morning…
When he rose up from the depths of hell…
When he stood in body and spirit, in all of his resurrected glory before the disciples…
Christ ushered in a new kingdom where every power that would destroy life, every force that would bind us up, every authority… was now put on notice.

As the Apostle Paul writes to the people of Corinth,

“Christ has been raised from the dead. He’s the first crop of the harvest of those who have died. Since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came through one too… Each event will happen in the right order: Christ, the first crop of the harvest, then those who belong to Christ at his coming, and then the end, when Christ hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he brings every form of rule, every authority and power to an end. It is necessary for him to rule until he puts all enemies under his feet. Death is the last enemy to be brought to an end.” (1 Cor 15: 20-26, CEB)

Whenever a new kingdom comes to rule, the old powers don’t just give in.
They go kicking and screaming to their end.
All around us, death is trying to claw its way back into power.
The forces of evil are fighting back.
We still experience loss, and pain, and grief.
But the Kingdom of Christ is already reigning among us.
And we have been given the promise, the assurance…
The resurrecting love of God will conquer all… even, finally, death itself.

What is the power of resurrection?
It isn’t merely rescue from the brink of death, like we saw with the cathedral of Notre Dame… as brave souls worked through the night to prevent utter destruction.
It isn’t simply reanimation, as we saw this past week when scientists brought a spark of life back to pig’s brains.
It isn’t only resuscitation, where those we thought were dead were pulled back from the brink through extraordinary measures.
Resurrection is not rebuilding…
It is not renovation.
It is not restoration.
It might be a little bit of all of those things, but it is also so much more.

Resurrection is what happens when those who were dead and hopeless and defeated and gone stand up in the love and grace of Jesus Christ.
When we thought the story was over.
When we thought victory was firmly in the hands of death.
Love burst forth from the grave and said, not today Satan.
And resurrection happens all around us when we take up the life and the mission and the ministry of Jesus Christ.
It happens when we die to our self and rise with Christ in baptism.
It happens when we commit to resist the forces of evil, injustice, and oppression in the world.
Resurrection is the addict who hit rock bottom who is now a minister of the gospel.
Resurrection is the church showing up to sing praises in the ashes of a burned building.
Resurrection is a challenging the powers that be who seek to stifle life.
Resurrection is entering the prison.
Resurrection is mucking out a flooded home.
Resurrection is sitting with the dying.
We practice resurrection, we participate in resurrection, we are agent’s of God’s amazing resurrecting love every time we go to those people and places that the world has declared dead, hopeless, defeated and gone and we proclaim with our hands and feet and lips and hearts… not today, Satan. Not today.
Love is not just as strong as death.
Today and tomorrow and at the end of days, the love of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit has conquered death once and for all. Amen.

A Way Forward? 25-cent words

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Texts:  Philippians 4:8-9, Matthew 22:34-40

This past year as I taught confirmation, one of our lessons focused on how we are all theologians.
I wrote that word up on the board and one of our students exclaimed – WOW! That’s a 25-cent word!
There was an old idiom that you shouldn’t use a 50-cent word when a 5-cent word will do.
But just because a word is complicated doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it.
So we unpacked it. We defined it. And suddenly, that 25-cent word wasn’t so scary anymore.

Today, we need to talk about some 25-cent words.
These are words are important and form the background of both the conflict within our denomination and in how we might move beyond this tension.
So… will you pray with me?
Compassionate God, all creation delights in the presence of your Word.
May the authority of your Spirit bring understanding into our confused minds, and truth into our troubled hearts, that we may praise and serve Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (from the Worship@North website. https://northchurchindy.wordpress.com/ )

We are going to start in the same place as our confirmands. Our first 25-cent word is… theologian.
I am a theologian.
I have a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt University and I spent three and a half years studying divine things like scripture and ancient texts and history and the thoughts of other theologians.

But you know what?
You are a theologian, too.
You see, a theologian is simply anyone who reflects upon God’s action in the world today and as United Methodists we believe that every single one of us is called to this task.
Every generation must wrestle with our faith in a changing world.
The church needs to see problems and challenges like sexual abuse or global migration so we can provide a faithful response.
But, we also need to be able to figure out how to communicate the truth of our faith to a world that increasingly can’t understand us.
Theology helps us to do both.
Whether or not you knew it before worship today, you are a theologian.
I want you to claim that! Say out loud and proud: I am a theologian!

And as a theologian, your job is to answer a simple question: What can I say that is faithful to scripture as it has been passed down through tradition, and that makes sense in light of human experience and reason? (paraphrase of Book of Discipline p. 81)
As Paul told the Philippians, we are to focus our thoughts on what is excellent and true, holy and just. We are to practice what we have learned and received and heard from our mentors and teachers of the faith.
That is theology!
And as United Methodist theologians, you have four sources in discovering God at work in the world.
Scripture. Tradition. Experience. Reason.

These four sources make up our next 25-cent word: quadrilateral.
“[John] Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.” (p. 82)
All four are important. All four are necessary. All four help us to see where God is working in the world.
We start with scripture.
We end with scripture.
Scripture is the absolute foundation of all of our theology… so as theologians, we had better be reading and pouring over scripture in our lives.
But… and… scripture is always being interpreted.

First, scripture is interpreted by other scripture.
You cannot take a single verse out of context but need to look at the fullness of the entire passage and story.
And, we come to see as we read the bible that there is an overarching story within the scripture itself… a story of creation and redemption, a story of mistakes and forgiveness, a story that ends in the restoration of all things.
In our gospel, religious leaders ask Jesus to interpret and prioritize scripture for them. His response is one that provides us guidance when we in turn interpret scripture today – how does this verse lead us to love God and love our neighbor? (Matthew 22:34-40)

Next, we have the witness of how people have interpreted that scripture through time. Tradition shows us the “consensus of faith” that has grown out of a particular community’s experience. (p. 85-86)
Not all contexts and communities are the same. The experience of Czech immigrants in the Midwest was very different than that of African slaves in the Deep South. Each community passed on the gospel and created practices of faith that show us how the scripture made sense in their lives. We also connect tradition with the theology of previous generations that have been passed down to us in creeds and writings.

Tradition shows us how communities have understood God, but we also each have or own unique experiences.
Who you are and what you have been through is always with you when you open up the Bible – your pain, joy, anger, gender, economic reality…
It is why you can read the same passage of scripture repeatedly over time and discover something new with each reading.
But Wesley also talked about how God continues to reveal through our experiences and the fruit that we are bearing in our lives. When he saw the call in the lives of women around him, he began to license them as preachers.

Our final source of theology is reason. As the Book of Proverbs reminds us, each person is called to “turn your ear toward wisdom, and stretch your mind toward understanding. Call out for insight, and cry aloud for understanding. ” (Proverbs 2:2-3)
We believe that God reveals truth in many places, not only in scripture, and that we should pursue such knowledge and truth with our whole selves. Science, philosophy, nature: these are all places that help us to gain understanding.
Where we find contradictions within scripture itself or between a passage and wisdom of the world, reason asks what greater truths a verse might be speaking or how to prioritize and discern which is truer.

Our Book of Discipline reminds us that

“United Methodists as a diverse people continue to strive for consensus in understanding the gospel… while exercising patience and forbearance with one another. Such patience stems neither from indifference toward truth nor from an indulgent tolerance of error but from an awareness that we know only in part and that none of us is able to search the mysteries of God except by the Spirit of God. We proceed with our theological task, trusting that the Spirit will grant us wisdom…” (Book of Discipline p. 89)

The simple truth which lies at the heart of our conflict today is that people of faith, United Methodists who care about the scriptures and who come from diverse backgrounds, cannot come to a place of consensus in how we approach matters of human sexuality and in particular how we understand homosexuality.
We might use the quadrilateral differently or prioritize some aspects more than others.
But I think part of the difficulty is that we don’t even have a common understanding of the question we are seeking to answer within the scriptures.
And that means a couple more 25-cent words:

First, homosexuality. This word was initially coined in the 1880s in German and made its way into English usage in the 1890s. The word itself simply refers to sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex. Some modern translations of scripture use this word, but it didn’t even exist at the time the King James Bible was translated.

Many who seek to answer the question of what we should do today start from this definition. Their concern is largely with the physical acts associated with any given sexual orientation. Many prohibitions in our Book of Discipline focus on this as well, using the phrase  “self-avowed, practicing homosexual.” The question being raised by this group is largely about how we use our bodies and whether or not such use is good and holy.

Others focus on a more expansive understanding of the complexity of human sexuality, referring to a wider group of people through the term LGBTQ+.

Science and sociology have helped us to see in the last fifty years that our identity is complicated.
FINAL-genderbread-for-webThis graphic talks about four different aspects of our identity – all of which are placed on a spectrum. Our biological sex, how we identify our gender and how we express it, who we are attracted to… all of these factors play a role… which is why the terminology we use keeps expanding as well. There is a handout at the back that has this graphic as well as some common definitions within LGBTQ+ if you are interested. The question being raised by this group is also about how bodies, but tends to focus more on embodiment and identity as a whole person.

As a denomination, when we bring these questions to General Conference, we seem to have reached our limits of patience and forbearance with one another.
But as people of a local faith community, my prayer is that we can still remember with humility that now we see through a glass darkly and that we still might extend patience and forbearance towards one another as we explore a few scriptures together.

When we open the scriptures, there are six verses that our tradition has used to condemn homosexuality.
Genesis 19: Sodom & Gomorrah
Leviticus 18 & 20: Abomination
Romans 1: Exchanging Natural Relations for Unnatural
1 Corinthians 6 & 1 Timothy 1: “malakoi and arsenokoitai”
As United Methodist theologians, we start with scripture, and we end with scripture so we need to wrestle with these passages as background for our theology today.

 

Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom—everyone from the youngest to the oldest—surrounded the house and called to Lot, “Where are the men who arrived tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may have sex with them.”

First – Genesis 19: 4-5, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Angels from God arrive in order to determine if there are any righteous people in the town. The men of the city knock on the door of the house they are staying and seek to force themselves upon the visitors.
However, this is a great place to start using scripture to interpret scripture. While later Christian tradition adopted sodomy as a term for sinful, non-procreative sex, within the scriptures itself, the sin of Sodom was not sexual in nature. In Ezekiel 16, the prophet names the sin of Sodom as being proud and not helping the poor and needy. This was a culture that relied upon hospitality – when guests arrived the duty of the community was to welcome them and provide for their needs. To violently force yourself upon these visitors, attacking them, raping them, was against every hospitality code of the time. This is a clear violation of the command to love your neighbor.

The question we wrestle with theologically is whether or not our experience of LGBT persons today is reflected in this text.

 

You must not have sexual intercourse with a man as you would with a woman; it is a detestable practice.

 

If a man has sexual intercourse with a man as he would with a woman, the two of them have done something detestable. They must be executed; their blood is on their own heads.

The next two scriptures come from the Holiness Code in the book of Leviticus (18:22, 20:13). In many translations, sex between two men is named as an abomination, or detestable. Both of these chapters are concerned with sexual practices that were forbidden to the people of God as they were entering the Promised Land. It is a rejection of practices both in the land of Egypt and practices that may have been common among others in the land of Canaan.
The Hebrew word that we have translated as abomination or detestible is probably not a fair translation of the word. “Toevah” is understood by many today to instead mean ritually unclean or culturally taboo. The Israelites are called to be holy and set-apart and to adopt cultural practices that are different from their neighbors. In the larger context of Leviticus, these include commands about food, clothing, bodily fluids, and how you treat the stranger among you.
Today, our tradition still considers many of the practices within these two chapters of Leviticus to be culturally taboo, but not all of them. And we have moved away from many of the other prohibitions within these texts that we consider to be culturally bound – like eating shellfish or the cutting of hair. And that’s because we hold a different understanding of what makes us unclean in the eyes of the Lord. Peter’s vision in Acts 10 shifts the conversation within the Christian faith and his encounter with the gentile Cornelius leads him to proclaim, “God has shown me that I should never call a person impure or unclean.” (Actus 10:28)

Theologically, we ask today what scripture, tradition, reason, and experience lead us to claim as taboo sexual acts, framed by our understanding of what forms us as a Christian community that loves God and our neighbor.

 

That’s why God abandoned them to degrading lust. Their females traded natural sexual relations for unnatural sexual relations. Also, in the same way, the males traded natural sexual relations with females, and burned with lust for each other. Males performed shameful actions with males, and they were paid back with the penalty they deserved for their mistake in their own bodies.

Our next scripture comes from Paul’s letter to the Romans. His argument here in the first chapter is that Gentiles and Jews alike are without excuse and full of sin. The Jews have been given the law and claim to follow it but don’t. The Gentiles don’t have the law… instead they should have seen God revealed through nature itself. Augustine and Aquinas and others have carried this concept through our tradition and our use of reason: we can know God through the world around us.
Here in this chapter, Paul argues that the Gentiles should have known God. However, they rejected God and turned instead to idols. As he describes cultic practices of worship, he claims that their idolatry led God to abandon them to their desires. As a consequence, natural sexual relations were exchanged for unnatural ones and these people were filled with jealousy, murder, fighting, deception, gossip, and disobedience to their parents. (Romans 1:29-31)
Theologically, the questions we wrestle with today start with asking what is natural. If one understands homosexuality to be a choice then it would lead you to think that such acts are unnatural. However, for others who believe that persons who are LGBT were created that way, it might be unnatural for them to act against how God has made them.
This is another place where we might ask where our experience shows fruit in the lives of LGBT persons. Paul’s argument here is that same-sex acts are the result of idolatry and cultic worship and these people are filled with other bad behaviors. What are the fruits we see in the lives of people we know who are LBGT? What are the fruits of people who are not LGBT? Do they love God? Do they love their neighbor?

 

Don’t you know that people who are unjust won’t inherit God’s kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Those who are sexually immoral, those who worship false gods, adulterers, both participants in same-sex intercourse,[a] thieves, the greedy, drunks, abusive people, and swindlers won’t inherit God’s kingdom.

 

We understand this: the Law isn’t established for a righteous person but for people who live without laws and without obeying any authority. They are the ungodly and the sinners. They are people who are not spiritual, and nothing is sacred to them. They kill their fathers and mothers, and murder others. They are people who are sexually unfaithful, and people who have intercourse with the same sex. They are kidnappers, liars, individuals who give false testimonies in court, and those who do anything else that is opposed to sound teaching.

The final pairing of scripture is from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. We group them together because they refer to the same two words – malakoi and arsenokoitai. These words have been translated in multiple ways through our history of bible translation.
Malakoi literally means soft and has been translated as effeminate, as the passive homosexual partner, or as a male prostitute.
Arsenokoitai is a word that appears only two times in all of Greek literature – right here in the Bible. It is a word that Paul appears to have made up from two other words: Men and Bed. How tradition understands this word has changed drastically over time. Some think it refers to the dominant homosexual partner. Others think it refers to pimps – men who sell sex. Others think it is connected with temple prostitution, or the practice of older men taking young men (soft men) as sexual partners within the culture of the time.
In the context of the litany of other acts included in this list however, perhaps the Message translation most accurately captures the spirit of this passage. “those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom.”
The truth is, we have all done these things. But the grace of God is present in our lives and has redeemed us and so our call now is to honor God, creation, and our neighbors… and that includes honoring our bodies.

What can we say theologically about sex, sexuality, and our identity that rejects the way people use and abuse one another and helps all people to honor their bodies?

 

As I faithfully wrestle with a theological response to the presence and promise of LGBT persons in the life of the church, I am fully aware that I might end up coming to a different conclusion than you. We are all theologians after all, all tasked with using scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to weigh what we believe to be faithful responses in the world today.
The very conflict within our denomination is the result of this very tension and next week we’ll explore how people of faith have found themselves aligned with various positions today.
But my prayer, above all else, is that we would continue to lift up as our number one priority the love of God and the love of one another – and that includes those who don’t agree with us.
Our call as people of faith after all is to provide a welcome so vast and so radical that all might come to know and experience the saving grace of God lives. May it be so. Amen.

The Spirit of Gentleness

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Yesterday morning, Brandon and I were walking through the farmer’s market downtown when suddenly before us was a man holding a gigantic sign. As people passed by, averting their gaze, he shouted out condemnations and warnings.

“Don’t return to church,” he said as I crossed his path, “Return to the Lord!”

Most of you haven’t met my husband because he is not a churchy person. He had some bad experiences with the church as a younger man and they have forever left an impression upon him. In many ways, he left the church because of people like the man who stood shouting in the middle of the street.

I don’t doubt for one second the sincerity or faithfulness of that man.

I don’t doubt that he is standing there in the street out of an honest desire to bring people to Jesus Christ and to share the message with salvation with them.

But today we are going to talk about not only the message, but the method for how we share God’s saving power with others, and how we should respond when that message falls on hostile ears.

For most of this summer, we have used various biblical characters to exemplify the fruits of the spirit that God has given for ministry. From the healing powers of Peter to the patience of Esau, these ancestors of our faith have been witnesses of how God equips us for ministry.

Today, we are going to learn from example what NOT to do.

As Andrea and Noah just shared with us, the prophet Elisha is a man of God, but he is also a very human being.

In a moment of frustration and embarrassment he lashes out at a group of young boys.

Every time I hear this story, I am reminded that this kind of conflict and tension between grumpy old men and rude young boys is timeless.

From Mr. Wilson in Dennis the Menace to the character of Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood, in Gran Torino we catch a glimpse of Elisha’s mindset in this story. Like Eastwood’s character, Elisha is overcome by recent grief, which only complicates his violent response.

But we also have seen the impertinence of those who jeer the elderly, mock the disabled or anyone different from them. Sometimes we try to excuse the behaviors, thinking that boys will be boys, but bullying in any form, at any age, is inexcusable and it hurts.
As I shared with the children, sometimes our first instinct to bullying or frustration is to push back – through words or actions.

And so many of us has let a curse slip out of our mouths in a moment of anger or pain.

Elisha is only human and that kind of response is understandable.

Yet, Elisha is also filled with the Spirit of God and he is new to the whole business of being a prophet. Just days before, his mentor Elijah had been carried away up into the heavens and the mantle of God had been left to HIM.

And Elisha doesn’t quite have this power of God figured out yet. He doesn’t understand, like the prophet Nathan did last week, that his ability has tremendous power to harm as well as help.

Aristotle once said that a person who displayed gentleness would be angry, “only on the right grounds, and against the right persons, and in the right manner, and at the right moment, and for the right length of time.”

Elisha let his anger get the better of him.

He might have been hurt because he had been teased, but these were children and rather than an “eye for an eye” – his curce called out bears from the woods and killed those children on the spot.

We can look firmly at his actions and state without a doubt they were anything BUT gentle.

The same Spirit of God filled the first disciples when they were sent out on their first steps of ministry. Jesus called them and gave them this charge in Matthew 10 and Luke 9:

“Go to the lost, confused people right here in this neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons…”

Along the way, they were sure to encounter their share of hostile glances and threats. He tells them to not be naïve, because “some people will impugn your motives, others will smear your reputation – just because you believe in me.”

So Jesus also added these instructions. Knowing that they were still new to this work of God, he told them:

“When you knock on a door, be courteous in your greeting. If they welcome you, be gentle in your conversation. If they don’t welcome you, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.”

We imagine they might have followed his advice and performed much better than Elisha had with this power of God within them… yet by the end of the chapter in Luke’s gospel the disciples have already forgotten that Spirit of Gentleness.

When a town will not welcome them, James and John turn and ask Jesus if they can call down fire from heaven to destroy the people.

Again, we discover rash, arrogant, and excessive behavior, which Jesus quietly rebukes and they move on.

So, what is gentleness and how are we supposed to live it out in our lives.

The The Full Life Study Bible defines gentleness as “restraint coupled with strength and courage.”

Aristotle says that it is halfway between excessive anger and indifference.

It is the kind of restraint that Nathan showed when he confronted David in our text from last week, the same that Paul tries to emulate as he writes to the Corinthians. He asks them: “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit.” (1 Cor 4:21).

He could be angry. He could be harsh. As a teacher, he probably knew something about discipline… but he wanted them to repent and transform their lives not out of fear… but out of the love and gentleness that was shown to them.

Maybe that is why I am so troubled by the good and faithful folks who stand in the middle of the street at places like the farmer’s market, shouting out dire warnings at all who might walk by. Because I believe that change comes when we approach one another with a spirit of gentleness and not fear.

In John Wesley’s writing, we see that gentleness in his command to “do no harm.” As our former, Bishop Reuben Job reflected on that command, he writes: “I have found that when this first simple rule was remembered, it often saved me from uttering a wrong word or considering a wrong response.”

He adds, “this simple step, when practiced, can provide a safe place to stand while the hard and faithful work of discernment is done.”

Maybe that is the key. Gentleness invites us to take a step back and to determine proper response.

And I think that if we are faithful to the scriptures we will find that gentleness should be our response to the world.

In Luke, chapter 9, the disciples remember times when the power of God was unleashed on the people and on communities unwilling to repent or upon people who don’t appear to be on their team. They think that they might be justified in doing the same.

Maybe, they are even thinking back to the horrific mauling of those children by the prophet Elisha.

But “vengeance is mine” says the Lord (Deuteronomy 32:35).

And as Paul encourages us,
“Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12: 19-21)

Jesus responds to the anger and pain of the disciples and gently rebukes them and in doing so, he shows us how we should respond when threatened or encountering injustice.

He is aware of the power of the Spirit that lives within him and he uses it to be gentle to those in need of transformation.

As Stanley Horton writes, “The broken reed He would not crush but would fully restore. The flickering wick of a lamp He would not put out but would cause it to burn brightly again… [Jesus] gently takes the sinner and makes him whole.” (http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/top/fruit8_gentleness.cfm)

That man who stood there in the farmer’s market is correct in naming that there will be a time of judgment. After all, our God is great. God is strong and mighty and I truly hope that there will come a day when all things are made right and justice comes to those who have harmed and destroyed on this planet.

But I also know that only God knows how to unleash that power “on the right grounds, and against the right persons, and in the right manner, and at the right moment, and for the right length of time.”

And so the spirit of gentleness we are called to embody is to take a step back and allow that work to be God’s.

Elisha tried to be the judge, jury, and executioner when he encountered wrong in this world.

Instead, God’s spirit calls us to embody gentleness by remembering that we are all sinners.

We are all broken.

We are all filled with the power to lash out or shut out.

And way the message of God’s good news of saving grace is shared is just as important as the message itself.

For my husband, the words shouted out in the street did not open up new possibilities for God’s grace to enter, but probably closed him off even more.

As we live out a spirit of gentleness in this world, let us instead do no harm and in gentleness and love give God time to transform the lives we encounter.

Love Is All You Need

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As Coptic Christians gathered in Egypt this morning to celebrate Palm Sunday, bombs rocked their sanctuaries.  Thirty-six people were killed in the blasts.

This week has seen horrific chemical attacks upon the Syrian people, but what is more horrific is that these kinds of atrocities are happening all the time, but only occasionally make it to our headlines.

In the Des Moines area, this week has seen a slew of gun violence, with five people shot last Sunday morning and three deaths in Bondurant this week.

 

When we gather in this sanctuary and wave our palms in the air, we cry out Hosanna!

 

And that very word has a double meaning that is meaningful in our world context.

We typically think of the Hosanna as a call of praise and glory, welcoming the coming King.

 

But Hosanna also is a cry for salvation. “Save us!” the people call out.

“Save us” we cry out.

Save us from our striving for power.

Save us from unending violence.

Save us from the walls that threaten to divide.

Save us from social forces that stomp on the sick, the poor, and the outcast.

Save us.

 

In the Jewish tradition, the laws were given to the people as a guide for how to live as a saved people.  The Israelites had been rescued from the Pharoah’s grip and in the wilderness they were formed as a people.  And the laws were given as a means to help them live in community and to prevent the kinds of personal and social evils that could destroy them.
613 different commandments are given in the Torah to try to accomplish this purpose.

And when Jesus was asked about which was the most important, he referred to only two.

 

The Shema from Deuteronomy 6: Love the Lord

And

Leviticis 19 – love others.

 

When Jesus summarized all of the law and the prophets, he basically took the ten commandments and boiled them down to five words:

Love God. Love your neighbor.

That’s it.

These laws are all about the relationships we have been talking about these past few weeks.

Love is the fence that guards us from harmful activity. Love is the standard for how we are to behave. Love defines who we are.

 

Throughout this series, we have been touching on the surface of some of the conflict that threatens to divide us as a church.  We are not all the same.  Across this great wide world we worship in different languages and sing different types of songs. We live in various political and social and economic realities.

And I believe that is a good and a holy thing.  But it is also a really difficult reality to live in the midst of.

All of our differences, all of our separate gifts and hopes and desires, all of the nonessentials that can tear us apart, they can only be put into perspective if we take the time to truly be in relationship with one another.

This body only works if at the core of who we are and how we live is love.

When the Apostle Paul hears about the mess that the Corinthians have made of their church by squabbling over non-essentials, he writes to them.  He wants to encourage them to be their best selves.   And if you remember from last week, he tells them that they are the body of Christ and that each of them has an important role to play in the church. He tells them that each of them is gifted and that they should pay attention to and rely upon the gifts of others. He tells them they need to give and accept help and to treat all members with respect.

And then he launches into a beautiful part of his letter that is very familiar to us.

 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing

All of this stuff that you think is so important – Paul writes – all of this stuff that you are arguing about, it means absolutely diddly squat if there isn’t love in the midst of your community.

You could have the most money or be the most talented or live in the most beautiful house, or even have the most elegant prayers or know the scripture backwards and forwards…. But all of it is for nothing if there is not love in your life.

Paul’s not just talking about the romantic love between two people. He’s talking about deep, sustaining love. He’s talking about the love that knits people and communities together. He’s talking about the love that only comes from God.

Love that is patient and kind.

That that is not envious or boastful.

Love that doesn’t seek its own advantage and doesn’t keep a record of complaints.

Love that isn’t satisfied with injustice.

Love that endures all things.

 

As the people of God and followers of Jesus Christ, and as the people called United Methodist, we are all have the same calling: to love.

The primary thing that unites us is the love of Jesus Christ.

The love of Christ reminds us we are all sinners in need of God’s grace.

The love of Christ shows us what grace and mercy are all about.

The love of Christ is sacrificial and bends down in service to others.

The love of Christ gives life to others.

Love seeks the good of others, no matter who they are, even if it is at our own expense.
Love is not a feeling… love is a verb.

It is a daily decision to choose to love and be in relationship with others.

 

In our prayer of confession this morning, we asked that God might turn us, cleanse us, and forgive us our transgressions.

We asked that God might set us again into the procession of love that makes all things new.

 

When we leave this place today, we are going into a world that praises all of the wrong things and that desperately needs to experience the saving power of God.

We are going into a world where children are hungry and parents are frustrated.  Where the mentally ill don’t have access to care and where innocent people are trapped in the midst of countries at war.  If we took the time to list all of the problems and concerns of our nation and world we might never leave this sanctuary.

And yet, God has called us to be his hands and feet in the world.

God has called us to be the Body of Christ.

And that means that God wants us to be the answer to the world’s cries for salvation and healing.  God wants us to carry these palms into the world as a procession, a parade of love and healing and salvation.

God wants us to bind up the brokenhearted and feed the hungry.

God wants us to welcome the refugees and the strangers.

God wants us to seek peace and pursue it.

God wants us to visit the sick and imprisoned.

And through it all, God wants us to love.

 

You know, we are ending this series with the call to love, but in reality, this is only the beginning of the life that we are called to.  As Bishop Bickerton writes, love is “the source of our being, the fuel for the journey, and the goal for which we live.”

Love God.

Love your neighbors.

Amen.

Unity, Diversity, and the Body of Christ

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Over the past week, I’ve been working to get my garden prepped a bit for spring and to start some of the seeds that will be set out after Mother’s Day.  And I was reminded as I dug my fingers into the dirt that soil is so incredibly diverse and complex.  That just one handful of the stuff contains more living organisms than there are people on this planet.   

And in every part of the soil, every one of those organisms has a part to play, impacting chemical and physical properties.  And all of these living organisms live off of and feed off of one another.  It is their interaction that makes soil healthy and thriving and good.

In his book, The Third Plate, Dan Barber describes two ways of seeing what is happening in the soil that surrounds us.

One, is a class system… or a battlefield…

We’ve all seen those videos of a tiny fish being eaten by a bigger fish, being eaten by an even bigger fish… that’s some of what happens in the dirt beneath our feet.  One way of looking at all of the interaction beneath us is to focus on how microbes are eaten by protozoa, which are eaten by centipedes, ants, and beetles.

 

 

But another way of thinking about all of that diversity in the soil is as a system of checks and balances. 

 

Fred Magdoff is a soil scientist and he thinks that “When there is sufficient and varied food for the organisms, they do what comes naturally, ‘making a living’ by feeding on the food sources that evolution provided… What you have is a thriving, complex community of organisms.”

And all of that diversity and interaction in the soil is what makes our food taste good. 

Magdoff says, “Taste comes from a more complex molecule that gets eaten, taken apart, and put back together in a different way.  The plant takes this, and all the other molecules, and catalyzes them into phytonutrients.  Taste doesn’t come from the elemental compounds (like calcium or nitrogen).  It comes from the synthesis” [The Third Plate, Dan Barber, page 85]

 

That’s really why you and I want all of that diversity in the soil after all.  Because we want the things we grow to thrive and taste good.  We want it to bear tasty fruit! 

In musical composition, unless it is a solo piece, it is the interaction of the various instruments each playing their part, yet working together that create harmonization.  

And in the church, it is the way that we each utilize our various gifts and we each play our part as hands or tongues or livers that allows the Body of Christ to make a difference in this world.  

 

But sometimes, the church acts more like a battlefield than the Body of Christ.  

When Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians, he was responding to the way factions and power and pride were tearing the community apart.  

Corinth was a port city and as such it had incredible diversity.  Ideas from across the globe all mingled and freed slaves lived amongst wealthy entrepreneurs.  The church reflected this diversity… but that created a power contest between the believers who argued with one another about which ideology or status was better than another.

At every turn, Paul reminds the people that their diversity should be seen not as a source of division, but as a blessing.  Because of their varied gifts and perspectives, they could do far more together than any of them could do on their own.  

 

We’ve experienced this as a church, haven’t we?  We have incredible diversity as far as our age and our political and theological perspectives and yet look at the amazing things that we have done together.

We raised over $5000 for Joppa in a weekend with a garage sale last year that brought so many different people together.

We built on Faith Hall and paid it off in record time because every person did their part.

We successfully launched Children’s Church because of the incredible work of so many different volunteers and people who were willing to try something new.  

Today is the last day of Third Grade Bible, which is an amazing way our more experienced folks help our young people learn about this amazing book that guides our faith journey.  

 

None of that could happen unless the various parts of THIS Body of Christ were willing to step up and play a part.  

You might be a foot or an eye or a spleen, but you play a part in this church.   We all play a part.  You might think that you are too young or too old or too busy to make a difference, but Paul says you are wrong.  You are an essential part of making the church work!  

Or you might think that church would be a whole lot simpler if everyone was just like me, but again, Paul says we are wrong.  It takes all of our different perspectives and experiences… even when they make things more complex… to be the Body of Christ God has intended for this community.

 

In the United Methodist Church right now, we are divided.  We are different.  And we feel differently about human sexuality.  We can’t always agree about how we should be in ministry with those folks on the margins, whether they are refugees or poor or elderly or tattooed or whatever else marks them as different from the majority.  And underneath all that disagreement is that we don’t all read the scripture in the same way.  

And sometimes, that diversity feels like a war.  It feels like the battle described the soil beneath us or in that clip from Minions.  We are chewing each other up and spitting each other out. And I hate the way my brothers and sisters are hurt and damaged by actions and words that cut to the core of their very being.  And I’ve watched as some people have walked away from the Body of Christ because of it.

When you focus on the conflict that diversity creates, you want to strip out everything that is different to protect yourself and others.  We want simple things.  We want unity, which means, we want to all be the same.

But I believe, and Paul believes, that to be healthy, we need diversity.  We need difference.  We need checks and balances.  We need reminders of the importance of the scripture and justice and mercy and love from people who don’t see it the same way we do. 

We need to listen. 

We need to hold one another accountable. 

We also need to challenge one another. 

We need to be willing to speak the truth in love.

And together, the interaction of all of our different parts creates something beautiful and mysterious and powerful.

John Wesley claimed the Moravian Motto: “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, love.”

There are key things that are pretty essential to who we are as not only United Methodists, but as Christians:  ideas like believing in the Triune God, and understanding that grace plays a role in our lives.  Core things, without which we simply could not be the Body of Christ.  

But there are other things that are non-essential.  What style of music or which translation or scripture or if we prefer percolator coffee or ground coffee or whole bean pour over. In those things, we are called to allow the freedom of diversity and expression and to give room and space for our siblings in Christ to be different and to share their varying gifts.

But no matter what… in all things, we are called to love.  To respect each other.  To listen.  To disagree without being disagreeable.  To be open to the moving of the Holy Spirit.  

In all things, Love.

It is not a coincidence that this chapter on what it means to be the Body of Christ comes right before the chapter on love.  Because the only way we make this kind of community work is through love.  We’ll talk more about that next week.   

 

In the same way the soil beneath our feet thrives on diversity and competition and interaction and synergy – this church thrives because we are different AND because we love one another.  And through God’s grace, that means we can do more than any one of us could accomplish on our own for the Kingdom of God.

Amen.

 

Lessons for the Journey

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Last winter, my immediate family planned a trip to Hawaii to escape the cold and the snow.  We often like to travel all together, but because of my weekend work responsibilities, the rest of the family took off earlier, while Brandon and I stayed here in Iowa to get through church on Sunday morning and then fly out. 

Our original plan had been to fly out on Sunday afternoon, but about a month before the trip, they cancelled that flight and rebooked us for first thing on Monday morning.  So our alarms were set for 4am, our bags were packed and we were ready to go.  And then the text message came.  Our flight had been cancelled.   There had been storms that weekend in Dallas, flights were backed up and ours was being bumped.  We had been rebooked for Wednesday morning. 

I instantly got on the phone and tried to see if there was any way we could get out of town sooner.  Except the hold time with the airline was estimated to be an hour or more.  Brandon and I live near the airport, so I decided to go and try to get in line and talk with an actual agent at the ticketing counter.  Only, the lines there were nearly out the door.  Everyone was trying to get out of town and no one was going anywhere.   There were no earlier flights to be had.

We decided to make the most of the day and built a fire in the fireplace at home and tried not to grumble.  The next day around noon, we got another text from the airlines.  Our flight Wednesday morning out of Des Moines had been cancelled, too. 

I think I spent about three hours on the phone with the airlines and the soonest they could rebook our tickets was on January 1st.  It would be another two days before it would be possible to get out of Des Moines due to the back up all throughout the system.  I cried.  The good lady from the airlines tried her best to help make something work, but it was a mess.   

I finally asked if the flight from Dallas to Hawaii was still taking off the next morning.  It had been only the Des Moines leg of the trip that had been cancelled.  And sure enough, it was still going to be leaving at 9 am Wednesday morning.  Brandon and I looked at each other, and decided to drive to Dallas.  

We picked up the rental car around 4pm, left Des Moines around 5, and drove through the night.  When we arrived, exhausted, around 4am, we found a quiet corner in the airport to take a short nap, made our flight, and made it to Hawaii to spend the rest of the trip with our family… only three days late.  

 

In our scripture this morning, the Israelites are on a journey as well.  While Brandon and I were trying to escape the cold of winter for a warm, sunny beach, the Israelites had escaped slavery in Egypt and now they were headed for the Promised Land.  God was leading them to the land flowing with milk and honey.  Only, they didn’t quite know how to get there and they trusted God to lead them.  

This was supposed to be a fairly simple trip, and yet at the outset, God planned to lead them the long way round.  The pillar of smoke and fire was taking them on a journey that would avoid most of the difficulties they might encounter along the way.  But no road is easy and the setbacks they experienced were far greater than a few cancelled flights. If you continue reading through the rest of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the Israelites experienced loss, frustration, bickering, and ended up wandering for forty years in the wilderness.  There were times in the journey when the destination seemed so far away that they wished they were back in Egypt.  And despite the daily guidance and food provided from above, there were even times they forgot God was with them.  Ultimately however,  just like we finally touched down on the rainbow isle and got to spend our vacation with my parents, siblings, and three amazing niblings, the Israelites finally made it to Canaan.

While we might not be on a physical journey, the people of the United Methodist Church and the people of Immanuel are on a journey, too.  John Wesley often talked about how we are going on to perfection and I think part of that means that we as the church should always be working towards the Kingdom of God and growing not only in our personal faith, but we should be transforming the world around us to look more like the “Promised Land” every single day.  As a church, we need a compelling vision to hold in front of us, a picture of the destination we are longing for, so that we can actively work to bring that reality into being. 

But like the Israelites, our journey has been and will be marked by setbacks. Most journeys are.  We, too, have experienced loss and decline.  In fact, I bet some of you in this room can remember when this sanctuary was built in order to accommodate when we had over 500 in worship every single Sunday.  And, there are times of disagreement and disunity.  We won’t always be able to find the best worship times for every person and we won’t all agree on what a faithful Christian response is to some of the toughest conversations of our day.  

Last week in fact, an email came out from a new group that has formed within the UMC called the Wesleyan Covenant Association.  The email contained a video that highlights the three central beliefs of the organization.  That God is good, the Bible is true, and that Promises should be kept.  And yet, how those three very simple statements were defined is not something that all United Methodists agree upon.  So I became part of a group of young clergywomen that created a statement in response, trying to expand and enlarge the conversation.  

When Bishop Bickerton talks about this journey of faith we are on, he knows that it will not be easy.  But he offers a couple of simple lessons that might help us arrive together at our final destination.  As I have thought about the journey of the Israelites,  my own adventures in travel, and the journey we are currently on as a church, I find them helpful.

The first lesson I want to highlight is what my colleagues and I were attempting to do last week as we drafted a response to others in the church.  And that is the see yourselves and others as a work in progress.   I think this faith that we share is not simple, but it is complex and messy and real.  We are always learning and growing and going on to perfection.  Or as Paul put it, “Now we see a reflection in a mirror; then we will see face-to-face.  Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way I have been completely known.” (1 Cor. 13: 12).  And so that means we should constantly be in dialogue with one another.  We need to admit our shortcomings and leave ourselves open to the possibility that we might be wrong.  We do not need to have it all together or have all the answers… we are still on a journey!

The second lesson relates to that idea.  In the famous words of Vanilla Ice, we need to stop, collaborate and listen. It is often the people we disagree with the most who can help us to get farther on our journey.  We need to collaborate across generations, with our older folks helping out our young parents and our younger folks providing support and care for their elder counterparts.  In his book, Bishop Bickerton shares a story from Zimbabwe and Bishop Nhiwatiwa.  In the Shona language, the word used for the spirit of collaboration is chabadza .  “If you approach a person working in a field, you do not say, “May I plow your field for you?” Instead you say, “May I help you plow your field?”  Chabadza represents a willingness to enter into relationship with someone else on the journey.” (p. 36)   And it is a willingness to let to, let others help, and to let it be done another way.  This is the spirit that we embody here at Immanuel whenever we put the needs of another person above our own and let go of our way in order to let God move us in a new way.  

The final lesson is one that I needed to remember many times on our long journey to Hawaii.  You need to lighten up, loosen up, and have a little fun.  The journey we are on is difficult, and if we don’t open ourselves up to find the joy in the midst of the journey it will feel like its longer than it actually is.  We need to enjoy the ride, remember that we are loved by God, let the Holy Spirit encourage us every step of the way.  Here at Immanuel, there are so many opportunities to have a little fun as we grow in this journey of discipleship.  You can sing and dance with the kids in Children’s Church.  You can laugh together over coffee in Faith Hall.  You can step out of your comfort zone and make a new friend.  You can stand up and let God move you when the music starts playing.  You can roll with punches and smile more and see where the Spirit will move.  

Above all, no matter where we are on this journey, God is with us, pushing us, pulling us, prodding us, and never letting us go.  Like the cloud of pillar and fire never left the side of the Israelites, the presence of God is in this place and will continue to guide us every step of the way.  Amen. 

Momentum for Life: Eating & Exercise

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About ten years ago, I was living in Nashville and was in the middle of my seminary journey. I was overwhelmed by studying and coursework and I was working full time at a local church as a part of an internship. I was burning the candle at both ends and learning a lot… but I was worn out a lot, too.

One afternoon, I stepped on the scale at my parent’s house… I didn’t have a scale myself… and I was blown away by the number listed right by my toes. It was the most I had ever weighed in my life.

I had been so busy doing all of this work that I hadn’t been taking very good care of myself. I was using food to get me through the day. I wasn’t taking time to exercise. And part of the reason I felt so worn out wasn’t all the work… it was that I wasn’t giving my body the right kind of energy to sustain the work.

I started preparing healthier meals in smarter ways – cooking up a whole crockpot on the weekend to last me through the rest of the week.

The next week, I started going to the gym with a friend of mine.

And suddenly, I discovered I wasn’t nearly so tired. I could focus more and tasks didn’t take as long. My mind was more nimble. And my soul felt more whole than it had in a long time.

 

We have been exploring Michael Slaughter’s acronym “DRIVE” over these past few weeks. He is inviting us to think about all of the things that give us momentum to keep following Jesus Christ.

D – for Devotion… for that personal one-on-one time with God in scripture and prayer

R – for a Readiness to Learn… for the ways in which we allow ourselves to be taught by God and one another.

I – for an Investment in Relationships with other people who are on this journey with us – through mentoring and being mentored and honoring our families.

V – for Vision… and understanding that we have a clear sense of where we are going… together!

And lastly E.

E is for Eating and Exercise… but when I look at this topic, it is really about how we honor and care for our bodies so that they have the energy and the focus they need to keep making this journey of discipleship.

 

Ten years ago, when I decided to focus on being healthier, I found a community of support online. There was a website that I visited every single day and I logged what I ate and how long I worked out and I found that there were kindred spirits who could encourage me or help me resist temptation or who needed MY help in their own journey.

I’m not sure I could have done it without them.

That sense of community is important when it comes to our bodies. Because we as Christians do not believe that we exist as individuals completely set apart from other people. This walk of discipleship is one that we take with others.

And Paul agrees. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he talks a lot about our bodies and what we do with them.

Before today’s reading, Paul writes about how the community should hold itself accountable for faithful living.

He doesn’t want us to live apart from the world – completely separate from those who engage in unhealthy activities. We can’t! It’s impossible to totally shut ourselves off from every sinful behavior we see.

But as we live in the midst of our communities, those of us who claim to follow Christ can hold one another accountable for what we eat and drink, who we sleep with, what we say.

Why should we do these things? What does it matter?

 

As we heard in our reading today:

It may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor God with YOUR body! …

Or didn’t you realize that your body is a [temple, a] sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? (1 Cor 6:13-20)

 

As we think about the role of eating and exercise in our journey of discipleship, there are two basic ideas at play here.

 

First: life itself is a precious gift. These bodies are a precious gift from God.

On Wednesday of this week, we will gather once again for Ash Wednesday and the putting on of ashes reminds us that from the dust of the earth we were formed. We were made by our Creator who breathed into us the breath of life. Every life, every body has value.

And when God took on our human flesh and was born as one of us, Immanuel, he came so that we might have life and life abundant ( John 10:10).

The very concept of momentum reinforces the fact that we need energy to go the distance. We need a healthy system of food and relationships, active lifestyles and spiritual care in order to sustain long and abundant life.

A team of researchers discovered in 2004 that there were small communities around the world where people lived measureably longer. In what they termed “Blue Zones” folks reached the age 100 at a rate 10 times greater than the United States.

What was the difference? What made their communities healthier?

Nine characteristics were discovered… characteristics that I think echo what we have heard from Slaughter during this series:

  1. They exercise as a part of daily living
  2. They understand their purpose – they have a vision of what we are here to do
  3. They down shift – they find ways to relieve stress and take Sabbath
  4. They abide by the 80% rule – they stop eating when they are 80% full.
  5. They eat more plants – they sometimes eating meat only once or twice a week
  6. They have a drink with friends –moderation and community are key!
  7. They belong to a faith community – attending a church service four times a month adds 14 years to life expectancy (REPEAT!)
  8. They put their loved ones first – they care for their elders and invest in their children.
  9. They choose a healthy tribe – they surround themselves with people who support healthy behaviors

Do any of those sound familiar to our D.R.I.V.E. acronym?

By being part of a faith community that supports a healthy lifestyle, we can help one another, in the words of the psalmist, “experience Jerusalem’s goodness your whole life long…. And see your grandchildren.”

 

But we also have to remember a second very important point. Our bodies are a gift… but they don’t belong to us. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians:

“Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? They physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:16-20)

As Slaughter writes, “You cannot be a healthy influencer and agent of kingdom change if you are not demonstrating the reality of the kingdom of God within yourself.”

We have to live what we are teaching and preaching. Our lives, our bodies, witness to the faith we follow.

We are the hands and feet of Jesus in the world, after all. And if you are not taking care of yourself, you will not have the energy you need to serve where God calls you.

But this also means that advocating for health and the care of other’s bodies needs to be a part of our ministry.

One of my leadership commitments in the community is that I am on the board of the Des Moines Area Religious Council. Every month, we as a church contribute food and resources to DMARC for use in their 12 food pantries across the greater Des Moines area.

A few years ago, DMARC made a conscious decision to change the food it was providing to clients. Researchers from ISU had helped the organization to discover that rates of diabetes and obesity were much higher in the clients we served than the general population. So a very intentional shift was made to provide more whole grains, to focus on fruits in their natural juices and not in heavy syrup, or vegetables with no salt added. The shift means that the food we provide is a bit more expensive, but contributes to a healthier overall lifestyle.

 

I’m going to close with a confession.

I have personally not been living out these principles lately. I stepped on the scale this winter and found myself back up to where I was about 10 years ago. Actually, a couple of pounds higher.

We are entering the season of Lent… a time of fasting and transformation. A time to recommit ourselves to the journey of discipleship. A time of accountability.

People all around this world give up indulgences for this six-week season, but I, personally, have felt convicted by the reality that I cannot serve God if I do not have the internal resources and energy to do so. So my commitment this Lent is to a healthier lifestyle… and I hope you will help hold me accountable to that… to eating better and exercising more.

And I hope that you will think about the momentum of our faith journeys we have discussed over the past month. Do you need to spend more time in devotion? Do you need to practice humility and an openness to learning? Do you need to invest deeper in relationships with your family or community? Do you need to spend time discovering the vision of God’s future for your life? Do you need to re-evaluate your eating and exercise habits?

This is the perfect moment to shift gears. This is a perfect time to create a new habit. This Lent is God’s gift to you and to this church as together we follow Jesus in the walk of discipleship.

Copyright © 2024 Rev. Katie Z. Dawson. All rights reserved.