Acts – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

Go. Do. Teach

Posted on June 20, 2021Leave a comment

Acts 6:8-15, 7:51-8:3

A father was trying to teach his three sons to do their fair share of the house cleaning. The first place that he started was the bathroom.

Dad crammed the three boys into the room and proceeded to clean the toilet in front of them.

Alright, I’ve showed them, the father thought. Next time, they can do it.

So, the next Saturday came, and the father set the boys to work. They wiped off the counter tops, cleaned the mirror and then stared at the toilet.

“How does that work again, Dad?” “Will you show us one more time?”

Dad got down on his hands and knees and cleaned the toilet again for their benefit.

Next Saturday… same situation… The boys couldn’t or didn’t want to learn how to do it.

So Dad got an idea. He called in the eldest son and showed him how to do it. Then he had the oldest son repeat what he had done – only on the clean toilet.

The following Saturday, Dad brought the oldest and the middle son into the bathroom.

“Okay son… now you teach your brother how to clean this toilet. Show him, what I showed you.”

Lo and behold, the toilet got clean!

The next Saturday, Dad had his middle and youngest sons come into the bathroom.

Again, the older child taught the younger one what to do, with no problems.

Having run out of children, the next Saturday, Dad took the youngest son and their dog into the bathroom. “Alright son, teach Rufus here how to clean the toilet.”

The father never had to clean another toilet again!

What we find in the scriptures is a very familiar story.

Jesus spent the entirety of the gospels showing the disciples how to live.

He is like the father who gets down on his hands and knees to clean the toilet.

This is what you should be and do.

This is how you should live.

Feed the hungry.

Love the sinners.

Seek the lost.

Take care of one another.

And if we follow the story of the disciples through the gospels, they don’t get it.

Jesus keeps showing them again and again and again.

Like the three boys in the bathroom staring at a toilet, we faithful believers often find ourselves staring at the Way of Jesus and don’t quite know what to do.

Ever pass by a homeless person on a street corner and pray: “I just wish you would show me how to help that person, God”

Or get into a fight with someone you disagreed with and said: “Jesus, just show me how to stand up for my beliefs in love!”

The task is daunting.

It is overwhelming.

It is messy and real.

We don’t want other people to see us on our hands and knees like that.

And so keep saying… Will you show me again?

GK Chesterton once penned, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”

Eventually, we must stop watching and start doing.

As Jesus told the disciples in John 14, “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.”

Faith or belief is not about having the right theological opinion.

It is about placing your life in God’s hands.

To believe in God… to believe in Jesus… means to trust that God is already working through your life and that God has given you everything you need to love or serve or pray.

Faith equals action.

I’m giving you this task, Jesus says. And you can do it. I don’t have to show you anymore.

But even more than that… not only can you do it… but you can help others to do it.

As Jesus tells them in the Great Commission:

“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I’ve commanded you.” (Mt 28:19-20).

Go. Do. Teach.

That is the story of the book of Acts.

It is the story of how the apostles stopped asking Jesus to show them and started to do.

They accepted the gift of the Holy Spirit into their lives.

And they got up in front of everyone and started to teach and share.

Because they did, others began to see… and do… and teach in turn.

Others began to follow the way of Jesus.

Including a man named Stephen.

Stephen seems to appear pretty suddenly on the scene.

He is one of the seven people who were set apart to serve the widows, as we talked about last week.

But there was also something that really stood out about this particular guy.

He got it.

He was full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit… which meant he was full of action.

Stephen didn’t sit back, watching… He did it.

He trusted God was with him, that the Holy Spirit had his back, and that he was called to act.

He served tables.

He cleaned toilets… or he would have, if they had toilets like ours.

He made sure that the neglected were cared for.

Just as Jesus promised, Stephen started to do amazing things in the name of God.

And just as Jesus has experienced, all of those wonders and signs began to stir up opposition.

If you have been following along with our daily readings, you know that this isn’t the first time that these early followers of Christ got in trouble.

The high priest and the Sadducees had already arrested the apostles and threatened them to stop talking about Jesus.

But they stood firm in their beliefs… in fact, celebrated that they were worthy to suffer, as Jesus had.

They were let go… that time… but in doing so, they showed people who came after them, like Stephen, how he should respond to slander and opposition.

Trust in God. Hang on to the faith. Speak your truth.

When people began to conspire against Stephen, he didn’t back down and wait for someone to show him what to do next.

He trusted. He believed. He opened his mouth and let God speak through him.

We didn’t take the time this morning to read ALL of Stephen’s speech before the Jerusalem Council… but in it, he renounced the false rumors and retold the story of God’s people from the Torah.

Stephen compared these leaders to those who rejected God’s prophets and calls them out for being too focused on the things of this earth.

In doing so, he claimed they were fighting against the Holy Spirit, the presence of God, as it moves among the followers of Jesus.

What is different about Stephen’s story is that the Council no longer has any patience for this rebellion and these comparisons.

Like Pharoah whose heart was hardened, they would not let him go.

And suddenly, Stephen realizes the path that lies before him.

He watched as Jesus gave up his life and now it is his turn to go and to do.

Even as these leaders react with anger and fear, this young man responds with love and grace.

“Accept my life, Jesus,” he cries out. “and don’t hold this against them.”

Jesus showed these first Christians what it meant to live according to the Kingdom of God.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Stephen claimed his ability to go and do likewise.

What Stephen may never have anticipated is that his death taught others how to keep going.

This was a turning point for the early church and opposition began to come from every direction.

Even as the community in Jerusalem began to scatter, they carried with them his story.

They learned from his witness and found the ability, themselves, to stand firmly in the faith.

And not just those who were on God’s side…

Standing there that day was a man named Saul who not only approved of Stephen’s murder, but led the charge to persecute the church.

But unbeknownst to him, seeds of truth were planted in his heart that day.

A spark that would forever change his life.

In a few weeks, we are going to talk about his journey from Saul to Paul but for today let us simply say this…

We are not called to sit back and watch.

Our job is not to keep asking for Jesus to show us how to live.

We are called to go and do likewise.

You know what to do… reach out your hand and do it.

Trust that God is with you and speak the words you need to say.

And bring others along with you, teaching and showing them how to do it, too.

Jesus said that we would do even greater things that he did.

And I think that is true because as the Body of Christ, the people of God, we will reach farther and wider than one person every could… holding, guiding, encouraging, learning together how to make the Kingdom of Heaven a reality here and now.

We have already been shown how.

Now, we just need to go… and do… and teach.

May it be so.

Real Church is Messy

Posted on June 13, 2021Leave a comment

Acts 5:1-11, 6:1-7

This summer, as we study together through the book of Acts, I wish that we could talk about every single verse… but we simply don’t have time.

So I hope that you are checking out our daily video devotion – which can be found on our facebook page OR on our church website.

In fact, we made it even easier to find on our website… just go to iumc.org and scroll to the bottom and you’ll find the latest three posted right there!

Today, we are skipping over chapter three and four and diving into more of what it meant for these first faithful folks to live with one another.

Two weeks ago, our Director of Youth Ministry stood here and shared this beautiful, rosy picture of a church community that seemed perfect.

They devoted themselves to prayer and teaching and fellowship and sold everything they had and make sure everyone’s needs were met.

And, if you are anything like me, we hold our own imperfect, human community up to that standard and get a bit discouraged.

But never fear… things were not as perfect as they seemed.

This community was messy.

After all, it was full of humans, too.

Real humans with real problems.

People who are dishonest.

Others who are ignored.

There is jealousy, and complaining, and growing pains.

It is church, after all.

So let’s dive into the dirt and the muck as problems of the church appear in chapters 5 and 6.

First, we’ve got a problem that results from dishonesty and disrespect.

In our short video clip from The Bible Project, we are reminded once again of the temple.

God’s presence once led the people through the wilderness.

Then it was understood to dwell in the temple in Jerusalem… a building… and people would travel to Jerusalem to encounter God’s holiness.

But the story of Pentecost is how God’s presence now fills individuals through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Body of Christ is the temple.

I am the temple of God.

YOU are the temple of God.

And so we have these lovely, good, and holy things happening that would you would expect in God’s presence… teaching and fellowship and reaching out to the needy.

But when we say that something is holy, we also have to acknowledge the danger.

We stand in God’s presence with fear, with awe, with trembling…

There is a line I love in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by CS Lewis which captures this idea perfectly.

The lion, Aslan, is a Christ figure in the narrative and one of the children is apprehensive…

“Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”…
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver… “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King; I tell you.”

God isn’t safe.

But God is good.

And God calls us to a better way of living.

We don’t have to be perfect.

But we do need to bring our full selves into this community.

We can’t simply dip our toes into the water and pretend.

In fact, the story of Ananias and Sapphira is not about how this couple should have sold all they had and given it to the community.

It was about the fact that they lied.

They could have chosen NOT to sell their property.

Or they could have sold the property and chosen to be up front about keeping some of the funds.

But they wanted all of the benefits and glory without actually doing the work.

As Peter says, they lied to the community and they lied to the Holy Spirit.

They disrespected the presence of God that was dwelling in their midst and are struck dead.

I started thinking about that scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis think that they can open the Ark of the Covenant and take the power of God for themselves…

Dr. Jones and Marian know that God’s power is holy… They shut their eyes and refuse to look.

But the Nazis have no respect for God… only what God can do for them… and when they reach in to take it with fury and fire, God’s presence overwhelms them and their faces melt off.

Just like the priests in Leviticus who disrespected God in the temple.

You can’t use the presence of God for your own selfish purposes and you shouldn’t reach beyond your own limitations.

When I think about how we might apply this lesson to our relationships with one another today, I think about that idea of respecting the presence of God that dwells within each of us.

We need to respect one another enough to be honest.

If you aren’t able to say yes, then you should have the freedom and ability to say no.

We don’t have to pretend, but can simply bring ourselves and our gifts into this community without apologizing.

Whether they are gifts of finances, or time, or abilities and talents that you might offer.

You don’t have to sell everything you have to be included, or sign up to serve on every committee.

In fact, as we heard in one of our daily devotions earlier this week, you don’t even have to have a penny to your name.

Honor what you have.

Offer what you can.

God’s Spirit dwells within you and your gifts, however big or small, matter.

A flip side to this is that each one of us is called to honor and respect the gifts of others.

Sometimes we find ourselves in that ugly, jealous, comparative mode.

We think that someone is offering too little… and then rub it in or make them feel guilty.

Or we get overwhelmed by what someone else can do and become ashamed about our own value.

God’s presence is working through every person.

Be grateful and honor the faithfulness of each person you encounter in this community.

Our job is not to compare what other people can do… but to celebrate what every person offers.

The second real community problem that this early church struggles with has to do with some growing pains and, to be honest, some discriminatory behavior.

As the community kept growing, suddenly they began to notice there were differences among them.

It was all nice and good and warm and fuzzy to be able to hear in new languages on that day of Pentecost… but it’s a whole other kind of conversation to figure out how all of these different groups are actually going to live together.

And some people began to raise real and honest questions about equity in their midst.

While it might not have been intentioned, the widows who came from a more Greek, or Hellenistic cultural background, were being neglected compared to those who identified more with the Hebrew culture.

Someone stood up, and basically said, “Greek widows matter, too.”

If we are going to be a community that takes care of the needs of everyone, then we need to do what we say.

And when we aren’t living up to that value, if we are overlooking someone, then we need to address it.

What I love about this story is that there is an obvious flaw and problem in the community.

But the leadership listens and calls together the people to solve the problem.

And then they think outside the box.

They don’t just add a task to the job description of those who were already leading, but come up with a new and creative solution that actually allows more people to serve and engage in the work.

The church lifts up new leaders who can help make sure that each person is cared for in the way they deserve.

And these new deacons, servants, are blessed… commissioned… into this ministry of waiting tables.

Friends, we will encounter problems in our church and in our larger community.

There are times when we will be come aware that someone or a group of folks has not been treated fairly.

In fact, I’ve had this on my mind as we think about how this coming Saturday, our nation celebrates Juneteenth.

You know, I’ve never really thought about Juneteenth as a national holiday.

I’m going to be totally honest, I didn’t know what it was and maybe you don’t either.

Juneteenth is the day we commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States.

This date comes two and a half YEARS after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation… but remember, this was not a time of 24/7 cable news.

It wasn’t until General Lee finally surrendered in April of 1865 and Union troops landed in Texas on June 19^th that the war ended and the word reached these communities that all slaves were free.

Now, every single American should claim this day as our own.

We didn’t always get it right, just as the early Christian community didn’t always get it right.

But we can do something about the harm.

We can listen to the pain and we can work for a better future.

And we can celebrate the steps we have taken, the leaders we have raised up, and claim the task that is still before us.

The early church was not perfect.

Because it was filled with imperfect people who were learning and growing and still discovering what it meant to follow Jesus.

And friends, we aren’t perfect either.

We are going to get it wrong.

We are going to make mistakes.

We are going to have days when we focus on ourselves and what we want and forget about others.

But the word I find in these chapters of Acts is this:

We are the Body of Christ, the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, and how we treat one another matters.

So we should hold one another accountable.

We should honor the presence of God that lives within us.

And we should keep working to do better every day.

May it be so.

How Will We Care for One Another?

Posted on March 29, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Acts 4:32-35, 6:1-7

We aren’t quite to Easter yet, but I thought it might be a good idea to take a sneak peek into the future. The life of the early church, told by Luke in the book of Acts, has an awful lot of parallels with our experience right now! Everything was changing. The foundations were shifting underneath their feet. The old ways of doing things were tossed out. Something new was brewing.

You see, even in the midst of all of the uncertainty and fear and transformation they were experiencing, the disciples and the community of believers had tapped into the power of God. The Holy Spirit flowed among them. They were of one heart and one mind. They looked out for each other. They encouraged one another. They were grounded in their relationship with God. But they also never stopped sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with others in the world.

We’ve been reading through “Unbinding Your Heart” together as a church this Lent and today I want to take us back to chapter three. Martha Grace Reese invites us to think about these three interwoven sets of relationships that we have… relationships that we see clearly in this passage from Acts chapter 4. Our relationship with God. Our relationships between church members. And our relationships with people outside the church.

As she writes:
“God works powerfully through these three sets of relationships in healthy churches. These great churches, large and small, have a spider-web wholeness about them. Touch one area of the web, and ripples shimmer across its entire surface. As individual relationships with God grow, people are able to be more real with each other within the church. As relationships within the church get richer, members of the church somehow know how to be better friends at work, in the neighborhood, coaching Little League…” (p. 45)

That was exactly what was happening with the early Christian church. They were deeply connected with God, devoting themselves to learning from the disciples and their prayer and worship life. Every day they met together and praised God. And the scriptures say that there was no needy person among them! Because they relied upon God, they had no shame or guilt about their situations. They were real and honest about what was going on in their lives and when a difficulty or challenge arose, they shared it…. And the community stepped up in response. Everyone cared for everyone else.

But here is the thing. This wasn’t an isolated and insulated group. Luke tells us that they were out there in the world, demonstrating God’s goodness to everyone. In just four chapters of scripture, the family of believers goes from 120, to three thousand, to five thousand! Talk about exponential growth! Daily God was adding to the community. (2:47)

That makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, Reese writes that: “If faith and church have changed your life, you’ll want to share that discovery with your friends. You want everyone to know that Christ lives. You want everyone to know that God loves us extravagantly. You want everyone to know that God will overwhelm their souls with grace and wash away their sins. You want everyone to understand to the soles of their feet that there is no sin, no resentment, no bitterness, no wound, no fear, no illness, no loneliness that Christ cannot forgive, dissolve, heal, cure, fill…. Nothing is more beautiful than this good news.” (p. 51-52)

I’m challenged by those words, because I know that I have been less than enthusiastic about sharing this good news with others. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard “no” too many times. Maybe it’s because I’m too worried about what they might think.

But our book also reminds us that all of these areas are interconnected. So maybe my, our, hesitancy to step outside and share the good news with others also has something to do with those other relationships.

Maybe our relationship with God needs some work. If that’s the case, then maybe before we step out there and start telling people about the good news we need to let it sink into our heart a little deeper. We need to spend some time in prayer each morning. Or read scripture each day. Or join a bible study. Or more regularly participate in worship.

Maybe our relationship with God is just fine, but there is a conflict or a struggle or we aren’t feeling supported by our relationships within the church. This happens far more than we want to admit. We feel slighted by not being invited to lead or serve. We have an interaction that rubs us the wrong way. We have made a mistake and instead of turning to the community, we turn away.

Or maybe there is a huge thing happening in our lives… the death of a loved one or a job loss or a new baby or a child coming home from college… and instead of bringing all of the joys and struggles and stress and realness of our lives to one another, we hold it all inside.

Or maybe, the church got so busy taking care of other things that they literally started neglecting some of their own.

That’s the situation the disciples found ourselves in by chapter six of Luke’s account. The numbers within the community kept increasing, but with more people came more work. Like most churches… c’mon, let’s be honest!… people started to group together with people that were like them. Same age groups, same ethnic background, same party or perspective. And because of this, some of the community was slipping through the cracks.

It’s hard to feel excited and passionate about your church if you aren’t feeling cared for. It’s hard to get out there and share the good news if you have needs yourself that are unmet. And it’s hard to learn how to step out of your comfort zone and talk with your neighbors when you haven’t even done so with the members of your own faith community.

A few weeks ago, Jerad Fischer shared with our church that deep relationships grow when you have something in common. And how awesome is it to discover that what you have in common with someone is God!

So the disciples looked out at the community and realized they needed to be more intentional about how they cared for one another. They needed to help the church build new relationships within the community itself that cut across all of those old lines of cliques and comfort zones and familiarity. They called some leaders to step up and reach out to care for one another.

Friends, I think that’s the kind of situation we find ourselves in today. In a world that is so uncertain and unknown, it’s time for us to be more intentional about our relationships, too. It’s time for us to go deeper in prayer and worship and time with our God. And it’s time for us to really reach out and care for one another as a community of faith.

This week, we are sending out assignments for our caring connections groups. Every member of our faith community has been grouped together with others. Some of these are people you might know, and others are new relationships that you haven’t built yet. But in each group, we’ve got families and elders, retired folks and working parents, children and youth.

And just like the apostles called upon the members of that early faith community to reach out and serve one another, that is your task as well. When you get your caring connection assignment, your job is to reach out to those members of your faith community. Send them a card. Call them up on the phone and ask how they are doing. Find out if they have access to our worship on Sundays. See who might need groceries. Draw pictures and mail them. Look out for one another.

As much as the world feels like it is upside down right now, I have to tell you that I am excited. I’m excited about the opportunity to let the distractions fall away. I’m excited about the time we get to spend with God in a new way. I’m excited about building these new relationships that are going to strengthen our church for the long haul. I’m excited about discovering new ways of “being church.”

And I believe… I know… I have faith… that as we deepen our relationship with God and we solidify our relationships with one another, all of that love and energy and grace is going to spill over into the world and it will impact the relationships we have with every other person we meet.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

We’re All Here

Posted on September 15, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Romans 8:38-39, Acts 16:22-34

The first thing I want to prayerfully acknowledge this morning is that we are all entering this space from different places.
Some of you may be concerned about a family member or friend who you worry are having suicidal thoughts.
I know that some of us have lost a loved one to suicide.
And it is without a doubt that there are persons in this room who at one time or another have experienced a dark time and thought about suicide yourself…
No matter whether you have personal experience with this struggle or not, my hope and prayer is that we will all learn better how to share and offer hope and comfort to one another.

This morning as we reflect together on how we, as a faith community, can come alongside those who are considering suicide, I’m drawing heavily upon the work of Fe Anam Avis and Soul Shop. A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to not only take their Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, but also become a presenter for this program. Soul Shop was developed by the Pittsburgh Pastoral Institute to equip faith communities to minister to those impacted by suicidal desperation.
Notice I said “desperation” and not “depression.”
While sometimes suicide and depression are linked, that is not always the case. Not all people who are depressed have suicidal thoughts and not everyone who is suicidal is depressed.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “the great masses of men [and I would add women] lead lives of quiet desperation.”
There are many people in this world who are struggling just beneath the surface, invisible to the rest of us.
We might marvel at how wide their smiles are or how well they are handling the difficulties in their lives, not realizing that they feel overcome by the immensity of their situations.
And when they don’t feel like they can be honest about that desperation, they might become isolated, which leads even further down the path.
Fe Anam Avis reminded me that this is why suicide often comes as such a surprise to us. Too often, the depth of desperation in a person’s life is only visible after an irreversible tragedy.

When I was in college, one of my roommates attempted suicide.
She is and always has been a bright and bubbly person, full of energy and life. We noticed that she was a bit more sharp and stressed out, but we all were. It was college and life was full of anxiety and the drama of boyfriends and tests. We never sat down and had a real conversation about what was going on in our lives in that way… at least not until she had to be taken to the hospital and our whole friend group made the long drive in the middle of the night from Indianola to Des Moines.

I can remember feeling helpless and full of guilt and shame as I sat in the car that night.
Why didn’t I see it?
Why didn’t she tell me?
Why didn’t I ask?

The truth is, too often we feel unequipped to even begin to respond in the midst of our worry about loved ones.
But friends, we can move from a reality of others struggling with quiet desperation to one of honest conversation. We can create space right here at Immanuel, but also in the lives we live outside of this building, to be honest about the struggles in our life, for others to be honest with us, and together to and to know they are not alone.
In fact, one of the most difficult problems that people face in the midst of their quiet desperation is simply finding someone to talk to. Someone who will listen. Someone who will hear them. Someone who will be there.

And it starts with being able to talk about suicide.
I want to invite you to try something. I want to invite you to turn to the person next to you and use the word “suicide” in a sentence. Any sentence. Just practice saying the word.
Fe Anam Avis says that if you can say the word “suicide” in a sentence, you can save a life.

For too long, the church has largely been silent about this quiet desperation, instead of actually wrestling with the many different stories within our scriptures that relate to suicide.
We are quick to think of Judas, but that only further connects these kinds of thoughts with feelings of guilt, betrayal, and condemnation.
The very first thing I want to say about this is that our United Methodist position on suicide is very clear. “Suicide is not the way that a human life should end… a Christian perspective on suicide begins with an affirmation of faith that nothing, [not death or life, angels or rulers, or powers, things past or present…. NOTHING] including suicide, separates us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39).

The reality is, our scriptures describe many instances where people struggle with suicidal desperation… Job, Elijah, Jonah, Jeremiah, Paul, and King Saul, just to name a few.
And there is a text in the Bible that describes a successful suicide intervention… a moment where a life was saved because someone was willing to talk about suicide.
Let’s turn to Acts 16 and explore that story together.
First, I want you to notice in Acts 16:24 that the jailor in this story was busy just going about his life doing his job. He received the order, put Paul and Silas in the cell, and locked them up. Fe Anam Avis calls him a First Day person – someone who may never have remotely considered suicide and was totally unprepared for how quickly life could change and desperation could show up.

But then something unexpected happens. An earthquake shakes the prison, the doors fly open and the shackles of the prisoners are broken.
In that moment, described in verse 27, the jailor finds himself in a dark night of desperation. In his case, this was a sudden change triggered by a life event. We sometimes see this with young people after a break-up or failure, but also among adults who have experienced a dramatic failure or loss or rejection.

But there is another part of this story. The community shows up and they too are desperate. They are concerned and worried for the life of this person in their midst. They notice. And they say something.
“Don’t harm yourself. We’re all here!” Paul cries out in verse 28.
In that moment, the jailor discovers he is not alone… and he chooses to live.

One of my colleagues, Heidi Carrington Heath, has written about her own experience with suicidal thoughts and what it meant when someone showed up in her life. (https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2017/11/9/second-day-people-suicide-and-faith)
“I was 18 the first time I was suicidal… I don’t remember reaching out to my best friend, but I did.
I remember that she appeared at my door in what felt like moments with another friend of ours. He crawled on the floor with me… and told me that I had two choices. He told me I could leave the room walking, or he could carry me out, but the option of sitting alone in that room with a box cutter in my hand wasn’t an option anymore. I haven’t seen either of them in years, but I literally owe both of them my life.
In that moment, I became a second day person. Second day people are people like me who live through the dark night of suicidal desperation to see the resurrection of the second day. “
She goes on to write,
“People suicide primarily for two reasons: a loss of hope, and a loss of social connection. And if the Church of Jesus Christ and our faith communities cannot do something about that, we should shut our doors. Building communities where no one loses hope, and no one is alone should be the heart of our work together.”

And so to that end, I want to share with you a simple acronym for how we, as people of faith, can show up to provide hope and connection with one another.
C.A.L.L.

First… we Commit.
We commit that if we are ever experiencing desperation and thoughts of suicide that we will reach out and find someone to talk to. I am someone you can talk with – but so are so many other people in this room.
If we make this commitment, we reduce our isolation and we don’t have to carry those burdens all by ourselves.

Next, we can Ask.
If you notice that someone around you is struggling, don’t be afraid to ask if they are thinking about suicide. They may not tell us. They may not want to admit it. But simply noticing their struggle and being to say the words, “That sounds like a lot. It is a lot to carry. Sometimes, people going through what you are going through begin to think about suicide. Do you ever think about suicide?”
Simply asking the question helps someone to know they are not alone. That you are there. That you care for them… deeply.

And once we ask, we have to Listen.
Listen for their story.
Listen for their struggle.
Let them tell you about what they are going through and be willing to sit with them through that.

But then, as in the story of Heidi… and also the jailer… the final thing we can do is Lead someone to safety.
You cannot change someone’s thoughts or their struggle or desperation, but you can help them get to a safe place where they can get the help they need.
Maybe you sit with them and make a phone call.
Maybe you remove an object of harm.

You are not a professional and you don’t have to be.
Just remember that you are called.
CALL: Commit, Ask, Listen, and Lead to safety.
The apostle Paul struggled with his own life in ministry in Philippians 1:19-25, which perhaps better equipped him to notice the desperation in the life of jailer who was right in front of him.
But as people of faith, we all are equipped with love, compassion and mercy. We are all equipped with love and grace. And we know that life is not easy and that desperation is a reality for all of us.
So friends, you, too, are called…. And we are here. We are here for one another. We are here for you.

A Way Forward? Which Way?

Posted on September 2, 2018Leave a comment

Text: Acts 15

The book of the Acts of the Apostles is the story of how the good news of Jesus spread from Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Along the way, the culture and traditions and scriptures of our spiritual ancestors encountered a variety of peoples and backgrounds.
When should the gospel be adapted? What was essential to maintain? Which traditions and practices should be enforced and which were merely contextual?
These were all questions being asked by the disciples and the communities they encountered along their evangelistic journeys.
Peter, in Acts 10, has a vision of the clean and unclean together and then is brought to the home of a Gentile centurion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, he baptizes the entire household… even though it was forbidden for a Jew to visit with outsiders.
In Antioch (Acts 11), Barnabas goes to minister to the Gentiles who were being converted. He is joined by Paul and together they not only convert many, but there is prediction of a famine and together the people there gather money to take to Jerusalem in response. This is not only a church of new believers, but ones who understand their connection to a larger community.
Gentiles were converted in Iconium and Lystra, but tension grew between Jews who followed Christ and those who did not. Those who rejected this new message stirred up conflict between new Gentile converts and Jewish Christians (Acts 14).
To complicate matters, other missionaries began to visit some of these places and the messages being shared about which practices must be followed as a part of the faith were different.
In particular was a very important question: Did you have to be circumcised in order to be saved by Jesus?
Now, circumcision had been an important identity marker for what it meant to be the people of God since the time of Abraham.
Jews who followed Christ did not see themselves as entering a new religion, but merely living into a new expression of that faith. Circumcision was still an important part of who they were.
Gentiles, however, were making a much larger change. Some, like the Roman centurion, were God-fearers… Gentiles who worshipped the God of the Jews but who had restrictions on what they could participate in because of their status as Gentiles. Others were pagans and were converting to a totally new faith. Circumcision would have been a significant cultural departure.

Last week, I shared with you a spectrum of theological stands that shape our church today ranging from progressive to traditional.
Imagine for a moment that this conversation was instead about circumcision.
Those on the progressive incompatibilist side might make the claim that since God is revealing a new way – no one anywhere has to be circumcised. Those on the traditional imcompatibilist side might claim – this is the same God we have always followed and everyone who wants to be saved must be circumcised. And surely there were people in the middle, who thought that Jews who wanted to be could, but Gentiles didn’t have to and so on.

Someone had to make an official decision about this so that the conflict among communities might cease. Local churches in these far flung places were confused about what was required and what wasn’t and it was hurting their ability to convert new followers to the way of Jesus.
And so the apostles and elders of the faith gathered together in Jerusalem in the year 48 to consider this question.
They heard testimony from people like Paul and Barnabas, and disciples like Peter and James made pleas. And together, the Jerusalem Council made a decision for the whole church.

In many ways, our General Conference functions every four years like the Jerusalem Council. We gather to listen and to share our stories and our witness and to make decisions that will guide the future of our entire denomination.
In February, when a special session of General Conference gathers, the decisions we make will impact not only our larger cultural witness, but also the practices and the people of local congregations like Immanuel.

As we hear this text from Acts 15, it is easy to focus on the Jerusalem Council itself… the leaders of the faith who have gathered together to make this decision.
But I admit, that in these past few weeks I’ve been thinking a whole lot more about all of the communities back in Antioch and Iconium who were waiting for a decision.
They sent off their representatives, but it would be some time before they heard a final answer. They knew that there were a variety of different directions the Council could take and so I imagine they began to prepare their hearts for a range of possibilities. Would they have to be circumcised? Would they be free to practice how they had been? Would there be other ways the Council might ask them to come into compliance with the faith?

Friends, we are those local communities waiting for a decision to be made. That decision will impact us in one way or another and so now is the time for us to begin praying and preparing ourselves for whatever might come.

Last week, I asked all of those who were here to identify where they personally fall along this spectrum of theological responses to scripture regarding LGBT+ persons. Because the impact of decisions upon OUR local community might look different from that of our neighbors.
This is simply a snapshot, but these are the responses from 110 of you who were in worship last Sunday morning. Nearly 60% of you identified yourselves on the progressive end, 27% of you on the traditionalist end, with about 13% of you not responding to that particular question. So I’m going to use your responses to help frame how Immanuel might be impacted by any of the particular plans in front of us. One thing I want to highlight is that in the answers for all of the questions, no matter whether you agreed or disagreed, nearly the vast majority of you continued to say that you would stay at Immanuel.

The first thing I want to explore are a couple of options based on this theological spectrum of perspectives. The first one is our current reality… the status quo. If nothing passes at the special General Conference, this is the default to which we revert.

Our Book of Discipline currently prohibits both the ordination of self-avowed, practicing homosexuals and same-sex marriage, which is a traditionalist perspective. However, there are places and people who are not following those prohibitions. In more progressive areas of our denomination, sometimes this happens with no enforcement of the rules at all. In more traditionalist areas, there are often charges filed and sometimes clergy are suspended or their credentials are removed. But there is vast inconsistency.
Currently, Immanuel’s response to this has been to largely to ignore the question. If we agree or disagree with the larger denominational stance, we don’t bring it up. Within our congregation are individuals and families who are impacted by this question, but they don’t push it within the larger church. Unlike other congregations within the greater Des Moines area that have strongly identified with a progressive or traditionalist perspective and have made outreach efforts around that perspective, we don’t talk about it.
And I think this is largely because identify ourselves as a family church. And families disagree about things, but still want to gather together around the Thanksgiving table. We might have private side conversations over pie, but it isn’t going to be the thing that we focus on. So we follow the rules of the denomination, whether we agree or not.

One of the plans included in the Commission on a Way Forward Report, although not recommended by our Bishops, is the Traditionalist Plan (begins on page 67). This plan would end the confusion and inconsistency by determining once and for all that we will not ordain or marry LGBT persons within the United Methodist Church.
There are two ways that accountability and enforcement are increased.
First, all bishops, annual conferences, and members of the Board or Ordained Ministry must certify that they will uphold, enforce, and maintain The Book of Discipline related to self-avowed practicing homosexuals. Those who disagree with the Book of Discipline and cannot make such a statement have three options.
1) Not certify the statement. This will result in all funds from the UMC being withdrawn and the annual conference will no longer be allowed to use the cross and the flame.
2) Certify the statement and break the rules – automatic penalties.
3) Leave the denomination to form/join a self-governing Methodist church, aka a new denomination that might be affiliated with the UMC.

What would be the impact of this on a local church like Immanuel?
Well, first of all, nearly 85% of you replied that if the current stance in our Book of Disciple remains unchanged [status quo] or strengthened [increased enforcement] you would stay as a part of Immanuel. We’d have a disagreement within our church, but again, I think largely we are focused on our community together and not on the larger denominational dynamics.
One of the complicating factors of this particular plan is that as a local church, we don’t have a lot of say of what happens at the levels just above us.
The Iowa Annual Conference, for example, might decide that it either will not certify the required statement or it might form or join a self-governing Methodist church that is more progressive. If that were the case, then this local church would have the opportunity to decide if we wanted to go with the Iowa Annual Conference, or if we wanted to stay with the United Methodist Church.

Another plan that has been presented along this same theological spectrum is the Simple Plan. This plan was not part of the Commission on a Way Forward report but was submitted by the United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus. This particular plan seeks to remove all discriminatory language around homosexuality within the Book of Discipline.
It does so by striking statements like “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.” However, it does not add any additional affirming language, nor does it add language that would increase enforcement towards those who are traditionalist. No clergy or church would be required to perform a same-gender wedding. If and when a congregation wanted to allow such weddings, they could have that conversation and make that decision.

Based on your responses to our survey, that would be a possibility. Nearly 70% of you said that you would agree if same-sex marriages would be allowed in our sanctuary. However, I also imagine that since this congregation deeply values relationship, we wouldn’t jump into any decisions without first having some family conversations and make sure it was the appropriate choice for our church.
Very similar dynamics are at play in the question about the appointment of queer clergy to Immanuel.

So far, we have been working along this spectrum of theological perspectives. The Commission on a Way Forward wanted to break us out of those dynamics a little bit and so the next two plans I’m going to present fall within a sort of compatibilist realm, but are trying to do something a little different.

The One Church Plan (begins on page 19) is a proposal of the Commission on a Way Forward that was supported by a strong majority of our Council of Bishops. The fundamental theological statement within this plan is that our position on homosexuality, whatever it might be, is not an essential of our faith. It is not something that we should divide our church over.
Like the Simple Plan that I just shared with you, it removes all language that is restrictive towards LGBT persons. However, it adds in every one of those locations statements that ensures freedom of conscience for those who think differently. For example, in the section about the ministry of an elder it states:
“In conferences where civil law permits a pastor to perform same-sex marriage services, no elder shall at any time be required or compelled to perform, or prohibited from performing, any marriage, union, or blessing of same-sex couples, or of any couples. Each elder shall have the right to exercise his or her conscience to refuse or agree when requested…”
What would be the impact of such a plan on Immanuel? This particular plan allows us the freedom of conscious, much like the Simple Plan. This plan does specify, however, that same-sex weddings are not allowed in local congregations unless the congregation chooses to approve them by a simple majority vote.
Any congregation that felt like it could no longer remain a part of the United Methodist Church, potentially non-compatibilist congregations, this plan points to already existing mechanisms within the Book of Discipline for them to leave.

The other primary plan presented by the Commission on a Way Forward is the Connectional Conference Model (begins on page 37). This model also affirms that this question is not an essential of our faith and maintains the unity of the United Methodist Church by creating three branches within the denomination based upon our perspectives on human sexuality.
The difficulty with this plan is that it requires changes to the constitution of our church which would have to be approved by 2/3 vote of all of the annual conferences combined. If this happened, there is a plan of implementation with decisions filtering down.
First, each United States Jurisdiction would vote in 2020 which connectional conference it would want to join. After that decision, any annual conference within that jurisdiction could vote to join a different connectional conference if it so chooses. Then, beginning in 2021, any local church that disagrees with where the annual conference has affiliated can choose to join a different connectional conference.
As a result, different churches within our city might belong to various connectional conferences, but we would all still be a part of the larger United Methodist Church.

As a local church, we could decide to just go with the flow and follow the decisions made by the entities above us, or if we disagreed with their direction, we could vote to join another. Whichever conference we ended up affiliating with would determine our policies on ordination and weddings.

The final plan that has already been published and is available for conversation is not a plan of the Commission on a Way Forward. It is simply named, a Plan of Dissolution, and the purpose of this particular plan is to claim that this actually is an essential of our faith and for that reason, we must divide the church.
Rather than any one perspective claiming victory over the denomination, however, the goal of this plan is to dissolve the UMC in its entirety. Then at the 2020 General Conference, delegates will be elected to help form 2 or more new denominations that likely would fall into the same spectrum we have been discussing. As those new denominations are formed, local churches would have the opportunity to affiliate with and join whichever they felt called to join.

In the year 48, the church was at a crossroads. Would they embrace the Gentiles who were following the way of Christ? Would the Gentiles shape the church, or would the Jewish faith shape the Gentiles? Leaders of the faith gathered together in Jerusalem to allow scripture, the Holy Spirit, tradition, testimony, and reason guide them in making the best decision for the church.
I imagine as those local communities of faith sent their delegates, they joined together in fervent prayer.
And so that is what I hope you might do with and for us.
Pray. Pray hard. Pray every day.
Pray for God to guide us as we make these decisions, hard decisions, that will impact our church at every single level, from our local church here in Des Moines to the hospital we have built in Sierra Leone, to our seminary in Russia, to our publishing house in Nashville. Pray.

A Way Forward? 25-cent words

Posted on August 19, 2018Leave a comment

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.
This 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.

Staying Awake

Posted on July 8, 2018Leave a comment

Scripture: Acts 2-:7-12

This afternoon, our Volunteers in Mission, VIM Team will head to Omaha. Maybe you could already see the sleeping bags, luggage and tools outside our main entrance as you came in to worship this morning. We’ll pack everything up, get everyone securely in the vehicles, and head out.
And pray that our drivers don’t fall asleep! I’ve got three things that I do to help me stay awake… whether driving, or staying up all night with youth at a lock-in, or listening to a preacher drone on and on and one like Eutychus experienced in our scripture this morning.

In fact, I think if Eutychus had employed these tactics, he never would have fallen out of the window!

First… you need snacks!

Not anything heavy, mind you… that kind of has the opposite effect.

No, you need a snack that will give you just a little bit of energy. My go-to is a crunchy and salty item like pretzels, but a sour, chewy item works for me, too. Nuts are an ideal option… providing healthy fats and protein to keep you engaged.

Second… you need to keep engaged.

When driving, I turn up the volume on the radio and sing along. Or listen to a podcast or audio book that tells a story that forces my mind to pay attention. During lectures or speeches, I bring along some knitting or a coloring book… something that keeps me mentally engaged will often also help me to focus on the road or what is being said.

Third… it helps to have a buddy.

Whether you phone a friend or have someone in the vehicle with you, having a conversation helps! It also helps to be able to take turns and switch off who is driving to give one another a break.

Lastly… you have to keep the blood flowing.

You might think this is crazy, but when I’m really tired, I hold my hands above my head and shake them.

Okay… you try…

There you go!

Anyone feel more awake?

Sometimes we need to just move our bodies and stretch and send that jolt of energy through our system.

In our scripture for this morning, the apostle Paul comes into town and everyone wants to hear him. They all get together, share a meal, and the conversation goes on far into the night. And this one young man, Eutychus, falls asleep while listening.

I imagine something like this happened countless times as Paul traveled spreading the good news of God.

However, this particular young man was sitting in the window. And when he fell asleep, down he went. He fell three stories from that window.

A fall out of a window three stories up could kill a man… and Luke tells us in this account in Acts that it did.

VIM Team – remember that… practice ladder safety this week!

But Paul rushed down the stairs and through the power of Jesus Christ healed him and they all went back upstairs, ate some food, and kept talking until daybreak.

How many of us are like Eutychus… sitting out there on the edge of the crowd, unengaged, drifting off to sleep?

In her reflection upon this scripture, Marcia McFee notes that “sometimes we simply go through the motions – in our lives and in our worship. Perhaps it is not about staying awake in church, but staying awake as the church.”

I thought about that a lot in this last week as we as a church were called to respond to flooding – both in our own building and in the neighborhood and homes of our members.

For years… before I even got to Immanuel… we have been talking about being in ministry with our community. We had a Community Outreach Leadership Team – COLT – that worked to build some connections with local schools and do some fundraising.

We continue to do things like Donuts for Dudes and Divas at Hillis Elementary that was begun as part of that effort and our book drives for Change a Child’s Story is an extension of that work, too.

But in other ways, those efforts have sputtered a bit.

We’ve kind of fallen asleep at the wheel – going through the motions as staff, as members, as a church.

There are a lot of opportunities all around us in this greater community to be in ministry with our neighbors, but too often, we let them slip by unnoticed.

Immigration. The lack of a living wage and the impact on families in Iowa. Mental Health.

These are all places where our scriptures have clear commands to welcome and advocate and provide and heal… but we are missing out on the chance to go out and do something about it with our neighbors.

Sometimes its because we are busy tending to our own internal church programming.

Sometimes its because a need in our community is too overwhelming.

Sometimes its because we fear that a faithful response will appear to be too partisan.

But, as Marcia McFee points out, “the risk of becoming numb, living our lives as if asleep, is that it begins to affect the way we experience the fullness of God’s abundant blessings and promises, even and especially in the midst of pain.”

You see, ministry with* isn’t just about what we offer to the community around us… it is about how we as a church are re-energized and inspired and brought to life by what God is already doing in the lives of our neighbors.

Over this last week, I’ve been using social media to stay connected with the neighborhood flood recovery efforts. Not only was it a great opportunity to share about the work of UMCOR and flood buckets and to offer help, but I was so inspired by the ways that our neighbors were helping one another out. There is a great spirit of compassion in Polk County and Iowa that truly is amazing.

But I also think we should see this flooding as a wake-up call for us as a church. Because it is a reminder of the vast opportunity for partnership right outside of our doors.

In that spirit of “staying awake” let’s go back to my travel tips for some lessons we as a church can remember as we partner with our community.

First- we need snacks!

We’ve got to eat, after all.

So to stay awake as a church, I think we need to look towards all of those times we gather around food as an opportunity to pay attention to what is happening in our community.

How are we creating space and inviting people to join us for coffee time and our Wednesday meals or our other big celebrations?

And how can we take our church out into the community for more gatherings at local restaurants. When we hold small groups at places like Christopher’s or Java Joe’s – we are building relationships with our neighbors, supporting their businesses, and creating opportunities to over hear and find new ways to partner.

I had a meeting with one of you at a local coffee shop not too long ago, and it was amazing how the table next to us were intrigued by our conversation and asked questions about how they, too, could get involved. That doesn’t happen if that same meeting had taken place here at Immanuel.

Second… you need to keep engaged.

As I think about all of those tactics I use to keep myself occupied while driving or during a long meeting – knitting, coloring, singing – I realized that they are all things I already love to do. I’m keeping engaged by tapping into a passion of mine and allowing that to be the vehicle that helps me stay focused. As individuals within this church, we all have passions and gifts that bring us energy and life. Maybe its pottery or acting or woodworking or yoga or animals or crossfit. Whatever it is, when you offer that activity up to God and allow God to work through it then you’ll find your spirit re-energized.

Many of you know that I’ve found this gym that I love and I’ve been part of it for just over a year. I’ve made friendships there with people I never would have come across in my daily journey before… but found community around a shared passion. And together we share about opportunities to help one another out – whether it’s all wearing purple for pancreatic cancer awareness or food drives or inviting each other to come and check out our churches.

Do what you already love to do… but intentionally look for how God is already moving in the lives of the people you meet.
Third… it helps to have a buddy.

We do have individual passions, but ministry happens wherever two or more are gathered. And that means you need to bring someone along with you or keep talking about what it is you are experiencing.

As a church, I think we don’t do a very good job of this.

I know that so many of you are actively involved out there in the community, but we never talk about it! We fall into that midwestern trap of being humble and self-effacing rather than shouting from the rooftops where we are out there in the world sharing God with other people.

So, this morning, we are going to practice. I need five volunteers… and I want you each to tell me about a way that you (or someone here in the church) is out there in the community loving, serving, or praying…

Lastly… you have to keep the blood flowing.

Yes, shaking our hands above our heads is crazy. It made you feel silly… and to be honest, I feel silly every time I do it in the car.

But you know what, being silly, keeping loose, being flexible – those are all things that we need to keep in mind as we partner with our community.

We won’t be able to control everything.

We won’t like the direction every activity takes.

That’s because it’s a partnership.

And when we allow our selves to stay loose, to be flexible, to go where the Holy Spirit leads us, it might feel awkward or uncomfortable or silly… but it’s also holy and good work.

Friends, the good news is that even if we had closed our eyes in the past…. Even if we were nodding off… even if we stopped paying attention… heck, even if we fell asleep and fell out of the window, three stories down, and perished… we can wake up.

God’s eternal alarm clock is sounding off, calling us to shake off the slumber, to get up, to go out, to grab a hold of the life-giving energizing power of the Holy Spirit and be about the work of the church.

So friends… it’s time to not only stay awake. It’s time to get going for God.

Amen and Amen.

The Spirit of Surrender

Posted on August 13, 2017Leave a comment

A little bit later in the service today, we will be receiving a new member of this Body of Christ.
And we will ask Tom some questions… questions that all of us were asked when we joined this church, questions that our parents and sponsors were asked when we were baptized.
Do we accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?
Do we put our whole trust in God’s grace and promise to serve him as our Lord in union with the church Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?

In light of those promises, I want to invite Pastor Todd to read a statement that Bishop Laurie has invited all churches in Iowa to share this morning:

Many of you have heard about the violence that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier today. White nationalist and other right-wing groups had scheduled a “Unite the Right” rally to protest the removal of Confederate symbols in the city, including a statue of Robert E. Lee. This afternoon a man drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring nineteen others. Two others have died. Self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi and hate groups were very open in their intentions to provoke violence, and Virginia’s Governor declared a state of emergency.

The United Methodist Church condemns the evil, hatred, and bigotry that led to this violence, and we ask you to pray for those who have been injured and the families of those who have been killed. We also ask you to pray for the restoration of order and peace for the community of Charlottesville.

At this tragic time, may each one of us renew our commitment by our words and actions to create a world where all people live out the words in this prayer of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours through Him who loves us.

In today’s scripture from the book of Acts, we find a scene from the early Christian community.
In many ways, those early followers of Christ were trying to create that world in which their whole lives exemplified the teachings of Jesus. In the chapters before this, twice we hear tales of how the believers sold everything they had and made sure there were no needs in their community.
Twice, we have been told of their love and faithfulness and how everyone who joined this community of Christ was full of prayer and devotion and the church was growing exponentially every day.
They were standing up for what was right, willing to die for their beliefs, and always sought to share the love, grace, and mercy of God with one another.

But, living in community is not easy… in fact, to truly commit to living with one another is dangerous.
A community that truly cares for the needs of others is a community where people can share their needs without being embarrassed with them.
A community that heals the sick is a community where people are not afraid to speak the truth about their own disease.
A community that cares for the widows and the orphans and the oppressed is a community where people sacrificially put their own lives on the line for the lives of others.
A community that offers grace and mercy is also a community that speaks the truth and names evil and sin in the world when they see it.

And I imagine that many of us in this room today would hesitate and pull back from that type of life, because there are great risks involved in being vulnerable, open, honest, and accountable to a community.
We might have to take off our fake plastered on smiles and tell the truth about the problems in our lives.
We are afraid of our own tears, afraid of our own weakness, afraid that the community around us will turn their backs if they really knew what was going on.
We are afraid of what those outside the church might think if we took a stand for something that we truly believed in.

In Acts chapter 5, we find the story of this couple who just couldn’t surrender it all to God.
They had seen the acts of sacrificial love and were on the fringes of this community who shared everything in common without worrying about what belonged to whom. And perhaps they were inspired by a man named Barnabas who sold a plot of land and laid the proceeds at the feet of the disciples.
Immediately following his sacrificial act, Ananias and Sapphira decide to do the same… sort of.
They, too, sell a plot of land and bring the proceeds from the sale to the disciples… except they lie about how much they sold it for and keep some of it back for themselves.

In the midst of a community where all are of one heart and mind…
in the midst of a community where everyone cares for everyone else and no one has need…
in the midst of a community – united by the Holy Spirit – where no one says “that’s mine, you can’t have it…”
… Ananias and Sapphira are looking out for themselves.
They essentially embezzle money from the sale and hide it for themselves. In doing so, they reject the community, reject the Holy Spirit, and seek to provide for their own welfare.
Ananias and Sapphira were telling the church – it’s nice what ya’ll are doing, and we want to help, but we’re not going to become beholden to you.
We’re going to stand over here on the sidelines and get praise for our giving but we sure as hell are not going to let you take care of us.
We can take care of ourselves just fine, thank you very much.

What they fail to understand is that the Body of Christ asks every person, every member, to fully participate.
No one is more important than another.
An eye can’t see without a brain to process the information.
A hand can’t reach out to help without an arm to support and extend.
A stomach is pretty worthless without a mouth to bring it food.
For this Body of Christ to work, for it to witness to the world, it asks us each to play our part and to do so with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
We can’t hold back.
And we have to allow others to do their part.

In the last question we will ask Tom as he professes his faith, we invite him to confess Jesus Christ as his Savior, to put his WHOLE trust in his grace, and to serve him as his Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races.

The reason that we, as Christians, as baptized members of the United Methodist Church, have to look out on the actions of white nationalists and Christian hate groups and denounce their words and actions as sinful is precisely because they go against everything we proclaim in that profession of faith.
As Bishop Trimble wrote, “naming hate, injustice, and the sin of “-ism” is the only way for us to tackle the forces that would divide us and that would have any of us believe that there is less opportunity to reach our highest God-given potential because of one group of people or another.”

I used to think that the greatest sin of Ananias and Sapphira was the fact that they lied to God and the community about how much money they had sold their land for.
But the more I put this story into the context of this community of believers who relied upon a spirit of trust and vulnerability and risk in order to be united, I realized that their sin wasn’t so much that they lied, or stole the money, but that they believed they could follow God without relying upon the rest of the community.
They thought they were better than everyone else.
They thought they had the right to stand apart.
They were not just clinging to their money… they were clinging to their ideology and trying to carve out a space in their life where God and God’s people couldn’t exist.
And in the process, they were denying others the opportunity to reach their “God-given potential.”

We are asked to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.
We are to become “living sacrifices.”
Jesus Christ died for us and he wants our whole selves in return.

And here come two people who want to be a part of the community and want to walk with Jesus, but who don’t want to dive all the way in.
They pretend that they do – they want the prestige, they want to be a part of this awesome new movement, but they just are not ready to commit ALL THE WAY.
And you know what is really sad – they didn’t have to. They could simply have said that. They could have been up front with Peter and said “Hey, we want to support the church and see what you guys are doing and maybe someday we’ll be at the point where we can do what Barnabas has done and really place ourselves in community.”
Peter even reminds Ananias that the land was his to do with as he pleased and he didn’t have to sell it and he didn’t have to give it to the church…
but when they did so, and when they lied and pretended to really surrender themselves, when they hid who they were, they were actually putting the whole community in danger.
They were acting directly against the Holy Spirit and the unity it brought to the church.
In their act of holding back their resources, of refusing to fully give in to the power of God, in their lack of surrender of their ideologies and power, Ananias and Sapphira let a Spirit of Discord into the body of Christ.
They said with their actions, “it’s okay God, I’ll take care of myself.”
And God’s response… well – this is the difficult part of the story.
First, Ananias and the Sapphira fall dead.
I find this so troubling because I sometimes hold back, too.
We don’t always let God have our hearts and minds and soul.
We are timid with our faith.
We surrender some… but not all.
This passage makes me uncomfortable, because I realize that I’m really no different than Ananias and Sapphira… what on earth prevents God for striking me dead, right here and right now for holding back, myself?
What we learn in the story of Ananias and Sapphira is that we still worship a holy, awesome, and fearful Lord.
In a world full of grace, we do not simply have a free pass to act however we want.
God is still righteous and just and has every right to punish sinners by death or other means.

We are tempted to simply believe that grace covers all and to run through this life as if our actions do not matter.
We are tempted to rest in the love of God and not consider what the consequences of our sin might be.
And, we are tempted to sit back and not speak out when we see the words and actions and beliefs of others in our community or neighborhood or world… we are tempted to not hold one another accountable for the sin and evil that is perpetuated out of fear.
And yet the consequences of sin in the world is real.
Three people died yesterday… communities and families can be destroyed… when we allow sin to run rampant in this world than we have essentially turned our back on God.
Christ demands all and we give some.
We hold back and don’t fully let the Holy Spirit build up this Body of Christ.
We refuse to surrender and therefore we deny the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts, this church, and the world around us.
We might not be struck dead here in this place at this moment, but what do we stop from growing and living and thriving by our blatant denial of the Holy Spirit?
This path of Christian faith is not easy.
While the book of Acts has begun with all sorts of joyous accounts of healing and transformation and triumph over the powers of evil, these passages remind us that discipleship is hard.
It is a warning to those who are considering this faith: think twice.
Think about the price you are being called to pay.
Think about what is being demanded of you.
But also think about the joy and the possibility and the abundant life that awaits if you are willing to let go of what you think and what you believe you deserve in order to embrace what God knows you need.
Are you willing to let go?
Are you willing to dive in?
Are you willing to let the Holy Spirit transform us into the body of Christ?