call – Salvaged Faith

UMC 101: The Mission of the Church

Posted on February 6, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Isaiah 6:1-8

I think one of the greatest failures of the church today is that we put God into a very small box.

Jesus is our friend and companion.

The Holy Spirit holds our hand and brings us comfort in tough times.

The Father tenderly calls us to do the right thing.

These are all images that are safe and simple and focused on ourselves.

Not only are they woefully inadequate for encountering a world full of problems that are too big to tackle alone, but they can’t begin to capture the fullness of a God who is truly other… truly holy.

The prophet Isaiah begins to have visions.

Over and over he sees images of the failings of his nation and the bloodshed and oppression his own people have caused by relying on their own might to solve the problems they faced.

And then Isaiah has a vision of God.

A holy, living, powerful God.

Not a safe and gentle friend, but a vision of the Lord upon a throne.

God’s presence is so great and beyond comprehension that just the hem of God’s robe fills the temple.

And there are winged creatures, seraphim, flying around shouting at one another:

“Holy! Holy! Holy! Is the Lord of Heavenly Forces! All the earth is filled with God’s glory!” (Isaiah 6:3)

As the room shakes and fills with smoke, Isaiah isn’t comforted and he doesn’t feel safe and secure… he is afraid for his very life.

“Mourn for me; I’m ruined” he cries out.

He sees just how unholy he is compared to God.

He sees just how unworthy his neighbors and his nation are.

And he knows that this wholly other and almighty God sees it all too.

But then this God does something unexpected.

God’s holiness draws close.

A glowing coal touches Isaiah’s lips and his sin and his guilt are gone.

But this isn’t just about Isaiah.

It isn’t just about one person encountering the holiness of God, repenting of their sin, and being forgiven.

The way some of our churches live out this story today, Isaiah would have gone home from this incredible experience, assured of his salvation, stay loosely connected with his faith community, and hold on to this memory when things were tough.

That’s how we too often treat faith, isn’t it?

But that isn’t the end of this story.

The voice of God thunders throughout that space asking… “Whom shall I send? Who will go?”

How will this world be transformed from a place of sin and death?

Who will call people to repentance and carry the message of love and forgiveness?

And forever transformed by his encounter with the holiness of God, Isaiah realizes he has a job to do.

It will be hard and messy and frustrating and full of joy and power and love.

But he takes up the call and allows God to send him back into the world to transform it.

You know, if I were to sum up the core of the gospel message that Jesus proclaims it just might be: God loves you, God forgives you, and God has a job for you.

Every day, in a thousand different ways, God is inviting us to participate in the reign of God’s kingdom.

God is asking, whom shall I send into this world to fulfill my reign and realm in this world?

And the church has stepped up to say, “Send us!”

Our Book of Discipline lays out for us our purpose:

“The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world by proclaiming the good news of God’s grace and by exemplifying Jesus’ command to love God and neighbor, thus seeking the fulfillment of God’s reign and realm in the world.” (p. 93)

The text goes on to say that “whenever United Methodism has had a clear sense of mission, God has used our Church to save persons, heal relationships, transform social structures, and spread scriptural holiness, thereby changing the world. In order to be truly alive, we embrace Jesus’ mandate to love God and to love our neighbor and to make disciples of all peoples.” (p.94)

I just love that phrase… in order to truly be alive…

You see, we believe that when we encounter the holy, awesome, expansive, presence of God it changes us.

It transforms us from those who are dead in our sin into those who are alive in the Spirit.

It empowers and emboldens us to head out into the world not as ordinary people, but as servants of Christ.

In order for the church to be alive it needs to be actively engaged in this work as well.

What does this look like, practically speaking?

Well, we good old “methodical” United Methodists are pretty clear about the process for carrying out this mission and making disciples. And we hold one another accountable to this process by tracking and monitoring how well we do each year:

First, we need to proclaim the gospel! And this isn’t just about my sermons on Sunday mornings. It is about how all of us share the good news of Jesus in our daily lives.

It is about how we show the world that we love God and love our neighbors. Or as the Book of Discipline puts it, “the visible church of Christ as a faithful community of persons affirms the worth of all humanity and the value of interrelationship in all of God’s creation.” (¶124, p. 94)

We connect people to one another, we connect issues to our faith, and we connect all of it to God.

Each year in our statistical reports, we take note of how well we are doing in this area by reporting our church demographics and who we are reaching.

It probably isn’t much of a surprise to you, but the professing membership of our congregation is predominantly white and just over 60% female.

About 30% of our participants in Christian formation groups are children or youth and just 3% of our participants are between the ages of 19-30.

These kinds of statistics challenge our local church to think about how we might reach out to younger and more diverse people by building new relationships in our daily lives.

Second, we help our neighbors experience God’s grace as they repent and turn to faith in Jesus. Just as Isaiah confronted his own sin and received forgiveness, we proclaim a need for transformation in hearts and lives. One ofthe primary ways we do this is by sharing the message of God with people in our times of worship.

We talk about the sins and concerns of this world and God’s intentions for all the earth, we hear about the grace of God, and we give people the opportunity to respond.

And so every year, we keep track of how many people are worshipping with our faith community, and how many baptisms, professions of faith, and new members our church has witnessed.

In 2020, before the pandemic, our church had an average worship attendance of about 160. What has been amazing is that even throughout this difficult time, we have grown the number of people who worship with us each week. When you combine our in-person and online attendance, we have been reaching, on average, just over 180 people every Sunday!

In this past year, we welcomed five new people to our faith community, baptized two little ones, and are supporting twelve students as they go through the confirmation process.

The third thing that we believe the church does as we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world is help people to grow in their own Christian life. This happens in worship, for sure, but also in small groups, conversations, leadership opportunities, and the various places we share our gifts with one another and the world.

One of the biggest ways that we can see that our church is alive and continues to thrive is that even as we suspended some of our opportunities, we adapted and created new ways to grow.

We have studied scripture on Zoom, included younger folks in our brass group, brought in new leaders for Sunday school, continued to include those who moved away in online opportunities, and expanded teams to support and encourage our elders, our teachers, and our college students.

When you add up all of the individuals who have participated in some kind of ministry opportunity in this last year, 229 people have been nurtured in their faith through this church.

Fourth, we give people opportunities to say, “Here I am, send me!” As the Book of Discipline puts it, we “send persons into the world to live lovingly and justly as servants of Christ by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, caring for the stranger, freeing the oppressed, being and becoming and compassionate, caring presence, and working to develop social structures that are consistent with the gospel.” (¶122, p. 94)

Our call is to put faith and love into practice in real and tangible ways that make a difference for our neighbors and transform this world more into God’s realm each day.

As a church, we keep track of the number of folks who serve in mission and community ministries that our church sponsors… from Joppa, to Hawthorne Hill, to CFUM meals, to Trunk or Treat, and more. 131 members of this church actively engaged in this work… and we know so many of you are engaged beyond this church too in service and work of advocacy and justice.

Together, we try to not only see, but respond to the hungers that people experience in their lives… not just for food, but for safety, for healing, and for relationship.

And we do all these things not just once… but over and over again. In our work of putting faith and love into action, our witness continues to make disciples who will transform the world.

You know, I have to be honest.

In this season where the world is talking about the “Great Resignation” and the stretch and strain so many people are feeling, it is hard to get excited about recommitting and increasing our engagement with the church of Jesus.

Not only are we busy, but we are tired. And for all sorts of legitimate reasons.

One of the reasons we put God into that small little box is because we aren’t sure that we really can take on one more responsibility.

It seems easier to hold God at arms length… to focus only on the small differences God makes in your daily life… instead of worrying about anyone else.

But friends, the holy and awesome and terrifying power and presence of God is here!

The whole earth is full of God’s glory!

“Woe is me!” Isaiah cried out.

He was ready to die, give up, give in…

And the holy power of God gave him the ability to say, “Here I am… send me.”

And our church believes that in order to truly be alive… to be energized and empowered… then we have to let that burning coal of God’s love and mercy and grace touch our hearts.

We have to “embrace Jesus’ mandate to love God and to love our neighbor and to make disciples of all peoples.” (p. 94)

Take a moment to rest and rejuvenate your spirit…

But also know that the Holy Spirit is ready to set your heart and your life on fire.

And friends… the good news is that we don’t have to do this work alone.

Each one of us within this Body of Christ called Immanuel has a unique gift and role to play… whether it is praying, or leading, or giving of your resources, or doing the hands on tasks of ministry.

Here at Immanuel, we embrace this vision of discipleship. We believe that we follow Jesus as we connect with one another… as we worship and repent and confess our faith… as we grow in community… and as we go together to the world.

All of us, together, with God’s help… can not only be disciples… but make disciples… and transform this world.

Renew the Journey

Posted on January 5, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12

Gracious God… May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts and minds be acceptable to you O Lord, our Light and our Salvation… Amen.

We find ourselves in a transitional time.
It is a transition between the season of Christmas and the ordinary time before Lent.
It is a transition between one year and the next.
The past and the present and the future all collide.
Who were we? Who will we become?
What are we willing to do to make it happen?

When astronomers from the East saw a great light in the sky, they knew the world was about to turn. They could feel in their bones that this moment, this transition, was going to change everything.
Everything they read and studied, everything revealed to them told them, deep within their bones that this light would lead them to the child born King of the Jews.
This child would lead Israel and conquer nations.
And they didn’t want to let this moment pass them by.
They wanted to be there.
They wanted to see for themselves.
This king was so important, he changed their lives, too.

I used to think of the wise men as professional star followers.
I always assumed that they knew exactly what they were doing.
But no matter how much preparation they had…
no matter how skilled they were at navigating the skies…
there are just too many unknowns.

They didn’t know what the trip would entail: how long would it take and how many provisions they should pack. Were they concerned about running out of food or water?
Afterall, there were no Casey’s or Kum & Go’s along the way.
They couldn’t guarantee safe places to rest or a friendly greeting when they finally arrived.
They believed they were looking for a king, but they didn’t know what this king looked like! They didn’t know when or if they would ever return home.

That kind of journey takes faith and trust and humility.
But maybe… it also takes a little bit of desperation.

So, there is a song by Styx that has be in my mind all week when I think all of those unknowns of the journey.

In the song we hear the words:
Every night I say a prayer in the hope that there’s a heaven
And every day I’m more confused as the saints turn into sinners…
I wake up each morning and turn on the news to find we’ve so far to go
And I keep on hoping for a sign, so afraid I just won’t know.
Show me the way, show me the way
Take me tonight to the river
And wash my illusions away
Show me the way

You know, I hear in these words someone who has been so disillusioned and frustrated by the world that they are desperate to find a new way.
Think about those wise men…
What would motivate them to seek out this King unless they were aching for something new to appear in the world?
These wise men had their eyes wide open, frantically searching for a sign, for something to lead them.

And it appeared before them.

I wrote this week in the message about seeking a clarity of vision…
I’m wondering how many of us… myself included… are more like the chief priests and scribes in King Herod’s court than those astrologers from the east.
You see, the religious professionals knew what they were looking for.
They had all of the predictions and prophecies.
When the wise ones appeared, they could easily point out exactly where it says in the scrolls of Micah and Samuel that this king would be born in Bethlehem.
But they couldn’t see.
They weren’t even looking.
They were going about their lives, blinded to the miracle that was taking place only six miles away from them.
A star, led people from halfway across the world, and they couldn’t see it.
Maybe, because they thought they could do it on their own.
Maybe, they got comfortable in their fuzzy awareness.
Maybe, they weren’t desperate enough to ask for God to show them a new way.

As this year turns, as this season turns, are you aching for something new?
Are you looking and trying to see and understand what might come next?
The year turned and all of our prayers for peace on earth feel like they have already been shattered by rumors of war. What is our path out of this mess?

There are questions that linger about the future of our denomination and so many, no matter their perspective are aching for a new possibility… could this new announcement this week be the sign we’ve been waiting for? That something different is on the horizon?

The continent of Australia is literally on fire, and for those who have been speaking out about the climate crisis wonder if maybe this, finally this, could be a turning point, a moment of desperation where we might collectively seek a different way of being in the world.

But aside from all of those global concerns, what about your own family. Your own faith journey.
I have places where I am ready to grow and deepen my relationship with our Creator and my spouse and my loved ones, places I’ve neglected and forgotten about in the busyness of life.
Places that I thought were doing okay… but that I’m now recognizing are a bit fuzzy and unclear.
I hear that happens as you get older.
Things get a bit more fuzzy and unclear and you need a little help.
We all do.
Honestly, no matter how old or young we are…
no matter how much we have studied scripture…
no matter how frequently we talk to God in prayer…
we all need help seeing God’s plans for our lives sometimes.
We all need help recognizing where God is in the midst of it all.

But as soon as we admit it…
As soon as we start looking…
As soon as that desperation creeps in…
When we fall on our knees in humility…
It appears.
An opportunity to put our faith in the one who can see.
That invitation to trust and let God lead us.
And the reminder that we aren’t on this journey alone.

I love that this tale of the wise ones in Matthew’s gospel isn’t the story of one person.
It’s about a group of people who put their lives in God’s hands.
And that’s what church is all about, isn’t it?
We need each other for support and for guidance.
We need one another to help interpret the signs and experiences that we have.
Each one of us brings to the scripture a fresh perspective.
We each have different gifts that complement one another.
Some of you may be teachers, others healers, some may be full of hospitality and others have the ability to lead.
It will take all of our skills together on this journey, along with the grace of God.
We are the body of Christ, in this place and in this time.
And none of us can do this alone.
We must ask for help, we must look to one another for guidance, and we must be willing to admit we don’t have all of the answers.
And as this new year turns, if we want to discover something new, then we need to be a little bit vulnerable and open to however and wherever the Spirit may move.

In many ways, that is what Epiphany is all about.
Epiphany is the revelation of God to the world.
And it didn’t happen just once with some magi from a foreign place….
No, God was continually revealing Godself throughout the life, death and resurrection of Christ…
and Jesus is still being revealed to us today through the Holy Spirit.
But sometimes we need to renew our journey with God, we need to ask for help, so that once again we can focus in on Jesus.

So over the next few weeks, our journey will take us along the paths of many people in the scriptures who have experienced “little epiphanies” – people who saw a glimpse of the fullness of God.
We will walk with John the Baptist in the River Jordan.
We will follow the disciples as they heard a call and experienced his teaching and miracles, and we will end up on the mountain where Jesus stood transfigured before Peter, James and John.
As we make this journey, I hope and pray that we will see Christ clearly.
I hope and pray that through him, God might again show us a way.
I hope we will see how our own lives need to be transformed because of what we have learned.

The magi saw a star in the sky that they believed would change the world.
And they got up and did something as a result.
They honored the Christ Child not just through their gifts.
But they took risks.
They made sacrifices.
They left behind what they thought they knew because they knew something so much better was in front of them.
That’s what I hope for you and for me and for all of us in this season.
I pray that we might be able to see with new eyes and new clarity just what God has in store.

The poet W.H. Auden wrote “to discover how to be human now / is the reason we follow this star.”

That is the journey that is before us.
To discover how to be human now.
To discover how to follow Christ now.
To discover what it means to be God’s people now.

It’s a journey that will take some faith.
And some trust.
And maybe just enough desperation that we can actually, really, truly surrender.

There is a prayer from our tradition that has often been used in this turning of the year to recommit ourselves, to reclaim God’s covenant, to renew our own journey of faith.
We have a modern paraphrase of Wesley’s Covenant Prayer and as we turn into this new year, I invite you to join with me in praying it together…

Sing! Play! Summer! – Here I Am, Lord

Posted on June 2, 2019Leave a comment

Text: 1 Samuel 3: 1-11

Earlier this spring, we invited everyone at Immanuel to share with us some of your favorite hymns and songs. And this summer, we are going to highlight one of those pieces each week during our series: Sing! Play! Summer!
As the pace of activities slows down just a bit, we want to go back to those familiar songs that ground us in our faith.
We want to learn some new songs that will help us continue to grow in our faith.
And just as importantly, we want to have some fun and play and relax and let our spirits be re-energized by God and rest and recreation.
One of the pieces of our Sing! Play! Summer! Series is actually a six-week guide to summer fun and faith that we want to offer you and your families. It has some devotions, lists of related activities, new songs to learn, and ideas for making this the best summer ever!
You don’t have to do all six weeks in a row, but you could! Simply go at your own pace, enjoy this summer with your kids or grandkids or niblings or neighbors, and be sure to check out our church website for audio versions of the songs included!

Our very first song of the summer is actually the number one favorite song of the people of Immanuel: Here I Am, Lord!
This is also one of MY favorite songs and so we thought we’d kick off our summer series with the best of the lot 😊
Here I Am, Lord was written by Dan Schutte in 1981 and he based his work on two different call stories in scripture: Isaiah’s call in chapter 6 and Samuel’s call that we just heard a few minutes ago.
In fact, we were originally going to use the Isaiah story… but we are going to save that one for another Sunday coming up very soon!

The verses of the song remind us that the creator of everything in this world: the snow, the rain, the sea, the skies, the stars… this Creator God is not far removed from us, but hears every cry of God’s people. God feels our pain and weeps with love for us.
And God will not leave us in our despair and our sin, God actively works to save us! He provides bread, light, life itself… but… and most importantly… God does so through people like you and me.
Mr. Schutte comes out of the Jesuit tradition in the Catholic church and actually wrote this hymn for a mass for the ordination of Deacons in the church.
As he described the words of the chorus, he wanted to capture that sense that we as God’s people, aren’t always so sure about answering that call.
He writes: “In all those stories, all of those people God was calling to be prophets have expressed in one way or another their humanness or their self-doubt.”
So he adapted the sure-footed response from the mass to the words that perhaps we all find ourselves speaking:
Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
Are you actually speaking… to me?

The chorus of this hymn takes us to that call that keeps coming again and again to the young boy Samuel in the middle of the night.
Samuel serves in the temple with the priest Eli and that night is charged with the duty of keeping the lamps burning until dawn in the part of the temple where the ark of the covenant was kept.
As we are reminded each winter when the peace light from Bethlehem comes through, it is not easy to keep a lamp burning over night. You worry the oil will go out or the wick will burn through.
So Samuel is sleeping there on his mat in the temple so that he can get up periodically and check on the lamp.
And there in the night… in the dark… God speaks to him.
We don’t know how old Samuel might be in this part of the story, a boy is all the scriptures say, but he has spent his entire life in the temple. His mother Hannah was barren and prayed with all her might for a child. When her prayer was answered she brought the child before God and left him in the care of Eli, the priest and Samuel grew up in the temple, serving the Lord.

But I think too often we focus on how Samuel heard his call and forget the details of what that call was TO.
You see, Eli had two sons: Hophni and Phinehas, and they were the worst pastor’s kids you have ever met.
When people came to offer sacrifices, some of the meat was always given to the priests for their service. But the boys wouldn’t wait until the sacrifice was over… but they would grab a chunk of the choicest meat right off the fire.
Today, it would be like if the pastor’s kid stopped the offering plates as they were being passed, took out the largest bills they could find for themselves, and then allowed everything to proceed. And they did it with threat of violence.
Not only that, but they also sexually harassed the women who served at the temple.
Samuel would have grown up, seeing the actions of these two young men, and likely would have been troubled in his heart by their example.
Maybe he even cried out himself, asking God to do something about it.
Well, God heard the cries of the people and God promised this injustice would end.
And God called Samuel in the night and gave him a vision of what he was supposed to do in response. Of the kind of leader he was supposed to become.

As a junior in college, I was convinced that I was going to be a meteorologist when I grew up. But I was also in leadership with the Religious Life Council at Simpson and had been involved in ministry through my local church. One afternoon, the chaplain called me into his office and invited me and a few other students to an event called, “Exploration.”
It was a conference for young people who felt like they were hearing a call to ministry – a place to explore what that meant for their lives.
I don’t remember much about that gathering, except for one worship service.
Bishop Minerva Carcaño was preaching… in fact, she might not have even been a bishop at that point… and before her message she read aloud for us the call story that Tony just shared with us in our scripture reading.
Bishop Carcaño is Latina and what I simply can’t get out of my mind is her calling out, over and over again through the scripture and her message that name in her gentle dialect:
“Samuel! Samuel!” (heard phonetically as Sam-well!)
Hearing her say that name in such a different dialect helped me to hear the entire passage in a new way. It was like it struck a new chord and snuck into every corner of my mind.
The entire drive home from that event, I thought about all of the people throughout my life who had been calling me into a certain type of ministry:
First it was my pastor, Bruce Ough, who is now a bishop of the church. He called me into his office after I gave the sermon for the youth sunrise service at my church and told me I was going to be a pastor someday.
Then it was my youth leader, Todd Rogers, who kept lifting me up into leadership and preparing me for a pastoral role, whether I wanted to accept it or not.
That voice of God had come through teachers and fellow students who had been gently encouraging me to consider starting down the path of pastoral ministry even as I ran in the other direction.
I realized that like Samuel, I thought I was simply hearing the voice of my pastor or my teacher.
I had never stopped to consider before that weekend that perhaps it wasn’t just a human voice after all….
Perhaps God was speaking to me and inviting me into a particular role in the world!

The reality is, God doesn’t just speak to people being called into professional ministry or to prophets from the Old Testament.
God speaks to all of us.
God is looking around at this world that you live and move and breathe in and God hears the cries of the people around us:
The fear and anger surrounding gun violence and mass shootings.
The reality of climate change and its impact upon our neighbors… especially farmers and those along rivers in the Midwest right now.
The impact not only of mental illness, but also desperation because of the lack of resources to respond.
The sense of isolation and abandonment experienced by LGBT youth who are turned away from their families.
The physical hunger of our neighbors young and old.
The crisis of desperation that leads some women to seek to have an abortion.
The stress upon the lives of our youngest people that impacts their ability to learn in a classroom.
The realities of addiction that lead so many to end up on the streets or in our prisons.
These are the cries that God hears. These are some of the people for whom God, out of great love is weeping.
And these are all places where I have seen and heard that you as people of Immanuel have heard God calling you to do something.
They are the things keeping you up at night…
Nudging at you…
Tugging at your heartstrings…

And friends… when God starts calling, God doesn’t stop!
I see so many of you answering God’s call through your work and your volunteer time.
You show up faithfully in classrooms and work with kids outside of school.
You are present with vulnerable and hurting folks at hospitals and in prisons and in shelters.
You are organizing with others to make an impact upon this world, to put your prayers into action.
You are present and reach out to that person who most needed to hear that they are loved by God.
I’m so proud of the way that you, the people of Immanuel, have already said,
“Here I am! I will go!”
I think it’s the reason that this song is the top of our list for our favorite songs to sing together.
But I also want to say… we all have fear and doubt and uncertainty about responding to God’s call. Every single one of us has asked that question,
Is it I, Lord?
Do you really mean me?
Why do you think I am capable of this?
if you are feeling that nudge, that calling to do something, and you don’t know quite what comes next… I have two things I want you to remember:
First: the advice from Eli to Samuel – Take it to the Lord. Pray and tell God that you are listening and you are ready to hear. Ask what God wants you to do.
But second: you aren’t in this alone. And just like Samuel had Eli, I’d love to sit down and chat with you and listen so that maybe I can help get you connect with other people who are already engaged in this work as you learn what it might means to say yes.

What’s Mine is Yours

Posted on May 20, 2018Leave a comment

Later this morning, our church will welcome nine new members.

These young people have been working hard all year long to learn more about the faith that we hold together. And they will stand before the congregation at our second service this morning and will confirm and profess that faith for themselves.

While a few of them are newer additions to this congregation, most of these students were born into this family, were baptized right here at Immanuel, and have long been a part of this community of faith.

In our last class, we sat and read together from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The same passage that we heard just a few minutes ago.

And we remembered that at the beginning of the confirmation year, we were different people, from different schools, different ages. But throughout the course of the year, Jesus broke down the barriers between us and created a new person out of our group.

So now they are no longer strangers.

And thanks to the amazing work of our mentors, they now have some connections across generations. Through their volunteer work this past year, they have joined Immanuel members serving at CFUM and Joppa and have helped lead worship and have shared their gifts of music with the church. They’ve come to committee meetings and have used their voices and ideas to help shape who we are and where we are going.

They belong to God’s household. This church, this community of faith that has Jesus himself as the cornerstone.

Throughout this Easter season, we have been thinking together about what it means to abide in God, to make a home in God, to interact with one another in this community of faith as family. And what I love about this passage from Ephesians is that it is yet another reminder that “Christ is building us into a place where God lives through the Spirit.”

We don’t always talk about the power of the Holy Spirit, but on a day like today, that Holy Spirit takes center stage.

On this day of Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection, we remember that the Holy Spirit came upon those first disciples like tongues of fire.

It filled them, it transformed them, it gave them abilities of which they never knew they were capable!

That day, God turned those apostles into the foundation of God’s home.

And ever since then, God has been building a glorious temple.

Brick by brick.

Person by person.

Christ has been building us into a place where God lives through the Spirit.

In John’s gospel, Jesus was preparing to say goodbye to the disciples. He knew that the end of his earthly ministry had come, and he was trying to get them ready for what came next.

And Jesus promised that a Companion would come, the Spirit of Truth, who will not only testify about Jesus, but would pass on all of the things that Jesus himself had received from the Father.

He is telling the disciples, what was mine, is now yours, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

My ministry… it’s now yours.

My love… it’s now yours to give.

Healing power… it’s now yours to share.

The good news of the gospel… it’s now yours to tell.

The work of Jesus Christ continues through the disciples through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And friends… it continues through you as well.

This was not a one-time offer for a select group of individuals who lived a very long time ago.

No, Jesus is telling us that through the power of the Holy Spirit he will continue to live in every person who believes.

The church is not a physical place, a structure, where we gather once a week for an hour.

The church is a people, as that good old hymn reminds us, a people that are filled with the Holy Spirit and who testify to the good news of Jesus Christ and in whom God lives and moves and cares for the world.

As Emmanuel Lartey writes in his commentary, “The Holy Spirit connects the creative genius of the Father with the redemptive love of the Son and the courageous witness of the church.”

Bishop John V. Taylor describes the Spirit as the “Go-between God” – “connecting the past and future in a present full of meaning.”

This story does not exist solely in the past. It is not something we recite or remember.

This is OUR story.

It is still being written and conceived.

It is being lived out through our very actions in the world.

The Holy Spirit is present in this place, right here, right now, and Christ is building us into a place where God lives.

And just as you could probably name the spiritual forefathers and foremothers of your faith… Our confirmands look to so many of you as the foundation of their own faith journey.

You are the strong support upon which their generation stands.

You have taken what you have received from God through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit and you have shared it with them.

You’ve given your prayers.

You’ve shared your time.

You’ve provided food and encouragement and smiles.

You’ve said – “what’s mine is yours.”

And already, these confirmands are themselves part of this temple that God is building, giving support, lending insight, helping to form the faith of not only one another, but also their mentors.

There is one bad habit that we have as the church however.

We tend to think of confirmation as a graduation – the end of a journey – instead of the beginning.

And we tend to think that once we have joined the church, that’s it, we’re doing growing and learning and letting the Holy Spirit move us.

Or maybe we think that once we’ve been a teacher or a mentor, or once we’ve retired, or once we’ve reach a certain age, THEN is when we’ve reached the end of this journey and we can be done growing and letting God us us.

But friends…

No matter where you are in your faith journey…

No matter how young or old you are…

Whether this is the day of your confirmation or the 50^th anniversary of your confirmation…

God still lives in you.

The ministry of Jesus is still yours to undertake.

The Holy Spirit still has work for you to do!

Your ministry might change through time… You might gain new skills and take on new challenges or you might retire from some things to let others have a voice…

But God is never done with you.

This community will always need your presence, your prayers, your gifts, your service, and your witness.

Christ is building us into a place where God lives through the Holy Spirit.

I believe that God lives here.

I believe that the power of the Spirit can help us do amazing things.

I believe that this church makes the love of Christ known in this world.

This is where God lives.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Listen!

Posted on January 14, 20181 Comment

About nine years ago, we were in the midst of one of those bitterly cold Januarys… not unlike the one we have experienced here!
The snow was falling and the temperature was below zero, but I bundled up that afternoon and went to the local nursing home where I held a monthly worship service.
I really enjoyed this time of worship there. While I rotated with other community pastors for this afternoon time of singing and preaching, I was one of the only pastors who also celebrated communion with these folks. Other denominations were more exclusive about who is welcome at the table. So it was always a joy to walk around the room and share the bread of life and cup of salvation with those dear folk.
On this particular cold day, we shared the same text that we are focusing on this morning. As we heard about how Jesus entered those waters of the Jordan, we remembered our own baptisms.
I carried around the circle a basin of water and invited each one to dip their fingers in and remember that God has loved them and called them each by name.
As I came to one woman, she had fallen asleep, as often happens with that group, and she was gently nudged awake by her neighbor.
Hopefully, you won’t have to nudge your neighbor awake this morning!
I kept working my way around the room and came to another woman who proclaimed with joy, “I was baptized in the Iowa River!”

There was another woman whose name was Grace and all throughout the service, she would interrupt to ask who was going to take her home.
At the end of worship, I had the chance to sit with her and chat and with the bitter cold outside, she kept asking who was going to come and get her and take her home.
She openly began to weep because she had been forgotten and no one was coming to take her home.
I reminded her gently that this was her home now…
this was where she belonged…
But more importantly… I reminded her that she was not alone.
In fact, she was loved.
She was a child of God, blessed by the Lord, and touching those waters a voice from heaven was pouring out upon her, reminding her that she was beloved.

As I listened to Grace’s insistence that she go home, I knew that dementia was speaking loud and clear… but there was something of all of us in her words, too.
Don’t we all want to go home?
Don’t we all want to experience the kind of belonging where we are called beloved?

I said earlier that I really enjoyed worshipping there at Rose Haven in Marengo… but there is another part of me that found those times and moments extraordinarily sad.
Some of the residents were vibrant and full of life, but others were barely functional in mind, body or spirit.
Many had been forgotten by their families.
This was not the highest quality facility in the county… and there were many things that made me pause when I thought about the care that I would desire for my own loved ones.

In that moment of worship, I had a chance to name each and every single one of those residents as beloved…
but I also found wondering how my own community of faith was living out our baptisms…
How did the call of God that poured out in our baptisms invite us to be present in the lives of these people in a different way?

You see, on the one hand, our baptism is an echo of the one Jesus experienced… so we proclaim that each and every single one of us is also called beloved by our God.
You are beloved.
You are beloved.
You are beloved.

But so often, we hear those words falling upon our own heads in our baptism and then we stop listening.
I am a beloved child of God, we hear in our hearts. Period. End of story.

But that is not how Mark tells this story.
No, his version of this tale is urgent and messy.
He starts with John the Baptist at the Jordan River, inviting people to come and be baptized as a sign that they were changing their lives.
Rev. Mindi Welton-Mitchell reminds us that, “the Jordan river was where people went to wash their dishes and their laundry. It’s where they went to bathe. In other words, the river flowed with [the] filth and muck of human life… this wasn’t water that washed clean, but rather water that acknowledges the muckiness of our communal lives.”
John knew that his baptisms were not the end of the story, but that someone was coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit.
And then Jesus shows up.
This guy from the dump of a town, Nazareth…
A nobody from nowhere…
And yet, the very presence of God in the world.
And as God-with-us, Immanuel, Jesus Christ, waded into those filthy waters of the Jordan River, the very heavens split open.
And in that moment, the ministry of Jesus begins.
The Spirit flows upon him like a dove, names him beloved, and then forces him into the wilderness.

“What are our baptisms for?” Ted Smith asks in his lectionary reflection (Feasting on the Word).
Baptism is not simply something that makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside.
It is also the reminder that God’s power, God’s spirit, God’s life has poured out upon us… the very heavens were torn open and now YOU are sent out, like Jesus, into the wilderness of this life.
Because not only are you beloved… but so is every other child of creation.
No matter where they have come from or what their life has been, they, too, are beloved by God.
Whether they are from a place that is beloved or a place that has been condemned by others, they, too, are beloved by God.
Whether they are surrounded by love or whether they are forgotten and alone, they, too, are beloved by God.
And in our baptisms, the power of heaven itself pours out on us and calls us into the world to act on the behalf of our brothers and sisters.
To create opportunities.
To open doors.
To work for justice.
To call one another to reconciliation and repentance.
To make God’s love real in this world through our worship, through our work, through our play.
It is the call that drove Martin Luther King, Jr. to proclaim the dream that one day the children of slaves and slave holders would be able to sit down and share a meal together.
The dream that children would not be judged by color of their skin or where they were born, but by the content of their character.
That little children of different races and abilities and backgrounds would be able to join hands with one another.
That we can work together, pray together, struggle together, stand up for freedom together.

Our baptism is the foundation of every single thing we do as a church. Because this is not my place of ministry, but ours.
You are a beloved child of God.
The heavens were tore open as you were baptized and the Holy Spirit sends you out into the world to share the life you have found here with others.
On this day, let us shout with joy for the presence of God is in this place, leading us, calling us, shoving us out into world and reminding us with gentle words that every person we meet is a beloved child of God.
Amen.

Rise Up!

Posted on January 7, 2018Leave a comment

As we gather this morning to worship, we are looking backwards towards these strange individuals who saw a star in a sky and who let it take them to a manger in Bethlehem.
They heard God speaking through that heavenly vision… maybe not in so many words, but in a language and a message that they could understand.
They were stargazers, astronomers, people who identified with the light.
And when God spoke to them, they arose.

“Arise, shine, the light has come” we hear in Isaiah, chapter 60.
Arise! Shine!

These are not words spoken only in far off lands to far off people.
No, God is still speaking.
The message of old is still being heard throughout this world.
Even in the midst of times that seem dark and troubling, painful and chaotic… there is a still small voice that is whispering:
“Arise… shine…”
In his reflection on these texts, Rev. Dr. B. Kevin Smalls notes (https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/worship/season-after-epiphany-2018-worship-planning-series/january-7-2018-god-is-speaking/epiphany-baptism-of-the-lord-2018-preaching-notes) that sometimes the darkness in our lives is so thick that we don’t trust the things that resemble the light:
“Might be a trick… and tricks don’t always
Lead to a treat, so I retreat in the darkness,
Hoping, slightly, ever so lightly that
My deepest fears will submit to the changing
Of dark gears leading to light years of praise
And adoration.”

We like to believe that we are the people of the light, like the Magi, but there certainly are times that we refuse the light.
We hesitate to take a risk, a step of faith.
We are comfortable in the darkness, in what we know, in what is familiar.
As Smalls writes,
“Darkness is for lying down, laying down, hanging around, pretending to be asleep.”
And wow, it feels good to pretend to be asleep. Or to actually be asleep.
To close our eyes and ignore what is happening outside of our lives, our homes, our neighborhoods, our country.
And so we get complacent in the midst of a changing climate and culture.
Statistics that should make us quake with their injustice barely faze us.
• Black women in the United States are 243% more likely to experience maternal death than white women. (https://www.thecut.com/2017/12/black-women-are-3-times-more-likely-to-die-from-childbirth.html)
• Every day, 46 children and teens are shot in murders, assaults, suicides & suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and police intervention (https://www.bradycampaign.org/key-gun-violence-statistics)
• 1 in 5 adults in the United States or 43.8 million people experience mental illness in a given year (https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers)

But usually, we are too nice and kind to want to have real conversations about racism or gun violence or mental health.
We hesitate to talk about these things in church or to ask how God might be speaking, calling, pushing, begging us (the people of God) to respond.
Maybe we are like the people of whom Isaiah was speaking…
You see if we turn just one chapter ahead in that prophetic text, these people felt like:
“justice is far from us and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo! There is darkness… we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.”
They were sitting back, retreating into the darkness, waiting for someone else to do something about it.
“Hoping, slightly, ever so lightly that
My deepest fears will submit to the changing
Of dark gears leading to light years of praise
And adoration.”

But then Isaiah comes along with the reminder that we can’t just sit back and wait for our fears to go away.
“Arise, shine, the light has come”
Maybe those old words aren’t quite seeping deep enough under our skin to be heard and felt.
Let me try it again from the Message translation:
“Get out of bed, Jerusalem! Wake Up! Put your face in the sunlight. God’s bright glory has risen for you!”
God’s glory has risen for you… So what on earth are YOU going to do about it?

The Magi in our scripture rose up… they got out of bed and they followed where God was leading them.
Over field and fountain, moor and mountain, that star in the sky was their guiding light until it took them to the place where the child was.
And when they arrived, they could barely contain themselves.
They felt an overwhelming kind of joy, the Gospel of Matthew tells us, that was born out of the sense that they were in the right place at the right time.
So they fell on their knees and worshiped that little child.

You and I… we are called to get out of bed, to shake off the sleep, to open our eyes and put our faces into the light and to hear where God is calling us to go.
As we start a new year, of ministry together, I have such a fire and energy in my heart.
I can see all sorts of amazing things that God has in store for us if we would simply put our face in the sunlight and head out into this world.
This church is so generous, so powerful, so filled with talent and compassion and love.
And as we have risen up and followed God’s leading – I know that many of you have experienced that immense joy that comes from being in the right place at the right time… from finding that place where your gifts have met some great need in this world.
We experienced that kind of joy in our gigantic Joppa garage sale.
We experience it as we laugh and serve together at CFUM.
We experience it when we dress up in ridiculous costumes to help our young people understand something in confirmation.
Or when our children teach us the nativity story on Christmas Eve.
And in all of these places, we are also discovering the joy of realizing that we are not alone!
There are all sorts of other people on this journey with us. People who have the same kinds of yearning and hopes and fears… and who are ready, with us, to rise up and to truly make a difference in this world for the sake of Jesus Christ!
They are sitting right here in the pews with you.
But they are also outside of these walls – our neighbors here in the community – who might have the same kinds of passion and see the same needs, but might not use the same faith words to describe it.

Maybe they are the Magi – the strangers, the Gentiles, the ones who we didn’t know, but who have been on this journey as well, to bring light and hope into the world.

God is speaking and leading all around us…. Giving us opportunities to bring hope and joy and light and love to all we meet. Together, let us rise up to seek them.

We Have Found the Messiah

Posted on January 15, 2017Leave a comment

“I am not the Messiah”

That’s probably pretty obvious to all of you. Of course, I’m not the Messiah.

But I wasn’t talking about me.

These were the words of John the Baptist as he started his ministry.

He was out there, talking to people about the coming Kingdom of God, preaching, inviting people to repent… well, actually, doing things that I typically do as a pastor.

And people started to wonder about him.

Who are you?

Are you Elijah?

Are you a prophet?

Are you the Christ?

“I am not the Messiah” he answered.

“I’m just a voice, crying out in the wilderness, making the Lord’s path straight.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it might mean to make the Lord’s path straight and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s really about making it easier for people to connect with God.

If you go back to the origins of the phrase from Isaiah, the Hebrew word used in this passage actually means to clear the land… to remove the rocks and roots and everything that gets in the way so that something new can be planted, so that something new can be done.

John was someone who was called to help clear out the obstacles that prevent people from experiencing God. To clear the way for God’s salvation.

And so in our passage today, we hear about what happens when the Messiah does show up. John is out there, doing his job and Jesus comes to be baptized… by him! He has this amazing experience and vision and realizes that THIS is the Messiah. THIS is the one they had been waiting for.

But John’s job isn’t finished.

No, John’s role is to keep pointing to Jesus, to keep making it easy for people to come and discover the Messiah for themselves.

And so the next day, John is hanging out with two of his own disciples. And when he sees Jesus walking by, he cries out: “Look! It’s the Lamb of God! That’s him! That’s the one I was telling you about!”

And so these two start to follow Jesus. And then they reach out and invite others to come and see. “We have found the Messiah!” they tell their friends and neighbors and siblings. “Come and see!”

In many ways, the beginnings of the church was a pyramid scheme.

You find one person, and that person finds two people, and then those two people each find two people, and then those two people… and before you know it, there are 2.2 billion followers of Jesus Christ in the world.

The question I want to explore this morning is how you and I are called to keep this church going. In many ways, our job is simple. We have found the Messiah! We don’t have to BE the Messiah. We don’t have to save this world all by ourselves. We don’t have to single handedly run this thing or be perfect or fulfill every obligation.

We have found the Messiah. We already have someone who can do that.

No, I think you and I have two jobs.

First, it is state loudly and clearly to all the world that “I am not the Messiah.”

Will you repeat that with me? “I am not the Messiah”

Let’s say it like we really mean it: “ I AM NOT THE MESSIAH.”

That might seem like a strange exercise, but the truth is, we aren’t perfect. We are totally unworthy of this calling. We will make mistakes all the time.

In fact, we are only 15 days into this year and I have already made a bunch of small mistakes and a couple of big ones. But I learn from them. I keep going. I try to grow and do better the next time. That is all that we can do.

One of my own failings is that sometimes I set the bar too high. And I’ve heard from some of you, who are overwhelmed that you don’t feel like you are good enough or can do enough for the church. And I’ve heard from some of you that you are burnt out and tired and trying to do all that you can, but you simply can’t do any more.

You know what? None of us are the Messiah.

None of us are good enough to be here. And we all have some kind of brokenness in our lives – be it a broken relationship or our bodies are broken and letting us down or we’ve broken promises to ourselves or others.

We aren’t perfect. And we aren’t supposed to be. We are not the Messiah.

But we ARE here today, because we think we have found the Messiah.

I am part of the church, not because it’s a community of perfect people who never make mistakes or let one another down, but because I believe that this is a place where broken people find healing.

I am part of the church because this is where I hear the stories of Jesus Christ and in the midst of the brokenness, I meet Jesus all the time.

Rachel Held Evans is a Christian writer and blogger and recent talked about why people come to church. And she said:

You can get a cup of coffee with your friends anywhere, but church is the only place you can get ashes smudged on your forehead as a reminder of your mortality. You can be dazzled by a light show at a concert on any given weekend, but church is the only place that fills a sanctuary with candlelight and hymns on Christmas Eve. You can snag all sorts of free swag for brand loyalty online, but church is the only place where you are named a beloved child of God with a cold plunge into the water. You can share food with the hungry at any homeless shelter, but only the church teaches that a shared meal brings us into the very presence of God.

What finally brought me back, after years of running away, wasn’t lattes or skinny jeans; it was the sacraments. Baptism, confession, Communion, preaching the Word, anointing the sick — you know, those strange rituals and traditions Christians have been practicing for the past 2,000 years. The sacraments are what make the church relevant, no matter the culture or era. They don’t need to be repackaged or rebranded; they just need to be practiced, offered and explained in the context of a loving, authentic and inclusive community. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jesus-doesnt-tweet/2015/04/30/fb07ef1a-ed01-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html?utm_term=.14f389a46dd4)

And so our second job is to make it easier for people to come and meet the Messiah. To clear the way. To invite our friends and neighbors and siblings to join us on this journey. To ask them to come and see what it is that we have found here: life in the midst of death, healing in the midst of struggle, hope in our despair, forgiveness in our mistakes.

Our Administrative Council has been wrestling over the last few months with what we want to set as goals for this church in 2017. And part of what we have been doing is looking forward as well to what God is calling us to as a church.

We’ve had a vision for the last four or five years to “Live a life, in Christ, of love, service, and prayer” and part of what I have been pushing them, and us, to think about is so what?

What is going to be different in this world because we have done so?

You know, the meaning of “salvation” is “to heal.” It is God’s deliverance of those in a situation of need, resulting in their restoration to wholeness.

Taking what is broken and making it whole.

That’s the business God is in.

What if that is the business we were called to be in?

We are not the Messiah, but we are here, because we have experienced God’s love, grace, and healing power.

So what if we lived in such a way, if we loved in such a way, if we served in such a way, if we prayed in such a way that we could clear a path for others to come and find Jesus here, too.

In a few minutes, we are going to take a moment to remember our baptism. We are going to remember that we have been saved and healed and are being made whole by the Lord Jesus Christ.

And part of this rememberance is being honest about just how fall we have fallen short. We have ALL fallen short. None of us are perfect. We are not the Messiah.

But we will also be invited to make anew some promises to God.

Because, we might not be the Messiah, but we, the church, believe that God can use us and use our gifts to help make it easier for others to come and find Jesus, too.

And so our covenant prayer simply places our lives in God’s hands. It invites us to remember that we are not the Savior, but that we are willing to let God work in our lives this year.

I am not the Messiah.

You are not the Messiah.

But we have found the Messiah.

Thanks be to God.

J&MES: Faith & Action

Posted on September 6, 2015Leave a comment

This month in worship, we are going to be focusing on the book of James in the New Testament.

It is all the way in the back of our bibles… just after Hebrews and right before a couple of shorter letters that lead into Revelation.

This book is actually a letter written by James to many churches.

And while I encourage you to read the whole letter… it’s only five chapters… we are going to be focusing on a just a few of James’s main points.

Sometimes, we are asked to embrace the both/ands of life… like faith & action.

Sometimes, James will show us how the &’s in our life… like blessing & cursing… are keeping us from being faithful.

Will you pray with me:

Gracious God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts and minds be holy and pleasing to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

You must be doers of the word and not only hearers.

You must study the word and then put it into practice in your life.

Sometimes, James gets a bad rap. In fact, Martin Luther… the same guy that nailed up his demands on the door of the church and started the reformation… wanted to leave this letter out of his bible precisely because of this theme of faith & action.

We talk a lot about faith. We talk about how the only thing we have to do to receive God’s love is to believe. To trust. That faith alone matters. There is nothing we can DO to earn salvation.

The problem is not that James disagrees.

It is that James defines faith a little bit differently.

He doesn’t see it as an either/or. It’s not that we choose between faith and action to get to salvation.

It’s not even that it’s a two-step process. First, faith…. Then, works.

No, in James’s understanding they are the same thing. You simply can’t have one without the other.

Faith, when it is alive, can be seen in the works we do and in the ways we treat one another.

Put another way… actions are the fruit that grow on a healthy and living tree of faith.

I had a whole sermon in the works that basically took that point and ran with it…

But I realized yesterday that it was just me, saying a whole lot more than I needed to say on the topic.

James is pretty clear (and this is the Message translation):

Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

I was going to stand up here today and give you a whole lot of God-talk.

But we need some God-acts today.

We need to see where we have simply been looking on and praying and wishing people well without living out our faith.

And I’m thinking specifically about those who are naked and hungry and hurting today.

I’m thinking about the images of children being washed up on shore we saw this week.

I’m thinking about the millions of families who are fleeing from the violence in Syria.

According to Mercy Corps, more than 11 million people are displaced.

More than half of those who have been forced to flee their homes are under the age of 18.

4 million Syrians have registered or are awaiting registration with the United Nations High Commission of Refugees.

(Read more from Mercy Corps here)

And hundreds of thousands of them are risking a dangerous and costly trip across the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe. One man, Abu Jana, told the Guardian, “Right now Syrians consider themselves dead. Maybe not physically, but psychologically and socially [a Syrian] is a destroyed human being, he’s reached the point of death. So I don’t think that even if they decided to bomb migrant boats it would change people’s decision to go.”

We have seen how our own ancestors in faith, like Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were refugees themselves… fleeing from persecution, famine, violence, and war.

And because of their experiences, we have been told over and over again in our scriptures about our call to care for immigrants and refugees.

Exodus 22: You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

Leviticus 19: You shall not strip your vineyards bare… leave them for the poor and the alien.

Leviticus 24: The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Psalm 146: The Lord watches over the strangers…

Isaiah 16: Be a refuge to the outcasts of Moab.

Malachi 3: The messenger will bear witness against those who thrust aside the alien.

Each of these passages uses the Hebrew word nokri (nok-ree’), which can be foreigner, alien, or stranger…

And when we get to the New testament, we hear over and over again the call to reach out to the strangers among us.

Matthew 25: I was a stranger and you welcomed me

Romans 12: The Mark of the true Christian…. Extend hospitality to strangers…

Will we simply hear the words? Or will we live out our faith?

Yesterday, I read a blog post from a woman named Ann Voskamp and I decided to rewrite most of this sermon.

Because she reminded me that this is not a new problem… and that I have been sitting back and not doing much for a while now.

And I felt after reading her words like the person James was talking about in his letter… who hears the word of God but doesn’t do it. Who listens and then forgets.

And what I love about her post is I felt like I have something I could do.

Like there are things WE can do.

Ways for the church to be the church and live out our faith.

The first thing we can do is simply understand the problem and let it move you. Maybe some of the facts I have shared today, or the stories you have seen and heard this week are part of that for you.

Second, while we may not be able to physically make a journey to Syria or the Mediterranean to make a difference, we can advocate for our government to open the doors to more refugees who are seeking a life for themselves and their families.

You can write a letter to one of our congressional leaders.

You can sign a petition at whitehouse.gov for our country to resettle Syrian refugees here.

And after worship today, you can take a picture of yourself with this sign (#refugeeswelcome), post it on social media, and encourage others to share the word with our government as well. In fact, I encourage everyone who wants to do so, to come back up to the front after worship so we can take some pictures together.

Third, you can support the organizations that are on the front lines making a difference.

Doctors without Borders.

The Migrant Offshore Aid Station, which is a family foundation that has launched a private ship to rescue people at sea.

World Vision.

Our very own United Methodist Committee on Relief.

The list goes on and on and a number of different organizations are included in Ann’s blog. If you are so moved, choose one that inspires you and give financially to support their efforts.

The last thing that we can think about doing…. is to consider sponsoring a refugee family yourself.

I was amazed last winter as we celebrated the life of Evie Surface to learn about her efforts to help settle refugees from Vietnam here in the United States.

She was just one person, but she believed that Jesus meant it when he said that we were to love the widow and orphan and stranger among us.

Here in Des Moines, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants helps to resettle refugees and they have a wide range of opportunities for you to give of your time and energy to help folks who have sought home here in our community.

Hearing and Doing.

Faith and Action.

“It is the seamless unity of believing and doing” the Message translation of James tells us. (2:25-26)

We have heard the word this morning. A word of calling to reach out in love to the last and the lost and the least in this world.

And as that seed is planted in our hearts, may it bear fruit in the world.

Amen.