charles wesley – Salvaged Faith

An Altogether Peace

Posted on December 8, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Ephesians 4: 1-4, 21-32

Often when I’m writing a sermon there is an audience in mind.
I ask God what it is that we, as the people of Immanuel, need to hear.
Sometimes the sermon is only for a portion of our community…
meaning sometimes it’s a teaching sermon meant to challenge those who want to go deeper.
Sometimes it is a creative sermon for those left-brain thinkers.
Sometimes I’m focused on a more basic concept for those who are newer to faith.

Today, I’m going to confess, is a sermon for me.
To be honest, it probably applies to many of you, too.
But it’s the sermon I need to hear.

I was reading through the chapter on “An Altogether Peace” in preparation for this week and felt like it was like an x-ray of my soul.

“Think about the lack of peace within your own heart,” Magrey DeVega writes. “About the unsettledness you feel about your future, the conflict you have against your own inner demons of guilt and shame, and the inability you have to tame the wild horses of anger, fear, and powerlessness… Oh, we do our best to project an ‘almost peace’… We cover up our insecurities, we put on a good face amid the chaos to convince others – and even ourselves – that things are better than they are. But on the inside, deep down inside, we are far from peaceful. We might even be afraid.” (p.15)

There is so much unsettledness in my life right now.
Unsettledness about the United Methodist Church…
Unsettledness in some personal relationships…
Feelings of anger and powerlessness as I try to imagine ways forward…
Guilt and shame for not doing more…
One of you came up to me after the Town Hall gathering last Monday night and mentioned how poised I was answering the questions that were asked… and I realized in the aftermath… I can talk about all of these things that are happening clearly and I can project that “almost” peace… but if I were to really dive into how I’m feeling about it – I would probably just altogether fall apart.

Tomorrow night at our Administrative Council meeting, one of the things we will be voting on is the recommendation already approved by our Staff Parish Relations Committee that I take a renewal leave from mid January through mid February.

According to our Book of Discipline and the strong encouragement of our Bishop, clergy are supposed to take at least four weeks of renewal leave every four years. My last leave was in the summer of 2015, so it is time… maybe past time… for another one of these times of rest and renewal.

On the one hand, I need time to connect once again to that “hidden source of calm repose,” as Charles Wesley so eloquently described God.
Just as we are looking at John Wesley’s sermon, we’ve been exploring some of Charles’ hymns.

As verses three and four of his hymn, we are reminded:
God is our rest in toil, our ease in pain, the healing of our broken hearts….
In war, God is our peace.
In loss, God is our gain.
God is the one who allows us to smile even in the face of the tyrant’s frown.
In God, we find glory and a crown where we had only before been filled with shame.
Plenty in our need, power in our weakness, freedom for our bondage, light in our darkness, joy in our grief…

When everything felt like it might be falling apart for the disciples – Christ gave them his peace.
As DeVega reminds us, It wasn’t like the Roman peace – the pax romana – which came by brute force and conformity and oppression for all who opposed their power.
No, the peace of Christ is different. “[it] would not be sustained by fear or oppression. It would not be born of anger or revenge. This peace would not be through the accumulation of power. It would be born of love.” (p. 24)

So, this Advent, when everything feels like it might be falling apart, my troubled and unsettled heart is waiting…
Waiting for Christ to breathe his spirit of peace upon me like he did those disciples.
Waiting for the altogether peace of Christ to be born once again into my heart.

But the other reason I need that time of renewal is that peace is not only an inward sentiment.
It is also an outward and communal and public demand of our faith.
And I need to connect with that “source of calm repose” if I’m going to help lead our church and our community through the coming year.

You see, just like the first-century Christians Paul was writing to in Ephesians, we find ourselves in a world that is fractured by power and tribalism.
If we were not in the midst of a debate about the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in our church, something else would be creating turmoil.
We lack peace not only in the church – but also in our families, our state, our nation, because we have stopped seeing one another as people who are worthy of forgiveness, mercy, and justice.

I once believed that the opposite of peace was war.
I believed that we would finally have peace in our lives when we laid down our weapons and stopped fighting.
But I’m not sure that is true anymore.
Even if all the swords and guns in the world were destroyed does not mean that peace will come.
Peace, you see, must be bigger than a lack of conflict.
Peace must encompass more than the fights we find ourselves in.

The peace that we seek is like the peace of Isaiah in chapter 65….

I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.
20 “Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
21 They will build houses and dwell in them;
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
23 They will not toil in vain
or bear children doomed to misfortune;
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox…

In the Hebrew Scriptures THIS VISION, lifted up by the prophets, is Shalom.
Shalom is a Hebrew word that means peace, not only in terms of fighting and conflict – but it describes the wholeness of life.
This isn’t just a world in which there isn’t conflict, but there is life!
As one commentator put it, “everything fits together, the relationships work like they were designed to, and things just work right.” (http://listeningtoscripture.com/Textual_Studies/Isaiah/12isaiahspeace.html)
Paul Hanson says that shalom is “the realm where chaos is not allowed to enter, and where life can be fostered free from the fear of all which diminishes and destroys.”

Doesn’t that sound amazing?
A life free from the fear of all that could destroy us?
A life of fullness of health and prosperity for not only yourself, but others too?
We keep talking in the church about schism and conflict and fighting…
What would it look like if we let shalom guide the decisions we make in the next year together.
What would it look like if let go of our fears of all that might destroy us and instead focused on creating a church of health and prosperity for all?
What if we sought the unity of the Spirit and remembered we were called together into one body by the one Lord and God and Father of all?
What if that image of peace we shared with the children included progressives and traditionalists, blacks and whites, straight folks and LGBT folks gathered together, breaking bread, sharing ministry?

How do we get there?
Well, in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul has some advice about what it means to allow the breath of God, shalom, peace, to unite us together by the Spirit.
Magrey DeVega summarizes them into seven points in our “Almost Christmas” study, but if I were to whittle them down even farther, I’d put Paul’s lessons this way:
Seeking peace means that we have to be willing to put another person at the same level as ourselves.

We have to hold them in high enough esteem and worth that we are willing to speak the truth to them without manipulating or distorting or demeaning.
And we have to value them enough that we don’t let our anger pour over into diminishing them as a person through our words or actions.
We have to believe that they are worthy of the same love, forgiveness, compassion and respect that we ourselves have received from Christ.

It’s easy to say those things…
It’s far harder to live them.
There is a person in my life that makes my blood boil. When they enter the room, I can feel my heart rate go faster.
Maybe you know someone like this?
Maybe that co-worker who is just incredibly annoying…
Or your inappropriate uncle who you are upset with before they even open their mouth…
That person who just pushes all of your buttons just by existing…
Well, I was in a situation where I was around this particular person recently and I could feel it in my body…
My blood pressure was rising and I was anxious and not at all at peace.
In fact, I wanted to punch them in their face.

But I didn’t.
Seeking peace isn’t punching someone in the face.
It is being willing to see them as myself.
And so I started to pray…
John is a child of God.
John is a child of God.
John is a child of God.
And you know what…
My blood pressure went down.
I could breathe deeper.
I couldn’t do that on my own… but with God’s spirit of peace…

I have to admit, I still have work to do with this person.
I’m not yet at a place where I truly see them with enough value and worth that I can really speak the truth to them in love without letting my anger spill out all over first.
But I’m working on it.
I’m praying about it.
With God’s help…

What if those things applied here at Immanuel… ?
In our families…?
In our politics…?
How might the peace offered to us by Christ transform this world?

Jesus calls us to be peacemakers and to be a shining city on a hill, an example to all.
And Paul tells us the only way to do that is to let the Spirit of God to enter our lives and transform them.

If we were to try to do this all on our own, we’d probably go around punching people in their faces.

But what if we really did let the Spirit of Peace be born once again in our hearts.

What if we let it transform us.
To set us right inside.
To set us right with one another.
To set us right as a people.

Maybe then when the chaos and unsettledness and guilt and shame are able to melt away from our hearts… and then our community… and then our church… maybe then people will look at us with wonder and say – what is it that they have figured out?
And when they do, we can point to the One who brought us an altogether peace.
Amen.

Eve Meets Mary

Posted on November 26, 2017Leave a comment

Lately, as I’ve made my way home from work here at the church, I can see the stars in the sky. And it’s not because I’m here until 10pm.

No, the days are growing shorter… the air colder…
This is the time of year when we are preparing ourselves for the longest night, the winter solstice, and while the daylight wanes, we are clinging to reminders that better days are ahead.

Right here, in the midst of this season of darkness, we remember that it is in the darkness that new life comes.
The bulb has to be planted within the cold, dark earth to bring forth its buds.
Babies grow and are formed in the dark warmth of the womb.
And in this “bleak midwinter” we set out our evergreens and yule logs to remember that resurrection and eternal life are ours.
We are waiting, you see, during this time of Advent for the birth of the child spoken of by prophets… the Savior, Messiah, Prince of Peace, Light of the World.
And… as people born on this side of his birth, life, death, and resurrection… we are still waiting.
Advent you see, is not only a season of remembrance. It is also a time to look forward. The fullness of that kin-dom that Christ came to bring has not yet fully been realized.
All we have to do is open the newspaper to know that God’s will has not been done on earth.
We are still waiting.

Earlier this week, I heard news reports that the Island of Puerto Rico still only has power for 46% of its residents. The devastation of Hurricane Maria was so severe that months after the winds and rain poured down, rural areas still do not have any access to resources.
But not only Maria… the impacts of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana are still being felt.
While it is not as present in the news, the continual onslaught of storms in Louisiana has had a doubled impact because of the simultaneous destruction of wetlands. The dead zone in the Gulf created by run-off farther up the Mississippi and the altering of the flow of the Mississippi for human habitation has devastated the area. The US Geological Survey now reports that nearly 1,900 square miles of land have disappeared in the last seventy years.
Sometimes, the sin and destruction and pain of this world is almost too much to bear.
Sometimes, it feels like we have been waiting too long.
Sometimes, it is hard to have any hope when we look out at reality.

Maybe that is why I find so much comfort in the words of The Archbishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput. He defines hope as a choice, “a self-imposed discipline to trust in God while judging ourselves and the world with unblinkered, unsentimental clarity.”
Those words remind me that hope is not a naïve sentiment or wishful thinking.
We can look out unfiltered at the world that surrounds us… and we find hope at the intersection of what we see and our faithful trust in God
Hope doesn’t shirk away from problems or difficulties, but enters into them, confident that God will be there and will bring order, life, and joy out of the chaos.
That hope is not only for you and me. It is for all of creation. This whole world is waiting with us.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are reminded that “the whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice – it was the choice of the one who subjected it – but in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from slavery and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children. We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now.”

Whatever was intended for creation, with the tree of life and fertile land and those first humans holding dominion over it all, is not what we experience today. When we read through those first chapters of Genesis, there is no mention of rainfall or storms, no death, no decay, only life, and life abundant.

Our faith explains the brokenness of creation – the cycles of destruction, natural disasters, violence, and death by pointing to a single moment: When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden (Genesis 3:6-7).
At that moment, everything changed.
That first sin, that first rejection of God’s intentions, had an impact on the entire world! God confronts Adam and Eve and there is not only punishment for the snake and the two humans, but as Genesis tells us, “cursed is the fertile ground because of you; in pain you will eat from it every day of your life. Weeds and thistles will grow for you, even as you eat the field’s plants; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread – until you return to the fertile land.” (Genesis 3:17-19)
We acknowledge this pain of creation even in the songs we sing this time of year. We proclaim how “fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy”…. But we also sing about the groaning of the earth itself and its longing for redemption… “no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.” (Isaac Watts, Joy to the World, UMH #246)

And as our Advent candle reading from Isaiah lifts up, it was not only the first sin of Adam and Eve that impacted creation, but as we continue to sin, the earth dries up and withers. (Isaiah 24:4-5)
Theologically, we are called to remember that our selfishness, our disobedience, our breaking of the covenant impacts the physical world around us. Because of our continued sin, the whole of creation is trapped in a cycle of death, enslaved by decay, and waiting to be set free.

So where is the hope that Paul writes of in Romans? Where do we turn for hope as we look out at the groaning of creation today?

One afternoon I stumbled upon an image that took my breath away.

It was drawn by Sister Grace Remington who is a member of the Cistercian Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey here in Iowa. It depicts Eve, clad only in the flowing locks of her hair and clutching that forbidden piece of fruit. Her leg is entwined in the grip of a snake; her head hung in shame. Evil, sin, and death are her legacy. It is our legacy.
But with one arm, she reaches out and places her hand on Mary’s womb.

Mary stands there full of grace and mercy.
She gently touches the face of Eve as if to tell her it is okay. She holds her other hand over Eve’s and together they feel and experience the life of the one who was coming to redeem and restore all the creation.
There is hope.
When Paul writes about the groaning of creation and all of God’s children, he describes that pain as nothing compared with the “coming glory that is going to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18)
And then in verse 22, he uses the Greek word synōdinō to portray this reality; a word used only once in scripture to describe the agony of childbirth.
Creation is suffering labor pains.
Something new is about to be born.

In this season of Advent, this image of Eve and Mary fills my heart with possibility and invites me to hear the words of Romans 8 in a different light.
So often, I hear the frustration and groaning of the text, instead of diving in to see the good news.
Yes, the world around us is groaning, but they are labor pains. Creation itself is about to be delivered, to be release, to be set free to become what God fully intends for it.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul keeps pointing back towards Adam, because in those first human beings, we see God’s ultimate intention for the human race.
Paul believes that in Christ, in that child that would be born of Mary, the human project finds it’s completion (Jospeh Sittler).
In the beginning, there was a part for humanity to play – tending the garden, carrying the image of God, helping all of creation to thrive.
And now, as Christ is born into our lives and we claim the Spirit of God that sets us free, it is our job to take up that role once again.
As this image conveys, in Christ, we find release from our temptations… that snake of sin that would bind us is being stomped on by Mary.
In Christ, we find forgiveness for past transgressions… the head hung in shame and guilt is gently touched, the hand is embraced.
The way we have lived on this world – using and abusing God’s gifts for our own intentions – doesn’t have to be the way that we move forward.

In fact, Paul tells the Romans that those who have been set free by the Spirit of Christ have an obligation to live as God’s sons and daughters right here and now.
Not for our sake.
Not for selfish reasons.
But because the whole earth is waiting for us to do so.
The love and mercy of Christ reaches out to us as the descendents of Adam and Eve and yes, we are offered forgiveness, but more than than, we are empowered by God’s Spirit to live differently.

Paul believed that God linked the restoration of creation with you and me, and so I find hope in this season of Advent in the possibility that people of faith can help to change the tides of decay.

All throughout this season, we will highlight some of those stories and ways we can make an impact, but these Christmas Trees here at the front of the church remind me of one…

In the midst of that loss of habitat and wetlands in the Louisiana delta, people are working to restore the wetlands and help mitigate the impact of storms by collecting used Christmas trees.
As they deposit them into threatened bayous, they become the basis for new marsh vegetation and they help to reverse erosion.

We have a choice of how to live on this earth and whether or not we will obey the call of God to care for all of creation.
Just like this image of Eve, may we be transformed by the birth of Christ into our lives, so that we might be the hope for the world.

NOTE: This sermon is an adaptation from chapter one of my book, “All Earth Is Waiting.”