Christian – Salvaged Faith

UMC 101: Summon to Grace, Growth, and Love

Posted on January 9, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 3:15-18, 21-22, Book of Discipline pages 47-54

Every time we turn the pages from one calendar year to the next, it feels like a fresh start.

A new beginning.

A chance to revisit where we have been and where we are going.

A few years ago, we took time as a congregation during this season to look at the Bible with fresh eyes in our series, Bible 101.

And as so much of the future of the United Methodist Church is up in the air, this is a good chance to dive into who we say we are and what we say we are about as we figure out what is next for us as a people.

So… welcome to UMC 101!

Today, we start by the waters of the Jordan River with John the Baptist, calling people to repent and to change their hearts and lives.

This is such a great place to launch into our discussion of what it means to be United Methodist, because our forebearers in this tradition, like John, were not planning to create something entirely new.

John the Baptist understood himself as nothing more than a sign-post… pointing to the truths of his tradition, the promises of the prophets, and the movement of God all around him.

He was calling people back to their faith…

Calling them to reclaim what it meant to be the people of God and to bear fruit in the world…

And he was inviting them to look out for what God was stirring up in their midst… the Savior who had been promised.

In other words, John the Baptist wasn’t inventing a new religion.

In fact, the early Jesus followers weren’t trying to start a new religion either… they just wanted to answer God’s call to live their faith more deeply.

And our United Methodist denomination never set out to be a new tradition either.

As the Book of Discipline reminds us, the core of our faith is the same as other Christians (p.49-50):

We hold and affirm our belief in the triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – just as our baptismal liturgy invites us to profess.
We hold in common faith in the mystery of salvation… a precious gift… that redeems our brokenness, in and through Jesus Christ.
We believe that God’s redemptive love is realized in our lives by the movement of the Holy Spirit – both in our personal experiences and in the community – the church.
We see ourselves as part of Christ’s holy catholic church – catholic with a little ‘c’ meaning Christ’s universal church. The church is one in Christ Jesus – sharing the authority of scripture, creeds, liturgies, and ministries.
We recognize that the reign of God has already begun, and just as we proclaimed all throughout this Advent season… it is not completely here yet, and that the church itself is a sign of that kingdom – but it is also continually being reformed so that it might be more like what God intends for us.

When John the Baptist stood on the banks of the Jordan, he didn’t have a new teaching to offer. He wasn’t trying to get people to believe something new. He simply wanted them to wash themselves clean of their past, to change their hearts, and to really and truly live out their faith in their daily lives.

If we look back to what John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist tradition, was trying to do, it isn’t all that different.

As our Book of Discipline reminds us, the early Methodists “tasks were to summon people to experience the justifying and sanctifying grace of God and encourage people to grow in the knowledge and love of God through the personal and corporate disciplines of the Christian life.”

They heard a call to “reform the nation, particularly the Church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”

In other words… John Wesley and his early followers… like John the Baptist before them… were simply calling people to put faith and love into practice.

Over time, as we continued to focus on “practical divinity” – or the presence of God moving through our daily lives, the Wesleyan tradition began to take on it’s own unique emphases… or our own spin on those core Christian beliefs.

The first of these is that everything is grace. Grace is the act of creation, the revelation of Jesus Christ, and the restoration of all things… no matter how much we have failed. It is all undeserved and it is all an act of love.

In our United Methodist tradition, we talk about three different ways that grace is present in our lives.

There is prevenient grace… the grace that goes before us. Before we even know who God is, it is the spark of love present in our lives. It is one of the reasons that our tradition baptizes little babies… because God’s grace goes before us. Prevenient grace is the tug at our heart and the unconscious push in our lives to get us to the place where we are ready for God’s love to change us.

Then there is justifying grace… the grace that forgives and restores us. We sometimes talk about this as our conversion experience – whether it happens in a moment or over a lifetime – as our hearts and lives change by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is the moment that John the Baptist was pointing to in our scripture for today… acknowledging our sins, turning our lives around, and then through the power of the Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus Christ, actually being transformed. He knew that simply repenting of your sins wasn’t enough. You needed the Holy Spirit to sift out the fruit – the grain – from the husks.

As we often talk about with our confirmands, simply accepting God’s redeeming grace is not the end of our journey. So much of our United Methodist beliefs stem from asking the question – what now?

Or maybe a better way of thinking about it is – what do you do with that grain of wheat that is your life? How do you plant it so that it might grow and nourish this world?

So our tradition focuses also on sanctifying grace… the grace that continues to nurture and transform and perfect us so that each day we are more filled with the love of God and our neighbor than we were the day before.

One of the perpetual conversations amongst different Christian traditions has to do with faith and good works. Because the Wesleyan tradition emphasizes that what we do in this world matters, we sometimes get accused of focusing on works… of trying to earn our salvation.

And God’s grace does call us to respond… but faith is the only response essential for salvation. To accept God’s prevenient, and justifying, and sanctifying grace in our lives.

The thing is, when you let the Holy Spirit work in you… there will be fruit! People will be able to see the good works that God is doing through you.

Related to this, personal salvation always involves mission and service. Love of God is always linked with love of neighbor, a passion for justice and renewal in the world. We’ll talk more next week about some of the ways our own personal piety is linked with social holiness – like two sides of the same coin.

Finally, we can’t do any of this on our own. United Methodists don’t believe that all you need is Jesus – you also need the Body of Christ. For it is in community that we grow and are equipped for our service in the world. For Wesley, there is no religion but social religion. So the nurture and mission of the church brings us together as a connection. Even our congregations don’t operate on our own, but reach out together to witness and seek love, peace, and justice in this world.

When John the Baptist called for people to be baptized, he wanted them to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. (Luke 3:3)

But it wasn’t just about them as individuals getting right with God.

It was so that all humanity would see God’s salvation. (Luke 3:6, Isaiah 40:5)

“What should we do?” the people cried out.

“If you have two coats, give one away” he replied.

Our faith, our salvation, is not just about what we are saved from.

It is about what we are saved for.

We were saved to be disciples, and to make disciples of Jesus Christ, for the transformation of this world.

Friends, through the love and grace of God, the Holy Spirit is ready to descend onto your life…

Whether you are just getting started in the faith and are still unsure of what your next steps are…

Or whether you are finally ready to accept the gift of God’s love…

Or whether you have long ago given your life to God and are ready to keep growing in faith…

God’s grace is here.

You are God’s beloved.

And the Holy Spirit is ready to wash over you…

To fill you…

To empower you…

To transform you…

So that this world might see and know and experience the good news of God.

Do you hear that summon?

Do you hear that call to experience the grace of God? To grow in the knowledge and love of God?

If you have never been baptized, I’d love to have a conversation with you about what that next step might look like in your life. Fill out one of our cards – either from the pew or online – and let me know about that nudge in your life.

For the rest of us, this is an opportunity to remember.

To recommit.

To respond.

So that we might not only be redeemed and restored, but so that we might reform the nation.

Self-Definition

Posted on July 25, 2021Leave a comment

Acts 13: 1-5, 13-16, 43-52

About two months before the pandemic began, I was on renewal leave.

Honestly, that time was such a gift.

I was able to refill my cup and energize my spirit and I don’t know how I would have made it through the last 18 months if I had been as worn out as I was at the end of 2019.

That time was spent sleeping, traveling with friends, baking bread, and focusing on my spouse… with a little bit of reading thrown in.

In fact, almost every day, I read through a chapter of Cloud and Townsend’s book, “Boundaries” as I tried to re-center my ministry and establish some healthier patterns.

I got to thinking about that book again as I thought about the ministry of Paul and Barnabas.

You see, this section of Acts focuses on some of the differentiation between the Jewish and early Christian communities.

As we talked about last time, this was no longer simply a subset of the Jewish faith.

This new movement in Antioch was a multi-national, diverse, community of Jews and Gentiles.

“Christians” they called themselves.

In order to take on their own identity, you have to set some boundaries.

You have to talk about what you are and what you aren’t.

And that is going to cause some conflict.

In their book, Drs. Cloud and Townsend describe how infants and children develop boundaries and I think it is fascinating to compare how these stages might also describe how this early church community began to think of themselves.

We think of ourselves, after all, as part of the same family tree.

So from the infancy of the Christian movement to the time it established itself as its own unique identity, there are some very interesting dynamics at play that have shaped our scriptures.

Let’s look at them…

An infant’s first task is to bond with their parents and there is “no sense of self apart from Mother.”

Or another way that Cloud and Townsend put it, “Mommy and me are the same.” (p.67)

An infant simply can’t understand their existence without the presence of their parent and often you will notice distress if that person is gone.

As Jesus and the disciples engaged in their ministry, they understood themselves to simply be a part of the Jewish faith. There was no difference and so much of what we find in the gospels describes how this new movement and the Jewish faith are one and the same.

You can’t read through the gospel of Matthew, in particular, without stumbling all over quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures.

Luke’s gospel, however, has a slightly different spin on it.

As the author of Acts, he writes from the perspective of having witnessed the expansion of the good news to a community beyond Israel. So everything he writes comes through that lens.

But he, too, records the preaching of folks like Peter, Stephen, Philip, and Paul and each and every single one of them start their messages with the understanding that they are part of the people of Israel and remind folks of God’s promises to Moses, Abraham, David, and the prophets.

There is no sense of the Christian faith apart from the Jewish faith in these first stages.

Hopefully, an infant will discover that “Mommy and me are not the same,” and claim their own identity. This separation and individuation is a healthy and natural part of development into a unique self.

So as we think about how the Christian faith became its own separate identity, I find it fascinating to think about the three critical phases that Cloud and Townsend discuss in how children create boundaries with their parents.

They note that how the parent and child responds to these phases either creates healthy or unhealthy boundaries and we can see that in the responses of each throughout the book of Acts.

The first of these phases is called hatching.

“During this period,” they write, “babies begin moving out of their passive union with Mother into an active interest in the outside world. They become aware that there’s a big, exciting world out there -and they want a piece of the action!” (p. 69)

So many of the moments that we have touched on in the Book of Acts describe this kind of wide-eyed excitement.

The disciples begin their ministry in Jerusalem, worshipping at the temple every day, but you also see them growing and deepening in the kinds of things they discover about themselves.

New people flock to this movement every day as it tries out new things… like how they fellowship and care for the needy among them.

They start to discover some ways that they are not the same as the Jewish religious establishment and the messages of folks like Peter and John before the council evidence this.

They point to how they embraced the named of Jesus Christ, but those leaders rejected him.

But just as this period of development is incredibly difficult for a parent, who may not be ready to let their little one go off on their own, there is an attempt from the religious leaders of the Jewish community to rein in the leaders of this new movement.

Not only were there warnings, but a wave of persecution beginning with the death of Stephen that were all designed to bring this new movement back into the fold… back into what we would call an enmeshed relationship where there is no difference in belief or identity allowed.

The second phase of this separation, Cloud and Townsend call practicing.

They note, “the difference between hatching and practicing is radical. While the hatching baby is overwhelmed by this new world and still leans a great deal on Mother, the practicing child is trying to leave her behind!” (p. 70).

And you see this as a child takes their first steps and learns to walk… and then run… often away from said parent towards something new. “They want to try everything, including walking down steep stairs, putting forks into electric sockets, and chasing cats’ tails.”

In many ways, this phase is defined by exploring the limits and in a healthy relationship, an infant is able to dive in head first, because the parent is there to provide safety and encouragement when needed.

What I find fascinating in the development of the Christian faith, however, is that this particular phase initially comes not through the excitement of discovery, but as the church is scattered to the four winds because of persecution.

The movement goes to places like Samaria and Damascus and Antioch, initially because they ran out of fear.

And yet, the power of God through the Holy Spirit is what provides the encouragement to explore and expand and discover new things about themselves.

Philip baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch.

The apostles discover that one of their greatest enemies could become one of their greatest allies.

Peter learns that God shows no partiality.

Barnabas encounters a new multi-national diverse community.

But what happens in the midst of this exploration when you bump back into the parent?

Cloud and Townsend writes that in this phase, “children learn that aggressiveness and taking initiative are good.”

And we see the healthy development of these attitudes in the church as Barnabas and Saul… who starts going by his Roman name, Paul… are sent out as missionaries by the church in Antioch.

Their first missionary journey leads them to many different cities and communities and they always head first to the Jewish synagogue to talk directly to their fellow Israelites.

But as we saw in our scripture today, they have their eyes also on the Gentiles in the community.

In some cases, that initiative and message is welcomed and the people embrace what they have to say. But not everyone does.

In city after city, there are Jewish leaders who are upset and jealous of what Paul and Barnabas accomplish.

And these missionaries, in turn, push back with their own harsh words.

Chapters 12, 13, and 14 are filled with a growing tension and violence even spills out onto the streets in some of these places.

The third phase of this healthy separation is called rapprochement.

Cloud and Townsend describe this phase as “a return to connection with Mother, but this time it’s different. This time the child brings a more separate self into the relationship. There are two people now, with differing thoughts and feelings.” (p. 72)

While it might sound like this is a much more harmonious way of relating to each other, this phase of development in children is also known as the “terrible twos.”

A toddler might express anger as they realize they and other people are having different experiences.

Words like “me” and “mine” are incredibly common in their vocabulary because they are claiming their own self.

And, they learn how to say, “no.” They discover the power to make their own choices.

Our journey through the Book of Acts will only begin to touch on this particular phase of separation between the Jewish and Christian communities.

But I think it is important to have these ideas in the back of our minds as we look at how the church develops and its relationship with the Jewish community.

The reality is, we did not always do so in a healthy way.

There were seasons of anger and persecution that went both ways.

There were hard feelings that you can still see on the pages of scripture as these first Christian communities tried to claim what was theirs – by pushing away and blaming their Jewish siblings.

Sometimes when we read the words of Paul or the gospels, we can feel that animosity.

When I think about it as simply being a part of this process of separation and forming their unique identity, we start to understand where that anger or distance or blaming comes from.

Where we go wrong is when we read these passages at face value and continue to be hostile towards one another.

For centuries… millenia even… we carried that spirit with us and it grew into a deep seated anti-Semitism and even supercessionism that took millions of lives.

Just as sometimes these phases of development in infants create long lasting trauma and injury, the development of a unique Christian identity was fraught with problems.

But there can be healing.

We can establish new patterns and boundaries.

Just as the goal of a healthy separation or creation of a unique sense of self in a child is to form the ability for a parent and child to be in relationship as individuals… we can celebrate the many ways we have been able to have a much healthier relationship with our Jewish siblings.

We are not entirely the same.

But we are also not entirely different.

We come from the same family.

And we are blessed if we can find ways to repent and repair and rebuild our relationships.

Hand-me-down Faith

Posted on August 14, 2011Leave a comment

How many of you had to wear hand me down clothes as you were growing up?

One of my favorite mental images of hand me down clothes comes from my brothers. They are three years apart in age and both of them have school pictures from second grade in the exact same gray and blue sweater. It had been stored up until Darren could wear it, and on picture day, he went to school in the exact same outfit that Tony had years before. We might not have noticed, but my grandma keeps all of our school pictures on the wall in her kitchen and there Tony and Darren are in the exact same outfit right next to each other.

Now, even though I was an oldest child, the only girl in my family, and I might add, the oldest granddaughter on either side of my family, I still had to wear hand me down clothes.

My dad had an aunt and uncle that lived a few miles away and due to some age differences, their seven children – my dad’s cousins – were about my age.

Four of those children were girls. All of them were older than me. And every now and then, we got this great big sack of clothes from the Benesh girls.

I don’t think I ever really minded having hand me down clothes. It was normal for me. They had pretty good taste. The clothes were gently used and fit me just fine.

But I knew enough to know that you didn’t go to school and brag about the clothes that your cousins just gave you.

The virtue of handme down clothing is that it teaches you humility and modesty.

Well in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, that is a lesson that he is trying to teach to the Christians.

He wants them to know that the gift of salvation is nothing to boast or brag about.

He reminds them that they did nothing to earn it and it belonged to someone else first. It’s a hand-me-down… and the only reason we have it is because the people who got it first rejected it.

It’s almost as if Paul is comparing our gift of salvation to a garbage bag full of clothes delivered to your house. Doesn’t that make you feel great? (sarcastic)

The problem was, however, is that this gift of salvation HAD made people feel great. Superior.

Remember, Paul is writing to the community of Christians in Rome.

The Jews had been a protected group of people under Roman law, but they were kicked out of Rome. As the ban was lifted and they began to trickle back in, the Christians who remained began to treat them poorly. They had a “better than thou” attitude.

In fact, some believed that they as Christians had in fact replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people.

That view continues today in some circles – supersessionism – that the old covenant God made with the Jews is thrown out and now the new Israel is the Christian Church. This view has led to some terrible acts of injustice hatred and violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters throughout history.

But in his words to the church of Rome, Paul negates that type of attitude. He asks: “Does this mean that God is so fed up with Israel that he’ll have nothing more to do with them? No! Has Israel stumbled so far as to fall permanently from God’s grace? Are they out for good? No!

In fact, Paul starts to wonder if this disobedience, if this hard-heartedness on the part of Israel isn’t entirely God designed.

As the Message translation puts it:

This hardness on the part of insider Israel toward God is temporary. Its effect is to open things up to all the outsiders so that we end up with a full house…. There was a time not so long ago when you were on the outs with God. But then the Jews slammed the door on him and things opened up for you. Now they are on the outs. But with the door held wide open for you, they have a way back in.

To go back to our hand-me-down clothing analogy… it’s almost as if God planned for the Jews to give their faith away like old clothing. And those of us who received that faith are now lucky enough to receive it. It’s nothing to brag about… just wear the clothes and be grateful.

However, when your friends the Jews start seeing you walking around in those clothes, walking around in that faith that they gave away… when they see you full of joy and at peace and free from the grips of sin and grace… then they are going to start to wonder what they have lost… and you just might be the vehicle God uses to help them get back in.

The important thing to remember is that it’s God’s work… not ours. You didn’t earn your salvation, and this is not a gift that you can give to others. It is God’s doing.

That is a reminder that we need to hear over and over and over again.

This is God’s work, God’s salvation, God’s plan for our lives.

We need to hear this message just as much today as the Christians in Rome needed to hear it 2000 years ago.

Because sometimes we get a little prideful. Sometimes we get a little superior when we think about our brothers and our sisters out in the world.

Sometimes we gossip about Susie Q down the street who stopped going to church, or about John Doe across town who has never graced the door of a church in his life, or about Ms. Smith’s grandson who grew up in the church and then went off to college and became a wild child.

And when we do so, it kind of makes us feel good. It kind of makes us feel important and proud and arrogant…. I go to church every Sunday. I put money in the offering plate every week. God loves me… and not those other people.

Paul’s response to that kind of attitude?

La-de-dah.

So what?

He turns to the image of a tree to drive this point home. We, as latecomers to the faith, are merely wild shoots that have been grafted in to the ancient family of faith.

In fact… there is only room for us, because some branches have been pruned. They were dead in their faith and they were cut off, and now there is room for us.

We have hand-me-down places in this family tree. They only reason we are growing is because we finally got connected to the source of life – Jesus Christ.

And that is nothing to brag about. It’s nothing we did. Its nothing we earned. And we have no reason to be cocky about it.

In fact… Paul warns us – God didn’t think twice about pruning the natural branches on the tree, so why would he hesitate to trim you off of this tree of salvation if you stop producing fruit.

We get arrogant, because what we see as we look on your Jewish brothers and sisters or Susie Q or John Doe are branches that have been pruned from a tree. People who rejected God’s love in their life. They are broken and alone, withering apart from the source of true life. And we are so glad that they are not us…

But in God’s eyes, they are just branches waiting to be grafted back in. They are beloved children that our Master loves.

No matter what we do to reject the love of God, He will never reject us. He is always looking for a way to bring his lost children back into the fold.

That should be a reassurance to us. Because we are merely recipients of extravagant, generous, hand-me-down faith.

Hand me downs can sometimes be precious gifts. And our salvation is not a gift that we should take lightly. Because a gift like this, well, it could be taken away just as easily as it was given.

Knowing how undeserving we are of such generosity, we might walk around always worrying about doing the wrong thing, anxious about losing the love of god.

But Paul reminds us in Romans – God’s gifts are never taken back. His gifts are irrevocable.

We have all disobeyed… and he has mercy on all of us.

That is why we trust in God’s love. It is steadfast. It is eternal. It is unconditional.

It is just as enduring for us who have tasted the sweet beauty of salvation as it is for those who have walked away. God loves us and will not rest until each and every single one of us knows that love.

As Paul concludes this chapter – Everything comes from God; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in Him.

Thanks be to God that his ways are not my ways. And that his love is not my love.

Amen.

“Show Me” faith

Posted on May 22, 2011Leave a comment

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?”

Well, the father got down on his hands and knees and cleaned the toilet again for their benefit.

Next Saturday… same situation… that toilet just wasn’t getting cleaned by itself. 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 next Saturday morning – Dad brought the oldest and the middle children 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!

There is an old adage in the medical world – “see one, do one, teach one.” First you see a procedure done… then you yourself do it… and then you teach a colleague or another student how to do it themselves.

This is something that is reinforced by various learning theories. We learn the best not when we hear, not even when we ourselves do something, but when we are able to teach another person. When we pass on what we have been taught, that knowledge sticks with us. It becomes a part of us.

So I want to keep one question at the back of our minds today… when was the last time you taught someone else how to be a Christian?

In our gospel lesson for this morning, we find ourselves reading very familiar words. “Believe in God, believe in me…. I am the way and the truth and the life.”

For thirteen chapters now of this gospel, Jesus has been showing the disciples the way. He has been showing them the truth, he has been showing them life.

He is like the father who gets down on his hands and his knees and cleans the toilet for his children to see.

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 the very first words out of a disciples mouth?

“Show me one more time.”

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

Like the three boys in the bathroom staring at a toilet, we faithful believers often find ourselves staring at the Way of Christ and don’t quite know what to do. The task is daunting. It is overwhelming. It smells bad. We don’t want other people to see us on our hands and knees like that.

And so we turn to Jesus… Will you show me again?

I have become convinced that a very large percentage of Christians in this world are living with a “show me” faith.

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”

Ever get into a fight with a loved one and look to the heavens saying: “Jesus, just show me how to have more patience!”

Ever finish one chapter of your life and look forward to the next step of your journey with your heart crying out, “Please God, show me what to do next.”

Every time we utter those words, we are waiting for someone else to come and step in. We are praying for God to intervene. “Show me” faith keeps looking backwards, keeps returning to square one, keeps us from taking a step forward.

When the disciple Philip turned to Jesus and said, “Master, show us the father and then we’ll be content,” Jesus was quick to respond.

“You’ve been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don’t understand, you still don’t trust? You still don’t believe?”

How long have you been walked alongside Jesus? How long have you been sitting at his feet, listening, watching, but not putting into practice what he has taught us?

There is a small misunderstanding that we must clear up with the word, “believe.” Contrary to popular opinion, to “believe” does not to make a statement about something. It is not an intellectual decision or a theological opinion. No, the word as used in our gospels means to trust your life to someone or something.

To believe in God… to believe in Jesus Christ… means to have faith, to trust, that God is already there, already leading you on the path, has already given you everything you need in order to take the next step forward.

All that you need to do, is to do it. To take the leap of faith. To trust.

Jesus turned to Philip and pleaded… “Believe me! I am my father. My father is in me. And if you trust that you won’t only be able to do what I am now doing… but you will do even greater things.

I’m giving you this task. And you can do it.

I don’t have to show you anymore. Just take the first step and respond.

When you see that person on the street corner in need of some help and some love – don’t wait for God to show you what to do… you KNOW what to do… reach out your hand and do it!

When you are having that fight, don’t wait for God to show you what to do… you know… you KNOW what God desires for you in that moment… you are just to proud or scared to let go and trust and to do it.

When you find yourself struggling with the next step of your journey, stalled out in the middle of the road… don’t wait for God to show you. God has been there beside you the whole time and every step you make down that road you can trust that God will be there. And if it is the wrong step, God will put you back on the right paths. Just trust him. Just do something. And do it out of the faith and hope and love that you have in your Lord and Savior.

It is time for us to stop having a “show me faith” and time for us to “go and do likewise.”

It is time for us to take a leap of faith, knowing that the one we trust has already shown us the way.

It is time for us to not only start to do, but to teach one another how to do it also.

That is what the community of faith is all about, after all. It is the people of God, holding, guiding, supporting, encouraging, teaching, learning together what it means to be the Body of Christ in this world.

I shared with you after our gospel lesson this morning a brief passage from the book of Acts.

This is after all, the outcome of the gospel. The Acts of the Apostles reminds us what happens when we go and do likewise.

The disciples took a leap of faith and with a good dose of the Holy Spirit they set the world on fire.

And they taught others who taught others, who continued to teach others this Way of Christ.

And one of those people was a man named Stephen.

Stephen didn’t wait around for Jesus to show him what to do… he trusted in his heart that God was with him, that the Holy Spirit had his back, and that he was called to act.

And just as Jesus promised, Stephen did amazing things – great things – in the name of God.

And when people stood against him, did Stephen back down and wait for Jesus to show him what to do next?

No. He trusted. He believed. He opened his mouth and let God speak through him.

Even as he was being killed for his beliefs – for his trust in Jesus Christ – he kept his faith. And he kept speaking. And he kept teaching.

And because he believed even to his death, a young man named Saul had seeds planted in his soul. And Saul one day met Jesus and became Paul. And Paul didn’t wait around for Jesus to show him… he went out there and he did likewise.

Are you a “show me” Christian? Or are you a Christian who is ready to “go and do likewise?” Take a chance. Take a leap of faith. Trust and believe…. Go to do and to teach.

Amen and Amen.

Postmodern Church and the Farmlands of Iowa… Part 2

Posted on September 9, 20103 Comments

So, the first thing I want to tackle is some semblance of a definition. What on earth are we talking about when we say “postmodern” and “emergent.”

The simple answer is that there isn’t a simple answer.

In The Emerging Church, Dan Kimball describes the post modern world as:

An emerging and developing worldview and culture pursuing what is beyond modernity. It holds there is no single universal worldview. Therefore, truth is not absolute and many of the qualities embraced by modernism no longer hold the value or influence they once did. It can still be defined as we like, since it is still forming and developing. (The Emerging Church, 58)

Fundamentally, postmodernism is a reaction to the modern world. And the modern world was itself a response to a premodern world (something we quickly forget). The main thing we want to consider is the idea that the modern person believes that reason leads to universal truths and that power and faith can be placed in both reason and science. Now, the words reason and science don’t sound like terms we throw around a lot in rural congregations… but the fact that we organize our thoughts into universal truths absolutely appears.

The main way that modern people do this is through metanarratives, a term coined by Jean-Francois Lyotard. These are overarching stories that make sense of the world and place everything in context. Whether this is the notion of Progress or Communism, Democracy or Christianity, these narratives claim to be objectively true for all people.

That sounds mighty nice. But the problem, as Heath White points out is:

Modernism, with its emphasis on reason, insists on resolving or eliminating the differences between people. But this leads eventually to coercion, oppression, domination, cruelty, and abuse of one form or another. Anyone who believes in One True Culture – one right way of doing things – is, knowingly or not, a closet tyrant. (Postmodernism 101 , 43.)

The postmodern person is someone who has lost faith and trust in reason and these metanarratives precisely because they have failed. They have become aware that these conflicting metanarratives cannot all be “True” (note, that was with a capital “T”) and they recognize that other narratives, cultures and peoples have been suppressed by them. Thus, postmodernism is the rejection of absolute, objective moral, social and political claims.

A great example of this is the theory that claims if we spread democracy abroad, then conflicts in areas like the Middle East will be solved. However, we fail to take into account that democracy evolved out of a specific Western religious and cultural context. Simply implanting that metanarrative onto another context has proved to be next to impossible. And that doesn’t even get into the question of whether it is moral or ethical to impose one way of doing government onto another people.

The problem for people of faith is that the Judeo-Christian worldview is precisely one of the metanarratives that is called into question through this deconstruction of modern thought. And here the church folk run screaming away from anything labeled “post-.” What we have to remember, however, is that this critique of metanarratives does not mean that we are flat out rejecting God or the faith that we have carried. Instead, what the postmodern Christian is aware of is that their narrative is not alone in the world, nor does it have a monopoly on the truth, nor is there a single, universal way of being Christian in the world.

Of course, the first obstacle that pops up into my mind, and the first response of my folks in the pews is: What about Jesus – doesn’t he say he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life?

Yes, Jesus does. But what it means for Christ to be “the truth”… that’s exactly what we are trying to figure out. Is it capital “T” Truth? Is it truth for me? Is it a rational truth that I must assent to or a truth about a way to live my life? Is it the only truth? Are there other truths? And if so, is Jesus a part of them, also? (If you have ever heard the story of the five blind men and the elephant… you get the idea of where this can go)

While, in the modern world, symbols pointed to exactly what they represented and had one meaning, in a postmodern worldview symbols, language, and culture are all deconstructed. Postmoderns are comfortable with paradox and look for inherent contradictions, something Heath White describes as irony. Or as Dave Tomlinson puts it:

image and reality are so deeply intertwined that it is difficult to draw the line between the two. (The Post Evangelical, 75 )

What is symbolic? What is reality? Can we change the symbols and convey the same truth? In another culture will the same symbol carry a completely different meaning? And with this slew of questions, we look around and find Santa on a cross, Garth Brooks doing pop music, and Buddhist-Christians. Or perhaps, in the more common manifestations, we have a lack of denominational loyalty, church shopping, spiritual but not religious folks, and self-help preaching masquerading as the gospel.

In this postmodern and post-Christian climate, it is no wonder people are confused. As he describes the effects of such cafeteria style choices, White writes:

All this borrowing, stealing, adding, subtracting, grafting, and splicing of traditions leave postmoderns without ‘roots’ in the sense that anyone raised in a premodern culture might have had them. There is no all-embracing, unquestioned and unquestionable cultural envelope that keeps them secure in one way of doing things. They have traded roots for freedom and choice because, after all, deep roots keep you stuck in one place. (White, 129)

Diana Butler Bass also describes this sense of rootlessness, using phrases like “spiritual nomads” or “strangers in a strange land.” (Christianity for the Rest of Us, 22-23.)

Okay, so we have this background of metanarratives being dismantled and people feeling rootless and not knowing quite where to turn… and we have (I fear) a church that is still stuck in a modern mindset. We are still trying to fit people into molds, we are still proclaiming metanarratives, we have five-point plans of salvation. EEEK!

This might be where some many most churches are… but this is also where the “emergent church” movement comes in. There are so many books and blogs and youtube videos out there, but one resource that really stuck out to me was the book Christianity for the Rest of Us. In it, Diana Butler Bass points us toward the reclaimed role of the church.

Rather than proclaim a new metanarrative, she believes we are to invite one another into the life of the Christian faith. For White, we can do so through sharing and experiencing the promises we have received from God – not hoping that things will get better through natural progress (aha – there science and reason poke their heads in again), but trusting that “in the face of death, we have the promise of resurrection” (White, 155).

I stumbled across a blog post today (after this had been up for a bit) by Tom Sherwood about the postmodern critique of Christianity, which is entirely fascinating. This section in particular caught my eye:

One of the distinct differences between the Bible and the other metanarratives mentioned that Lyotard rejects, is that the Bible is based on faith, not universal reason… It is this appeal to faith, along with the liberative character of the narrative that allows the Bible and Christianity to rise above the critique of incredulity toward metanarratives. When the Bible and Christianity become oppressive, or rely too heavily on universal reason, Lyotard’s incredulity towards metanarratives applies…

Correctly understood, the Bible is not a metanarrative. Lyotard would not reject it as a metanarrative, as it is neither inherently oppressive or self-legitimating using universal reason. Instead it is the story of how God works in communities and the history of the Christian story. The Biblical narrative is extremely important to Christianity, but Christians need to take a step back from modernism and look at what can be learned from the ancient Christians. The Bible is a story of faith, it does not rely on universal reason to prove what it says. Instead, the stories are proven true by the people that live out the continuation of the story.

For Bass, that is exactly the role of the church: to transform lost spiritual nomads into Christian pilgrims.

In order to do so, the church must hold together tradition, practices and wisdom with a keen self-awareness. It must remember Barth’s claim that the church takes no one social form and that “every institution is affected by the culture in which it lives and especially the culture in which it was born” (White, 14). The church must allow its style, practices and doctrines to change as it attempts to be faithful to God in particular contexts and among particular peoples.

Doug Pagitt has a new book out called Church in the Inventive Age that I need to get my hands on.

He would change that list I made above of style, practices and doctrine and talk instead about our cognitive beliefs, our values, our tools/structures, and our aesthetics. He rightly points out that when you start to mess with any one of those, folks get downright uncomfortable. But I think in some ways, he is pointing to the fact that our doctrines, our values, our styles and our structures themselves become idols.

What I am interested in are the congregations that have discovered ways to acknowledge this postmodern shift within their churches and by doing so they are not only thriving, but are transforming lives as they attempt to be faithful to the gospel. In part 3, we will look at some of what we can learn from some of the churches that “get it.”

Where is the Kingdom?

Posted on November 22, 2009Leave a comment

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be they name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

Thy kingdom come on earth…

That little tiny phrase is one of the most subversive and radical things that we can say as Christian people. And we say it every week. Too often, we rush over the words, practically tripping over them to get to the end, because we know the Lord’s Prayer so well.

We know the Lord’s Prayer – we know how to say it – we know the comfort that it brings to our lives – and yet do we really know WHAT we are saying?

Thy kingdom come on earth.

Early Christians were accused of terrible things by those who didn’t understand their worshipping practices – but something they were correctly accused of was sedition and treason. They openly confessed in the face of an empire that they belonged to the Kingdom of God, that their citizenship was in heaven. And some were willing to die rather than to worship or honor an earthly king.

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

“The birth of Jesus signaled that God would “bring down rulers from their thrones” (Luke 1:52). In Mark’s gospel the very first words that Jesus spoke announced that “the kingdom of God is at hand” (1:15). John’s gospel takes us to the death of Jesus, and the political theme is the same. Jesus was dragged to the Roman governor’s palace for three reasons, all political: “We found this fellow subverting the nation, opposing payment of taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King” (Luke 23:1–2).”

Thy kingdom come on earth.

In our gospel text this morning, that is where we find Jesus – standing in Pilate’s headquarters, and being asked a plain and simple question: Are you the King of the Jews?

When Jesus gets tricky, responding with questions instead of answers, Pilate finally comes out and says it…. I have no idea why you are here – What have you done?

When you think about the big picture, It’s almost a laughable question… asking the King of Kings and Lord of Lords why a little provincial governor should be worried about him? Asking the one who is and who was and who is to come if he is a threat to the empire.

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

Thy kingdom come on earth.

We know how the Roman and Jewish leaders responded to that statement. Jesus was mocked and beaten and crucified.

Had he been just a revolutionary… had his kingdom originated in the stable at Bethlehem… had his goals merely been overthrowing the Roman occupation of Israel… that would have been the end.

But his kingdom is not from here.

His kingdom is not something that can be mapped out on a piece of paper. Its borders cannot be easily drawn. And contrary to much of our contemporary sentiment, it is not a place that we go to after we die.

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

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

For the last two thousand years, Christians have tried to bring the Kingdom of God to bear in their lives. There are times when we have been wildly successful – and there are times when we have failed miserably. There are times when in the name of Christ our King we have brought hope and joy and peace to the lives of our brothers and sisters. And there have been times when we have subverted Christ as King for our own purposes to seek power and money and land at the cost of our brothers and sisters.

If we are going to be daring enough to pray for the kingdom to come on earth – we had better understand what we are praying for.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I pray week after week for that kingdom of God to come…

But there are a lot of days when I listen to the news or read a story in the paper and I lament how far away from the Kingdom we really are. I want to be in that place where love and grace and mercy rule – rather than money and influence. I want to make my home in a land where nations stop rising up against nations and don’t learn war anymore. I want to go there – to where the Kingdom of God has taken root.

But where is that place? Where can we find it?

Even living on this side of the resurrection we see only glimpses.

One particular glimpse came when I heard a friend tell about having communion with Christians from Mexico. He was on a trip to the borderlands between our two countries and Christians from the United States and Mexico met on the border to worship with one another.

They sang songs of praise to God in their different languages. They prayed to the One who rules all nations. And they did so without ever being able to see one anothers face.

You see, there was a wall between these two groups of people. A wall so high they couldn’t see across. A wall that human hands had built. But they gathered in that place to worship a God whose Kingdom has no borders. Their songs and voices carried over the walls. When time came to share communion, they lobbed huge chunks of bread over that wall so that they could share of one common loaf.

Thy kingdom come on earth.

Those believers at the border didn’t wait for the Kingdom of God to be a fully present reality – they just let it take root in their hearts. They invited Christ in as King and then lived their lives accordingly. .

After all, that is the kingdom described in our reading from Revelation… The One who loves us and frees us from our sins by his blood made US to be a kingdom.

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

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

We are homesick for it and yet it is as close as our next breath.

Thy Kingdom come on earth.

Thy Kingdom, Oh Jesus, come on earth and be born in my heart… transform my heart.

Thy Kingdom, Oh Lord, come on earth as we are all awakened to your call.

Thy Kingdom, Oh Holy Lord, come on this earth and pull us beyond the borders we have artificially made.

Thy Kingdom, Oh Lord and King, come on this earth and root all of our actions in the care of your creation.

Thy Kingdom, Radiant King, come on earth and help us to show that love and compassion are stronger weapons than all of the guns in the world.

Thy Kingdom, Blessed Ruler, come on earth and let us find the boldness to feed and clothe and heal our brothers and sisters without waiting for the government to help.

Thy Kingdom, Glorious King, come on earth and make us uncomfortable. Don’t let us be content with peace in our hearts until your peace truly reigns over the nations.

Thy Kingdom, Ancient of Days, come on earth and turn our allegiance from brand names and politicians and flags and nations to the one who is and who was and who is to come.

Thy Kingdom, Crucified God, come on earth and help us to imagine and embody life on earth, here and now, as though you are king and the rulers of this world were not. Help us to imagine our lives if you truly ruled the nations and not Barak Obama, or Wall Street, or Kim Jong-il, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Queen Elizabeth.

As Daniel Clendenin rightly says – “every aspect of our personal and communal life would experience a radical reversal. The political, economic and social subversions would be almost endless – peace-making instead of war mongering, liberation not exploitation, sacrifice rather than subjugation, mercy not vengeance, care for the vulnerable instead of privileges for the powerful, generosity instead of greed, humility rather than hubris, embrace rather than exclusion, etc. The ancient Hebrews had a marvelous word for this, shalom, or human well-being.,”

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

Can you be Christian outside the church?

Posted on September 28, 2009Leave a comment

Can you be a Christian outside of the church?

Depending on how you hear that question, two different things might be arising to your mind.

On one hand, Can someone who doesn’t come to church be a Christian? Can you be a Christian outside of the church?

Or on the other hand, Can you and me continue to be Christians during the hours and the days of the week that we aren’t in the church? Can you be a Christian outside of the church?

Both of these are very important questions. And we think that the answers are fairly simple.

Let’s take the first one. As people who show up every Sunday morning, it frustrates us that there are people who claim to be Christian but never darken the door of the sanctuary. I think a big part of us really wants to answer NO to that first question. The church is such an important part of our faith journeys. It is where we worship God. It is where we learn about our faith. And yet we could all probably name people in our lives who do not go to church and yet are good people – people who even claim to believe in God.

As I thought about people I know who fit that description, I thought about my mom whose work schedule varies with the wind and who is either working or sleeping on Sunday mornings. And about the young couple I married this summer who can’t find a church home because the bride is a nurse who works the weekend option. Yes, they could have different jobs – but they don’t. They are where they are, whether by choice or by chance.

In many ways that’s actually the same story that we find in the book of Esther. Esther was a young, beautiful Jewish woman who found herself in difficult times. Her people had been conquered by the Persians and because of her beauty and virginity she was brought into the King’s court.

Her uncle wanted to protect her and ensure that she had a good future and so he ordered his niece to deny her family and her racial background. And after twelve months of purification this young, insignificant woman from Israel suddenly found herself as a queen of Persia. There in the King’s court, she was no longer allowed to practice her religion. She had given up her traditions and her upbringing. In fact – as an interesting note – the name of God is not mentioned at all in the entire book of Esther!

She was in a position of power, of success, and yet was completely outside of her religious heritage and upbringing. She left it all behind.

While this might not seem like the best role model for our children, we keep the story of Esther in our scriptures because of her faithfulness even outside of what is “ acceptable religious behavior.” Throughout the story there is an idea that she is where she is, doing what she is doing, for a reason…. “for such a time as this” as her uncle Mordecai puts it.

Because when the fate of her people is in danger, she puts her own life on the line to approach the king and to rat out his most trusted advisor. She speaks the truth in a time when it would have been expected of her to keep silent and still today, the Jewish tradition celebrates the feast of Purim in remembrance of her act of courage and faithfulness.

As a pastor, I absolutely want everyone to find a home here in this congregation or in another congregation. I want to make sure that as the church, we make every opportunity to encourage our brothers and sisters to be a part of a congregational life. Let me be clear… I’m NOT encouraging you to go home and tell your family, “Pastor Katie said it was okay for me to skip out on church.”

What we should do, however, is not jump to conclusions about why someone might be outside of the congregational life. In this story from Esther you don’t see the local rabbi knocking on the palace door wondering why Esther isn’t at synagogue. What you do see is her uncle Mordecai, quietly watching her, encouraging her, praying for her. He encourages her to use her time and her position to do good. He shows her that she can make a difference because of where she is.

And we too can do this. We can encourage our family and friends in their work and their play. We can point out and celebrate the ways that they experience God’s kingdom in their daily lives. That nurse who works on the weekends is bringing God’s love and healing to people who are in their darkest moments… that is a noble task and as her friend, I can remind her of that. And I can pray for circumstances to change so that she is able to join us. Those parents who are carting their kids off to soccer games and football games on Sundays need to know that we love them and care about them and that we hold them in our prayers as they work to raise their children in the world today.

There are absolutely things that we miss out on if we try to live our faith as a Christian outside of the congregation. We don’t get to share in the public worship of God – which centers our hearts and minds as much as it praises the one who made us. We don’t find opportunities for learning about the faith very readily outside of the congregation or have as many people to talk about the scriptures with. But just like Esther was still able to follow God in the midst of her circumstances…. our brothers and sisters in Christ are not cut off from God just because they are not here in church with us this morning. In fact, if we understand the church to be the people of God, rather than this building – perhaps they aren’t outside of the church at all. We can carry the church to them – through our actions of love and encouragement.

In it’s weekly feature: Pastor, Talk to Me, a website I frequent (Lectionary Homiletics) has a feature where church people are invited to ask questions about the weekly sermon texts. In many ways – it’s what we try to do with the Round Table Pulpit.

One particular story from a parishioner struck me. She talked about how she needed to support and serve the others in the world who God uses and shares that last Sunday a beloved member of the church was injured and could not attend worship. She describes her congregation as a small church with limited technical abilities, but then goes on to tell how she held up a cordless phone throughout the worship service, so that the member who was home could participate and interact with the rest of the congregation through hymn singing, prayer concerns, and passing the peace. Just because she wasn’t in the church building, didn’t mean the church was very far from her.

Which leads me to that second side of the question.

Can WE be Christians outside of the church?

I know that there are days we are so concerned about who is in and who is out, so prideful that we are here, that WE forget to take our faith with us outside of the congregation.

In fact, I think something that many of us practice is “two hats theology.” We wear one hat when we pray, when we come to church, when we are around our Christian friends, but when we go to work, or go home, or turn on the football game, we put on our other hat.

I was talking with a friend last night during the Iowa game… during the part of the game when things weren’t going so well for our beloved Hawkeyes. And this friend of mine who is a new father said that he had already gotten in trouble for cursing in front of the new baby. It was hard for him to censor himself because he had his football hat on!

This two hats theology makes its way into our lives whenever our business practices lead us to take advantage of another person, or our political choices lead to less equality and less justice.

Two hats theology makes its way into our lives whenever we push back on the urgings of the Holy Spirit because we are too busy to respond.

In fact – we are so busy with the other things in our lives that we push church back into the “discretionary time” of our lives.

What is discretionary time?

This doesn’t work so well in a congregation in which we have a lot of retired persons, but lets say that the average person is working 40 hours per week – and let’s say that you probably need another 50-60 hours each week to maintain your home, family, health, school, etc. You eat, you watch your kids and grandkids play sports, you shower and clean. Add in another 50-56 for sleeping. That takes up 156 of the 168 hours available to any human person during the week.

So, typically the church tries to take those 12-15 hours of “discretionary time” – “free time” if you will – that you have available in the week and we say: let us have that.

We ask you to give up 2-4 hours on a Sunday morning. We try to get you to join small groups and to serve through the church. But at the same time, other volunteer groups are also vying for your time. When all is said and done, you might only put your “church hat” on for 5 hours a week.

But what if we tried to think about what it meant to be a Christian in all of those other hours of our day? What if the main thing about being Christian isn’t how much time we give to the church, but how we seek God in the other 160 hours of our week?

Here is where we find help from the words of Jesus. Because the disciples are struggling with this exact thing. In our gospel reading from today, John notices another person casting out demons in Christ’s name and the disciples tried to stop him because he wasn’t one of them, because he wasn’t healing people on sanctioned “Jesus time”

They are so concerned with the fact that they are the “in-group” that they stopped believing anything good or holy could happen outside of their little band of followers. But Jesus urges them not to stop these good actions. “For no one who does a deed of power in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me.”

And then comes the line that turns our modern sensibilities upside down. Whoever is not against us is for us.

We tend to think about that in the opposite way. If you aren’t for us – if you aren’t actively supporting what we are doing, then you must be against us. You must be the enemy. It’s how we respond to foreign policy decisions, it’s how we respond to competing business interests. It’s how we think of our time.

If we aren’t in the church, if we aren’t doing something for the church – then we must be doing something against the church. We must have to put our other hat on – the worldly hat – until the time comes when we can get back into that sacred building again.

But that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus says if you aren’t against us, you are for us.

Jesus doesn’t care about what time church is or how many hours you spend in this building any more than Jesus cares about who is included in his little band of disciples. His goal isn’t to build the congregation – it’s to transform the entire world!

And so he’s a lot more interested in the things we are doing with those other 160 hours of our time during the week.

How are you demonstrating your faith during the core time of your life? How can you wear your church hat in those areas? How can we demonstrate our faith in the other spheres of our lives – in our families? In our work? In our schools?

The disciples are troubled because they see people acting outside “the church” – outside of what they believe to be the prescribed boundaries of their community. And Jesus’ response? Go and do likewise… I don’t care if you are in or if you are out… if you follow me, you’ll follow me wherever you are.

Go out into the world and serve me. Serve me as you cook supper for your family. Serve me as you prepare expense reports for your business. Serve me as you take mail to the post office. Serve me as you knit a blanket for a friend. Serve me…. And then come back to this place each week – to this congregation – and find rest and comfort and strength, so that you can go back out there and serve me again.

Can you be a Christian outside of the church? I pray that we all might take up the challenge.

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Posted on July 15, 2009Leave a comment

This one came across my inbox this morning from my mom. I don’t know that I had read it before… but it absolutely exemplifies what being a Christian means for me.

‘A woman’s heart should be so hidden in Christ
That a man should have to seek Him first to find her.’

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not shouting ‘I’m clean livin”
I’m whispering ‘I was lost, Now I’m found and forgiven.’

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I don’t speak of this with pride.
I’m confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not trying to be strong.
I’m professing that I’m weak and need His strength to carry on.

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not bragging of success.
I’m admitting I have failed and need God to clean my mess.

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible but, God believes I am worth it.

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I still feel the sting of pain..
I have my share of heartaches, so I call upon His name.

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not holier than thou,
I’m just a simple sinner Who received God’s good grace, somehow!

–Maya Angelou