discipleship – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

every piece of the pie

Posted on September 11, 2016Leave a comment

I’ve always liked playing Trivial Pursuit. The questions were always so difficult, but I like that the game aims to help you be well-rounded in your knowledge. The goal is to get every single different piece of the pie filled in… only then do you win the game.

Maybe that’s because I’ve always been somewhat of a generalist instead of a specialist… I like to try a little bit of everything, learn a little here and there, get involved in as many different ways as I can.

Today in worship and in celebration, that’s how we talked about our life of discipleship. God doesn’t want us to just do one thing – like prayer or one activity like music. I firmly believe that God wants us to dive in – to take our ordinary, every day lives, and to let every part of it be part of God’s work in the world. Our volunteering, our resources, our love for people, all of it. It all belongs to God.

God wants us to love with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

God wants us to experience every single piece of a life of discipleship: worship, hospitality, spiritual formation, practicing our faith, service, and generosity. God wants us to be well-rounded as we follow Jesus into the world.

And so today at Immanuel, we had pie… lots of pie! And we heard testimonies from many different people in the church about how they have been called to serve in all these different areas and what difference they make in their lives. And we had opportunities for people to sign up for over 80 different activities, ministries, and groups as part of the ministry of our church. We worshipped with songs that were traditional and contemporary (sometimes in the same song!), we gave bibles to our kindergarten and third graders and paused for a time of remembrance of 9/11. We sang and prayed and explored the building – every nook and cranny.

I am constantly amazed by the talent and love and devotion of the people at my church. They are passionate about what they do and willing to grow and try something new. They have skills beyond measure. Their hearts overflow.

And I can’t wait to see what God is going to do when we all challenge each other to continue growing as disciples… to share the gifts we have with others and stretch ourselves in new ways and new areas by letting others teach us.

Untitled

Posted on September 4, 2016Leave a comment

In today’s parable, Jesus is in the middle of teaching his disciples one last time. He is only days away from his crucifixion in Jerusalem, days away from leaving them, days away from his death. Jesus wants to make sure they are prepared for life after he is gone.

He is asking these people to live out their discipleship – to follow him, to become like him, to take care of each other and to carry on his ministry in the world

Much like the master in this parable who is going on a long trip, Jesus is trying to put his affairs in order so that his ministry is taken care of while he is gone.

The master, like Jesus, is entrusting an extravagant gift in the hands of his servants.

One single talent was a gigantic weight of money. It equaled 6,000 denarii. One denarii was roughly equal to a day’s wages… so if you do the math, each one of these talents was about twenty YEARS worth of pay.

In today’s terms a talent might be thought of as nearly a million dollars.

Now… this is the kind of money that most people never saw. Especially not at once.

But the Lord and master in this story has eight times this much to divvy up among his servants. One hundred and sixty years’ worth of pay… and he is leaving it in their hands.

This is a lifetime’s worth of money. It is costly. And being given all at once, you wonder what the Lord and master could possibly have left. This could very well be everything that he has.

And we know that in reality, the gift of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection was costly.

And this talent, this incredible gift, is placed into your hands.

The gift of discipleship… the gift of a lifetime of following Jesus has been given to you…

What are YOU going to do with it?

One of the fascinating features of this story is that not everyone is given the same amount of talents. The master in this story looks over the skills and abilities of those who are standing in front of them and recognizes they are not the same.

As William Herzog notes, the word used here for ability could also be translated as power. They are given these gifts because of their power, their position, because of what they have already demonstrated they could handle.

In other words, this is not a test.

No master would be foolish enough to use this much money as an experiment.

No, this ruler knows the servants, honestly assesses them, and puts in their hands exactly what they can realistically handle.

One of these servants receives a single talent. Another two. Another five whole talents.

What we discover in this parable is that it is not important what your power or abilities or talents are today. It doesn’t matter how much you are given. It is what you decide to do with your discipleship that really counts.

This past spring, many of you helped our church to honestly assess our ministry and our life together through a really long survey: the Congregational Assessment Tool.

We have learned a lot of things through this tool and the leadership of our church is starting to wrestle with how to respond to various pieces.

In worship over the next couple of months, we are going to be exploring a few areas that reflect our discipleship as a church.

Now, in these scores, we were compared to 500 other churches our size around the entire country. So these scores are not the percentage of you that said these things… but how our church as a whole compares with others

I work to connect my faith to all other aspects of my life (32%)
I experience the presence of God in my life (36%)
We do a good job supporting people in ministry by reminding them they make a difference (48%)
We prepare our members for ministry by helping them discern gifts (51%)
We understanding that we have a spiritual responsibility for life-long learning and formation (47%)
We welcome and are enriched by persons from many different walks of life (39%)

If I were to name a common thread that I see in these items, it would be that we as a church have abundant, extravagant gifts in our midst… and we don’t know what to do with them.

These results tell me that when it comes to living out our faith, when it comes to our discipleship, we act a whole lot like the third servant in our scripture today…. Both personally, and as a church.

And I think there are two factors at play here.

1) As a church, we have not taken the time and energy, like the master of the story did, to help one another figure out what our abilities and position and gifts really are. You need to know where you are starting in order to know what you have to work with.

2) Even if we DO know what our abilities, skills, and gifts are… even if we have this talent in our hands… we aren’t sure what we are supposed to do with it. We don’t have a clear sense of how to help it to grow

Here at Immanuel, we define discipleship with a phrase we use every single week: In Christ, live a life of love, service, and prayer.

It’s a great, easy to remember phrase… but…

What do we mean by love? How are we supposed to pray? Who are we serving?

How do I know if I’m doing it?

And above all… How can I do it better and more fully next week that I did last week.

That’s what today’s parable is all about, after all… taking what you have and helping it to grow.

So, starting today, and over the next eight weeks, we are going to break down that vision of discipleship at Immanuel into bite sized pieces.

We are going to explore what this looks like in worship and hospitality, service and generosity, formation and practice.

We’ll start next week with this whole pie and what each area of discipleship looks like at Immanuel, then over next six weeks, we’ll explore how we can take the talent placed in our hands and help it grow.

Figuring out where you start is the key to taking the next step.

You may have noticed a bulletin board in the foyer that includes four words:

Exploring.

Beginning.

Growing.

Maturing.

These words are going to help us to claim where we are in this journey of discipleship.

Are you someone who is brand new to this and has no idea what the possibilities are?

Are you someone who is just beginning your faith journey and you are starting to try some things out?

Are you someone who has been working on your discipleship for a while, but you still know you have room to grow?

Are you someone who understands what discipleship is all about and you have been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, and now you aren’t sure what comes next?

The truth is, it doesn’t matter where you start on this journey today.

It doesn’t matter if you are the servant in our story who was given one talent or five talents… or the servant that didn’t even get talked about who wasn’t entrusted with a talent at all.

What matters is what you do with what you have.

The truth of this parable is that any one of these servants could have been the ones who chose to let fear or ignorance or laziness creep in. It could have just as easily have been the one who had been given the most who chose to do nothing with his gift.

Here at Immanuel, we are going to try to help one another not only figure out what we have, but what we can do with it.

We are going to help each other take the next step in our discipleship.

You don’t have to start with a lot in order to be faithful. You just have to choose to do something with it. Together… we’ll figure out how.

Amen.

Build the Church Again

Posted on August 22, 2016Leave a comment

It is the last Sunday of the fair.

The final Sunday of the Olympics.

The last Sunday before the school year starts for our children.

And the final Sunday of our Summer of the Prophets.

It might be hard to believe it, but this summer we’ve covered about 400 years of biblical history. We’ve talked about, in one way or another, fifteen different prophets and their messages from God. We have journeyed through Judah and Israel, Edom, Assyria, and Babylon. We have watched the aftermath of a kingdom divided, watched their downfall and destruction. We have wept with the exiles in Babylon and as they tried to make themselves at home in a foreign land.

Today, we get to celebrate that they finally returned home.

The Babylonians, you see, that great and mighty kingdom that conquered the world… well, if we remember from our time in the book of Daniel, they aren’t the be all and end all of the story. They, too, are conquered… by the Persians. And the Persians dramatically re-write the story of the people of God.

Unlike many other kingdoms which forced their religion and perspectives on the peoples they defeated, Cyrus the Great of Persia greatly respected the diversity of all of the peoples of the kingdom. Including their religions. And so when the Babylonians were conquered, all of the kingdoms they had brought into their fold had the opportunity to return home, and rebuild their own cultures.

Cyrus, king of Persia, is the Messiah in Isaiah’s song of praise.

Cyrus is the one in 2 Chronicles… a history of the people… that decrees “God, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has also assigned me to build him a Temple of worship at Jerusalem in Judah. All who belong to God’s people are urged to return—and may your God be with you! Move forward!” (36:23)

And so the people return home. If you are curious about their journey and what they experienced as they finally arrived… the process and details of the rebuilding of the temple, I encourage you to check out the books of Ezra and Nehemiah in our scriptures. Rather than being prophecies, these books are included with the books of Chronicles as a history and testimony of that time.

Haggai, for his part, was called to speak God’s word in Jerusalem after the exiles all returned home. Darius was the third king of the Persian empire… coming to power after Cyrus’s son failed in a complicated game of thrones. What is important for our story, is that Darius continued the policies of the previous rules and allowed the people he ruled to practice their own religions and cultures – even giving grants from the royal treasury for this work.

In fact, the temple in Jerusalem was funded by the Persian kingdom. Cyrus sent the Judeans back home to begin building it, but the work didn’t begin quickly.

The people were preoccupied by their own households. They were worried about a drought. They focused on themselves instead of on God.

And so, once again, God’s word comes to the people through a prophet… Haggai. In this short, two chapter book, Haggai helps the people understand the urgency of the need to rebuild the temple.

Then the Lord’s word came, “Is it time for you to dwell in your own paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? … rebuild the temple so that I may enjoy it and that I may be honored.” (1: 4, 8b)

The people heard…. and in September of 521 BCE the rebuilding of the temple began.

In the passage that we are focusing on today, God provides words of encouragement to the people in this process.

Generations had come and gone in exile. Not many… if any… were alive during the time of the Judean kingdom or who had seen the previous temple. They were in uncharted waters, unsure of what came next.

And these words were a reminder that God was in control.

Be strong!

Work, for I am with you!

My spirit stands in your midst!

Don’t fear!

I make the heavens and the earth quake and I will fill this house with glory.

When I think about church today and the rebuilding of the temple, I for one am incredibly grateful to all of those who have maintained and planned and cared for this church building that we worship in. Just yesterday, people gave their time to help renovated and rejuvenate this space in preparation for fall.

This house is not lying in ruins. We have been faithful stewards of this physical space and honor God through our care of this space.

But, as we have heard in so many of the prophets recently, the temple, the church, is about far more than the building.

Giving honor and glory to God far more about about creating room for God to dwell in your heart and your life than about bricks and mortar.

And it is a lot more difficult as well.

It is far easier to focus on our professional development than our faith development.

We are often preoccupied with our recreational life and don’t take time for our spiritual life.

We experience droughts in the form of finances or stress or illness and they become excuses that keep us from doing the hard work of building a relationship with God.

And so Haggai speaks to us, too.

Only we don’t need to build a structure for God to live in… we need to build on our commitment to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And just as God spoke to the Judeans, God speaks to us:

Be strong!

Work, for I am with you!

My spirit stands in your midst!

Don’t fear!

I make the heavens and the earth quake and I will fill this house… I will fill your life… with glory.

Just as we are coming to the close of the summer and so many exciting things we have done and seen and shared, so, too, are we coming to the start of something new.

A new school year.

A new Sunday morning schedule.

A new focus on discipleship in our church and what it means to live out our faith and follow Jesus.

And we are going to challenge you to step up and step out in faith.

We are going to wrestle with what it means to put God first in our lives.

We are going to ask one another if we are really living lives of love, service, and prayer.

You see, God is doing a new thing in our midst.

God wants to build this church again. Build our faith again. Build our hearts again.

Maybe your relationship with God is like a house that has been neglected for too long.

Maybe your faith life is in shambles.

Maybe the windows have been boarded over or the roof is caving in.

Maybe structurally you don’t know where to start picking up the pieces and starting over.

Maybe you are like the Judeans who are heading to a home that was never really theirs to begin with and you have no idea what this is supposed to look like.

You are not alone.

We all have to start somewhere and as a church, this fall, we are going to explore our faith life one piece at a time.

We are going to celebrate where we are, and then lay out a plan and help each other grow.

One step at a time.

One choice at a time.

One day at a time.

The God who can shake the heavens and the earth can shake up our church and our hearts, too. God will do this work in our lives, if we just give the spirit room to move…

Because as God reminds us at the end of the book of Haggai…. I have chosen you.

We didn’t chose God. God chose us.

God chose you. And God wants to build this church with you and you and you. Thanks be to God. Amen.

A Different Kind of Proof

Posted on March 28, 2016Leave a comment

A man named Bob Ebeling thought he was a loser.

Mr. Ebeling was an engineer on the Challenger Space Shuttle and discovered that the O-ring seals in the rocket might not hold up in the cold temperatures of the 1986 launch.

He and fellow engineers pleaded with NASA to stop the launch, but they decided to go ahead anyways.

He went home, knowing the shuttle would explode. “And it did, 73 seconds after liftoff. Seven astronauts died.” (NPR 2/25/2016)

In an interview with National Public Radio, Mr. Ebeling shared that for thirty years has been carrying the guilt and the burden of the loss of life on that day.

Lots of people told him that it wasn’t his fault…

That he had done everything he could…

But he couldn’t forgive himself.

He believed one of the mistakes God made was picking him for the job.

And because NASA and the contractor in charge of the launch had never given him confirmation that he had done the right thing, he didn’t believe it.

What fascinates me about this story is that Mr. Ebeling did the right thing. He told the truth. He did everything he could to prevent the launch. And after his story first aired in January of this year, calls and letters poured in to his home. People who had been close to him. People who had worked with him. Complete strangers who had been moved to write and let him know that he wasn’t a loser, but a hero.

And yet, he wouldn’t believe… he couldn’t forgive himself…

Unless there was a specific act of proof – a call or a letter from NASA themselves.

I hear in his story the same kind of need to know and to find proof that I hear in our gospel lesson this morning.

Women trek to the tomb are the break of dawn. And they have no idea what to make of the stone rolled away. The body of their Lord is no longer there. What they are experiencing doesn’t make any sense until the angels appear and remind them what Jesus had told them: that on the third day, he would rise. And they remember.

Can you imagine their amazement?

They rush back to the disciples and tell everyone about what they have discovered. They tell them about the tomb. They tell the crowd: He Is Risen!!!!

And no one believes them.

They need proof.

They need something more concrete.

They need to see it to believe it.

And so Peter runs to the tomb himself, looks inside, and sees nothing but a cloth.

And the scripture says… he returned home, wondering at what had happened

But what I find amazing is that this account leaves out a key detail: It never says he believes.

And I think if I had showed up there, I would have been surprised and amazed, but I’m not sure I would totally understand what had happened.

I think he was unsure.

Filled with doubt and questions.

He didn’t have enough proof to believe that what the ladies had told him was true.

Unless there was a specific act of proof…

Friends, it isn’t easy to believe the story that we share with you this morning.

Resurrection? Yeah, right.

We haven’t seen it or experienced it.

We can’t go back in time and run to the tomb ourselves.

Angels aren’t popping in to worship this morning to tell us how it is.

If even the disciples had a hard time believing, how are we supposed to understand this good news?

Where is the proof? Where is the concrete evidence?

Mr. Ebling wanted a word from specific people in order to forgive himself.

And he got it. He got a call on the phone from one of the vice presidents for the contractor, Thiokol who told Mr. Ebling – you did all that you could do. (NPR)

And George Hardy, a NASA official involved in the Challenger loss wrote to Mr. Ebeling – “You and your colleagues did everything that was expected of you.”

And it started to make a difference.

And then came a statement from NASA itself: “We honor [the Challenger astronauts] not through bearing the burden of their loss, but by constantly reminding each other to remain vigilant… and to listen to those like Mr. Ebeling who have the courage to speak up so that our astronauts can safely carry out their missions.”

That was it. That was the thing he wanted to see and hear. The proof he needed to let go of his burden of guilt.

The disciples wanted to see it with their own eyes… to touch their Rabbi with their own fingers.

And Jesus appeared to them.

He showed them his hands and feet. He ate a piece of fish with them. He personally reminded them of everything he had said – that he was supposed to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.

They got the proof they wanted.

But there is something that those disciples didn’t quite understand…

something that Mr. Ebeling didn’t quite understand…

something that we don’t quite understand whenever we are looking for a specific piece of proof or evidence… something concrete to demonstrate truth.

Yes, Jesus gives them the proof they wanted – he shows them his physical resurrected self – but the proof they needed was still to come.

Jesus isn’t there to show them his body. He is there to send them forth to live out his message.

“A change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Look, I’m sending you to what my Father promised.”

What if we have it all wrong?

We always say, “seeing is believing.”

But what if DOING is believing?

What if in the very act of living out the resurrection and the good news of Jesus Christ we find the proof we are looking for?

What if we are looking for proof instead of living out the proof with our very selves?

You see, Jesus, didn’t ask us to intellectually understand the resurrection.

He didn’t ask us to be able to explain it scientifically.

He doesn’t want us to have a philosophical debate with people about it.

Jesus wants us to live it.

To change our hearts and our lives.

To go out in the world and turn it upside down.

He started a resurrection insurrection and Jesus rebelled against the powers of evil, sin and death… and now he calls us to follow him in turning the forces of destruction on their heads.

It is in the process of living it, that we discover just how true and real the power of the resurrection is.

Over the last few weeks here at church we have been reading this book, Renegade Gospel. And it hasn’t been an easy book. The author has challenged us time and time again to get out there and live our faith!!!

That has been a hard message to swallow, because so many of us feel like we aren’t doing as much as Mike Slaughter asks of us. We feel guilty because we don’t go as far as he asks us to go. We aren’t sure we are ready to give it our all.

But what Slaughter reminds us in the very last chapter is “that an abundance of faith is not necessary.” Jesus told the disciples that faith as small as a mustard seed could change the world. “It’s not about how much faith you have, but how much of what you have that you commit to action.”

You don’t have to believe every single word of the gospel to live out the power of resurrection.

You can have all kinds of doubts and questions and you can still live out the power of the resurrection.

I’m begging you… don’t sit back, waiting for definitive concrete proof before you decide to become a Christian.

I’m not sure it’s there.

But what I do know is that when I live out my teeny tiny little mustard seed faith and trust in the power of resurrection, I find intangible, mysterious, holy truth everywhere.

I find it in this room when I hear the stories of healing in this life and in the celebration of a life that will continue in the next.

I find in in a letter I received from one of you this very morning that describes how you have awakened to a new understanding of faith and discipleship.

I find it at the food pantry in the hope that comes to life on the face of a mom who was desperate.

I find it in the pile of goods and sleeping bags and food that are outside the sanctuary, waiting to be delivered to homeless people through Joppa.

I find it in the discovery on a child’s face when they learn a new word.

Mike Slaughter writes that “the resurrected Jesus revealed himself to his followers in a very personal and real way. But he made clear its impossible to know him apart from the commitment to become intimately involved in his life and mission. Intentional participation in his life and mission is part and parcel of faith. Faith is a verb!!!”

So friends, don’t wait for proof.

Don’t spend thirty years of your life waiting for some kind of external validation.

Just follow Jesus.

Go where he sends us.

Join the incredible movement to transform this world!

Live it out by showing forgiveness and grace to every person you meet.

Live it out by praying for the sick.

Live it out by loving the unloveable.

Live it out by holding the hand of someone who is dying.

And you will find the proof you are looking for…

Because Christ is risen!

Pastoral Persona

A while back, Verily put out an article: Three Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Post Something on Social Media

The basic three questions are these:

Is it useful?
Is it truthful?
Is it fruitful?

I had shared the article with other pastors because I thought that the three questions raised in the article are good guidelines for how we can interact with parishioners and one another online. In today’s vicious political climate and in the lead up to our own General Conference, I thought these questions would be good to revisit.

On the one hand, these questions help us to utilize social media and our web presence and be truly vulnerable. But I think they are also guidelines that allow us to be real without oversharing or crossing boundaries. These questions act as a filter for whatever content we might put forth – from our feelings on a basketball game to our opinion of a candidate to our experience of worship that morning.

Verily doesn’t have a Christian background, so I find it so interesting that fruitfulness is one of the criteria they use. And the very idea of promoting ourselves as a brand seems the very definition of inauthentic. However, we do have a persona, a public perception, that we are known by – whether as pastors or as church folk or as church bodies in general. The world sees us based on what we choose to put out there via blogs, websites, tweets, and posts. So, what are we saying?

Is it useful?

“if I think someone else will benefit intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually from my post, I’ll push it out.”

I think this could also be thought of as relevance. Is this something that my community should be aware of or are they already talking about it? I’ve long used the Barthian quote about having a bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, and I think this usefulness question asks us to make connections with the lives of people and the gospel we proclaim. And, I think it invites us to look to the secular world and see where we can find insight that is good for the people of God, too. (like the article I’m referencing!) One of my hobbies is watching television shows and I am constantly discovering questions, insights, and realities of the human dilemma that we fail to talk about as a church. So occasionally I try to blog about where I see grace or the human condition or redemption in the media we consume in the secular world. If we aren’t paying attention to the world we live and breathe in, I think our posts will fail to be useful.

Usefulness also has to do with what we are trying to accomplish with our posts. Maybe we need to ask if the church will benefit intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually from our posts. Or, are we simply trying to stir the pot? Are we trying to build up the church or does our commentary simply serve to tear it apart? The same could be asked of our national conversations and politics.

Is it truthful?

“Is what I’m broadcasting… an accurate representation of who I am personally and professionally?”

While this item does have to do with actual facts, and we shouldn’t ever promote or share things that simply aren’t true, this point for me really is about whether something accurately represents me. I post about sports and food and family and friends because it is who I am. Yes, I am a pastor, but I am also a real, normal human being, just like others are. If my online pastoral persona is all about the church or if it is all about ministry, then I am painting a false image of what it means to serve God. I don’t create space for others to live their lives AND serve God, too.

The flip side of this is that ministry is a high calling and we commit to living according to higher standards. And as a colleague noted, perhaps as pastors we give up the right to a “private” life when we take on our calling.

Or perhaps, a different way to say it is that our lives as pastors are always under the microscope of public opinion. What we do, even in our private time, reflects our profession (whether we want it to or not). I hang out with a lot of non-churched people. They are at my house every Friday night, playing board games and ping pong. Even in that little microcosm of personal life, they don’t forget that I am also a pastor.

And so, if I can’t say it in front of colleagues or in front of the church, maybe I really shouldn’t say it… or at the very least not say it online. I find it much harder to remember this when I’m at home watching a basketball game and my team is down by 35 points.

Is it fruitful?

“Will what I’m sharing create something bigger or make an impact, whether in the form of an online debate or dollars for a charity?”

My colleague, Deborah Coble Wise, noted that this definition of fruitfulness is sometimes part of the problem: “When everything because a ’cause’ or a debate… does it lose the possibility of authentic relationship?”

How we, as the church, define fruitfulness is very different from the rest of the world. Sometimes, yes, it is about numbers and getting people on our side (if our side is the Kingdom). We could ask how this post could help make disciples of Jesus Christ and how it will help to raise money for a project we are working on.

But we also define fruitfulness in a lot of un-quantifiable ways. Will this post help us transform the world? Will it bring hope to someone? Will it spark a conversation? Will it create a deeper relationship or community? Will it impact the life of a youth?

Prodigal Rabbi

Posted on March 7, 2016Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago, Trevor and I were at a workshop about how we change our thinking in the church from membership to discipleship.

We talk a lot about membership. We are preparing our confirmation students to become members. We are about to have a new member class. And it’s almost like once you cross that magical membership threshold, then that’s it. You’ve done it. You have reached the peak of your faith journey.

And that’s because we don’t have a process in place to help all of us continue to grow in our faith beyond that point.

So in this workshop, we talked about making the shift to discipleship as our primary focus. A life-long journey of following Jesus.

But what does it really mean to be a disciple?

Rob Bell shares in his video series Nooma what it really meant to be a disciple in Jesus’ time.

He describes how most little Jewish boys and girls would have been instructed in the Torah – the first five books of the bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And by the age of 10, they would have memorized the Torah. They would know it by heart.

When they got to about 10, many of these boys and girls would then go and learn their family trade, but the best of the group would continue to the second level – where they would spend four or five years learning and memorizing the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. Joshua through Malachai.

And at the age of 14- or 15, many more of these students would learn the trade of their families, but the best of the best would try to continue on and would seek out a rabbi and apply to be one of their disciples. “A disciple just doesn’t want to know what the rabbi knows. A disciple wants to be like the rabbi and wants to learn to do what the rabbi does.”

When you went to seek out one of these rabbis, they would grill you and find out what you knew because the rabbi wants to know if you had what it takes to follow them, to be like them. And many would be turned down. Only the best of the best of the best were invited to come and follow that rabbi. And you would leave EVERYTHING behind – your family, their trade, your home and village – and you would devote your entire life to being like your rabbi, learning to do what your rabbi does. This is what it means to be a disciple.

But, something shifts when Jesus comes around.

In Luke’s gospel, he goes out and calls his first disciples and they aren’t the best of the best of the best.

They are fishermen.

They are young men who went back home to practice the family trade after the first or second level of education.

Jesus isn’t seeking the best of the best of the best.

Jesus doesn’t think that you have to be the smartest or wisest or most clever person in order to follow him and be his disciple.

He thinks that Simon Peter and James and John and Levi and all of those ordinary people have what it takes to be his disciple… to learn from him… to know what he knows… to do what he does.

I think it starts to make a whole lot more sense for me, knowing this, why the Pharisees were so mad at Jesus.

Because many of those Pharisees were rabbis; those who accepted the best of the best of the best to be their disciples.

And they looked around and saw Jesus hanging out with the riff-raff. With the not-good-enoughs. With the nobodies. And in that sense, Jesus was giving their profession a bad name!

They saw him taking his gifts and his knowledge and wasting them by giving them to just anybody. Instead of calling the best of the best of the best, Jesus was calling the least and the last and the lost. They thought he was recklessly wasteful and extravagantly generous.

I used those words when I first arrived at Immanuel to describe Jesus.

It was a sermon on the parable of the sower – who scattered seed wherever he went, without regard for whether or not it would grow. I remember some of you gasped in shock as I started throwing sunflower seeds all over the front of the chancel area!

And that day, I used the word “prodigal” to describe that sower. Because to be “prodigal” means to be recklessly wasteful and extravagantly generous.

It is the same word used in our gospel lesson for this morning.

The prodigal son is recklessly wasteful and throws away his father’s fortune … but that same word can also be used to describe the father who welcomes him back home. If we continued just a few verses in the story, the older son is upset at the prodigal nature of his father’s love for this lost and useless brother.

The dad in this story is filled with compassion when his boy returns home. He runs out and surrounds him with love. He gives the boy the best of what he has. He kills the fatted calf. He is extravagantly generous, pouring out love and grace and forgiveness in his rejoicing.

In fact, all three of these parables about the lost things – the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son – are reminders about the lengths God will go in order to demonstrate love for us.

They are reminders about the extravagant, reckless, wasteful, abundant grace and mercy of our God.

A God who loves us so much, we were given the Torah, the law, the teaching to guide our way.

A God who loves us so much, the prophets were sent to call us back into relationship with God – over and over and over again.

A God who loves us so much, that God became one of us, walked among us, taught us, and called us to follow.

Our God doesn’t care if you are the best of the best. Our God doesn’t care about your background or age. Our God doesn’t care about your skills.

Our God looks at you and sees infinite worth and potential.

Our Jesus, our Prodigal Savior, looks at you and is willing to give up everything to seek you out and find you.

Our Rabbi looks at you and thinks – you can do what I can do… you can be like me.

And so Jesus invited those disciples… and now us… to follow in his footsteps… to be covered in the dust of our rabbi… to set everything aside and become like Jesus.

As Michael Slaughter puts it in chapter 3 of Renegade Gospel:

“When I confess that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, I commit to follow Jesus in a lifestyle of sacrificial service, walking in the dust of my Rabbi. Whatever my Rabbi values, I value. Whatever my Rabbi thinks about God, I think about God. Whatever my Rabbi thinks about people, I think about people… I act like my Rabbi, talk like my Rabbi, love like my Rabbi, and give my life away for my Rabbi’s mission.”

You may have noticed around this building the signs for this “Renegade Gospel” study we are doing, and it includes the quote – Jesus didn’t come to start a religion.

Well, I think today, we are reminded that Jesus didn’t come to make members of Immanuel United Methodist Church.

In fact, our mission as a church has nothing to do with membership… we have said clearly that we are called to “Make Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World.”

Jesus came to invite people like you and me – ordinary, everyday people – to come and follow him.

Jesus came to invite the least and the last and the lost into a lifelong relationship with him.

Jesus came to invite us to grow more like him every day.

To love more like him every day.

To forgive more like him every day.

To turn this world upside down and transform it with God’s power every day.

And we are empowered to keep working toward the day when we don’t simply know what Jesus knows, but we do what he does.

That’s what this place is for. We are a community of disciples, trying to be more like Jesus every single day.

We are a community of disciples, gathered to be re-energized and strengthened to go out into the world, and live, in Christ, a life of love, service, and prayer. Amen.

Momentum for Life: Eating & Exercise

Posted on February 7, 2016Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And lastly E.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As we heard in our reading today:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What was the difference? What made their communities healthier?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m going to close with a confession.

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

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

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

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

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

Blogging as a form of Public Theology

Posted on February 4, 2016Leave a comment

I just spent the last couple of days in Washington, D.C. exploring what it means to be a public theologian.

Over the last year, I have been part of the Lewis Center’s Community Leadership Fellows Program. We have gathered for three day sessions together at Wesley’s downtown campus in order to reflect upon the role of the church, and in particular the role of the pastor, in the life of the community.

As Rick Elgendy help us define the phrase, we engage in public theology whenever we are reflecting upon the actions of the church in the public (our common life together). Public theology helps us to refine and renew our commitments. It pushes us onward towards perfection. It challenges us to do and say and be more. Above all, it reminds us that the Kingdom of God is intimately tied up with the life of the world around us.

In the scope of our readings and preparation this week, one article really pushed me to think about what it means to be a pastor and a public theologian and how I am called to embody that role.

As Robinson writes in “The Church in the Public Square”:

In the mainline church the pastoral care tradition has so taken over that the one strong traditions of the teaching pastor and the teaching minister have been eclipsed. We no longer seem to have “preachers,” only “pastors.” We have often neglected a serious teaching ministry in favor of construing the ordained mainly as members of the so-called helping professions…

The message has too often seemed more like “let us take care of you” than asking that people “grow and grow up in Christ.” It is largely up to the clergy to communicate a different understanding of their calling, and thus of the purpose of the church itself: our purpose is not to be caring or to be “like my family” ; rather, it is to grow Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, and to engage the culture as people who are accountable to the gospel…

if people in congregations are to be equipped for a vital role in the public world, such a shift in emphasis and priority is essential.

When I first felt the call to ministry, it was a yearning to help the people of the church better live out their faith in the world. It was a call to take seriously what was happening all around us: from war and violence, to care for the earth and our hungry neighbors. I probably didn’t fully understand at the time that the church does not always function according to the purpose articulated by Robinson above.

And I have to be completely honest. I have been honored and blessed to sit at the bedsides of folks and pray with them as they took their final breath. I never imagined the holy weight and privilege of placing a hand on the casket as it is lowered into the earth. Holding on to the hand of someone who is sick or struggling and praying with them is part of my calling I am so proud to live out.

There are so many different functions of a minister that it is not surprising that one or another sneaks up and takes over the rest at various times. Whether administrative functions, pastoral care, connectional responsibilities…

But the paragraphs from Robinson reminded me that my first calling was not to be a helper or care-giver, but to be a pastor that discipled people. My call was to help get the church out of the building so they can live their faith. And a large part of that discipling happens when through teaching and theological reflection about what we are or are not doing out in the world.

One of our guides this week was Rev. Dr. Joe Daniels. He lifted up how important it is to form people in the word in the process of sending them out. We have to teach people what the Kingdom of God looks like. We have to constantly reflect together about what is going on in our common life and invite the Spirit to guide us into action. I try to do that in my preaching, but I have been neglecting this very blog as a place where that kind of wrestling and reflection can occur.

I’ve been neglecting this blog a lot in general.

And perhaps it is because I had lost a focus for what I was trying to accomplish here.

Perhaps it is because I’ve become so busy with the other functions of ministry that it felt selfish to spend time writing and reflecting.

What I realized this week is that the sentence above is perfectly rediculous.

My calling is to be a public theologian.

My calling is to help the church think and reflect about how we are engaging with the world and what our faith has to say about our life in the world.

My calling is to model what it means to act in the world and be held accountable to the gospel through precisely this sort of writing.

If this blog can help do me live out that calling… well, you’ll be seeing me here a bit more often.