diversity – Salvaged Faith

Nehemiah: Everyone Is Included

Posted on February 12, 2023Leave a comment

Text: Nehemiah 11:1-2, 12:27-43

Nehemiah and company finished rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in fifty-two days.

But when the work was complete, what they were left with was basically a shell of a city.

It had walls and gates.

It had a temple and temple staff and priests.

But what it didn’t have was people.

There were some who had lived amongst the ruins, but the majority of people were scattered in surrounding towns and villages.

And so with this nearly blank slate of a city, Nehemiah had to figure out how best to create their ideal city.

On Tuesday, I joined with other clergy from our circuit for our monthly meeting.

We represent twelve churches, almost all on this northwest side of Des Moines.

These gatherings help us think about how we can support one another’s ministry and what kind of work we might do together.

This Lenten season, we will be joining with some of these churches for a community Ash Wednesday service here at Immanuel with a choir made up of members from four different churches.

And for Good Friday, we will gather at Walnut Hills for a Tenebrae service with special music led by five different congregations.

But one of the main conversations that occupied our time was about how we are making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

As we think about the faithful disciples we have in our congregations, how are we empowering you all to go out and transform this city into what God desires it to be?

And Pastor Lee from Valley UMC reminded us of a principle of community organizing.

The question we should be asking is not always what I can do to impact this individual person today.

Sometimes, the question is, what do we want our community to look like in thirty years?

What does God want our community to look like in thirty years?

And what might need to happen in order to get to that place?

That was the kind of question Nehemiah was asking.

He heard God invite him to rebuild the community and the truth was, this isn’t the kind of work that could be accomplished in fifty-two days.

And he knew from past experiences with the officials and leaders exploiting the common folks that you had to be careful with power.

They needed to set up a system where all sorts of people were included and welcomed and had a voice.

So what did God want Jerusalem to look like in thirty years?

And what would it take to get there?

Nehemiah had a lot of options before him.

They could have focused on including just the wealthy and educated.

They could have picked the best and the brightest.

But as we see when they start this effort of resettling, they intentionally worked to make sure that people from every part of their nation were included.

To ensure they didn’t just pick out their favorites…

or just who they wanted to live in the city…

or just those who looked like them…

Nehemiah had the people cast lots.

As we demonstrated with the children, casting lots was a way of randomizing the decision.

One out of every ten people were chosen in this way to move from the surrounding villages up the road and into the fortified walls of the city proper.

And in one sense, this was a sacrifice for these people.

They had to uproot from their small towns and establish themselves in a new place.

But they were also invited to take on the responsibility of this rebuilding in the city in a way that allowed them to leave their own unique mark.

It was a way of saying: your tribe matters to the good of the whole.

We value having your part of the community at the table.

We not only welcome you, we celebrate you.

You are important to us.

This community belongs to you… just as much as it belongs to me.

And your presence here now will ensure that your part of the community will continue to be part of the future of this city and this people.

That is the conversation we are having right now with our welcoming statement.

In the first sentence of the statement, we are invited to claim this kind of truth:

“We celebrate God’s gift of diversity and value the wholeness made possible in community equally shared and shepherded by all.”

First… what does it mean that we celebrate God’s gift of diversity and value the wholeness made possible in community?

This church has welcome and hospitality as one of its core values.

So many of you, in our Nehemiah community groups, shared about how you first connected with the congregation.

Time and time again, I heard the story of how you planned to visit a few congregations, but once you arrived at Immanuel, you never went anywhere else.

You felt love and support and welcome.

When I first got to Immanuel, I experienced that to be true as well.

I’ve learned you are quick to show up at the bedside of a friend and have often visited before I even hear someone is in the hospital or sick.

I see the care that is taken to make this a hospitable and welcoming place: from coffee time and funeral lunches to how you make space for others.

On the sign outside our building, it says, ‘All Welcome!’ and you really want to everyone to feel welcome here.

Just this week, I was working on our statistical tables and I thought about just how much our diversity has increased this past year as we officially welcomed IGF to be part of our church.

But we also have a wide range of ages… from nine-week-old babies to nonagenarians.

We are wealthy and we struggle financially.

We are healthy and we need healing.

Some of us have been educated on the streets and some of us have taught in universities.

We vote republican and we vote democrat and some of us don’t vote.

And even Cyclones and Hawkeyes and Panthers all attend here and are still somehow able to worship together.

More than that… we celebrate that diversity.

We learn from one another, we partner with one another, and share our diverse gifts.

But, sometimes I think the love and welcome of Immanuel is one of our best kept secrets.

There are folks in this neighborhood and larger community who do not know they would be welcome here…

Even though the sign says, “All Welcome,” there are people who might wonder, “even me?”

We might not force them to cast lots and make them come inside our church, but being explicit about who is welcome and showing and affirming that broadly might help our neighbors to see this as a place that they, too, could find belonging.

A place where they could share in ministry.

So one of our congregational goals for 2023 is that we want to become a place that is known as safe, comforting, and supportive for all people.

And our welcoming statement is a part of that, because it helps us be more explicit about what we truly mean by welcome.

But, it also invites us to truly become a community equally shared and shepherded by all.

There is another way that Nehemiah emphasized this kind of welcome and celebration of people from every walk of life.

You see, the time finally came to throw a party.

A real celebration for the completion of the wall.

And he could have just held auditions and picked the best band and singers and the most famous speakers.

But instead, he intentionally made sure that there were people from every part of the community present.

They were sought out from all the places they lived.

And they could have just had the party in one prime location… like the square where they rededicated themselves to God…

But instead, Nehemiah made sure that every single square inch of that wall was celebrated.

And in doing so, he honored and celebrated the work of all of the everyday people who played a part…

the goldsmith and the perfumer…

and the folks who carried stones and who held shields and who stayed up all night…

and the daughters and grandchildren who came to help…

He made sure that everyone who had been part of the work was valued and celebrated in the process.

When I think about the impact of a welcoming statement like the one before us, I think about how even inside this caring, loving community, there are folks who might have a part of their lives they aren’t sure is welcome.

They might hesitate to talk about their divorce.

Or worry about how their pew mates might accept their non-binary grandchild.

There are folks who might hesitate to participate in a small group because English isn’t their first language.

They might hold back their concerns about whether they can afford to stay in their home.

An explicit welcome helps us convey:

We not only welcome you, we celebrate you.

You are important to us.

And you have something to offer this community that we need.

This community belongs to you… just as much as it belongs to me.

But it also says, we will continue to have your back… just like we did before.

We will work to support you and walk alongside you in the future we are claiming together.

And if needed, we will go to bat for you in the struggles that you face in this world.

The celebration and dedication of the wall was also a celebration and dedication of the future for the city of Jerusalem.

They held before them a vision of the kind of place they wanted to be in thirty years.

A community where all parts were cherished and had a role to play.

A community that would hold one another accountable to the commitments they had made.

A community that would have one another’s backs whenever hardship would come.

And I hold this community in my prayers as you discern and think about the kind of place you want to be in thirty years as well.

The Army of the Lamb

Posted on May 15, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Revelation 7:9-17

Today in worship, we confirm and welcome twelve new professing members of our congregation and of God’s church. They will stand before us, confess their faith in Jesus, and promise to serve him in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races.

These twelve young people are taking their place as servants of God, followers of the Lamb, members of God’s kingdom.

They are joining in the multitude of those who are standing before the Throne.

In this Easter season, we are exploring together the powerful message of hope and new life that we find in the Book of Revelation.

It isn’t a book that we read a lot, probably because it is full of cryptic language and messages.

In fact, in the creed that our confirmands wrote, they describe the Bible as “confusing at times…” and this is a sacred text that even I, your pastor, have a hard time figuring out.

But as our students also proclaim, when we study God’s word, we are challenged and we grow in our faith and understanding.

What we have discovered so far in our study of this text are a couple of simple truths.

First – This is a book of hope with one consistent message: “Jesus is coming and he will sit on the throne… and the world and all its powers will not. Our work is to allow God to make us into a kingdom, to serve as priests, and give God praise.”

No matter where we look, no matter what chapter, this message helps us understand what we might read.

Second – as we talked about last week – the Book of Revelation also tells us about how God will transform the world as we know it into the world that God intends:

Not through violence and destruction, but through the sacrificial love of the Lamb.

Only the Lamb is worthy.

Only the Lamb is able.

https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/revelation-1-11/

As part of the message last week, I talked about these three cycles of seven that we find in the scriptures: the seven seals of the scroll, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls.

In this rendering from the Bible Project, we get a glimpse of how these three cycles repeat and overlap.

Each cycle starts with destruction and devastation – but the message that follows is a reminder that destruction and devastation will not transform the hearts of the people of this world.

People continue to be persecuted and suffer, hearts are hardened, the nations will not repent, everyone and everything is caught up in the chains of evil and by spiritual forces of wickedness.

What we need is someone to break the chains of sin and death and set us free.

Only the Lamb is worthy.

Only the Lamb is able.

Only the Lamb can lead us to the Day of the Lord and usher in the new heavens and the new earth.

But here is the thing… when the Lamb confronts the beastly forces of the world, he does so not with violence, but with love. With faithfulness. With sacrifice.

His robes are stained with blood… not from his enemies, but his own blood given for others.

His only weapon is a sword that comes from his mouth… a word of judgment and redemption.

There is no fight, only victory, and the army of the Lamb simply sings in praise.

In each of these three cycles, we find not just the Lamb, but we also find those who are faithful.

Chapter Seven describes the diverse community of the ones who are sealed, or baptized – and who follow the Lamb.

This group shows up again in repeating images of a battle between the beastly forces of evil, power, and oppression and the Lamb (12-14, 16-20).

Chapter Eleven describes two faithful witnesses, called “lampstands” – an image John has already told us is a symbol of the church. These witnesses show us the mission of the church – to imitate the loving sacrifice of the Lamb – even to death – and share God’s love and mercy with the world.

Today, as our confirmands profess their faith, we are going to look at what our job is as those followers of the Lamb and servants of God. So what, in all of this, is the role of the church?

With forces of evil and natural disasters and disease and death all around us – what is our role?

First – we have to make a choice.

God wants to make us into a kingdom, but that means that as individuals and communities, we need to reject the kingdoms of this world.

Rather than compromise and give in to the national, economic, and spiritual forces of the world, we are called to declare our allegiance to the Lamb.

And one of the ways we do that is through our baptism and our confession of faith.

Our baptism is described as a seal upon our foreheads, a mark of God’s love in our life.

It stands in contrast to the mark of the beast – or the ways we declare our allegiance and support of the powers of this world.

When we join the church, we stand in public and we renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sin.

But we don’t have to do that alone.

You see, we also accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.

War, famine, and disease?

Natural disasters?

Beastly forces?

Hate crimes and white supremacy?

Peer pressure?

Temptation?

Persecution?

“Who is able to stand?” the people of the world cry out when they are surrounded by the forces of destruction (Revelation 6:17).

The people of God can.

And that is because the Holy Spirit lives within us.

Because we have fixed our eyes upon the Lamb.

Because we chosen the way of love and mercy.

Second – once we’ve made that choice, we can be witnesses to all of the world of how God intends for us to live.

We are called to embody diversity, equality, and praise.

Last week, I talked about how John of Patmos heard one thing and then saw another.

He heard that the Lion of Judah would be the one to save us, but when he looked, he saw a lamb that was slain.

In the same way, chapter seven starts with one of these reversals.

John HEARS that the people who are sealed, who have chosen to serve God number one hundred forty-four thousand, and come from the twelve tribes of Israel.

He HEARS a sort of military census describing one ethnic group.

But then he LOOKS.

And as our scripture for this morning tells us, he SEES more people than anyone could count.

And they aren’t all the same.

They come from every nation, every tribe, every people.

It is a vision of Pentecost and Palm Sunday all rolled into one with the multitude before the throne waving palm branches and crying out their praises.

John SEES the church that Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races.

He has a vision of a community, as Magrey DeVega writes, “where all people, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, age, socioeconomic status, and background are included in this grand cosmic party.”

When we follow the Lamb, we work to become a community that welcomes all people and who intentionally reaches out and keeps expanding our circle of welcome.

But there is something unique about this diversity.

There is also a sense of equality.

Rather than clothed in their own garments, they are all robed in white.

There is no distinction between them.

No one is more important.

No one is above anyone else.

John has a vision of a community that acts, again in the words of DeVega, as “servants to one another, considering each other as equals, treating others as we would want to be treated ourselves.”

When our young people join the church today, they might not yet be able to drive, but they are just as much a part of the professing membership of this church as those of you who have been members for 65 years.

We are all called to do our part, to use our gifts.

And we are all called to celebrate and encourage and lift up the value and dignity of one another.

When we follow the Lamb, we work to become a community that reaches out to a world of hierarchy and division to proclaim that all are equal and all are children of God.

This community also has one more witness to offer to the world.

It is a community of praise.

They wave palm branches.

They fall before the throne.

They cry out in worship.

When they show up again in later chapters, they do so with music and song.

All of them are focused on the throne and the Lamb of God.

It is a vision of a church that DeVega describes as “clear about its priorities. Not becoming more club-like, but more Christlike… a church that directs the world toward the glory of the risen Jesus.”

In our vows of membership, we don’t just confess our faith in Jesus, but we promise to serve as Christ’s representatives in the world.

We commit to being living witnesses to the gospel, the good news of Jesus.

Now, you might do that through song or through words, but it might also be through your actions.

It might be through the attitude you bring to your work or the way you encourage others in your school.

It might be through the offerings we lift up for UMCOR that are used to make a difference in the lives of people around the world.

But in all that we do… inside and outside of the walls of this church… we do so in the name of Christ.

And part of what we proclaim is the truth of God’s will for us.

We read about it this morning at the end of chapter 7.

We believe God’s will for all people is that there would be no more hunger or thirst…

No more hardships or difficulty…

No more grief or tears…

And whenever we respond to natural disasters, or support refugees fleeing from war, or to visit with a family that is grieving, we are turning those praise and prayers into action.

When we follow the Lamb, we work to become a community that helps others to experience the love and mercy of God.

What we don’t find in these chapters is a promise that once you are baptized or sealed or become a member of the body of Christ that everything is going to be easy.

We are not immune to the challenges of this life.

Instead, we find we have the strength to go through whatever might come at us.

We can stand in the midst of it all, like a lighthouse, a beacon, a lampstand, giving others hope and strength.

And we do so together.

With one another and with God by our side.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Expanding Our Vision

Posted on July 11, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Acts 10: 1-5, 9-15, 19-20, 24, 27-28, 34-36, 44-48

Eighty five years ago, I probably would not have been welcomed in this pulpit.

As a woman, ordination was out of the question.

A combination of tradition and a patriarchal society and a way of reading the scriptures precluded the church from welcoming women as preachers and pastors.

It still does in some places and traditions.

But here I stand… ordained, my calling from the Holy Spirit confirmed by the church.

As a young(ish) woman, I have always lived in a church that ordained women. I have always been a part of a church that valued the contributions women made in ministry, in leadership, and in the world. It has been a given.

But I also know what it took to get here.

Late this spring, folks from Immanuel joined with other churches in our circuit to read together through a series of essays called, “I’m Black. I’m Christian. I’m Methodist.”

While their experiences were contemporary, these pastors wove into their narrative the history and legacy of exclusion and discrimination of our church. While some Black Methodists chose to leave, for those that remained within this denomination, separation and exclusion and discrimination continued to be our legacy.

Our church divided over slavery, rather than taking a stand for the full humanity of our siblings.

When we finally re-united, it was as a segregated church, with black churches and clergy all set apart in the Central Jurisdiction until 1968.

The impact of that structural racism continues to be felt today.

What surprised us the most as we read through that book of essays, however, were parallels between these stories of exclusion and discrimination and our current debate within the church about the lives and leadership of our LGBTQ+ siblings.

I am here today because how we understood God’s call in the life of women changed.

In the same way, we have claimed a more expansive vision of what it means to be the church from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

The church is more diverse and beautiful and powerful today because we have recognized how the Holy Spirit is moving through one another.

I wonder where God is going to change our minds next…

This isn’t a new question…

It is a question as old as the church.

As we journey through the book of Acts, we see God’s Kingdom widening.

From Jerusalem, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth.

The faithful Jewish disciples begin to welcome and share the good news with those on the margins of the community…

And those who are converts in more far flung places…

And now we have a story about God speaking into the life of a Gentile and how God moves Peter to share the good news.

As the leader of the apostles, Peter had been visiting all of the house-churches where the followers of the Way were gathering in the wider area, especially on the coastal plains of Sharon.

He had just been to Lydda and then spent some time in Joppa.

And it was there, moved by the Spirit, that Peter had raised a faithful servant named Tabitha from the dead.

He was able to do amazing things, working and teaching in that community.

He was faithfully serving God and thought he knew exactly what that meant.

He presumed that he understood the rules of faith.

But just like Saul in the chapter before, Peter was about to have his world turned upside down yet again.

He was about to catch a glimpse of the scope and the breadth and the depth of God’s love for all people.

Our story today starts in the home of a gentile. A captain of the Roman army, named Cornelius, receives a vision from God and sends for Peter.

Let’s talk a little bit about this guy and what it means…

A Gentile is anyone who is not Jewish, someone who was not a part of the family of Israel, either through birth or conversion.

An outsider… as far as the faith was concerned.

There were gentiles, like Cornelius, who were described as “God-fearers” or “God-worshippers” which meant that they would have practiced elements of the Jewish faith and worshipped the God of the Israelites, but they were limited in their participation.

The temple had many different courts, and the requirements to move further and further into the temple, towards the holy of holies, left many out. The big open area you see in the photo is called the Court of the Gentiles. That was the only part of the temple Gentiles could enter, divided from even the steps leading up to the building by a wall.

These folks would not have kept the same ritual laws and for that reason, it was forbidden for Gentiles to enter these holy places or for Jews to enter the homes of Gentiles… lest they encounter something that would have made them unclean.

But many faithful god-fearing folks like Cornelius continued to show up. They continued worshipping God from those outer courts. In spite of the barriers, they wanted a relationship with God.

And God wanted a relationship with them.

So God prepares Peter’s heart for a more expansive vision of who was included in the Kingdom of God.

Before he is summoned to Caesarea and the home of Cornelius, Peter is given a vision of the clean and unclean joining together and he is asked in the vision to eat something that is unclean.

He doesn’t want to embrace it.

Everything in his very being tells him that it is wrong.

The holy was being profaned by the ordinary.

And then the voice in his vision speaks: “Never consider unclean what God has made pure.”

There is a knock at the door and the Holy Spirit whispers to him… go.

Peter is summoned to the home of Cornelius, and although he was not allowed by Jewish custom to enter, he did.

He entered the home of a gentile and broke bread with the unclean.

And when Cornelius asked about why God had brought him there, Peter shares the good news of Jesus Christ.

As he preaches to the entire gathered household, the Holy Spirit descends upon them and they receive the gift of faith.

The profane, the ordinary, the unclean… these people who were outside of all that Peter knew to be holy… the spirit and presence of God filled their lives.

He and his companions could see it… feel it…

And Peter exclaims: “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water, can they?”

None of the disciples could deny their gifts.

Water was brought and Cornelius and his whole family were baptized on the spot…

They were part of the family of God…

At various points throughout the history of the church, faithful folk stood up and exclaimed: These people have received the Holy Spirit… just like we did – How can we stop them from being baptized?

How can we deny them a place at the table?

How can we continue to reject their leadership when God has so clearly spoken in their lives?

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism was against women preaching in principle… until he witnessed the Holy Spirit working through the lives of women like Sarah Crosby, Grace Murry, and Hannah Ball. He relented and licensed them for preaching in the circuits across England.

Likewise, Wesley was a staunch opponent of slavery the very first Discipline of the church prohibited members from owning slaves.

In fact, that Methodist egalitarian spirit is what drew large numbers of Black people to the movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

As Rev. Erin Beasley writes: “Under Methodist, all Christians became brothers and sisters despite their background… “ and no matter their gender, ethnicity, or class.

And yet, even as God pushes us to expand our vision of who is included, that long-memory of what we had believed is hard to shake off.

It is not easy to let go of control.

Or upend our expectations.

Or give way for others to lead in new ways.

Sometimes the witness of the Holy Spirit is sometimes rejected by those who are trying to follow God’s will.

Even after John Wesley licensed women to preach, it was not until 1956 that women were granted full clergy rights in the church.

The anti-slavery position of the early Methodists quickly became more lenient as they sought to establish more congregations in the South. Black ministers like Richard Allen were not allowed to be ordained as elders… requiring them to be supervised by white clergy… eventually leading these folks to leave the church.

It is hard to let go of our traditions, our rules, our power.

We hang on to what we know and understand.

There is an uproar in Jerusalem when the hear about what Peter had done.

The apostles summon him back to the city to account for his actions.

They start with criticism. They launch into accusations. They read off the rules.

I can imagine their frustration growing as they start to wrestle with the implications of what has just happened.

The leaders of the early church, like Peter just days and weeks before, believed that faith meant one thing, and God was trying to show them it meant something else.

It doesn’t stop the Holy Spirit from moving however.

Not only does God act by giving us these unique and undeniable experiences of grace and power and Holy Spirit-led transformation… like Peter experienced with Cornelius…

But God also expands the vision of the whole church by calling those who have had these life-altering experiences to tell their story.

The apostles were furious and demanded an explanation.

Peter gave them one.

He told them about his vision.

He told them about how God led him to the house of Cornelius.

He connected what he had experienced of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with what he witnessed first-hand in Caesarea.

In chapter 11, verse 16-17 he testifies: “I remembered the Lord’s words: ‘John will baptize with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who am I? Could I stand in God’s way?”.

“I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another,” Peter says.

I give thanks that the apostles rejoiced in his witness.

They came to understand that God wants to be in relationship with all of us.

With the whole of creation.

With you and me.

And we keep learning that lesson…

We keep discovering and remembering and learning all over again just how far our vision needs to expand…

With black and white and brown.

With young and old, and gay and straight,

Folks who are married and single and divorced and widowed.

cis-gender, transgender, and non-binary folks,

with those struggling with mental health and those who love them.

With life-long Americans and with people who have just arrived in our country.

Are we there yet?

No.

Have we sometimes taken steps backwards?

Absolutely.

Like Peter, we are still learning that God shows no partiality to one group of people or another.

It has been a hard lesson… centuries and millenia in the making…

But God keeps pushing us… stretching us… calling us into a more expansive vision of what the church can and should be.

God is God.

And we can fight it.

We can resist it.

But God will keep pouring out the Holy Spirit on whomever God chooses.

YES! We Are Able to Care for Our Children

Posted on October 15, 20181 Comment

Text: Mark 9: 33-37, 42-43, 10:13-16

For twenty-seven years, faith communities across the United States have been observing the “Children’s Sabbath,” lifting a united voice of concern for the children in our midst.
Marian Wright Edleman has been instrumental in this work throughout her life. She recalls in a letter of introduction to this year’s observation that fifty years from Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign, we are still in the midst of the struggle to end racism, materialism, poverty, and war.
“Many are driven to despair,” she writes, “by assaults on children and family well-being – including rampant and resurgent racism; the devastations of poverty…; the daily, deadly toll of gun violence…; and the heartless ripping of children from the arms of parents seeking refuge in our country. But this time demands that we persist in hope, not despair, and fight with all our nonviolent might until justice is won.”
“All children deserve lives of hope, not despair,” Edleman proclaims.
All children.

So this morning, we are joining together with Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and other Christians to remember that all children are precious in God’s sight and to answer the call to make a positive impact on their lives.

Our faith, after all, demands that we think about the children.

In the gospel of Mark, which we have been following during this fall series, includes not one, not two, but three different instances in which Jesus prioritizes ministry to and with children… that that’s just in two chapters.
We are called to welcome children, to build them up rather than tear them down, and to even become like them.
The children around us… our children… teach us about what it means to be faithful.
And deciding to follow Jesus means being willing to say that YES!, we are able to set aside our desires and plans and limited vision and open our hearts and our lives to the needs and the gifts of the children around us.

There is another key part of these passages that might be difficult, but it is important to highlight. Our responsibility to care for these children… to set aside our agendas… to prioritize their needs… and to not impair them from abundant life… it isn’t an option.
It is a central part of our faith.
And Jesus even says that if we get in the way of these little ones – well, our own souls are at risk.
It’s that important.

So, I want to take some time this morning to talk about how we, through both the larger United Methodist Church and right here in our local community, how we can say YES! to Jesus by being in ministry with all of God’s children. I want to lift up ways we can “persist in hope, not despair.”

This past week, I was in Atlanta for our fall board meeting of Global Ministries and I want to begin by telling you about signs of hope and good news I saw through our connectional ministries.
Our Global Health Unit has a strong focus on maternal and child health and many health systems are being strengthened because of the funds that we have raised through Imagine No Malaria and other initiatives.
In Mozambique, midwives and community health workers are focusing on not only pre-natal, but ante-natal visits to help monitor health and provide education about diseases that threaten pregnant women and children. The efforts are paying off with a dramatic increase in healthy births.
Among all of the data that is collected through these visits there was one in particular that caught my attention. Last year, nearly 187 of these individuals were treated for malaria at these ante-natal visits. This year, because of our efforts to reduce transmission – only 13 individuals had to be treated. That is a 93% reduction! And a cause for great hope for children who might grow up and thrive.

We also heard a report from National Justice For Our Neighbors on our work along the border in these past months. This organization is a United Methodist ministry that provides legal help for immigrants and refugees. Their work has focused on the border with providing accompaniment for those who are seeking asylum.
In one such instance, a mother and her child from Guatemala presented themselves at the border and were separated and placed in detention until their Credible Fear Interview to verify their need for asylum. After 38 days, her interview finally came, and a JFON attorney named Virginia, helped the mother, Delia, present her case to the officer and was granted asylum. Having been found to have credible fear, Delia then had to post a $1,500 bond – which was raised by JFON.
But then, they had to raise funds to travel to where her child was being held two hours away.
One of the conditions of asylum is that individuals must be able to stay with family and so funds also had to be raised in order to get this mother and child to their relatives in another part of the United States. In the weeks for it took to complete this process, the JFON lawyer actually opened up their home for this family to stay with her.

Both of those programs and ministries are possible because we as United Methodists have said that YES we are able to care for the most vulnerable around us. We have combined our apportionment resources and special giving to be the hands and feet of Jesus all across this world.

But we also see the impact of these struggles right here in Des Moines. The neighborhood all around us is changing and part of the reason is that immigrant and refugee families are making a home in our midst. They have found here a safe place to start over, raise their children, and build a new life for themselves.
It’s the reason why Hoover High School is the most diverse school in our state.
But we also see this represented in the lives of children who attend the schools closest to our church.
We wanted to take some time today to hear about the needs right here in our local community, from one our elementary schools – Monroe.

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You and I… this community of faith… has the opportunity to bring hope and excitement to the children right here in our midst.
We can show up and volunteer.
We can support the work of these families as they care for one another.
We can pray for teachers and provide encouragement in their work.
We are going to be listening, paying attention, and seeking further ways to be in partnership with not only Monroe elementary, but our other neighborhood schools as well.

We’ve responded by collecting socks and underwear.
We’ve brought together supplies for school kits.
We’ve purchased books.
And now God is asking us to respond in a bigger way – to build relationships.
One of those opportunities is present right here in our building as we continue to get to know the Myanmar congregation and their children and together our children are growing in faith and love.
Reach out and get to know them on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.
Sit with them at dinner.
Ask them how their day is going.
Volunteer with our children’s ministry.

And… if you are interested in stepping up in a bigger way, Billie is going to be coordinating some efforts in the future to build partnerships with our schools. She’d love to hear from you.

God has given us amazing gifts, resources, a beautiful facility, and the hands and feet to help.
Are you willing… are you able… to see the children around us and bring hope into their lives?

Enough…

Posted on October 1, 2017Leave a comment

“Enough” by John van de Laar

Worry and stress are not hard for us, God,
We do them without thinking:

There is always the potential of threat
To our security,
Our comfort,
Our health,
Our relationships,
Our lives.
And we foolishly think that we could silence the fear
If we just had enough money,
Enough insurance,
Enough toys,
Enough stored away for a rainy day.
It’s never enough, though;
The voice of our fear will not be dismissed so easily.

But in the small, silent places within us is another voice;
One that beckons us into the foolishness of faith,
That points our gaze to the birds and the flowers,
That in unguarded moments, lets our muscles relax.
And our hearts lean into loved ones.;
In unexpected whispers we hear it,
Calling us to remember your promises,
Your grace,
Your faithfulness;
And, suddenly, we discover,
That it is enough.
Amen.

A week or two ago as some of us came into church on Sunday morning, you might have noticed a police car here at Immanuel.
Overnight, the garage in our yard was broken into and a snow blower and set of tools had been stolen. They weren’t fancy or terribly expensive, but they were ours. The garage door was damaged in the process and our amazing and excellent Trustees have been working since then to secure the garage, increase a bit of our security, and help keep us all safe.

The neighborhoods around our church are changing.
We have had quite a few shootings recently and we are not the only ones who have experienced break-ins. Whether it is cars, or garages, or houses, there has been an increase in crime.
Our neighborhood is also becoming more diverse. Economic inequality is growing. We see more people of color and more languages are spoken in our midst.
I hesitate to correlate these things, but they are all part of the fabric of what is changing around us.

I think about this reality as we start our new worship and stewardship series: Moving Out of Scare City.
Des Moines is a fantastic place to live and work and grow. It was named the #1 city for young professionals a few years ago.
Yet, we were also in the top 10 list of worst cities for African-Americans in the nation.
We have had a higher murder rate this year than we have in a long time.
More of the students in our schools are on free and reduced lunches.
One in five children in Polk County are hungry.
There are some things about our neighborhood and city that feel less safe and more scary.

I think about the poem by John van de Laar that I shared with you and our temptation to silence that fear through money, insurance, security, gadgets… by clinging ever more tightly to what we have.
When it feels like death, hunger, and the overwhelming struggles of the world loom all around us some of us think about moving out. We want to separate and wall ourselves off from the problems and focus on taking care of our own.
Some churches around us have done that.
They moved out to the suburbs.
Or their church no longer looks like the neighborhood it is situated in.
Their beautiful sanctuaries and people in fancy clothes who walk into them on Sunday mornings stand in stark contrast to the needs of the people that surround them.

In many ways, I think that was the impulse of the people we follow in Genesis this morning.
In chapter 10, we find a listing of all of the descendants of Noah as they developed into the nations of the earth. One of his great-grandsons, Nimrod, began his kingdom with Babel.
While we don’t know of the threats or dangers that surrounded them, the scripture tells us in verse 4 that they wanted to make a name for themselves.
The promise of God that came to Noah was that he and his sons would “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” They were meant to spread the knowledge and blessings of God across the planet.
But this group of descendants feared being scattered over the face of the earth. They feared falling apart.
The potential threat of losing their identity, their status, their place in the world caused them to foolishly throw themselves into building a tower.
They believed that if only the tower were strong enough…
Rich and famous enough…
High enough…
Nothing would threaten them.

But this is not God’s desire or intention for our lives.
God doesn’t want us to worry about getting more and more or protecting only ourselves.
In fact, God knows that if we live our lives that way it will never BE enough.
We will always be unsatisfied and fearful.

Instead, God calls them… and us… to turn our attention away from ourselves.
God tells them they don’t need a tower – they are already enough.

And then God confuses them, scatters them, diversifies them.
Like the bloom of a dandelion becomes a thousand seeds that drift away to far flung places on the wind, God caused the people of Babel to be scattered to the winds – speaking different languages, practicing different customs, becoming different people.
In whatever place they found themselves, they began to look like the ones they were surrounded with.
They allowed the blessings of that new place to transform them.

When we look out on our neighborhood, it is tempting to see the diversity as a threat that might cause us to lock the doors of our building even tighter.
We might turn inward and stop reaching out, stop making connections, stop inviting others to join us.
OR
We could listen to that still small voice that beckons us out into the neighborhood.
We could open our doors to those who are yearning to find a relationship with God.
We could reach out in love and grace to even those who would rob us.
We could find ways to allow ourselves to be transformed and blessed by people who don’t look like us.

When I think about the legacy that Immanuel is building, I don’t see us building up a monument to ourselves, but I think about the ways we have opened our doors to welcome others in.
Not only do we gather and collect food for our neighbors through DMARC, but our front lawn is an invitation for our neighbors to come and take a book or what they might need for an evening meal.
Our building is available for other groups like Bikers Against Child Abuse to gather and plan so they can do the important work of ministry they feel called to.
We realized we had more than enough space to allow a small group of African refugees to come in and worship with one another. Under Pastor Joshua’s leadership, they became a congregation that now has a building of their own!
Our space was empty for just over a year, when this summer, a new friend called the church, looking for a place to worship.
Her name is Mu and she is one of many folks from southeast Asia, Myanmar in particular, who have built a community here. They were looking for a place where they could worship in their own native tongues… but also where they could build relationships with others.
Over the last few months, we have gradually been exploring what this new relationship might look like. Our Fireside Room was sitting fairly empty and on Sunday mornings their group has been gathering in that space to worship and pray.
They don’t have a pastor, but a volunteer from another church has been teaching in Burmese. Mu then translates into another language, Karenni. Their children are joining our children in Wednesday night activities and children’s church and we are navigating multiple languages at once!
On this day when we celebrate World Communion Sunday, I remember that while the people of Babel sought to make a name for themselves, God calls us to share the divine love with all people and to celebrate and delight in the diversity and abundance of all we share this neighborhood with.
Young and old. Rich or poor. Black, Hispanic, Asian, White.
This is what church looks like.
This is what blessing looks like.
And as we join and share and break bread, we remember that we don’t have to fear that we will not have enough.
With God’s help, there is always enough.

Unity, Diversity, and the Body of Christ

Posted on April 2, 2017Leave a comment

Over the past week, I’ve been working to get my garden prepped a bit for spring and to start some of the seeds that will be set out after Mother’s Day. And I was reminded as I dug my fingers into the dirt that soil is so incredibly diverse and complex. That just one handful of the stuff contains more living organisms than there are people on this planet.

And in every part of the soil, every one of those organisms has a part to play, impacting chemical and physical properties. And all of these living organisms live off of and feed off of one another. It is their interaction that makes soil healthy and thriving and good.

In his book, The Third Plate, Dan Barber describes two ways of seeing what is happening in the soil that surrounds us.

One, is a class system… or a battlefield…

We’ve all seen those videos of a tiny fish being eaten by a bigger fish, being eaten by an even bigger fish… that’s some of what happens in the dirt beneath our feet. One way of looking at all of the interaction beneath us is to focus on how microbes are eaten by protozoa, which are eaten by centipedes, ants, and beetles.

But another way of thinking about all of that diversity in the soil is as a system of checks and balances.

Fred Magdoff is a soil scientist and he thinks that “When there is sufficient and varied food for the organisms, they do what comes naturally, ‘making a living’ by feeding on the food sources that evolution provided… What you have is a thriving, complex community of organisms.”

And all of that diversity and interaction in the soil is what makes our food taste good.

Magdoff says, “Taste comes from a more complex molecule that gets eaten, taken apart, and put back together in a different way. The plant takes this, and all the other molecules, and catalyzes them into phytonutrients. Taste doesn’t come from the elemental compounds (like calcium or nitrogen). It comes from the synthesis” [The Third Plate, Dan Barber, page 85]

That’s really why you and I want all of that diversity in the soil after all. Because we want the things we grow to thrive and taste good. We want it to bear tasty fruit!

In musical composition, unless it is a solo piece, it is the interaction of the various instruments each playing their part, yet working together that create harmonization.

And in the church, it is the way that we each utilize our various gifts and we each play our part as hands or tongues or livers that allows the Body of Christ to make a difference in this world.

But sometimes, the church acts more like a battlefield than the Body of Christ.

When Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians, he was responding to the way factions and power and pride were tearing the community apart.

Corinth was a port city and as such it had incredible diversity. Ideas from across the globe all mingled and freed slaves lived amongst wealthy entrepreneurs. The church reflected this diversity… but that created a power contest between the believers who argued with one another about which ideology or status was better than another.

At every turn, Paul reminds the people that their diversity should be seen not as a source of division, but as a blessing. Because of their varied gifts and perspectives, they could do far more together than any of them could do on their own.

We’ve experienced this as a church, haven’t we? We have incredible diversity as far as our age and our political and theological perspectives and yet look at the amazing things that we have done together.

We raised over $5000 for Joppa in a weekend with a garage sale last year that brought so many different people together.

We built on Faith Hall and paid it off in record time because every person did their part.

We successfully launched Children’s Church because of the incredible work of so many different volunteers and people who were willing to try something new.

Today is the last day of Third Grade Bible, which is an amazing way our more experienced folks help our young people learn about this amazing book that guides our faith journey.

None of that could happen unless the various parts of THIS Body of Christ were willing to step up and play a part.

You might be a foot or an eye or a spleen, but you play a part in this church. We all play a part. You might think that you are too young or too old or too busy to make a difference, but Paul says you are wrong. You are an essential part of making the church work!

Or you might think that church would be a whole lot simpler if everyone was just like me, but again, Paul says we are wrong. It takes all of our different perspectives and experiences… even when they make things more complex… to be the Body of Christ God has intended for this community.

In the United Methodist Church right now, we are divided. We are different. And we feel differently about human sexuality. We can’t always agree about how we should be in ministry with those folks on the margins, whether they are refugees or poor or elderly or tattooed or whatever else marks them as different from the majority. And underneath all that disagreement is that we don’t all read the scripture in the same way.

And sometimes, that diversity feels like a war. It feels like the battle described the soil beneath us or in that clip from Minions. We are chewing each other up and spitting each other out. And I hate the way my brothers and sisters are hurt and damaged by actions and words that cut to the core of their very being. And I’ve watched as some people have walked away from the Body of Christ because of it.

When you focus on the conflict that diversity creates, you want to strip out everything that is different to protect yourself and others. We want simple things. We want unity, which means, we want to all be the same.

But I believe, and Paul believes, that to be healthy, we need diversity. We need difference. We need checks and balances. We need reminders of the importance of the scripture and justice and mercy and love from people who don’t see it the same way we do.

We need to listen.

We need to hold one another accountable.

We also need to challenge one another.

We need to be willing to speak the truth in love.

And together, the interaction of all of our different parts creates something beautiful and mysterious and powerful.

John Wesley claimed the Moravian Motto: “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, love.”

There are key things that are pretty essential to who we are as not only United Methodists, but as Christians: ideas like believing in the Triune God, and understanding that grace plays a role in our lives. Core things, without which we simply could not be the Body of Christ.

But there are other things that are non-essential. What style of music or which translation or scripture or if we prefer percolator coffee or ground coffee or whole bean pour over. In those things, we are called to allow the freedom of diversity and expression and to give room and space for our siblings in Christ to be different and to share their varying gifts.

But no matter what… in all things, we are called to love. To respect each other. To listen. To disagree without being disagreeable. To be open to the moving of the Holy Spirit.

In all things, Love.

It is not a coincidence that this chapter on what it means to be the Body of Christ comes right before the chapter on love. Because the only way we make this kind of community work is through love. We’ll talk more about that next week.

In the same way the soil beneath our feet thrives on diversity and competition and interaction and synergy – this church thrives because we are different AND because we love one another. And through God’s grace, that means we can do more than any one of us could accomplish on our own for the Kingdom of God.

Amen.

a billion organisms and the Body of Christ #iaumc15

Posted on June 8, 2015Leave a comment

Did you know that soil is incredibly diverse and complex? It might look like simple dirt, but one handful contains more living organisms than there are people on the planet.

And every part of the soil, every organism has a part to play. They affect chemical and physical properties. There are a billion bacteria in one gram of fertile soil that consume what is produced by green plants… there are fungi that decompose materials, there are soil animals that consume and decompose and feed on one another and leave channels in the soil that increases infiltration of minerals and water and oxygen.

And all of these living organisms live off of and feed off of one another. It is their interaction that makes soil healthy and thriving and good.

In his book, The Third Plate, Dan Barber describes the “war” that is going on in the soil we walk upon. It is a class system where:

Jack pointed to the soil. “There’s a war going on in there…”

first-level consumers (microbes), the most abundant and miniscule members of the community, break down large fragments of organic material into smaller residues; secondary consumers (protozoa, for example) feed on the primary consumers or their waste; and then third-level consumers (like centipedes, ants, and beetles) eat the secondaries. The more Jack explained it, the more it started to sound like a fraught, complex community…

Fred Magdoff, likened the process to a system of checks and balances. “To me there is real beauty in how it works,” he said. “When there is sufficient and varied food for the organisms, they do what comes naturally, ‘making a living’ by feeding on the food sources that evolution provided… What you have is a thriving, complex community of organisms.”

I have been thinking about the immense complexity of dirt and what it means for us as the church.

We have been inundated with a move towards “simple church” and we talk so much about unity and yet I wonder what would happen if instead we embraced the incredibly complex, diverse, thriving nature of soil as a metaphor of our life together.

It is actually what we find in the Body of Christ as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12. We have feet and hands and eyes and hearts and livers and spleens. We all play a part. We might look at others and think, “I don’t need you,” but Paul says we are wrong.

In our Iowa Annual Conference right now, we are divided. We are different. We don’t read scriptures the same. We feel differently about human sexuality. We aren’t sure what we should do about those folks on the margins, our brothers and sisters, who are gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender or still discovering. Underneath it all is a different understanding of how we understand the scriptures.

And sometimes, that diversity feels like a war. It feels like the battle Jack described the soil beneath us. We are chewing each other up and spitting each other out. And I hate the way my brothers and sisters are hurt and damaged by comments that cut to the core of their very being. Especially as I watch them walk away from the Body of Christ.

When you focus on the conflict that diversity creates, like Jack did, you want to strip out everything that is different to protect yourself and others. We want simple things. We want unity, which means, we want to all be the same.

But to be healthy, we need diversity. We need difference. We need checks and balances. We need to remind each other of the importance of the bible and scripture and justice and mercy and grace and love. It comes from both sides. We need to listen. We need to hold one another accountable. We also need to challenge one another. We need to say things that are difficult to hear. We need to be willing to speak the truth in love.

And together, the interaction of all of our different parts creates something beautiful and mysterious and powerful.

Friends, we might look like United Methodists, but a little deeper under the cover of our identity, we are incredibly complicated. We are men and women, people of all sorts of shades of skin, languages, eye colors, theological perspectives, ideas, gifts, skills, ages…

I need you. All of you. And together, God wants us to be amazing.

Listening to the Earth

Posted on April 26, 2015Leave a comment

Our entire world is greening up this time of year, isn’t it. The trees are leafing out. The grass is vibrant. Shoots of green spring out of mulched patches of wood and earth.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

And as we walk through the springtime here in Iowa, our hearts do feel at peace.

It’s like we take one big gigantic sigh of relief that winter is over.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

This world is amazing.

And in the midst of the green and purple and white and yellows of this time of year, we carved out space in our civic and religions calendars to celebrate this world. To honor the earth. To plant some trees. To remind ourselves once again of our need to care for this planet.

In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth and declared them good.

And then, that very same God formed us from the dust of the earth and gave to us a precious task… to care for the world God had made.

From the ancient Israelites to the earliest followers of Christ, caring for the Earth was an important means of honoring and praising our Creator.

The General Board of Church and Society put out a resource a few years ago that remind us that ancient cultures worshipped a whole realm of Gods that each controlled a different part of nature. And so as they sought to control the world: to produce a harvest or stop torrential rains, they would honor and worship this God or that.

But we believe in one God, and we believe this world is not fragmented but interconnected. We believe every part of this creation is in the hands of our Creator and that every piece of the earth tells of God’s goodness. As Jesus noted in our gospel reading this morning – the stones themselves shout God’s praises.

And the ancestors of our faith saw that this interdependent world works well when it is cared for and that it fails when it is damaged or neglected. “In response to their understanding of God and the natural world, they created an ethos for living in healthy relationship with God, the Earth, and one another.”

Today, we refer to this as stewardship.

At our leadership retreat this spring, we talked about how stewardship was a core value of who we are here at Immanuel United Methodist. We believe we are called to the thoughtful and prudent use of God’s blessings.

One of those blessings is this earth. The earth that sustains and gives us life. The earth itself speaks God’s praises.

Yes, the rocks would cry out with shouts of joy if we were silent. And if we quiet our lives just a little and pay attention, we can hear the dirt speak.

This year, I wanted to feed that part of my soul that likes to play in the dirt, so I am currently taking a year-long continuing education course called “Organic Ministry.” I have been surprised by how many times I discover something new we should be learning… or we shouldn’t have forgotten… about our world. It has been a wonderful opportunity to listen to the earth and hear what it is telling us about God’s glory.

The first thing I’m hearing the earth speak is that everything truly is connected. We simply cannot sustain ourselves on our own. And God has provided this rich world of resources to give us life.

You see, good soil isn’t just something that farmers and gardeners care about. Soil makes our lives possible.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. God our creator has provided.

This is not something that we often think about, but one little clump of dirt can hardly do much. All by itself, that clump of dirt would become dry and would not have the room for anything to take root within it.

But when one clump of dirt is surrounded by millions of other little dirt particles, then, it is something to be reckoned with! We know that the outermost layer of our planet is soil… but did you know that five tons of topsoil spread out over an acre of land would only be as thick as a dime? We need soil and lots of it to have abundant life.

How many of you slept on soil last night? Well, where do you live? What is your home built on?

How many of you are wearing soil today? Cotton grows in soil! Just check the label on your clothing.

What about eating soil? Just think about all of the foods that you have eaten this week that were grown in the soil, or medicines that were taken from the ground, or water that we have drank that has flowed through and been cleansed by the soil.

The second thing the earth is trying to tell us is that whether we are aware of it or not, is that we have a relationship with the earth.

It is not simply a stockpile of resources that we can use, but our actions impact the health of our world and its ability to continue to sustain us. The soil itself is like a living and breathing organism we must care for.

We think about dirt as dead matter, but in reality it is organic – full of both living and dead organisms. Fungi and bacteria help break down matter into soil and animals such as earth worms churn and nurture the earth. Without all of that living and breathing of the soil – life as we know it would cease.

Now, as a farm girl, I thought I knew this truth well. The soil that we faithfully plant our grains in each spring needs thoughtful and prudent care. We can’t simply plant corn in the same field every single year and expect our harvests to increase. A simple practice like crop rotation insures that vital nutrients like nitrogen are returned to the soil. That describes a relationship we have with the earth, where we listen to what it is telling us and we adapt and act in a new way so that all benefit.

But if we pay better attention to the earth, we begin to see that it thrives on diversity. It is often said that a handful of soil has more living organisms than there are people on the earth. Like the body with many parts that Paul describes in First Corinthians, every part is essential to health.

Yet we gradually strip out the essentials when we plant fields upon fields of only corn or beans for the sake of convenience and production.

As we listen to the earth, conservationists and farmers and gardeners are rediscovering the benefits of companion plants, and smaller scale farms with greater rotation. We are rediscovering that if we care for the soil, the soil will take care of the things we want to grow.

The last thing we hear from the earth today, is that it needs rest and renewal just like we do.

We look out this morning and we can see the flowers budding and hear the birds chirping the sun is shining… and it all sings God’s praise precisely because just two months ago the earth was brown and dormant.

Those of us who experience all four seasons are not doubly blessed, but blessed four times over because in each transition, we witness the hope and the promise and the love of God. We see life bursting forth. We watch things die and have the opportunity to rest, to find Sabbath in the cold winter months… holding fast to the promise the new spring of resurrection is just around the corner.

The world is a miracle.

It is a treasure.

When the Ancient Israelites noticed that everything in this world is interdependent, this is what they are talking about. The dirt and the air and the sun and plant life and our lives are all interconnected and this beautiful system God created works – as long as we take care of it.