faith – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

J&MES: Faith & Action

Posted on September 6, 2015Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will you pray with me:

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

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

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

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

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

The problem is not that James disagrees.

It is that James defines faith a little bit differently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But we need some God-acts today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Read more from Mercy Corps here)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Psalm 146: The Lord watches over the strangers…

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

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

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

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

Matthew 25: I was a stranger and you welcomed me

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like there are things WE can do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctors without Borders.

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

World Vision.

Our very own United Methodist Committee on Relief.

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

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

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

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

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

Hearing and Doing.

Faith and Action.

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

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

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

Amen.

Trust, not Unquestioning Belief

Posted on March 1, 2015Leave a comment

In 2012, I took my youth group on a mission trip to Minneapolis. We worked in a number of different sites and one of them was the Emergency Foodshelf Network. This organization helps distribute food items to 70 area food shelves by channeling donations for organizations and large corporations.

Most of these are bulk items. Like 50# bags of rice that needed to be bundled into smaller portions. Or bushels upon bushels of fresh produce that we sorted so each box had a little bit of everything.

One day, our job was to affix generic labels onto 18,000 cans of corn that were donated without labels. Yes. 18,000.

As we walked in that morning, there they sat, all shiny and shrink-wrapped on pallets, just waiting for our little paper labels that read “Corn.” Our job was to cut the labels to size, add two pieces of tape, and bundle them onto trays of 30 for distribution.

But there was this nagging question in the back of our minds all day long as we cut and taped and stacked and moved these aluminum cans.

How did we know it was really corn?

The only way to tell was to open the can. But that of course ruined the product.

You could shake the cans… and we did… and it sounded like corn… but it could have sounded like peas or beets for all we knew.

We had to trust that it was really corn in those cans. We had to go about our work, tape those labels on and trust.

And to be honest, because we knew that people would be receiving these cans, we felt responsible for their contents. Others would trust then when they got a can that said corn, a can that we had labeled, they would actually be opening a can of corn.

Trust.

Our two scripture readings for today seem to give us a portrait in contrasts… between Abraham, the one who trusted and Peter, the one who didn’t.

Abraham, was well past retirement age, yet chose to follow and trust the God would use him to birth a nation. He is lifted up as the example. The one who did it right. The one who was trustworthy and true.

And Peter. Oh Peter. In this season of Lent we see how so many times he gets it wrong. He questions Jesus. He denies him. He is even called Satan in our reading for today. Perhaps what we might imagine is the opposite of one who trusts.

Last week, we talked about three different types of atonement theories. Three different ways God is working in the world to bring us back into relationship, to restore us to shalom.

We had the forensic theory – the idea of a trial or a courtroom.

We had the moral example theory – where Jesus shows us how to live.

And we had the Christus Victor theory – where Christ is victorious and rescues us from sin and death.

Today, our scriptures lead us to those forensic theories. They take us to the courtroom.

It is the courtroom Paul has in mind as he writes to the Romans in this section of this letter.

It is courtroom language that Paul is using as he describes Abraham’s relationship with God.

Imagine that Abraham is sitting in the witness stand of a great courtroom. And the question put to him is this:

Why do you deserve the promises of God?

It’s a different version of the question we often think of at the end of our days: why should you get into heaven?

Why do you deserve shalom?

And throughout chapter 4, Paul lays out an argument. Like a lawyer, Paul claims it was not Abraham’s works that made him worthy of the promises. It wasn’t that he followed the laws of God, the Torah. It wasn’t that he did all the right religious things like be circumcised.

No, what puts Abraham in the right… what proves that he deserves the promises of God is that he “trusts him who justifies the ungodly (4.4).” He trusted the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist (4:17).“ He believed, even though the odds were stacked against them.

And he was right. He trusted that God would give him and Sarah a child and his claim was upheld. So using the courtroom language of the time, he was in the right. He was righteous. He deserves the promise because he trusted in the promise.

That seems too simple, doesn’t it?

Abraham’s faith was nothing more than a trust in the specific promises God made.

So what about Peter? What if we put him in the same courtroom? Where does he stack up?

If we focused strictly on this passage from Mark, he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t trust. He doesn’t understand.

Or maybe a better way of putting it is that he was operating on unquestioning belief. Faith without any understanding. Peter was making assumptions about God. Assumptions like: the journey was going to be easy. An assumption that Jesus was going to march into Jerusalem and magically everything would be better.

And when faced with new evidence, new teaching, Peter chose to shut his mind. He clung to that unquestioning belief. He, in fact, challenged Jesus! The word used here actually is the same word used for silencing demons – Peter thought Jesus was out of his mind!

Jesus has to correct Peter. He has to tell him once again what God really promises.

That snapshot of Peter’s faith, however, doesn’t give us the full story.

In fact, if Peter and Abraham were really on trial, if their whole lives were spread before a court that was trying to determine if they deserved the promises of shalom, their stories wouldn’t be all that different.

If we go back to Genesis and really read Abraham’s story, his is one of fits and starts, too.

He and Sarah laugh out loud at God’s plan for their lives.

They try to do it their own way. They always have a plan B in the works. (maybe talk about how Abraham tells the king Sarah is his sister not his wife… if his wife, Abraham will be killed… as his sister, the king will bargain with him…)

Yes, they go. They stick with it. They make it to the end of the long and complicated journey of faith. But it isn’t an easy road. When we pick their lives a part with a fine toothed comb, we find there are all sorts of things that are far from trustworthy and true. There are plenty of moments when they set their eyes on human and not divine things.

Peter, likewise, makes lots of mistakes. He radically misunderstands what it means for Jesus to be the messiah. Just like Abraham and Sarah, he has his moments of weakness where he looks out for his own interests above God’s plans. He lies to protect himself.

But at the end of the day, Peter came to believe and trust in the specific promises God made. Peter came to believe in the giver of life. He came to trust that if God could raise Jesus from the dead, then God could raise him too. And Peter shared that faith with others. He led others to trust in those promises, too.

What makes us worthy of shalom? What makes us children of Abraham?

We come to deserve the promise when we trust in the promise.

And that promise is that life can and will come from death. It is a promise that sin has nothing to do with our salvation, because Jesus has already wiped it away.

In the courtroom at the end of our lives, our mistakes are no longer on the table. They no longer count as evidence against us.

What matters is if we trust with our whole being that the God who created this world out of nothing and brings life from what was dead can justify the sinner, too.

If we trust in that promise, its ours!

And it isn’t unquestioning belief. It isn’t faith without evidence or justification. We trust in that promise because we have carry the story with us of how God works. And maybe we have even witnessed it with our own eyes.

So here’s a question…. What if I was pulled in front of a courtroom one day to testify about why I labeled those cans “corn”?

Our supervisor promised that those cans held corn and I believed her. I trusted her. Why?

To be honest… if we had showed up one day at a random building with an unknown organization and we were asked to label cans of corn, I’m not sure I would have trusted. If we had done so, simply on unquestioning belief, without any relationship or evidence or understanding of who they were or what they were about, that trust would have been pretty unjustified.

But that isn’t what happened.

We learned about the organization and its history. We spent some time working with them. We saw their attention to detail and how much they cared for their clients. So on that final day, when we labeled those cans of corn… we believed in what they told us. We trusted them.

Here in this church, we aren’t asking you for unquestioning belief, either.

We hope to build a relationship with you.

We want to learn together and wrestle with the promises of God that have been handed down for generations.

And just like Abraham and Peter and Paul passed down what they knew to be true… what they witnessed God doing in their lives… we are going to share our stories too.

Stories of how God has transformed us.

Stories of how God has brought life out of death.

Stories of how we have experienced grace and forgiveness and love.

And no matter how many fits and starts and mistakes any of us make along the way, my prayer is that someday, each of us will trust in the promises of shalom. That we will trust in God and in this community of Christ in such a way that whenever difficulty and struggle come our way, we can hold fast and support each other, knowing, trusting, believing that in Christ, all will be well.

Expectations and Realities

Posted on December 10, 2013Leave a comment

Sermon based on Luke 1:39-55 and Matthew 11:2-6

About a year ago, I began working with Imagine No Malaria here in the Iowa Conference, and I have to tell you… since then, I can’t look at a pregnant woman the same way again.

In our scripture this morning, we actually have two pregnant women – Elizabeth and her cousin Mary… both unlikely mothers… both full of hopes and expectations about what that pregnancy will bring.

One of the first things I learned about malaria, however, is that it is a disease that overwhelmingly affects pregnant women and their new born babies. Women who are expecting produce more carbon dioxide than a typical person, which attracts mosquitos and makes them more likely to be bitten. Add that to the fact that they have a compromised immune system trying to protect and care for the new life growing inside of them and it’s a deadly combination.

Malaria is one of the leading causes of death in pregnant woman globally. In fact, 85% of the deaths from malaria are children under five and women who are expecting. A woman who has malaria while pregnant is likely to have a miscarriage or a child with low birth weight and other medical problems. And even if a baby is born healthy, children under five are not strong enough to fight the parasite that causes malaria if it attacks them. Eevery sixty seconds, we lose a life to malaria. Over half a million deaths every single year…

The joy… the hope… that comes with the promise of new life …

And the devastation of loss when a precious life is lost.

Expectations and reality…

They aren’t always the same thing, are they?

In our two gospel readings for today, as we encounter these pregnant women, we also experience the hopes of John the Baptist in relation to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Luke tells us that before they had even been born… while they were still in their mothers’ wombs… John was jumping for joy at the promise of what Jesus was bringing to the world. His expectation poured out through the words of his mother, “God has blessed you and the babe in your womb… why am I so blessed that the mother of my Lord visits me?”

But by the time the two are grown up and have gone their separate ways, John the Baptist starts to question the reality of the promise. In Matthew’s gospel, John finds himself in prison and sends word through his disciples… ‘ Are you the one to come? Or should we look for another?”

This is not the little baby leaping for joy. This is a man who is tired, who has worked long and hard for the Lord and right now is a little bit jaded. He doesn’t want to waste the time he has left on unfulfilled hopes. And right now… what he has seen and heard about Jesus hasn’t lived up to the expectations.

Expectations and reality…

In 2006, the United Methodist Church launched an extraordinary effort to help end death and suffering from malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Speaking of expectations… we expected Nothing but Nets to be a six month long project… but the reality is it has continued to this day. In fact, this past NBA season, Stephen Curry with the Golden State Warriors promised to donate nets for every three point shot he made… and then proceeded to set the NBA record for the most 3-pointers in a season!

But as United Methodists, we heard God asking us to do more. And in response, we expanded our work to include not only preventative efforts, but also a focus on treatment, education, and communications around malaria. There were such expectations built up around the beginning of this work and our dream to raise $75 million dollars to put our faith into action.

Bill Gates, Sr. was there as we kicked off our work at General Conference in 2008 and he claimed: “You are 12 million people armed with the conviction that all the world is your parish. That makes you the most powerful weapon there is against malaria.”

Five years later we are still engaged in this work. But here in Iowa, we are far away from where the real work is taking place. It is hard for us to see the reality on the ground in Africa. Like John the Baptist, we might be tired from our own ministry and struggles. We get a bit jaded sometimes. We wonder if maybe we shouldn’t have focused our time and energy and efforts somewhere else. Is this the program that is going to save lives and transform our church? Or are we still waiting?

Maybe the problem is that we just haven’t done a good enough job telling the story about what is really going on.

That’s what Jesus realizes as those disciples from John arrive. They just haven’t heard the stories yet. So Jesus responds by simply telling them what is really happening:

Healing abounds. Lives are being changed. Faith is poured out in action. I am bringing salvation in all of its forms – release from captivity, healing, new life. Go back and tell the good news. That the blind see, the deaf hear, and the wretched of the earth are learning God is on their side. The Kingdom of God is here! Go back and tell John the good news. Go and tell what you have seen and heard.

That is what my job is… to be a witness… to share with you the good news of what is happening through Imagine No Malaria. Because friends, God is doing amazing things out there. God is using the ordinary gifts of people like you and me to heal the sick and to transform lives. Our actions are a beacon of hope to those who struggle, our words a life-line to those who despair.

In just the past three years, we have distributed over 1.5 million bed nets. We are working to empower communities by training over 5,800 community health workers who are the hands and feet of Christ in this battle against malaria. And we have worked to improve the infrastructure for health in general by establishing health boards in 15 countries that will help provide treatment and accountability for the work we do.

I could probably share with you for hours about the lives that have been affected by this work… about Juliette in Zimbabwe who literally jumped on her bed for joy when the bed net was installed… or John, who carried his sick baby 15 miles to the rural health clinic and found life-saving medication for his little one. But frankly, we don’t have that much time today. So I’m going to tell you just one story about a woman named Muriel from Sierra Leone.

Muriel was already struggling to maintain her home and put food on the table for her family. I don’t know where her husband was… perhaps he died in the conflict a few years ago in Sierra Leone or from malaria… or maybe he had just taken off not to be heard from again. But Muriel was doing the best she could. Until her children all became sick with malaria at the same time. She had seen the symptoms… she knew what it was, but without the resources to afford a single dose of medication for herself or her children, she felt completely without hope. In desperation, she tried negotiating with a government health worker to purchase drugs on credit, but to no avail.

Can you imagine her situation? Can you imagine sitting there, trying to comfort your sick children and not being able to do anything to help them? She knew that without the medication they so desperately needed, it was simply a matter of time before they began to die in her arms. Her expectations were bleak.

It was then that one of our Community Health Volunteers, trained by the Saving Lives Sierra Leone/ Imagine No Malaria team at the UMC health center found Muriel.

Tiaima reached out to Muriel and took the family to the United Methodist Clinic. There, the staff welcomed them with open arms and before Muriel knew it, the children had been tested and were already receiving their first dose of medication. Tiaima sat down with Muriel at taught her about how to prevent malaria in the future, gave her a net and instructed her how to use it, and made sure that she knew the correct dosages and timing for the medications that needed to be taken at home.

All of this happened in a heartbeat, and as the family was being sent on their way, Muriel turned back and offered to come back with one of her goats in exchange for the care. A goat that might have been the only thing providing income for that little family… the promise of security in the future… The nurse assured her that the services for malaria were free. It was then that Muriel broke down in tears and asked again and again if it was true or if she were dreaming. She had been praying for someone to help her family.

Muriel’s family is now healthy because of the work of United Methodists in Sierra Leone.

But even more than that.

Surprised by the grace she found through our work, Muriel went back home to her community to tell the women there about how they can work to reduce malaria and she has signed up to become a Community Health Volunteer herself.

She has become a witness, inviting others to experience the reality of the joy of salvation she herself experienced.

No matter what our expectations, we have a God who can surpass them beyond our wildest dreams.

The very name, Imagine No Malaria, comes from Ephesians 3:20: “Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us.”

Expectations… and reality.

John leaped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb because of the promises of God.

Mary was so overcome and filled with hope and praise that she couldn’t help but sing out the words we know as the Magnificat… words of longing for healing, for justice, for salvation.

Later, John’s disciples would rush back to tell him the good news that the Kingdom of God was becoming a reality.

Muriel did not hesitate to shout with joy as she experienced the healing power of God in her family’s life.

Friends… the Kingdom of God is breaking in all around us. What do you hope for? What do you expect? And are you ready to be surprised when God does far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams?

In my work with Imagine No Malaria, I have been blown away by what I have experienced. We are not simply handing out medicine and nets. Through the grace of God, we are welcoming people as our brothers and sisters, treating them with love, and building relationships with them. In the process, we empower them to be agents of change in their communities and the world. That is salvation in action. That is the kingdom of God springing forth!

I have to tell you, I have HUGE expectations about what the United Methodists here in Iowa are going to do to help in the fight against malaria. We have set a goal to raise at least $2 million dollars here in our state to help provide the vital resources needed as we live out our faith. And I have been wonderfully surprised and blessed by the generosity of my brothers and sisters. God is doing far beyond what I could ask or imagine.

You can be a part of this Kingdom work.

Just $10 is all it takes to put up a bed net in a home and save a child’s life. Just $10 can provide a full course of medical treatment for a pregnant woman who is ill. Just $10 can make a difference…

But think about what $100 could do. Or $1000. A gift to Imagine No Malaria means that you are putting resources into the hands of doctors and nurses, community health volunteers, and educators who are going to bring healing and hope to a whole continent.

I don’t have children myself. I have never been pregnant like Muriel, or Mary, or Elizabeth… but I do know about the joy of children.

I am the proud aunt of four nephews and a neice and they bring light to my life every single day. And so when I thought about how just $10 could be the difference between life and death for a precious child half a world away, I knew I had to help. I knew I could be the answer to a prayer of a mom or a dad or an aunt or a grandpa in Africa.

So I am giving $1/day for each of my nephews and my neice to help save lives in Africa. 100 lives for each of them. A gift of $5000 over three years. I know you hear these appeals from the pet associations and from the hunger organizations… but with Imagine No Malaria, a $1/a/day really does save lives. And EVERY dollar you give goes directly to those who need it.

You can answer that call, too, and commit to helping us save lives… whether it is $10 or $10,000 you can make a difference.

Donate NOW!

We have talked a lot today about our expectations and about how God realizes them… but I want you to talk for just a minute as we close about God’s expectations for us.

God has given us a song to sing and a story to tell. He has given us strong faith to live out and has blessed us with many, many things. Like Mary, we could declare that we are the most fortunate people on earth.

But God also expects us to take those gifts and those blessings and to share them with the world… to participate in the coming Kingdom of god. To witness to the good news when we see it. To feed to poor. To heal the sick. To bring hope to the hopeless.

Will we go and tell what we have seen today? And will we actively join God’s kingdom work with our hands and our hearts and our whole selves?

Let’s pray:

God of justice and joy, hope and healing,

we give thanks for all the ways you work for wholeness and right relationship in our own lives and throughout the world.

When suffering arises, let our hearts find joy in you, and fill us with courage to bear witness to what we have seen and heard.

May our lives always testify to the good news of your love, and may we lift up those who are bowed down so that your joy may spread throughout the earth.

We pray in the name of Jesus, who opened the eyes of the blind and proclaimed good news to the poor. Amen.

Praying on an airplane

Posted on April 13, 2013Leave a comment

Friday I took an early morning flight home. I had been in Nashville for a few days to train some new field coordinators for Imagine No Malaria and get refreshed myself on the latest info.

But that flight came early. My cab arrived at 4. I was done with socializing around 1. So… yeah, not enough sleep.

I got on my flight and crashed. I slept the whole way to Dallas and then shuffled my way through the airport. I got to my gate and they started loading and I sat down and closed my eyes.

But behind me, this lady started talking to her seatmate. What the book/movie Fight Club calls a “single-serving friend”. In between dozes I heard them talking about work, and then family, and then struggles. As we started our descent into CR, she suddenly asked if she could pray with him. And they did, loud enough for others to hear, powerful enough that I was touched… as if the prayer were for me, too… and I had to whisper, “amen.”

She shared her own stresses and they commiserated over lack of sleep… which was when the impact of her ministry really hit home for me.

This woman was just as tired as I was. But instead of cocooning herself on the side of the plane with only one seat (yeah, just one), like I did, she saw every day, every plane ride, every conversation, every single interaction as a place where God might use her. It is what we talk about often… and yet sometimes find it so hard to practice. I found myself wondering how many opportunities for ministry I had missed, because I wasn’t looking.

I was so struck, that I found a way to walk off the plane and to baggage claim with her. And I told her I thought she was doing a really amazing thing. She was challenging me to think about how I live my faith everyday. I told her that what she just did is how we should all be living as disciples of Jesus Christ.

She shared her faith on a plane. Not by preaching, or apologizing, or through shouts or platitudes or tracts. But by listening and sharing… being in relationship with a “stranger” and then opening up the possibility of prayer. It was beautiful.

All Will Be Well

Posted on September 25, 2012Leave a comment

: by ClearlyCassidy

Julian of Norwich, in a time of doubt and struggle, wrote: All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

This is my last column in the Circuit Rider because on October 1, I will be beginning a new journey as the Coordinator for Imagine No Malaria with the Iowa Annual Conference. It is a long job title but a very short and intense ministry that I am very excited about beginning.

My new position will take me across the state, working with clergy and laity, young and old, small churches and the biggest churches, as we together raise funds to end death and suffering from malaria by 2015. While it might seem like only an outreach project, the truth is, I understand this campaign to be something bigger in the life of our Iowa Annual Conference of the UnitedMethodistChurch. Working together on this effort will help us build bridges between conservative and liberal sides of our church. Focusing outward on mission and partnering with our community to raise funds through health fairs and 5k runs and lemonAID stands will help us build relationships outside the walls and revitalize our churches. That is something that YOU have experienced here in Marengo. As we turned our hearts to both local and global mission, the Holy Spirit moved in and a spark of love and light ignited in this church.

When I came here to Marengo, neither you nor I knew what to expect. There is a song that I played frequently in those days to myself called “All Will Be Well” by the Gabe Dixon Band.

The new day dawns, / and I’m practicing my purpose once again. / it is fresh and it is fruitful if I win but if I lose, / Ooooo I don’t know. / I will be tired but I will turn and I will go, / Only guessing til I get there then I’ll know, / Oh oh oh I will know.

I was fresh out of seminary and you were ready to become a fruitful church… but we didn’t know it was going to work between us. It was a wild guess on our parts… but something amazing for God’s part.

All the children walking home past the factories / could see the light that’s shining in my window as I write this song to you. / All the cars running fast along the interstate / can feel the love that radiates / illuminating what I know is true / All will be well. / Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself, / All will be well. / You can ask me how but only time will tell.

I don’t know what God has in store for this church… but I know that God will be with you and all shall be well. I know that God has led you to embrace an amazing mission: to reflect the light of God in Marengo and Iowa County as you step out into the world and pass it on. I know that the Holy Spirit has been moving strongly in your midst and that God will not leave you or forsake you. I know that all will be well. You can ask me how, but only time will tell.

Keep it up and don’t give up / and chase your dreams and you will find / all in time.

You are my first church… and I love you dearly and I will miss you terribly… but all shall be well. Keep your hearts focused on what God has called you to do. Give your lives to living out that vision. God bless you all.

labeling cans of corn

Posted on July 24, 2012Leave a comment

The project site I am working at for the first two days of our mission trip is the Emergency Foodshelf Network. They distribute food to about 70 area foodshelfs and help to channel donations from organizations and larger corporations. Including cans… without labels.

Part of our job yesterday was to begin making a dent in the 18,000 cans of corn that were donated without labels. They sit on large palletes, all shiny and shrink-wrapped, just waiting for a generic corn label to be affixed. And so we have been cutting paper labels, adding two pieces of tape, and then moving them into boxes of 30 for distribution.

But there is this nagging question in the back of my head… how do we really know its corn? How can you officially tell?

You have to open it!

You have to ruin the product to ensure that it is what it actually is.

Now, of course this comes from a manufacturer and it is all the same and grouped together and not just some random cans tossed into a donation bin.

But there is still a level of hope and faith required in order to trust that in these cans there really is corn.

We can shake them and they kind of sound like kernels of corn – but really you just have to trust. You have to affix the labels and trust.

In so many ways our faith is like that.

We depend on the stories that others have told us and we can choose to believe and to trust or not. We can choose to fix our own label on the blank can that was passed to us and bless others with it, or we can refuse to label it, dig in with our doubts, and open up the can.

I love questions. I love people who doubt – because they push me to dig deeper in my faith and help me to grow. And hopefully they are also growing in their faith.

But at the end of the day, we have a choice: to believe something we can’t see… or not.

I have found that when I believe, when I make that choice, and when I share that faith…. both myself and others are blessed in the process.

That’s why I keep believing that cans of corn without labels really have corn in them. And that God exists and came to us in Jesus Christ and that we have been saved though we don’t deserve it and can be renewed through the gracious power of God in the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes I want to rip open that can and double check… I do… but today, I keep taping on labels and sharing the blessings with others.

self-awareness, faith, repentance and the Lord's Supper

Posted on May 31, 2012Leave a comment

In the past two weeks, I have had a number of conversations with colleagues and family about the Lord’s Table… not necessarily about who is welcome, but about what MAKES that person welcome.

My friends in the LCMS church have been discussing what kind of understanding of faith is required for a first communion experience. I am not completely versed in their traditions, but from what I was told (and then understood) current practice is for children to have to be old enough to express the faith for themselves before participating in the sacrament. But as the practice of infant baptism and baptism of younger children has increased, they wonder if a) communion should also be extended to young children or b) both sacraments need to remain as practices reserved for those who understand and have claimed their faith personally. I think it is a wonderful conversation for them to be having, as we should always make sure that our theology is consistent with our practices and that those practices are then consistent in and of themselves.

One of the important factors in their conversation is that the sacrament of communion (in particular) is a gift for believers of the faith and that there is some danger in coming to the table unprepared, with wrong intention, or misusing the sacraments. The primary place in scripture they (and other Christians) draw upon regarding this issue is 1 Corinthians 11:26-29:

Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you broadcast the death of the Lord until he comes. This is why those who eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord inappropriately will be guilty of the Lord’s body and blood. Each individual should test himself or herself, and eat from the bread and drink from the cup in that way. Those who eat and drink without correctly understanding the body are eating and drinking their own judgment. (CEB)

If we are not old enough or developed enough to test and examine ourselves, to be self-reflective, then there is a danger present there.

In the United Methodist tradition, one of the ways that the Lord’s Table is emphasized is as a means of grace. In fact, communion is not necessarily reserved for only the baptized, as John Wesley believed it could bestow even prevenient grace… grace that goes before us… and that partaking of communion could be a converting act. As the Holy Spirit transforms us through the ritual, we might let go of our old life and finally become ready to accept the faith for ourselves.

George Lyons has modernized John Wesley’s sermon “The Means of Grace” and shares these words on the duty of constant communion:

“all who desire an increase of the grace of God are to wait for it in partaking of the Lord’s supper.” By meditating upon his saving death, by expecting his personal presence, by anticipating his coming again in glory, we prepare ourselves to receive his grace. Those who are already filled with peace and joy in believing, or anyone who longs for the grace of true repentance may, No, must eat and drink to their souls’ content. “Is not the eating of that bread, and the drinking of that cup, the outward, visible means, whereby God conveys into our souls all that spiritual grace, that righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which were purchased by the body of Christ once broken and the blood of Christ once shed for us Let all, therefore, who truly desire the grace of God, eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.”

Wesley was convinced that communion was not only a confirming, but also a converting ordinance.

In some ways, our tradition in the United Methodist Church has taken 1 Cor 11:26-29 with a grain of salt… Yes, we believe that one needs to be of the right heart and mind before you come… BUT, we see so much grace in the ritual that it not merely confirms the faith we have, but can even overcome our lack of belief and faith and repentance.

This is possibly why my mom recently became a little angry at the dinner table. She had attended worship with my brother and sister-in-law at their non-denominational church. I have never been to their church, so I can only relate her experience as she shared it. In their tradition, communion is open to those who have faith in Jesus Christ, but the pastor made a special plea right before the time of communion that those who were not right with God and their neighbor should not participate.

As my mom exclaimed to us later, “If they mean everyone is welcome, then EVERYONE SHOULD BE WELCOME!”

The conversation continued and as I heard the experience recounted, my sister-in-law talked about how the service was running long and the pastor skipped some of the more “pastoral” instructions that typically go with that plea. To my parents and brother who were guests that day and were unfamiliar with their traditions (and also from the United Methodist tradition), the words sounded cold and off-putting.

And yet, I gently reminded my mom, even in our tradition do we speak similar words. In every service of Word and Table, we have a time of not only confession, but also of reconciliation where we have the opportunity to pass the peace with one another and seek forgiveness with our neighbors. And our invitation clearly states:

Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another.

Therefore, let us confess our sin before God and one another.

As I think about it more and more, the United Methodist tradition tries to hold in tension both the particularity of scripture (1 Cor 11) and the depth and breadth of scripture and our theological understanding of God’s grace.

In his article “Admission to the Table and Recent United Methodist Debate” Hoyt Hickman lays out the history of how we came to our current understanding of who is welcome to participate at the table and points to these words (which I can’t remember having ever read before) in our Book of Worship:

All who intend to lead a Christian life, together with their children, are invited to receive the bread and cup. We have no tradition of refusing any who present themselves desiring to receive… Every effort should be made to make each person, and especially children, welcome at the table. It is particularly effective to look directly at the person being addressed, touch each person’s hand while giving the bread and cup, and if possible call each person by name.

We don’t talk about baptism being a prerequisite. We welcome children, even young children who have no full concept of what this meal means, as a part of the covenant and care that their parents make on their behalf (Acts 2:39 – This promise is for you, your children, and for all who are far away—as many as the Lord our God invites. – CEB). And while we encourage personal confession, make opportunity for doing so available, and invite people to be earnestly repentant before they come, we will not refuse someone who comes. We believe that God just might act in their lives anyways… in spite of where there heart is at the moment.

Or as George Lyons puts it, ” It is not only for those who already believe and long to deepen their relationship with the Lord, but for those who truly want to believe, but seem to lack the grace to do so.”

I am not sure where my LCMS brothers and sisters will end up in their conversations. And I don’t know fully the practice of my brother’s church. But with all of its nuance and tension, I love where my own United Methodist tradition lands….

So come to the table if you seek to love God. Come to the table confessing the truth of your heart. Come to the table and bring with you your children and grandchildren and your friend who is hurting and the stranger who needs to be loved. Come to the table where God’s grace is ready to meet you and to welcome you home.

Toby and the Church

Posted on November 29, 2011Leave a comment

I think one of the saddest moments I have witnessed on NBC’s “The Office” is seeing Toby Flenderson stand alone outside of a church.

The whole gang is gathered at a local Presbyterian church for the baptism of Jim and Pam’s daughter Cece. But no Toby is to be found.

That’s not actually that unusual. Toby doesn’t fit in well with the others at the office. Being the HR guy, he has to enforce rules and regulations and it doesn’t help that Michael Scott, the boss, makes him EXTREMELY uncomfortable by always hating on him in front of others. He’s not the most social guy in the world, so you just imagine he might be somewhere else that day.

But then, there is a cut shot to Toby standing outside of the church doors. Overhead, carved in stone, it reads “All are Welcome.” And Toby can’t bring himself to go in.

He’s been through a divorce. And he’s Catholic, so I’m sure there is a layer of frustration and exclusion that he has felt from his own tradition around things like communion. He struggles to have a meaningful relationship with his daughter. No one really sticks up for him when Michael picks on him. He broke a bazillion bones in Costa Rica when he finally got the chance to get away from it all and ended up right back at Dunder Mifflin. The woman he has had a crush on in forever is now inside of that church, baptizing her daughter. Life has not been the best for Toby.

I saw in his eyes as he stood outside of those doors a deep sense of disappointment. He doesn’t feel good enough, worthy enough, loved enough… but at the same time, he knows that he deserves better than what he has recieved.

When he finally walks in the doors, that pain in his heart leads him to the front of the church where he stares at the cross and asks, “Why do you have to be so mean to me?”

There are points in each of our faith journeys where we and the “big man” upstairs have our problems. We look at the situation we have been handed and we think its unfair. We don’t understand why we have to deal with all of this pain and frustration when other people seem to have it easier.

And there are days when we, like Toby, find ourselves at the foot of a cross, or on the corner of a street, or alone in our bedrooms and we cry out, Why?

There are some who would be quick to denounce these cries of doubt and disbelief, but Toby and those of us who cry out find ourselves in good company. The psalms are full of these emotional outbursts and cries:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest. (Psalm 22:1-2)

LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
Your arrows have pierced me,
and your hand has come down on me.
Because of your wrath there is no health in my body;
there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin.
My guilt has overwhelmed me
like a burden too heavy to bear. (Psalm 38: 1-4)

How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me? (Psalm 13:1-2)

We are human. And the weight of this world can be heavy upon our shoulders. Especially when all around us we see darkness and not the light.

It is okay for us to cry out. It is perfectly alright for us to scream at God – How long? Why? What is going on here?

But like the Psalmists, we can’t stay there. Each one of those psalms concludes with a reminder that God is good and steadfast and full of mercy and love. With a reminder of the power of our creator God to overcome our darkness and sorrow and pain. Because rain falls on the just and the injust. Sun shines on us all. And mixed in with those cloudy days, we have to remember that there has been sunshine too… If we are going to blame God for everything bad that has ever happened to us, then we need to give him credit for the good, too.

So go ahead, cry out with Toby and ask, “Why?” Express your frustration. But maybe do so with the Psalms in your hands. Use the words to help you let your pain out… and then carry you into praise and thanksgiving for a God that never leaves our side and never forgets us… no matter how far away we think God is.