future – Salvaged Faith

Rejoice With Me!

Posted on October 25, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Psalm 98: 7-9, Luke 15:3-6, 8-9, 11-13, 20, 24, 28, 31

Every year, our congregation has a charge conference. It is our annual meeting to elect leadership, set goals for the future, care for those called into ministry, and more.
And it’s happening in just one week!
Next Sunday, November 1, we will have our charge conference online at 2:00pm. There will be a link on our website to join in, so be sure to check out the details and join us!

As we have been preparing for this meeting, I met with our Administrative Council Leadership and I asked them a question:
Do we have a future?
Now, that might seem to be kind of a stark and sobering question, but to be honest, there are churches out there that simply aren’t going to make it.
David Kinnaman with the Barna Group says that their research shows one in five churches are not likely to make it through this pandemic.
There are disruptions related to giving, the numbers who are able to gather, but also a lack of adaptation to the realities that are around us. I know of at least one congregation that simply has done nothing together as the church since mid-March. They have no online presence. They aren’t meeting outside. They are simply doing nothing.
So, do we believe we have a future?
Is Immanuel United Methodist Church going to make it?
When I asked that question in our Zoom Council meeting, someone immediately responded:
100% YES!
In fact, the energy level of our meeting rose as people got excited thinking about that future.
We talked about how we are providing connection and spiritual growth and it is something that people need now more than ever.
We talked about how new people have joined us online and during our evening vespers services and at our Zoo Day and how we are actually expanding our reach.
We were energized by the idea that what we are learning how to do together now is actually strengthening us for the ministry that God has planned for us.

You know, for months we have been focused on the moment….
This next week….
What we can do right now….
Analyzing the data so we can make the healthiest choices to do no harm….
We have changed on the fly….
We have created what is necessary to keep going…
And all along the way we have been trying to pay attention to who we are leaving out and missing and how we can do better.

When we were able to step back and step out of the fray of what is happening right now and look to the future, we were surprised by the sense of clarity and focus we had.
Because more than anything, this whole pandemic has helped us to home in on what is really essential and what is really important.
You see, there is a lot that we could do as a church, but there are really only a few things that we need to do:
• Keep our eyes on God who made us.
• Help people to know that they are not alone and that they are loved.
• Learn and share the good news of Jesus.
• Live out our faith by doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly.
We realized as we talked that not only are we doing those things, but we are actually doing them pretty well.
And we began to shift our mindset to realize that this is a season that we could see growth!
Not just growth in our numbers of people, but also growth in our love and knowledge of God.
Growth in our ability to respond to issues of injustice.
Growth in the ways we reach out to people that have been left out or disconnected.

And for the first time in a long time, it seemed like we really and truly had something to celebrate and be excited about!

We’ve been reading through Psalm 98 these past couple of weeks and today the end of the Psalm reminds us why we are rejoicing with all of creation.
It is because God is establishing justice on the earth.
So much feels troubled and broken, but the God who created it all is setting things right.
God sees the problems of this world and shows us a better way.
God calls us and equips us to be generous and loving and merciful and kind and honest so that all people… all the world… might be set right again.
I think part of the reason we have cause to celebrate is that what we see all around is that we actually have been following Jesus during this time.
We’re reaching out to the lonely and sharing our abundance with others and speaking the truth about the problems of this world and trying our best to respond with love and kindness.
We see evidence of how God is working through us to establish God’s will, God’s justice, right here and right now.
And the whole world rejoices along with God!

I was thinking about this idea of God’s justice and celebration and rejoicing when I read the parables of the lost in Luke chapter 15.
So often, we talk about them as if the lost coin, or the lost sheep, or the lost son were at fault in the situation. They rolled off or wandered away and when they repent or return home or are found, the rejoicing commences.
But New Testament scholar, A-J Levine invites us to flip the parable.
What if these instead stories were titled “The Shepherd Who Lost His Sheep” or “The Woman Who Lost Her Coin”? “The Father who Lost A Son”?
What if they are actually about the one doing the losing?
We might start to ask questions about whether or not we are paying attention to the people around us in our care.
Do we count who is present?
Do we notice who or what we have lost?
Will we make an effort to reach out and find them?

You know, this really came home to me when I thought in particular about that last parable of the father with two sons.
We always think about the first child who runs away and the great rejoicing and party when he is found.
But the second son is lost as well, right?
He is missing from the party.
The father in this story notices.
He runs out of the house and into the fields and meets him there.
The father begs for him to come in.
And the father reassures him: I love you. You belong to me and I belong to you.

That is what God does.
God knows who you are.
God sees who is missing and what isn’t working.
God’s heart breaks at the injustice and the disconnection and the harm we do.
And there is no length that God will not go…
No mountain God won’t climb…
No wall God won’t kick down…
Nothing that will keep God from establishing justice, wholeness, shalom, from making sure that God’s intentions are fully lived out on this earth.
Nothing can separate us, right?

And when even just one of us turns our hearts back to God…
or lets ourselves be found…
or experiences healing…
or is lifted out of our troubles…
or finds food and shelter or warmth…
oh… how the world rejoices…
How the rivers clap their hands…
How the sea roars…
How the mountains and hills sing together for joy…
What a day of rejoicing…

This church has a future.
And we have a future because we continue to keep our eyes on the God who made us through worship and devotion and prayer.
We have a future because we are paying attention to one another and we count and notice who is part of our community and are doing our best to reach out to help people know they are not alone and that they are loved.
We have a future because we keep the good news of Jesus at the center and we are learning and growing and putting that faith into action every day.
We have a future because we notice who and what is missing and we try to respond with food in our pantry and warm clothes for Joppa and by showing up at rallies in support of our neighbors… so that God’s justice, God’s intentions, God’s will might be done on earth.

Friends, there is a reason that our Ad Council got excited on that Zoom call.
It’s because when you see signs of the Kingdom of God, you have to rejoice.
When the lost are found, and the hungry are fed, and the sinners repent, and the lonely are surrounded with love… the whole world breaks out in song.

I’m so grateful for all of you.
I’m so proud of who you have been as the church in the midst of this difficult time.
And oh, how I can’t wait for that day when we can all get together… for real… with hugs and food and smiles and songs to celebrate in a fully embodied way all of the joy that is just welling up in my heart.
What a day of rejoicing that will be.

The Redemption of Scrooge: Facing the Yet to Come

Posted on December 23, 2018Leave a comment

Text: Romans 8:4b-17, Luke 4:18-19

There are a number of personality inventories out there, but one that has captured my imagination lately is the Enneagram. It describes people in one of nine categories, like the reformer, the achiever, the loyalist and the peacemaker (which is me).
Every morning, I get a little sentence or two in my email that has a thought of the day related to my type.
Today’s was an invitation to claim a new affirmation – “I now affirm that I am excited about my future.”

I now affirm that I am excited about my future.

I’m going to be completely honest and admit that I haven’t been very excited about my future lately. Partly because there is so much unknowing in my future. In our future.
There is the unknowing about what will happen with the denomination next February.
There is a whole lot of unknown in the political landscape of the world – nations experiencing unrest, treaties that are fragile, innocent lives caught in the middle.
There is the unknown that comes in our work… in our families… in our health.
Can we do enough to prevent severe climate change?
Will the infection spread in his leg?
How will the economy impact our workplaces?

Where there are unknowns, there are also fears. Fears as we begin to imagine what might happen.
These fears make it very hard to be excited, much less find the joy represented in the fourth candle on our Advent wreath.

What is ironic is that I don’t imagine Ebenezer Scrooge was the type of man who spent much time worrying about the future. His focus seemed to be on the present moment, his present moment, and making every penny count.
He was turned inward, unable to see the hopes and fears of the people around him, and seemed to not really even care about his own future story.
Until the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come arrives with the third chime of the bells.

Oh, what we wouldn’t give for that kind of glimpse into our future!
To know with certainty what the outcome of an election would be.
Or which course of treatment we should choose.
To be able to see the impact of the decisions being made today.

Scrooge is taken into his own future and allowed to see the end of his story. Standing in his own bedroom, the Spirit shows him his own body, “plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for…” (Stave 4).
He is taken to the home of the Cratchit’s and the realization hits him that the son of his employee, Tiny Tim, has died… the death of an innocent that surely would have been preventable with better access to medicine and care and food for strength.
And the man is shaken to his core.
The future that Scrooge discovers is a worst-case scenario.
It is our fears come to fruition.
A life lived without love that makes no impact on the world around it.

And he asks a question that resonates in my heart:
“Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be, only?”

Are these the things that will be?
Or of things that may be only?
Is the future set in stone?
Or can it yet be changed?

And then he cries out, begs the silent Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to listen:
“Hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been… Why show me this if I am past all hope?”

In catching a glimpse of his own past, present and future, Scrooge discovers that he doesn’t want to be the same person that he was.
The whole trajectory of his life has changed in this one night.
And the good news, the blessing, the joy of this moment is that he can change. He does change. And he can make change in the world.

The story of our Christian faith is a story of redemption and transformation.
It is the story of the possibility that we can change and that we can make changes in this world.

Often, it is by looking back on the mistakes of our past that we are spurred to repent and make changes in the future.

It is when we look around us at the injustices and inequities of the present moment that we discover ways we can change our way of being in the world.

Sometimes, it is in imagining the worst case scenarios of the future, naming our fears for what might happen, that we discover that there are changes we can make today in order to prevent them from becoming a reality.

I heard recently an interview with outgoing California Governor, Jerry Brown. No matter what you might think of his politics, I found this piece of advice he had for his successor to be profound:
“Imagine what could go wrong, and what could go wrong in the worst possible way. And after you imagine that, then take careful steps to avoid it… You gotta stand back and try to look over the horizon and say, “OK, what are the things that may not go right?” How do we correct that? How do we deal with it ahead of time?”

The very story of Christmas is God’s answer to that question.
What could go wrong?
What could go wrong in the worst possible way?
What can I do to correct it?

You see, God looked out at our future with all of the bad decisions and pain and grief and suffering that we experience, and God saw not a future that would be, but a future that might be.
A future that could be changed.
And so God came down and entered our lives.
God was born among us.
Immanuel.
And our Lord looked around at what had been, our past and history of struggle…
And looked around at what was, the present oppression and yearning of the people…
And Jesus recited the words of the prophets and declared a transformation, a new way of being in the world:
“He has sent me to preach good news to the poor…
To proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind…
To liberate the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And then that earthly ministry was given to us. The Holy Spirit poured out upon us, empowering us, filling us, transforming us, so that we might head into the world and make change ourselves.

Ebenezer Scrooge had lived a life of selfishness. He saw only his counting book and the success of his business.
But in the middle of the night, that visit from three ghosts turned his world upside down.
It was the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, setting him free from the shackles of what had been and empowering him to live the life that might be.

As Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, all of us who are born of the Spirit are set free.
We are set free from our past mistakes.
We are set free from our present selfishness.
We are set free from the fears of what might be.
And we are empowered and strengthened to claim a new vision of what might be for the future.

We don’t know what the outcomes of medical tests might be… but we can walk with one another through a journey towards wholeness and offer joy and hope.
We cannot see the end of conflict in this world… but we can speak up for peace and reach out to our own neighbors in love.
The final decisions our denomination might make in a couple of months are still to be determined, but we get to choose how we will continue to love and care and support one another, no matter what those decisions might be.

Wherever we go, whatever we do, in the midst of the mess and the beauty of life, we have been set free to embrace our hopes rather than our fears because we know that we are not alone in the struggle.
You see, the one who breathed life into creation is the same one who cried out from the manger in Bethlehem is the same one who walks with us through the trials and sorrows of today.
And while we cannot control every piece of the future, we do know that God is already there, ready to meet us.
For that reason, we face the future unafraid.
No matter what may come, God is with me… God is with you… and I’m excited about that kind of future.

Honey Badgers, Anxiety, and the future of the church

Posted on February 12, 20131 Comment

At our conference Orders Event a few weeks ago, we talked a lot about being anxious. The talk was from a systems theory perspective and focused on how pastors need to be non-anxious participants in the system to effectively lead change and help the system to be healthy.

I’m not going to comment on the style of the presentation, but I realized as the day went on that I am not at all anxious about the future of the church.

Maybe it is because I’m one of those “young adults” who don’t put a lot of stock in the institution itself. (As much as I hate the constant labeling of young adults and the characterization of who they are and what they believe – sometimes the label fits and I’m going to wear it with pride). The truth is, if it all went upside down tomorrow, I have faith and trust that God would birth something new.

There is a feeling all around us that we need to do something to right this leaning ship… that it is all in danger of capsizing or falling apart. But would that really be so terrible?

Don’t get me wrong… Part of me loves this church. I know its not perfect. It is trying to hear God’s call and struggling to answer. It is broken and beautiful. I see and recognize its flaws, but I love it. I’m still here, aren’t I?

But part of me really doesn’t care if the church is here tomorrow… as long as we are being faithful to the one we claim to worship inside the walls of those fancy buildings.

It is… well, interesting to live in the midst of this both/and situation. I find myself both working proactively to restructure and revitalize what is present, while I find comfort and solace in small communities of folks who gather to read and discuss and lift up hopes and dreams. You might be able to tell just by how I worded that sentence that the hard proactive work makes me want to tear out my hair more than it bathes me in the hope and joy of the Lord.

But I’m still here. Still plodding along. I’m not worried. I’m going to do what I can. I’m going to use the best of my resources. But I’m not anxious. If our best human efforts fail… if this institution can’t be saved by our hands, so be it. Maybe then we’ll finally remember the church isn’t a place but a people. Maybe we’ll see a resurrection out of death. Maybe that’s what the whole gospel is about. Not us, not our attempts… but the love and grace of God that overcomes all. ALL. Even the “death tsunami.”

It strikes me that maybe it is exactly my “live or let die” casual spirit about the whole future of the church that keeps getting me invited to those grueling conversations about what we are going to do to save ourselves. While others worry about this and fret about that and leverage positions and ministries and try this and that… I’m the non-anxious presence in the room. I can sit and listen. I can interpret. I can pray. I can offer guidance and direction. But as much as I love this church, I also have the ability to detach myself from its survivability. I don’t necessarily have a dog in the fight.

As I talk with my other young adult colleagues, we see a completely different church ahead of us. A church of collaboration and connection, networking and accountability. We know that there is money in some far off pension fund, but we don’t actually believe we’ll ever see it. We buy into the system, but we aren’t counting on it to sustain us. We are just at the beginning of giving 40+ years to the institution… whether or not it is actually around for that long. We love it, but if it all fell apart, we’d pick ourselves up and move on to the new thing God is doing.

But please, don’t take that to mean that we aren’t trying, that we are lazy, or that we are just sitting back waiting for it to die.

What it means is that in the midst of doing this thing called church, we are eagerly looking around to see where God might lead us next.

Anxious? Nope. Not in the least.

Honey badger don’t care.