gospel – Salvaged Faith

Posted on February 22, 2016Leave a comment

I spend a good chunk of time every week preparing to preach the word of God through liturgy choices, attention to hymns, exegetical work, praying, listening, dreaming, and writing.

And I forget sometimes that I need to hear the good news preached, too.

I am, after all, just as human as the rest of the world.

When you are the one responsible for bringing the word each week, you aren’t always sure where to look and you don’t always have time to seek it out.

Sometimes, the gospel shows up on your desk.

In a little bundle of notes, all folded into one another, with instructions: Open one at a time until you reach the end.

Notes about prayer, and faithfulness, and trouble and hurts, God’s love and grace, the cross and the thorns.

All ending with the simple reminder:

Practicing Our Religion in Public

Posted on February 11, 2016Leave a comment

By some accounts, yesterday morning I did exactly the opposite of what Jesus tells us in Matthew.

Some of us gathered at a local coffee shop, a public place, to pray and impose ashes and remember we are merely human.

We were out there, practicing our religion in public.

I always find this passage from the gospel of Matthew such a very strange text to be assigned for Ash Wednesday, but there it is. Every year, on this day, these are the words that are proclaimed.

When you pray, shut the door and pray in secret.

When you give, don’t look for praise.

When you fast, don’t let it show.

All of these seem to speak against exactly the kind of public activity of gathering in a coffee shop to impose ashes.

Or the rather public display of walking outside of the church after worship with a big black cross on your forehead.

We are starting a series in worship here at church called, Renegade Gospel, and are reminded that Jesus didn’t come to start a religion. Jesus didn’t come to hand out new rituals for us to follow.

But you know what, Jesus did come to start a revolution.

Jesus did come to re-instigate a relationship.

Jesus came because of the simple fact we remember today. We are nothing but dust and to dust we shall return.

When we look deeper and contextually at our gospel reading in Matthew today, we come to understand that Jesus isn’t warning against being religious people in public.

No, he is asking us to stop pretending to be religious just because we are in public.

Jesus is calling us back into relationship… with God, with ourselves, with one another.

He is calling us back to the reality of our sin, our failures, our outward trappings of religion that demonstrate little or no faith on the inside.

As the Message translation sums up this passage: When you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production… Do you think God sits in a box seat? Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. (Matthew 6:5-6)

That sentiment is echoed in the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:13. He is reaching out to them and asking that they listen, that they heed his words, because of what they have seen and heard about his faith.

He hasn’t hidden it. He has lived it. Fully. And living his faith has gotten him into lots of trouble.

The kindness and holiness of spirit, the genuine love and truthful speech… all of it has brought dishonor, ill repute, punishment… and yet he and the other disciples persist. They are not afraid to live out their faith publically for all to see and directly in the face of the religion of the day.

We might think of religion as the rituals and rules, the culture and conditions of faith. It is the box we put our faith in.

But Jesus comes to break the box apart and pull us out into the world.

Jesus comes to help us understand that our relationship with him is about far more than prayerful words and pious actions.

The gospel is yearning for us to be so caught up in its mercy, love and goodness that we can’t help but live into its revolutionary reality.

We are called to stop pretending to be religious and start living faithfully.

Whether this morning, gathered in a public space, or right here, tonight, in this community of worship, we are proclaiming the revolutionary message of the gospel.

We are dust.

We are nothing.

We are sinful.

We need help.

And those words are anathema to our culture. In a world where we try to show how strong and powerful and successful they are – they are tantamount to treason.

But we stand on the street corner and say them anyways… because they are true.

And because Jesus has come.

The one who created us out of dust will re-create us from the dust of death.

There is mercy and forgiveness in this place.

There is life, even in the midst of death.

And that, we should proclaim from every place we find ourselves.

We should invite every friend and stranger alike into that revolutionary truth.

We're Afraid to Ask

Posted on November 1, 2013Leave a comment

We don’t like to talk about money.

Pastors hate to preach on it.

Finance committees only do it because they have to.

We keep our records quiet and avoid tough conversations about budgets.

And when the time comes for mission work or important projects, we pass around the white buckets and pray someone gets inspired to put more than their pocket change inside.

Why are we so afraid to ask for deep commitment, for generous gifts, for extravagant response?

Volunteers sort dairy tubs for the Terracycle/Imagine No Malaria drive.

1. We segregate finances from other types of gifts.

We do not ask those who have the ability to make music to hide their gifts or keep their names hidden. We are not afraid to praise the talents of that cook in the congregation who makes the most excellent peanut butter pie… and might even have been found once or twice on our knees begging them to make it for the next church supper. The person who gives their time to repair items around the church gets their name in the bulletin. We celebrate the gifts God has given us and the way that people have graciously given them for the Kingdom of God.

Except for when it comes to dollars and cents.

I’ve discovered that money is not some great evil. It is not the powerful, ominous thing we make it out to be. It is a resource, a gift, not unlike our voices or our hands or our creativity.

I may have shared this before, but Henri Houwen writes:

Fundraising is, first and foremost, a form of ministry. it is a way of announcing our vision and inviting other people into our mission….

We are declaring, “We have a vision that is amazing and exciting. We are inviting you to invest yourself through the resources that God has given you – your energy, your prayers, and your money – in this work to which God has called us.” (A Spirituality of Fundraising, p. 16-17)

We have segregated the almighty dollar into it’s own category, rather than understanding it as one of many ways that people are able to respond, embrace, and participate in the work of the kingdom.

Through Imagine No Malaria, I have seen people give their time, carefully crafting beautiful creations we are selling to help support our work. Folks lend their voice to the effort through being ambassadors and telling the story of our work. Kitchens are busy with those who are baking and preparing for mission dinners and pancake suppers. Runners have covered countless miles with their feet to build support across the state for our work. And people have opened their pocketbooks in response… eager to participate in the life-saving work of Imagine No Malaria.

Those dollars are vitally important. Without the financial resources we are gathering, we cannot do the life-saving work that is needed on the continent of Africa.

ALL of these gifts are kingdom work – healing the sick and preaching the gospel for hundreds of thousands of people. All of them are ways for people to respond to the vision and join in the mission of God.

2. We aren’t good at evangelism

Nouwen writes that through asking…. through inviting those individuals, families, and organizations to give… we are in reality doing the work of evangelism and conversion.

Whether we are asking for money or giving money we are drawn together by God, who is about to do a new thing through our collaboration. To be converted means to experience a deep shift in how we see and think and act… By giving people a spiritual vision, we want them to experience that they will in fact benefit by making their resources available to us. (p. 17, 19)

A young girl in Colorado experienced that transformation when she caught the vision and was invited to give. As other students added their dollars and change to the bucket at Vacation Bible School, she emptied her bank account and took the money she was saving for a doll and clothes and things she wanted and donated it instead to help save lives.

When we fail to ask… when we fail to share the vision and invite people to participate in God’s work… we are denying them the opportunity to experience that kind of transformation.

Maybe one of the reasons we are afraid to step out and talk with others about participating in this project or in others is because we are so lousy at doing evangelism in the first place.

A Barna study revealed that the average United Methodist will invite only one person to worship with them every 38 years. We just are not in the habit of talking about what our church is doing and asking people to join us in the first place. So why would we expect things to be any different when it comes to money?

This past week, I got a call from a church in Mason City that is doing some outside the box thinking and invited the local blood bank to become a partner in this effort.

Folks in Carson invited their whole community to participate in a basketball game and raised $4000.

When we carry this message, this vision, this transformative promise out into our communities – we just might be stunned at the response. God is good and the Holy Spirit is at work if we are willing to get outside of our walls and ask.

3. We are willing to settle for small gifts

One of my colleagues with Imagine No Malaria refused to accept a pledge from a church. It was a large, thriving church with a passion for mission and the ability to participate in a big way. When they turned in a goal of $1000, my friend sent it back to the pastor and said, “We need to meet.” He refused to let them sell themselves short because they had the potential for transformative ministry through Imagine No Malaria.

Most people, including myself, would be pleased as punch to get a pledge at all and wouldn’t have the guts to do such a thing. But why not?

The demands of the gospel are not small. The invitation to discipleship demands that we take up our cross and follow. And yet we allow people to get by with weak offerings: in either time, energy, or dollars.

I bet your church, right now, has five people in it who could and would be willing to invest themselves in this kingdom-work by giving $1000… either all at once, or as a pledge over the next year or three. I bet your community or your county has two businesses or organizations that would be willing to donate $2500 a piece if they were told about how this work is transforming lives in Africa and creating opportunities for community development and economic empowerment.

Too often we operate from a mindset of scarcity and cherish tiny offerings, instead of realizing that God has already abundantly provided.

Good News and Good Works

Posted on July 24, 2013Leave a comment

I’ve had some conversations recently about the work of Imagine No Malaria from folks who are concerned that we are doing good, but we aren’t sharing the gospel.

My first response to that question is to seek out and share more stories about how lives are being changed and, yes, saved, because of the work we have done. We are seeking more of these types of stories from those who work in the field and can tell us about how and where the word of God is being planted and bearing fruit through the work we are doing with Imagine No Malaria.

My second response is to push back against the divide between the good news and good works. The book of James reminds us they are like two sides of the same coin, that we can’t have faith without works. Matthew 25 reminds us that our faithful response is to care for the least of these. The good news Jesus preached was about more than simply eternal salvation – it was about release for the captives and recovery of sight for the blind. It was both now and later. Salvation is already and not yet. When we share food and shelter and health with those who do not have them, we are sharing the gospel… we are showing them that God loves them, that we love them, and that we love because we were first loved. We begin the relationship that plants seeds and waters sprouts and eventually bears fruit.

One reality of our missionary work over the last 160 years in Africa is that we have often built churches and clinics and schools side-by-side. We have not necessarily made strict separations between good works and good news… they are one and the same. We are focused on saving lives in all sorts of ways – through a relationship with Jesus, through literacy, through health, through empowerment, through justice, through hope, through the scriptures, through systematic change.

Today, I came across this blog post from a young man who I believe helps to put into words what has been on the tip of my tongue… when we heal the sick and empower the poor and are in relationship with those who are struggling – we aren’t just sharing the gospel, we are living it, we are making it known, and others will see.

I encourage you to read Greg’s story here, but the highlights for me and for our work:

…What is more important is to communicate the message of our faith, the Gospel (hint: it’s about more than just being a sinner).

But unfortunately, we haven’t been taught how to communicate the Gospel. We’ve been taught how to lead Bible studies and have fellowship, how to run prayer meetings, and draw the bridge diagram.

But we haven’t learned to communicate the Gospel.

Why do I say this? Because the Gospel is not only communicated through words, but also how we live our lives. And when I was faced with the opportunity to live according to the Gospel, I felt obligated to abandon it on the street, on my way to being a good Bible study leader…

…So that’s why I quit being a Bible study leader. Not because it’s the wrong thing to be, but because it kept me too busy to do the right thing. Because while I participated dutifully in Christian activities, a homeless man sat outside in the cold and ate popcorn. Because Shane Claiborne reminded me that Jesus would have quit being a Bible study leader too, to sit alongside that man, if for no other reason than to ask him his name and eat popcorn together.

And because Eboo Patel taught me that you don’t have to do that alone. Even if you’re the only Christian eating popcorn with a homeless man while your fellow believers sing songs and socialize upstairs, if you invite them, there are Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, Jains, and Buddhists who will join you. And the funny thing is that authentic dialogue begins to happen in these sorts of situations – you build relationships and you share stories, simply because you all agree that no one should have to eat popcorn alone in the cold.

And even though you might not observe the conversion experience your evangelism training taught you to expect, your actions have communicated something deeper than your words, and your stories have taken on fuller meaning. And there’s a good chance that you’ve convinced them all of something about the Gospel.

Our work on the ground is often done in partnership with other faith communities who share our concern for saving lives. In a story written in 2010 about our work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sheikh Usseni Faray talked about the importance of local congregations standing together in this work:

Government can only start things once and they stop. But us, we are the community representing the people, and we preach and work with the people all the time. So if they keep the church people involved, I think it will be a lasting program and many people will benefit.

We do these good works because we are people of faith and because Jesus sends us out to heal the sick and preach the gospel. That gospel is shared through our actions, through every dollar we raise, through every net that is hung in a home, through every relationship built, and every life that is given a reason to hope. Sometimes we are speaking and singing and praising the name of Jesus. Sometimes we are simply present. And sometimes that is enough.

Photo: (top) in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. (right) A United Methodist church choir welcomes visitors to Kamina, Democratic Republic of the Congo. A delegation of United Methodist church leaders and public health workers visited Kamina in observance of World Malaria Day. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

Making the Congregation Cry

Posted on August 12, 2011Leave a comment

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This has been an insanely busy summer… vacation, a new nephew, mission trips, fundraisers, cleaning at the church…

So I have tried to make my summer a bit easier by working through Romans with the congregation.

Ha.

In some ways, it hasn’t been that bad. Each piece kind of follows on the one before it, so I am continuing a train of thought about grace and mercy for us and others all summer long.

But last week, I combined chapters 9 and 10 and talked about how Paul was just aching in his bones with grief for his brothers and sisters who had rejected Jesus Christ.

I asked the church to think of their friends or family members who were resistant to the gospel or had left the church or had never been told about the good news of Jesus Christ. I asked them to think about the people their own hearts ache for.

I know that there are many who have personally expressed to me concern about a loved one. I have commiserated, having a husbad who isn’t really into God himself(see “Lost My Religion“).

But there was something about what the Holy Spirit did in that sermon that really moved people. Everywhere I looked, people were wiping their eyes, trying not to tear up, or digging out a tissue.

I think there are so many people in this world who really want to share their faith and share the love of God and they just don’t know how. They are afraid of rejection, they are unsure of their own story, and they “know” their family too well.

Just watching those tears come last Sunday opened my eyes to the real need for a group who is interested in learning about faith sharing. In practicing faith sharing. In having a community who is just as genuinely heartsick as they are to tell others about the love of God they have found.

I have one lesson plan that I have written about evangelism and the gospel of Mark, but it is more of a thinking sort of study, than a heart/practical look. Any suggestions of places to start?

Peace without Surrender

Posted on September 1, 20101 Comment

I was driving around this afternoon and caught a segment from BBC World News on the radio. It was a story about how the peace talks between Israel and Palestine are being percieved in Israel itself. One of the men being interviewed said very adamantly – I want peace, but I don’t want to surrender.

I kept listening to him say those words and found myself so frustrated by this attitude that says the only peace that is acceptable is the one that comes on my terms.

This week, our gospel lesson from Luke in the lectionary teaches us that we can’t have it both ways. We can’t hang on to our own desires and hopes and dreams and things and also follow Christ. We can’t have the peace that passes all understanding unless we are willing to surrender it all.

The truth is, most of the time, we think we don’t have what it takes. Our families are too important to us. Our jobs and that sense of security is too important. We aren’t willing to put it all on the line and so, the irony is that we do surrender – but to the wrong things. We surrender to the idea that we will fail. We surrender to the pressure of family values. We surrender to patriotism and nationalism and consumerism. We surrender thinking that we will keep our lives… but in the end, we will do nothing but lose it all.

Christ turns our whole lives upside down. To save your life, you must lose it. To be exaulted, you must be humbled. To be first, you must be last.

No where in the gospel does it say that if you go to church on Sundays and the rest of the week work really hard at your job and raise a good family then someday after you die you’ll go to this happy and wonderful place called Heaven. I wish it did, but it simply doesn’t.

No, the gospel tells us that we must hate our parents and our spouses and children and put it all on the line and bear our crosses – and then we will be his disciples.

I have to admit, I’ve never been a person to think too intently about what waits us after this life. I’m not the type of Christian who has her heart set on heaven. I don’t care that much about blissful and peaceful eternity. What I want is for the sick to be healed. I want the poor to be lifted up. I want the oppressed to go free. I want to experience Emmanuel – God-with-us – to be in the presence of God and to know that all things are well.

Those are the words and the promises that I find in scripture. I believe in the God that will set all things right… and that includes my sorry-ass. And I think if I got to experience that for even a moment – that would be enough. I have to trust that if God says – turn it all over to me and I will make something beautiful of your life – that God means what she says. Lay it all on the line…

Maybe the tricky part is that line. You see, we draw our lines in very different places than Jesus would draw lines. We draw lines around our family and say – I’m not willing to sacrifice this. Or we draw lines around our jobs – and will sacrifice it all for the next paycheck. We draw lines in the sand and say that this particular issue – whether it’s abortion or animal rights or Islamic religious centers or the creation of a Palestinian state – is the most important thing and that we will never give up until we have gotten our way and if you stand outside of that line then you are the enemy. We refuse to surrender. We refuse to give in. And in the end, I think we loose it all.

Because you know what – Christ draws a line. He doesn’t draw it around our houses or cars or children or institutions or issues – but he draws it right down the center of our lives. And Jesus says, leave it all, come and follow me.

So I’m turning my life over. I’m surrendering all of those things that I think I want and that this world tells me are so important. Here it is, Lord. Here I am, Lord. Use me to feed the hungry. Use me to heal the sick. Use me to lift up the brokenhearted. Use me to speak the truth in love to those who preach lies. Use me to stand with the oppressed. Use me to say “no” to a world obsessed with more. And if by chance the world turns against me – so be it.

outline preaching

Posted on April 13, 20101 Comment

Some weeks are hard for preaching. I usually am able to take the time to get into the texts and to prayerfully discuss them with colleagues and to stew over the gospel message as I do the things that it takes to be the church… and other things as well.

But some weeks, there is too much to do to take the time to write a manuscript. I lose hours of sleep on Saturday evening and Sunday morning painstakingly typing out the right words to say. I have always been a manuscript preacher and it takes so much more time… on the front end at least.

This last week, I had no time to write. I had thought and thought and thought… but there was no time to sit at my computer and write. I sat through deep theological conversations on death and life and the new creation (which was my sermon topic)… but there was no time to sit and write. I wrestled with what God was calling me to preach… but there was no time to sit and write. I spent time with friends I haven’t seen in a year… and there was no time to write.

Sunday morning at 6:15, I got up and took some of the jumbled thoughts that had filled my life for a full seven days and jotted them down. I put the stories in order. I found the natural flow of the message. I connected the gospel to the epistle in a quick comparison and contrast. I knew where I wanted to get and I trusted God would get it there. (or, rather, I thought I knew where God wanted us all to get and I prayed God would send the Spirit) And I let it be.

I think that Sunday morning – even with only 4 hours of sleep – was a good morning for preaching. Thanks be to God the Spirit showed up. Thanks be to God that I had the courage to step away from the pulpit to tell a story for only the second time since I’ve been here. Thanks be to God that I didn’t have it all written out and that the message flowed through me. Thanks be to God.

Send Me!

Posted on August 30, 2009Leave a comment

God said, “Whom shall I send?” And immediately, without hesitating, without knowing what on earth he was getting into, Isaiah responded, “Here I am, Send ME!”

Now, I have thought and thought and thought about this sermon. In some ways, it is the inspiration for this whole series on worship – because fundamentally, I believe that what we do in worship gets us ready to say yes. What we do in worship helps us to place God at the center of our lives as we praise. What we do in worship helps us to let go of the pasts that weigh us down. What we do in worship re-presents us with the Word of God. And ALL of those things prepare us, shape us, form us, so that when God cries out, “Whom shall I send?” we will all cry together – SEND ME!!!!

If you look at the structure of our worship services – about a third or more of our time is spent responding. We respond to God by lifting one another up in prayer. We respond to God by giving generously to the work of Christ’s church in the world. We respond to God by coming forward to the table of the Lord and sharing in the heavenly banquet. We respond to God by heading out into the world with a blessing. And the most important part? We respond by living every minute of our lives between 10:00 on Sunday morning to 9:00 the next Sunday in a way that says yes to God.

That, my friends, is the tricky part. We read in James that we are supposed to be doers of the word and not hearers only. That we shouldn’t just talk about loving God and others, but we are actually supposed to go out there and love God by loving others.

As we have talked about all this month, the core of our gospel message is: God loves you, God forgives you, and God has a job for you.

Every single day, in a thousand different ways, God is inviting us to participate in the reign of God’s kingdom. Just on Thursday as I sat down to write down some of my thoughts, I was struck by four invitations in particular.

1) Mary Lanning passed away on Thursday morning and I heard God say, “Whom shall I send to comfort those who are grieving?”

2) The rain kept falling all day Thursday and I heard God say, “Whom shall I send to fill sandbags in Palo and Central City and Marion and bring hope to those who are flooded?”

3) I looked at some of our curriculum for Sunday School, and I heard God say, “Whom shall I send to teach the high school class and provide support and encouragement for our young people?”

4) Our lay leadership team met on Thursday evening, and I heard God say, “Whom shall I send to serve the people of this church in Marengo, Iowa?

Now – in school, I was always the kid who wanted to answer all of the questions. And so I’d be sitting there in my seat, eagerly raising my hand, halfway standing out of my chair so the teacher would notice me.

That’s kind of how I picture Isaiah. He just had something AMAZING happen to him – He is standing before God and in spite of all the things he has done in his life, he has lived through the experience. Even more than that – he was forgiven, given a whole new lease on life. And now this same God that is full of grace and mercy needs someone to help him out. And Isaiah raises his hand and says “Hey God!!! I’m over here!!! Send ME!!!!!!”

If I took each of those questions from Thursday individually and just stood up here and asked them, I would be willing to bet that you wouldn’t be eagerly responding. I myself have gotten out of that habit of eagerly saying yes to things that come along. Our lives are so busy. We have legitimate reasons to be gone. We are already committed to many good and wonderful other projects. We are serving the community through our jobs or through the school already.

We have lots and lots of good excuses.

Or are we just letting ourselves off the hook?

There is a twenty year old young woman is a missionary in Uganda who has adopted 13 children who have been orphaned. She also shares God with the people in the village through bible studies and worship. One day recently, she was handed a baby that she thought was dead… until the baby breathed. The mother had HIV and had stopped breastfeeding the 9 month old, for fear of passing it to her child, but there was no other food for the baby or the mother to eat. None, at all. The missionary pleaded to take the baby to a hospital, scooped the infant up in her arms and also purchased formula.

She brought the child into her home to nourish the little girl back to health. She wrote “For the first 24 hours, I could hardly stand to look at sweet baby Patricia … The hurt and the hunger in her lifeless little eyes was simply unbearable…”

“I am sad and I am angry…but this is my blog and I am going to say what I feel like. I am MAD. I have been sad and broken for these children for so long and it has finally turned into a hardened anger… I am angry that in the “Pearl of Africa” and the most fertile region of it at that, a mother has literally NO food to feed her baby, not to mention herself or 6 other kids. I am angry that the result of this is that these sweet ones suffer in their innocence.

“I have said it before and it still holds true: I DO NOT BELIEVE that the God of the universe created too many children in His image and not enough love or food or care to go around. In fact I believe that He created the Body of Christ for just that, to help these little ones, the least of these. And I believe that except for a handful, the Body of Christ is failing…

“According to several different resources, there are 168.8 million needy children like … Patricia. Seems like a big number, huh? It shouldn’t, because there are 2.1 BILLION people on this earth who profess to be Christians. Jesus followers. Servants. Gospel live-ers. And if only 8 percent of those Christians would care for just ONE of these needy children, they would all be taken care of.” (http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/)

Katie the missionary is right – there are 2.1 Billion people on this earth who profess to be Christians… but Gospel live-ers? That might be a different story.

In our epistle from James, his main concern is that people aren’t living out their faith. They aren’t letting God’s truth become planted in their lives. And in verses 22-25 he gets to the root of this problem. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listening when you let the Word go in one ear and out the other. You have to ACT on what you hear! If we just hear the word and do nothing about it , then you are like someone who looks at themselves in a mirror, walks away and two minutes later has no idea who they are or what they look like.

It’s the same wisdom that school teachers know well. Edgar Dale once said that we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see… 70% of what we discuss with others, 80% of what we personally experience and 95% of what we teach others.

We can spend all the time we want reading the bible or listening to sermons – but if we aren’t actively engaging with the Word of God – if we aren’t discussing it with one another, and living it out – then we quickly forget what God has said.

Real religion, James says, is reaching out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, orphans and widows in their distress, and keeping oneself unstained by the world.

Real religion is for merely 8% of us Christians to live out the gospel by caring for the orphaned, hungry, homeless children of the world.

Real religion is speaking up on behalf of the “least of these” in our country – the homeless, the unemployed, and the underinsured.

Real religion is listening for who God wants us to care for here in Marengo, Iowa and getting on board behind it 110%.

And… real religion is clothing ourselves not with excuses for why we can’t do something, but with the whole armor of God.

The thing I realized, just this week as I felt God calling me to speak up and say something concrete about health care reform, is that it was incredibly scary. I felt very ill equipped and I was incredibly worried about what other people might think. About what you might think.

Perhaps you have noticed this, but I tend not to take sides in big issues. I would be willing to bet that most of you don’t know who I voted for in the past three elections and that most of you would be surprised at the answers. And that is intentional. Because I take seriously the call in James to be quick to listen and slow to speak. I have been working very hard at biting my tongue so that I can be the pastor to all of you: republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives, libertarians and well, whatever the opposite of a libertarian is.

But when I read from Ephesians the passage about being strong in the Lord and the strength of his power, I felt like God really wanted me to respond. In particular, verse 12 spoke to me because it reminds me that our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh – this is a life-or-death battle with cosmic powers. In this debate about health care, we are not enemies because there is a more important battle to engage in.

“But in the framework of hope for God’s kingdom they [stories of Jesus healing] cannot be forgotten, for in that framework they become reminders of hope.
“All severe illnesses are heralds or foretokens of death, and we have to see Jesus’ healings as heralds or foretokens in just the same way: they are heralds of the resurrection… In every serious illness we fight for our lives. In every healing we experience something of the resurrection. We feel new-born, and as if life had been given back to us.”

– Jurgen Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today’s World.

(remainder of sermon to be posted later)