grace – Page 5 – Salvaged Faith

BE the church

Posted on June 13, 2010Leave a comment

This morning we find ourselves in the midst of a pretty familiar story.

It is a story of contrasts… the holy man on one hand and the sinful woman on the other.

It is a story of grace… and a man who doesn’t think he needs any and a woman who is begging to be forgiven.

It is a story of paradox… where the tables are turned as the holy man is proven to be not so and the sinful woman is shown to be the one who is in the right.

So let’s break this tale down just a little bit. Jesus has been invited into the home of a Pharisee. And we start to wonder… maybe this is a guy who gets it. Maybe this Simon fellow has his head on straight and not only lets Jesus into his home, but wants to invite him into his heart also. Way to go, Pharisee!

But then, this woman shows up… a woman that Luke makes clear is a sinner. We aren’t quite sure of what has classified her as a sinner. Perhaps it was sleeping with the wrong person. Or perhaps she milked a cow on the Sabbath. We don’t know. But whatever it was – it made her desperate for God’s grace.

And so, she seeks Christ out. It didn’t matter where he was, or how uncomfortable it was going to be for her to enter this holy man’s house. She sought out Jesus and wept and anointed him. She went to where he was and poured out her love upon him.

And by the end of the story, the tables are turned, and we find that this sinful woman is the one who has done right by Jesus. She is the one who receives grace, while the Pharisee receives a tongue lashing for his lack of hospitality.

So what do we take from this story? In our world today, we would be hard pressed to be able to issue a dinner invitation to our Lord and Savior. We might search and seek our whole lives and never encounter Jesus walking and talking among us.

But we do see the poor. We do see the homeless. We do see the hungry. We do see the sick. And in the back of my mind somewhere I remember that Jesus said – whatever you have done for the least of these… my brothers and sisters… you have done for me. (Matthew 25)

So let’s think about this gospel lesson from Luke again. Let’s imagine for just a second that we are talking about the Christ we meet in the eyes of the poor, in the groaning of the hungry, in the tears of the sick.

On the one hand, we have a holy man, a Pharisee who invites the poor, the hungry, the sick. over for dinner one night. The poor come in and sit down to eat. There is no welcome, there is no real hospitality, simply an invitation… the food has been provided, help yourself. It’s charity, plain and simple.

On the other hand, we have a sinner who goes out of her way to seek out the poor, the hungry, the sick. She sheds upon them her tears, she pours upon them lavish blessings, she soothes them with her offering. She gets down on her knees to take care of them. That is love, plain and simple. That is the beginning of a relationship.

Who are we as the church? Are we the holy ones who hole up inside of our buildings and invite the poor, the hungry the sick to come to us?

Or are we the ones who admit our sinful and broken natures – who know that we need Christ as much as the world needs Christ – and go out and share the grace we have been given?

As Mary and I experienced Annual Conference this year – there was one very simple message that we wanted to bring home to all of you:

Don’t just go to church, BE the church.

The message came at us from a thousand different directions. Preachers and presenters, lay delegates and pastors got up and spoke at microphones to the crowd and everywhere we heard the calling to not just go to church, but to BE the church.

It’s a subtle difference really. But it is the difference between the holy one who invites Jesus to come in and the sinful one who seeks Jesus out in the world. It is the transformation from a Sunday ritual to feed our souls into a daily living out of our faith beyond the four walls of the church.

A DAILY living out of our faith beyond the walls of this building.

I don’t know about all of you… but sometimes that daily living part is hard. Even as a pastor, even as someone called to this ministry, there are times when living out my faith is difficult! We slip into being content with our Sunday morning rituals and our Tuesday bible study and we give to the local food bank and think that is enough – that is all that is asked of us.

But we have a higher calling beyond our own personal salvation. Now, don’t get me wrong, our own personal salvation is important…. But once we believe – there is more that God wants us to do with our lives.

Recently, the United Methodist Church has been thinking about being church. For about a year now, the “Rethink Church” campaign has been going on to help us to ask the question… what if church was a verb? What if our faith was something we lived instead of thought? What if the love we experienced from God was shared with others?

At Annual Conference, we had the opportunity to see a music video put together by young people of the United Methodist Church who have found energy and passion around this idea of being church. And I want to share it with you this morning!

In that video, Mike Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg UMC, says that the real focus of Jesus is not getting more people into the church, but getting the people who are already in the church into the world. Love one another as I have loved you… that is the command that Jesus gives us.

It is what we heard in our gospel reading from Luke this morning… Jesus asks who has loved Jesus more – the one who obeyed all the rules, but forgot hospitality or the one who was found to be in the wrong and yet bowed down before him in service.

As Jesus loved us, and died for us, the only appropriate response is to love with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength.

And it’s the same word that we hear from the first letter of Peter. Peter writes to a number of communities in order to encourage them in their daily living.

He doesn’t tell them to show up on Sunday mornings for worship, but to let the suffering and sacrifice of Christ be the example for their lives.

Peter doesn’t ask us to simply believe and accept that Christ died for us… he tells us to make the suffering of Christ the model for our lives. Or rather, to not run away from love when it is difficult… to love our neighbors like Christ loved them… even if it gets us into trouble.

Love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless – cheerfully! Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let them be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help.

When Peter writes these things– he is not talking about a special set of rules we live under in the church… he is talking about how we should live our entire lives. In all things, everywhere that we go, at work, at the playground, at the city hall meetings, in the hospital where we volunteer… be a good steward of the manifold grace of God. Be generous with the grace and the love that God has given to you.

So, are you wondering why we are even here this morning? Why do we have worship at all – if God wants us to be out in the world loving others?

Because it is here in this fellowship of believers that we find the strength to go out there and to serve. It is here in this community of faith that we are fed the bread of life and the cup of salvation. It is here in the presence of God that we confess the failings of the past week and are able to let them go so we can love and serve anew.

A pastor of mine once described worship as a cup of cold water during a marathon. We stop and renew ourselves and we give thanks to the one who has provided. But then we go back out there and keep running. We keep serving. We keep loving. Thanks be to God! Amen.

“this beautiful mess” part 1

Posted on February 23, 2010Leave a comment

I have been trying to read more. There are far too many books on my shelf – delicious books – just waiting to be picked up and devoured. So I decided to start with Rick McKinley’s “This Beautiful Mess.”

The writing style just draws me in… it’s conversational and pulls me in. But even more than that, he speaks to the core of my longing for the Kingdom of God. As he starts out the book, he describes it as a “permission slip… get out of religion free.” He invites us to recieve the book “not as the last theological work on anything, but as a well-intentioned, God-loving invitation to go and grow and be where you haven’t before.”

And then, McKinley takes those pithy sayings that drive me nuts and transforms them into solid truth in a way that I wish I could do. For example:

…when our lives are all about us, the appeal of that kind of bumper-sticker dumbness is irresistible. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” gets turned into a tool of the self to assure my business success instead of a promise that brings peace to my soul when all hell breaks loose.

Peace to my soul when all hell breaks loose. That’s what I’m craving. Yeah, it would be nice for the hell not to break loose at all. But it does and it will and Christ never promises that we won’t have trouble. Maybe that’s what I was getting at a few weeks ago when I blogged about my car accident. I never expected that an accident wouldn’t happen. I never expected to be so protected by the hand of God that no trouble would ever befall me. I do expect that Christ will be with me through even the darkest valleys, however.

I have now been in ministry to the congregation I serve for two full years now. Maybe it’s because I’m young, or don’t yet have the self-confidence in my own vocation, but it’s taken me this long to be able to challenge some of those simplistic and pithy characterizations of God. I find the confidence to do it in sermons – mostly because the Holy Spirit is at my back… or rather, I pray over my texts that she will be. I just don’t go into other conversations in the same way… and I should! Perhaps with more prayer and with more confidence in the God who gives me the voice to speak, I can continue to affirm the faith of my people while at the same time giving them a “get out of religion free” card. I can give them an invitation to think deeper and to go where they haven’t been before, to move beyond Jesus and me in heaven by and by to Jesus and me and the poor with my sleeves rolled up here and now.

It’s not an either/or. I’m foolish to paint it that way. It’s a both/and. Breathing IN and Breathing OUT. Letting Christ be King… but King of his own Kingdom and not the ones we create for him. Changing our allegiances. Challenging the politics of it all. And doing all of that with grace and humility.

the Christian journey

Posted on January 17, 2010Leave a comment

How do you understand the following traditional evangelical doctrines: a) repentance; b) justification; c) regeneration; d) sanctification? What are the marks of the Christian life?

Whenever I think of the Christian life, a quote I heard Anne Lamott give (whether or not it actually originated with her) comes to mind: God loves you just the way you are… and loves you too much to let you stay there. The Christian faith journey is just that – a journey, a process of discovering our true selves as created by God. In many ways, these four doctrines are lacking because they don’t acknowledge one that must precede them – God’s prevenient grace that allows us to see our need for repentance. The wonder of God is that the instant we recognize our sinful state is the same moment justifying grace is extended to us; in acknowledging our sin we are given grace by which we can be transformed. This begins a lifelong process of growth and transformation and practice and mistakes and setbacks and return to God for forgiveness and renewal and going on to perfection that makes the Christian life.

We can see evidence of that growth through the three very basic and simple virtues – faith, hope, and love. Working on these papers, a quote was shared with me from Teresa Fry Brown that claims, “Hope hearing the song of the future. Faith is the courage to dance to it.” I would add that love is inviting others to take your hand and join in. We were created for relationship with God and with the rest of creation. Unless we are willing to take a leap of faith and actively participate in the transformative love of God, unless we are willing to have hope in the promise that all of creation will be renewed, we are denying the precious gift we have been given and continue to be in need of God’s grace.

Photo by: Stephen Eastop

The Human Condition

Posted on January 10, 2010Leave a comment

What effect has the practice of ministry had on your understanding of humanity and the need for divine grace?

Over and over again I am reminded about our utter need for grace. In my own life and ministry the work I do would not be effective or positive if it were not for God’s grace. As someone who is beginning this journey of ministry I make more mistakes that I would care to admit, and yet somehow God takes my feeble and human attempts at faithfulness and transforms them mightily. This fall, I was called to the bedside of a congregation member who was actively dying and the family wanted me to say a prayer with him before he passed. In my vanity, I had worn this cute pair of boots, but they were very loud as I stepped into the room. Embarrassed, I tried to take them off so that I wouldn’t disturb the peacefulness and the quiet music in the background. By the time I got my boots off and moved over to the side of the bed and began my prayer, he was taking his last breath. At first, I was angry with myself for having worn the wrong shoes and for taking so long. But the first comment out of his son’s mouth was about how wonderful it was that his father had passed from this world in the midst of prayer.

My understanding of humanity has also been tried and tested in my congregational work. We welcomed a gentleman back into our congregation after he had been in some trouble. Overall, our congregation was very gracious and welcoming! After some time had passed, even connected with our community, he found himself in trouble once again. I think for the first time, I really saw the destructive powers of sin in someone’s life – sin that not only imprisoned his spirit, but also led once again to the imprisonment of his body. And yet through it all, we have continued to be in relationship with him. I was amazed by his power to seek and ask God’s forgiveness and the fact that he kept praying for us in the midst of his struggles.

I have also worked a lot with families in need in our area. As I work with them, I am reminded about how little power so many people have to change their lives. Sin (our own and that of others) digs us into deep holes and creates patterns that we cannot even imagine being different. It isolates us from the help we need and from relationships of love, kindness and mercy. Only by the grace of God can we as a church continue to have the patience to minister to these families and maintain the relationships… and only by the grace of God can their hearts and minds be transformed. But I am also reminded that as a part of this relationship there must be honesty and accountability – there must be confession and a desire for repentance in order for God’s grace to transform our lives.

Photo by: Mateusz Stachowski

The New American Religion Behind the Growing American Rage

Posted on August 21, 20091 Comment

The New American Religion Behind the Growing American Rage

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I do sense there is this murky prelude to culture war (or holy war as Richardson calls it) brewing. I sensed it in 2004 when broken crosses were used to spell “God Bless the USA” on our campus lawn in front of the chapel. I sense it today in this anger over health care that is really nothing about health care. Richardson’s interview is interesting and he helps us to relate and empathize with his subject, while at the same time leaving the reader, me at least, with the same sense of forboding that he himself feels.

I agree. There are people who are strongly convicted on both sides. My fear is that a war is brewing, a war that none of us really want to see happen, a deep cultural war that will tear apart our communities. I’m not in the middle on this cultural divide. I know what side I’m on. I know what side family and friends are on. And I’m so tired of family being torn apart that perhaps this struggle just seems like a little too much to handle right now. I don’t even want to think about what will happen if the flood gates really open.

Perhaps it’s always been like this. Perhaps my twenty-seven year old mind is just a little naive to think that we are the first to have these conversations. I know that nothing is new under the sun. I know that Jesus said that we must hate our mother and father, meaning that there are times when we have to let go of those family ties to stand up for what is true. I know these cultural wars surrounded Vietnam, and McCarythism/Red Scare.

But what are the roots of these differences? How can I and my neighbors really be so different? Don’t we have the same internal anatomy? Don’t we all have flesh and blood and hearts and minds? Aren’t we all living in the same world? Hearing the same news? (well, no, actually)

It’s not just generational. It’s not just religious. It’s not even just political – although there is where the line seems to be most clearly drawn. These differences seem to be so deep that when we encounter the same issue, we see completely different things. When we see the same news story presented, we feel different things. When we talk about an issue – we can use the EXACT SAME WORDS and have the EXACT SAME CONCERNS (as was the case in my conference’s debate on the world-wide nature of the church amendments) and vote in the exact opposite way! Because our minds are already made up. The fear and distrust is already there. The lines have already been drawn and we know what side we are on.

I recently found out about outlawpreachers. It’s kind of a nebulous term loosely used to describe a bunch of ministers and christians who preach nothing but the love and grace of God. At least that’s how I am hearing it. That’s what I’m clinging to right now. In the midst of the division and fingerpointing and name-calling, and fear on both sides, I’m clinging to the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ. That’s it. That is the source of all hope and promise. And it may be the ONLY way out of this mess.

(All of this being said – this is the very first post that I have tagged the words hate and religion. That says a lot.)

Strong in the Broken Places

Posted on July 5, 2009Leave a comment

All of us are gathered here this morning to celebrate. In fact – if we didn’t have something to celebrate, each of us would be inside our own churches or maybe even still in bed this morning. But no! We got up, we got dressed, we brought out the lawn chairs this morning because there is so much to celebrate we just couldn’t stay home! We just couldn’t stay quiet! Can I get an Amen! (AMEN!)

Isn’t it such a great day to get together and celebrate the fact that we suck? Yes you heard me right. We suck. We are not perfect. We can’t do it all. We are not the best, or the brightest, or the most talented. We don’t have the most money, or the biggest churches, or even… and I know I’m going out on a limb here… we probably don’t even have the most wonderful pastors in the entire world. We make mistakes… a lot of them… all of the time. We are a nation that is stressed out, frustrated by our jobs, worried about our families, just trying to make ends meet in a world that seems to be out to get us.

Now – I know that doesn’t sound like very good news. That doesn’t sound like a very good reason to celebrate either… but hang in there for just a second!!

Stanley Hauerwas, a theologian and ethicist at Duke University, has a rule that I think applies here. His rule is this: You always marry the wrong person. But that rule has a very important qualifier – the wrong person is the right person.

Pastor Brian Volck heard that rule of Hauerwas’ and realized that our relationship with God could be described the same way. Volck writes, “We in the church Christ gathers are generally a nation of rebels, impudent and stubborn. We repeatedly go whoring after idols of status, security and national pride or, out of false humility (oh, I couldn’t possibly make a difference in that situation, we) fail to respond when we see members of the Body harm others and themselves. And – here’s the catch – the Creator of the Universe chooses us to be His people, sending us into the world unarmed, scarcely ready, flawed, dependent… In short, we are the wrong people for the job.”

But you know what? It’s precisely because we are the wrong people that we are such a perfect match for God’s plans.

In our scripture for this morning, we find Paul writing to the church in Corinth. Now, we may not know all of the circumstances, but it is safe to assume that the people in Corinth thought Paul might be the wrong person for the job as well!

Corinth was a city that was all about power and strength. They hosted athletic contests and games where competitors outdid one another in feats of strength. They were an economic power house being a huge harbor on the Mediterranean Sea. Power and success were worshipped in Corinth much as they are in the United States today – even among the Christians that Paul ministered to there. And Paul had impressed them with his letters, but something about Paul-in-person, turned them off. Two chapters before our reading today, we find one of these complaints quoted… “His letters are weighty and strong,” some Corinthian writes, “but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.”

The people in Corinth much preferred the “superstars” who came into town after Paul left – the traveling circus of visions and wonders and contemporary music and dramatic preachers. Superstars who swept them up in an emotional fury and then left them begging for more! Superstars who were paid a pretty penny for their services.

Compared to these showmen, Paul seemed rather lame. He didn’t charge anything for sharing the word of God with them. He seemed to always be getting in trouble with the local governments. And he wasn’t that entertaining when he showed up either. He spent way too much time telling them what not to do, rather than making them feel good about themselves. We don’t know all of the details of the exchanges back and forth between Paul and the followers of Christ in Corinth, but there were some problems there.

So part of the reason that Paul is writing to the church is because he needs to defend himself a bit against the misguided theology of his opponents. With great sarcasm and irony, Paul writes to compare himself with these “superstar apostles” who have been visiting Corinth as of late.

You have no problem putting up with those fools, he writes, so let me tell you just how foolish I am. Instead of boasting of all of the things I can do like they are so prone to do, I’ll boast of my weaknesses! I am a fool for Christ. I’ve been beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, robbed, hungry, thirsty, and homeless – you can’t necessarily call that successful ministry by the world’s standards. Oh, I can match them, vision for vision if they want to talk about ecstatic experiences and revelations from God – but I’m not going to play that game. I will not boast of anything but my weakness and God’s power.

In fact, Paul writes, just to help me remember that I am weak but God is strong, I was given a thorn in my side – a permanent reminder in my life – that I am not perfect, that I don’t have it all together, but that God chooses to work through me anyways. I don’t have to be everything because God is everything and God’s power is made perfect in our weakness.

We may not be the right people for the job, but through God’s grace we are perfect for the job.

Paul is desperately trying to tell us some good news! News that is contradictory to the Corinthian view of power and to the ways of this world… it is because we are weak, that we are so strong in God. It is because we are flawed and imperfect that God’s grace has room to maneuver. It is when we get our overinflated egos out of the way that people can see Jesus Christ in our lives.

Throughout history, God has chosen the wrong people to be his servants. He chose Jacob the trickster, Moses the murderer, David the adulterer, Mary and Joseph, a poor unmarried couple to nurture the Christ Child, a whole band of disciples who got it wrong more times than they got it right. And God chose Paul – a persecutor of the church to be one of its greatest evangelists. In each and every single one of those partnerships – it was God’s power working through their lives, not any personal strength that they had.

Earnest Hemingway wrote that “Life breaks all of us, but some of us are strong in the broken places.” In the church, we might rephrase that to say that we are all fallen and broken people, but some of us turn our brokenness over to God and through God’s grace, we become strong in the broken places. God uses our hurts and our pains and our frustrations and our failings and makes something beautiful out of our lives.

This is a time for celebration. We come to celebrate this Independence Day holiday, and to celebrate the birthday of our community – and in the midst of that celebration there is a lot of boasting. But let us also remember to boast about our weaknesses. Let us also remember to boast about the places where our communities are broken. Let us remember a hospital that almost closed, and a river that threatened to overrun the town. Let us look through the pages of our history and never forget the times when only God’s grace got us through.

As we gather today around this table as the family of God, some of us are feeling quite broken. We may not speak of it, but we all know that it’s there. We need to remind one another that through God’s grace, we can become strong again; we can endure whatever hardships come our way.

Let one another know of your struggles. Don’t be afraid to speak them out loud! Don’t feel like you have to pretend that everything is okay when it’s not… Because it is in those broken places in our lives that God does his best work. It is our faith in the midst of those broken places that gives us the foundation we need to stand on.

God’s grace was sufficient for Paul. God’s grace is sufficient for me – in spite of my weakness. God’s grace is sufficient for you… And God’s grace is sufficient for this nation and this world – no matter how broken, how unredeemable we may seem. Amen. And Amen.

thinking ecumenically and maybe a little politically

Posted on May 1, 20091 Comment

Lately, I have been having quite a few conversations, theologically and politically with fellow pastors.

It would be fair to say that my current colleagues are more conservative than my colleagues in seminary or college. And what amazed me was the fear that “liberal” colleagues expressed 8 years ago over the Bush administration are the same fears being expressed now, under a new administration by my “conservative” friends. In both places, I heard words like “facism” and “homeland security” being thrown around with fears that their rights to the things they hold most dear would be stripped away. Each is afraid that their most important values will be tossed to the side.

In that same conversation, we also talked about the differences in how we recieve God’s grace in each tradition. In United Methodism it’s through the means of grace – which include works of piety and works of mercy. In the Lutheran tradition, it’s through the word – in preaching, study, baptism, etc. In the Reformed tradition God’s grace isn’t limited and yet there was a strong hesitation to say that grace comes through works.

All of these things together – both the political and theological conversation – have me feeling like we aren’t even talking the same language with one another. We are looking at the exact same thing: political decisions on one hand and God’s grace on the other, and we interpret each in completely different ways. After our conversation we got to a place where we could agree to disagree theologically – but we didn’t really even touch the political difference (well, we did debate torture for a bit).

I don’t know that I have ever wished for full unity within the Christian tradition. I understand that there are important theological differences in what we claim to believe. We can agree on the fundamentals, but how those fundamentals are played out – woah. VAST differences. Same with the political landscape. The idea of a one party system would be a terrible plan… in fact, I would be in favor of lots of political parties, each articulating clearly their perspectives.

Debate and conversation are important (in United Methodism, we call it conferencing). They help us to form and reflect upon our beliefs. They call us to know our own positions well enough to speak for them. But they also call us to listen and to be aware of when our positions are in need of reformation. That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in… to help us reach a consensus… to help us reach God’s will… in the midst of our vast differences.

That last piece of the puzzle isn’t happening. In politics and in the church, we hear what we fear from the other side. We interpret the actions of the “opposition” as being tactical moves to wipe us out. And especially when we throw around labels like facism, we are invoking the idea that we need to stand up and fight back – not have a conversation, but stage a full out rebellion. I was there and listening to those points of view in 2001, I am there and listening to those points of view now in 2009. I’m hearing those same arguments in the church around our constitutional amendments right now. And it doesn’t work. It creates dissension instead of making room for the Holy Spirit to move and perhaps change all of us. Fear and unwillingness to listen only makes us more rigid in our points of view and more ready to see subtle differences as vast gulfs.

Jon Stewart had a guest on earlier this week, Cliff May, and they discussed torture. And I mean discussed it. They both spoke clearly about what they believed in an informed and articulate manner. And they respected each other. That doesn’t mean that neither made mistakes. But at the end of it, they both understood one another better.

I pray that we might all do this. We might all listen more and fear less. That we might ask questions instead of making assumptions. That we would be willing to look at our own positions through the eyes of another. And then, if after we have done all of that, we still have fears – if we still believe that the foundations of our beliefs and values are crumbling around us – YES! stand up and speak loudly and be the prophet you are called to be. But listen first.

And… fyi – I’m extremely disheartened by the Pew Research Center poll (altho it was a small sample) that going to church – especially a mainline church – makes you more willing to support torture.

a simple prayer for pastors

Posted on April 8, 20091 Comment

gracious god.

help us to speak your truth.

help us know that while judgment is reserved only for you, that sometimes you call prophets to share your concern for the world and for your children.

bless us with courage.

bless us with grace for the times we have failed to proclaim boldly your words of liberation and bless us with the ability to be ready the next time you call us to speak.

amen.