hope – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

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.

YES! We Are Able!

Posted on October 28, 2018Leave a comment

Text: Deuteronomy 8:11-18 and Mark 10:23-31

Last week, Pastor Lee from Women at the Well shared with us part of the story of the rich, young, ruler in Mark’s gospel.
This morning, we hear the second half of that story… the response of the disciples… our response… to the invitation Jesus offers this faithful follower.

Will you pray with me?

Over these last few weeks, we have been hanging out with the gospel of Mark and the challenging ways that Jesus calls us to follow.
Are we able to take up our cross and drink the cup of suffering?
Are we able to stand up for our selves or others?
Are we able to embrace difference and let others lead?
Are we able to see the vulnerable around us, especially children, and to see their gifts along with their needs?
Are we able to hear the truth about that one darned thing in our lives that keeps us from saying, “YES” with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength?

And after walking with Jesus through these chapters, I’m not surprised if we, like the disciples find ourselves frustrated when he tells us, “Children, it’s difficult to enter God’s kingdom!”
Whatever happened to, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light?”
Where are the promises that we will led beside the still waters and into green pastures?
Like James and John and Matthew and Andrew we cry out – “Then who on earth can be saved, Jesus?”

Because as must as we try, we find it awfully difficult to sacrifice our own well-being for the sake of others.
Fear keeps us from standing up for others or for ourselves.
Our need for control and stability gets in the way of our willingness to embrace and celebrate the differences among us.
We worry about what will happen if we let the kids run amok in our midst.
We are comfortable… oh so comfortable… with that one blasted thing that keeps us from standing in the life-giving stream of God’s love and grace and power.

Who can be saved?
Who is able?
Can anyone among us truly say, “YES?”

And then Jesus looks at us carefully. The Greek word here, emblepo, indicates that he is looking searchingly… clearly… directly into our very hearts….

“With human beings it’s impossible.”
We can’t do it.
There is nothing we can do or give or accomplish that will earn us a spot in God’s kingdom.
We are not able.

And that’s why the second half of Jesus’ words are so important:
“but… All things are possible with God.”

You see, our ability to be saved, our ability to enter God’s kingdom, our ability to follow Jesus, our ability to provide for ourselves or our families… none of it comes from us.
Nothing we are and nothing we have is the result of our own effort or striving or accomplishment.
It is all because of God.

As the early Hebrew community was told as they were being led out of Egypt, we need to remember, we need to never forget that it was God who rescued us from Egypt.
It was God who led us through the desert.
It was God who made water flow out of rock and sent mana from heaven.
It was God that led some people from Burns UMC out to a farmhouse on 49th Street to start a new faith community.
It was God that helped us lay the cornerstone for a new church to meet a growing worshipping congregation in 1968.
It was God that gave us the ability to build and pay for Faith Hall a decade ago.
It was God that has formed the faith of generations of children… who in turn have brought their children and grandchildren back to this place.
It was God that gave us the very breath of life and it is God that gives us the ability to work and to serve and to love and to follow.

Moses tells those Israelites in the desert – when you look around at your houses and your tables set full of food and when everything around you is thriving, don’t you dare think that it was your own strength or ability that accomplished these things.
Remember your God.
God is the one who has given us strength.
God is the one who has made us able.
God is the one who calls us… and then God equips us to answer, to follow, to say YES.

You know… I look out at the world on a week like this when evil and hatred and violence seem to be winning and I almost want to give up.
I don’t think I have the ability to stand in the gap.
I don’t have the energy to keep speaking out for the way of love and hope.
I don’t know how to change the hearts of others.

Do you ever feel that way?

But then, I come to worship.
I come to this place.
I hear these words of scripture.
I see your faces.
I sing with all of my heart these songs.

And I remember that it’s not all up to me.
It’s not my ability or skills or talents that will change this world.
But God can.
And God will.
If I just open up my life a little bit to let God use me.
If I set my fear and hesitation and need for control to the side and let God work through me.
If I place these gifts in God’s hands…
If I turn to others gathered here…
If we start with the things God has already given us the ability to do…
If we allow ourselves to be pulled, stretched, called…
If we count all of the blessings God has poured out into our life and if we just let go and trust…
God is able.
And God makes us able.

Able to give back.
Able to reach out in love.
Able to shine light in darkness.
Able to offer hope in the midst of despair.
Yes, Lord, We are Able…
And it is all because of You.
Thanks be to God… Amen.

Ashes and Prayers

Posted on February 14, 2018Leave a comment

A colleague, Elizabeth Dilley, shared the story of imposing ashes on the foreheads of children. As she made the sign of the cross on one little boy’s forehead, “From dust you came and to dust you shall return,” his mom bent over and whispered in his ear, “But not for a really long time, okay buddy?”

We have a hard time accepting our mortality. We run from it. We do everything we can to prevent it. We seek to guard and protect our children and ourselves from every danger.

We want to whisper into every ear of every child, “not for a really long time, okay buddy?”

And yet, this world is full of sin and grief and we have allowed anger and violence to be common place.

At a school this afternoon in Florida, seventeen people died when a young man opened fire upon students.

I was overcome with grief at the image of a mother, weeping, the sign of the cross on her forehead, clutching in her arms her teenage daughter.

“Not for a really long time, okay buddy?”

We are nothing but dust.

We are human.

We are sinful.

We cannot solve these problems on our own.

And yet the hope, the promise, the reason we gather on a night like this is to remember that out of the dust of the earth, God made beautiful things.

Where our human limitations and sin threaten to destroy us, God promises to be present and redeem and restore.

When we simply cannot find the way out of the muck and the mire of life, God shines a light.

When the dust of death and the grave loom so large over us, God shows the way through even the valley of the shadow of death to the hope of eternal life.

And God begs us to repent, to believe the gospel, and to allow the power of God to fill our hearts so that we can confront the impossible evils of this world.

We cannot do it alone.

But with God’s help, swords can be beaten into plowshares.

With God’s help, thoughts and prayers can be transformed into deeds and actions.

May it be so.

Focus!

Posted on February 4, 2018Leave a comment

My aunt Barb was an amazing woman. She put a positive spin on everything that she experienced. She had an incredible work ethic and loved her catering and restaurant businesses. But she also deeply loved those she worked with and her family grew to include not only her own flesh and blood, but also their employees. She lived out her faith with such a genuine passion that encouraged others to claim their own.

And, my aunt had a focus in her life. She knew that God loved her and that God had called her to love and serve others. She found her passion – cooking – and used it to bless as many people as possible in this world, loving and serving them through food. Whether it was bread broken around a family dinner table or a festive celebration, Barb was an instrument of God’s work in this world.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Barb as I wrestled with the text from Mark this morning.

When I think about Simon’s mother-in-law, lying in that bed, sick with a fever that was threatening to take her life, I think about the low points in my aunt’s journey with cancer.

The days when the pain was too much. Or when she felt too weak.

When her singular focus was trying to get back up out of that bed and to get back to taking care of others.

When we read this passage in Mark, sometimes we might wonder what kind of cultural expectations would have led this woman, who only moments before was ill, to serve these men who have visited her house.

But we miss that this is her opportunity to once again reclaim her focus and take up her calling: her place in the community, her role. The phrase used her for her service is the same term used for a deacon. As Megan McKenna notes (On Your Mark: Reading Mark in the Shadow of the Cross):

She “ministers” to him, just as the “angels ministered to [Jesus]” during his time in the desert. Jesus has gone out to Simon’s mother-in-law in her disease and grasped her by the hand … In gratitude for his taking hold of her and giving her life to do his work, she responds wholeheartedly. Now the first four followers of Jesus become five in number.

Her strength comes not only from the healing power of Jesus.

Her strength comes from her focus on serving Jesus.

She has bound herself to him.

She has let him come into her life and now it is Christ’s strength that flows out of her.

Even on really difficult days, I was amazed at the strength my aunt found to do just that because she hoped in the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth.

In Isaiah, chapter 40, we are reminded that even young people like myself will faint and be weary if we try to go on our own. We will fall absolutely exhausted by the side of the road. Simple youth is not a prescription for strength or health. Military might cannot save us. Protein shakes and lifting weights cannot build the kind of muscles that we need to endure through our darkest days.

My aunt Barb was able to tap into a spiritual strength that helped her to make the most of every moment of her life. She crossed items off her bucket list, passed on wisdom and insight, brought joy to her grandkids and nieces and nephews and their kids.

Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Those who wait for the Lord…

The Hebrew word for “waiting” here is the same as the word used for twisting – like making a rope. It is not a passive state, but one of tension as you are being worked on. This kind of waiting is focused, expectant, gathering together all that you need to keep going. (from Lindy Black).

As an expectant mother waits for new life to come into the world, the waiting is not passive… it can often be painful. It is full of uncomfortable moments. It is filled with longing and stretching. And a kind of singular focus takes over: What you eat matters. What you drink matters. How you move matters. A relationship is formed in the process of the waiting. Your life and their life is bound together – it is entwined.

That’s how it should be when we wait for the Lord…

our life becomes entwined with God’s as we worship and serve…

as we are bound together…

and in the process, God’s strength becomes our strength.

God takes our single cord and with others in the church we are made into the many… we are made strong.

God’s strength and Barb’s strength became the strength of our entire family as God took her by the hand and raised her up to find healing in the next life.

For Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, that healing came in this life, as Jesus entered her room, took her by the hand, and raised her up.

As Sarah Henrich notes (http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1200) , this “raising” describes the strength given to someone so they “may again rise up to take their place in the world.”

And this is how the church should always be responding to the power of God in our midst.

Suzanne Guthrie writes:

[She] is lifted up, as in the Resurrection…

And she begins to serve – just as the apostles are sent out…

She is the church’s first deacon. She announces the Gospel by her action.

Healed, transformed, and readily at service she slips into her role as easily as if her life-time had prepared her for it…

She serves, like Jesus himself…

She receives the Light into her home, she is raised up by the Light, the Light shines through her as she ministers to others.

The healing, transformative power of God in our lives enables us to get up and be servants ourselves.

God reaches out to touch us through the bread on this table, through a prayer shawl from a friend, through a hug or a kind word.

And we, are called to rise up, to get out into this world to take our place and to live out our own calling.

Perhaps it is to make food or to teach.

Maybe it is to share music or laughter.

Maybe you have a ministry of writing cards and knitting or woodworking.

Whatever it is, God is asking you to focus on the strength of the Lord that will fill you up as you live out your purpose in this world.

So, let us come and be healed, so that we might go out and serve.

Eve Meets Mary

Posted on November 26, 2017Leave a comment

Lately, as I’ve made my way home from work here at the church, I can see the stars in the sky. And it’s not because I’m here until 10pm.

No, the days are growing shorter… the air colder…
This is the time of year when we are preparing ourselves for the longest night, the winter solstice, and while the daylight wanes, we are clinging to reminders that better days are ahead.

Right here, in the midst of this season of darkness, we remember that it is in the darkness that new life comes.
The bulb has to be planted within the cold, dark earth to bring forth its buds.
Babies grow and are formed in the dark warmth of the womb.
And in this “bleak midwinter” we set out our evergreens and yule logs to remember that resurrection and eternal life are ours.
We are waiting, you see, during this time of Advent for the birth of the child spoken of by prophets… the Savior, Messiah, Prince of Peace, Light of the World.
And… as people born on this side of his birth, life, death, and resurrection… we are still waiting.
Advent you see, is not only a season of remembrance. It is also a time to look forward. The fullness of that kin-dom that Christ came to bring has not yet fully been realized.
All we have to do is open the newspaper to know that God’s will has not been done on earth.
We are still waiting.

Earlier this week, I heard news reports that the Island of Puerto Rico still only has power for 46% of its residents. The devastation of Hurricane Maria was so severe that months after the winds and rain poured down, rural areas still do not have any access to resources.
But not only Maria… the impacts of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana are still being felt.
While it is not as present in the news, the continual onslaught of storms in Louisiana has had a doubled impact because of the simultaneous destruction of wetlands. The dead zone in the Gulf created by run-off farther up the Mississippi and the altering of the flow of the Mississippi for human habitation has devastated the area. The US Geological Survey now reports that nearly 1,900 square miles of land have disappeared in the last seventy years.
Sometimes, the sin and destruction and pain of this world is almost too much to bear.
Sometimes, it feels like we have been waiting too long.
Sometimes, it is hard to have any hope when we look out at reality.

Maybe that is why I find so much comfort in the words of The Archbishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput. He defines hope as a choice, “a self-imposed discipline to trust in God while judging ourselves and the world with unblinkered, unsentimental clarity.”
Those words remind me that hope is not a naïve sentiment or wishful thinking.
We can look out unfiltered at the world that surrounds us… and we find hope at the intersection of what we see and our faithful trust in God
Hope doesn’t shirk away from problems or difficulties, but enters into them, confident that God will be there and will bring order, life, and joy out of the chaos.
That hope is not only for you and me. It is for all of creation. This whole world is waiting with us.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are reminded that “the whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice – it was the choice of the one who subjected it – but in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from slavery and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children. We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now.”

Whatever was intended for creation, with the tree of life and fertile land and those first humans holding dominion over it all, is not what we experience today. When we read through those first chapters of Genesis, there is no mention of rainfall or storms, no death, no decay, only life, and life abundant.

Our faith explains the brokenness of creation – the cycles of destruction, natural disasters, violence, and death by pointing to a single moment: When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden (Genesis 3:6-7).
At that moment, everything changed.
That first sin, that first rejection of God’s intentions, had an impact on the entire world! God confronts Adam and Eve and there is not only punishment for the snake and the two humans, but as Genesis tells us, “cursed is the fertile ground because of you; in pain you will eat from it every day of your life. Weeds and thistles will grow for you, even as you eat the field’s plants; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread – until you return to the fertile land.” (Genesis 3:17-19)
We acknowledge this pain of creation even in the songs we sing this time of year. We proclaim how “fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy”…. But we also sing about the groaning of the earth itself and its longing for redemption… “no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.” (Isaac Watts, Joy to the World, UMH #246)

And as our Advent candle reading from Isaiah lifts up, it was not only the first sin of Adam and Eve that impacted creation, but as we continue to sin, the earth dries up and withers. (Isaiah 24:4-5)
Theologically, we are called to remember that our selfishness, our disobedience, our breaking of the covenant impacts the physical world around us. Because of our continued sin, the whole of creation is trapped in a cycle of death, enslaved by decay, and waiting to be set free.

So where is the hope that Paul writes of in Romans? Where do we turn for hope as we look out at the groaning of creation today?

One afternoon I stumbled upon an image that took my breath away.

It was drawn by Sister Grace Remington who is a member of the Cistercian Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey here in Iowa. It depicts Eve, clad only in the flowing locks of her hair and clutching that forbidden piece of fruit. Her leg is entwined in the grip of a snake; her head hung in shame. Evil, sin, and death are her legacy. It is our legacy.
But with one arm, she reaches out and places her hand on Mary’s womb.

Mary stands there full of grace and mercy.
She gently touches the face of Eve as if to tell her it is okay. She holds her other hand over Eve’s and together they feel and experience the life of the one who was coming to redeem and restore all the creation.
There is hope.
When Paul writes about the groaning of creation and all of God’s children, he describes that pain as nothing compared with the “coming glory that is going to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18)
And then in verse 22, he uses the Greek word synōdinō to portray this reality; a word used only once in scripture to describe the agony of childbirth.
Creation is suffering labor pains.
Something new is about to be born.

In this season of Advent, this image of Eve and Mary fills my heart with possibility and invites me to hear the words of Romans 8 in a different light.
So often, I hear the frustration and groaning of the text, instead of diving in to see the good news.
Yes, the world around us is groaning, but they are labor pains. Creation itself is about to be delivered, to be release, to be set free to become what God fully intends for it.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul keeps pointing back towards Adam, because in those first human beings, we see God’s ultimate intention for the human race.
Paul believes that in Christ, in that child that would be born of Mary, the human project finds it’s completion (Jospeh Sittler).
In the beginning, there was a part for humanity to play – tending the garden, carrying the image of God, helping all of creation to thrive.
And now, as Christ is born into our lives and we claim the Spirit of God that sets us free, it is our job to take up that role once again.
As this image conveys, in Christ, we find release from our temptations… that snake of sin that would bind us is being stomped on by Mary.
In Christ, we find forgiveness for past transgressions… the head hung in shame and guilt is gently touched, the hand is embraced.
The way we have lived on this world – using and abusing God’s gifts for our own intentions – doesn’t have to be the way that we move forward.

In fact, Paul tells the Romans that those who have been set free by the Spirit of Christ have an obligation to live as God’s sons and daughters right here and now.
Not for our sake.
Not for selfish reasons.
But because the whole earth is waiting for us to do so.
The love and mercy of Christ reaches out to us as the descendents of Adam and Eve and yes, we are offered forgiveness, but more than than, we are empowered by God’s Spirit to live differently.

Paul believed that God linked the restoration of creation with you and me, and so I find hope in this season of Advent in the possibility that people of faith can help to change the tides of decay.

All throughout this season, we will highlight some of those stories and ways we can make an impact, but these Christmas Trees here at the front of the church remind me of one…

In the midst of that loss of habitat and wetlands in the Louisiana delta, people are working to restore the wetlands and help mitigate the impact of storms by collecting used Christmas trees.
As they deposit them into threatened bayous, they become the basis for new marsh vegetation and they help to reverse erosion.

We have a choice of how to live on this earth and whether or not we will obey the call of God to care for all of creation.
Just like this image of Eve, may we be transformed by the birth of Christ into our lives, so that we might be the hope for the world.

NOTE: This sermon is an adaptation from chapter one of my book, “All Earth Is Waiting.”

The Hope of the World is Us

Posted on May 31, 2017Leave a comment

The President of the United States is currently weighing whether or not to withdraw our nation from the Paris climate accord. Political leaders within our country are skeptical about the science behind climate change and its causes. One congressman said this past week: “As a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.”

I’m a Christian, too. And I think God has placed this problem squarely in our laps.

For the last five or six months I have been blogging fairly infrequently, because I’ve been working hard to put into words why it is important for people of faith to care about what is happening to our planet. My new book, All Earth Is Waiting, will come out this fall along with a daily devotional for the season of Advent. I’ve spent countless hours pouring over the scriptures and asking how we are called to live as disciples of Jesus Christ in the world today.

One of the primary scriptures for the book is from Paul’s letter to the Romans. In chapter 8, we find these words:

The whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice – it was the choice of the one who subjected it – but in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

The earth is waiting for us to let go of our selfish ways and begin acting like the children of God. It is waiting for us to hold in our hearts a vision of an interconnected world and to remember that every part of this planet tells of God’s goodness. It is waiting for us to see the sacred worth of the elements, the flora, and the fauna; to live gently as stewards and protectors. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the source of our hope and it has and will transform our lives. But once it does, we are supposed to truly live as God’s children. Paul reminds us in this passage the world is waiting for us. Only then will creation be set free.

Scattering Fear and Gloom

Posted on April 16, 2017Leave a comment

Easter Sunday is a rollercoaster of emotions.

We felt that as we began worship today… instead of starting with the joy of the resurrected Christ, we began with the despair felt by Mary and the disciples because their Lord and Teacher was no longer with them.

You see, for the disciples, Easter morning began with a hopeless situation.

It began with fear of the unknown.

It began with the gloom of death.

When I wrestled with what I should preach about this morning, I couldn’t help but think about all of the hopelessness and fear and gloom in this world.

I hear it in the halls of this church, and around our dinner tables… in the grocery store, the halls of work or school… all of the varied and sundry places that we gather in our lives.

We worry about family who just can’t seem to get their act together.

We struggle with illness or money in our personal lives.

We watch the evening news and everything seems wrong with the world.

After a while, the daily grind starts to take its toll and we become numb to all of that stuff around us. We find ourselves settling into the rut and start to believe that this is just the way it’s going to be.

The violence of the world almost ceases to phase us. What is a crucified Savior when another bombing in Syria has taken lives? Another shooting at a school last week? Another gun related death in our city?

We can barely keep ourselves abreast of the human rights violations occurring across our planet as war-torn countries continue to destroy the lives of innocent men, women and children. So many of these places of conflict feel utterly hopeless and without end. It seems that no matter what we do, or maybe because of what we do, new groups and new people spring up to fight, instead of searching for ways to work together and to rebuild lives.

In our gospel reading this morning, Mary goes to the tomb and she is not going with expectant hope. She is going to bring spices and oil and to continue to prepare his body for burial.

You see, Jesus was laid in the tomb just before sunset and the beginning of the Sabbath Day and so the women did not have enough time to properly lay him to rest.

As the sun rose on this Easter morning, Mary Magdelene went to the tomb to mourn, to pray, and to say her good-byes.

She was someone who desperately loved Jesus. He was her Teacher and her Master. He offered her new life and a brand new beginning when he cleansed the demons from her life. And ever since that time, she had followed him faithfully. Then, in one fell swoop, everything that she had begun to put her trust into was taken away.

Her Lord was gone.

The disciples who followed him had scattered and those who remained were hiding out in fear of the Jewish authorities.

Mary had no one to turn to and nowhere to go.

The only thing she knew to do was go to that tomb and rehearse a ritual practiced by Jewish women for centuries. She would go to the tomb to honor Jesus and to mourn for him properly.

But as our scriptures this morning remind us, when she arrived, everything was in disarray!

The stone was rolled back and her Master was nowhere to be found!

His body was gone!

Desperately, she ran to the house of one of the disciples for she knew that some of them would be there…

They have taken away his body! She cried out….

They have taken him and I don’t know where they have laid him!

Two of the disciples, run back to the tomb with her and find her story to be true. They enter and find the burial clothes there also, neatly folded and placed on the stone. They know that something has happened… but none of them really knows what it means.

Mary, in the midst of all of her desperation and mourning saw Jesus standing before her but did not recognize him. She couldn’t see the promise that was right before her eyes!

Jesus even called out to her, trying to scatter her fear and her gloom:

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

As Mary stood in that garden weeping out of desperation she heard her Master call her voice. One moment of startling fear and overwhelming joy – a moment of holy awe – as the significance of what is seen – and what is unseen comes crashing in.

And Christ is calling out to us all the time, every day.

He asks us constantly what we are weeping for.

He longs to wipe away the tears from our eyes.

Jesus is Risen. Death could not hold him.

And if it cannot hold him, it cannot hold us.

All that Jesus said about life and death

all that was understood only as idea – as a concept – as a vision

is made real in that empty tomb and in that encounter in the garden.

The disciples and the women heard Jesus talk SO MANY TIMES about his death and resurrection and it just never sunk in.

They couldn’t understand the promise because they never believed it would happen.

So when Jesus shared his final meal with them on Thursday night they let him down and failed to remain faithful.

And when Christ was crucified on Friday afternoon, they were paralyzed by their unbelief and forgot the promises he made to them.

They couldn’t see past their own pain and fear and gloom to remember the promise!

The ancient promises from Isaiah:

“No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime… They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”

And he wants us to see him, to recognize him as the Jesus who is alive – the Jesus who is risen – the Jesus who has the power to bring that new creation to bear on our lives.

But like Mary, our hearts are often so slow to believe, to trust, and to accept he is standing before us.

There are so many things in our lives that we could feel hopeless about:

Loved ones who die too young,

People who work away their lives for a wage that won’t pay the rent,

Hungry families… including the 55,000 people in Des Moines who don’t have enough food on their tables,

But the power of the Easter resurrection didn’t just bring Christ to life.

The power of the Easter resurrection took a rag tag bunch of disciples who barely knew their left from their right as far as following Jesus was concerned…. And turned them into apostles.

It turned these doubting, stammering, disobedient fools into the leaders of a movement that would transform the world!

When Christ rose from the dead, the Body of Christ that is the church was brought to life – a community was formed that would love and cherish and carry on the mission and the ministry of Christ!

Each and every single one of us is a living testimony to the power that Christ’s resurrection had on our world.

Each one of us is who we are today and is in this place this morning because those first disciples experienced the risen Christ.

And because that experienced so radically changed their lives that they had to tell others.

So what is this Easter morn?

It is God’s promise of a new day

It is God’s promise of a new life

It is God’s promise of a new world

coming to pass in our midst.

Jesus is risen. Death could not hold him. And it will not hold us either.

Wherever in your heart there is weeping, Christ promises to turn your tears into laughter.

Jesus is risen! Death could not hold him!

And the forces that tear us apart in this world will not defeat him either!

Christ has risen!

And we… as the body of Christ, in this time and in this place… are called to continually live our lives as a beacon of that promise!

We are called to visit the sick and those who mourn and pray for healing in this life or the next.

We are called to work for those who are struggling and help to create a better way.

We are called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.

We are called to welcome the stranger and the outcast, the person who is not like you:

whether that means they were born here or not,

an NRA member or fighting to limit guns,

someone who wants sidewalks in their community or doesn’t,

whatever the color of their skin or whomever they love.

You and I… because of the reality of what we experience this morning… are called to go forth and scatter the forces of fear and gloom in the world.

We are to find small ways to live out and practice the resurrection power in our world today.

Christ is risen!

Let us crown him the lord of Life, the Lord of Peace and the Lord of Love

and may we believe in his power to truly transform our lives.

Amen.

Winter is Over!

Posted on December 25, 2016Leave a comment

Before our Christmas traditions took hold, there were other festivals in the northern hemisphere among folks who were tucked in for winter. The crops had been harvested and stored, the work was done, and they celebrated… But in one of the pieces I read this advent from a writer named Gayle Boss, I was a reminded about a truth in those celebrations: “No matter how glad the party, they couldn’t keep from glancing at the sky… Each day throughout the fall they watched the light dwindle, felt the warmth weaken. It made them anxious, edgy… When they had eaten up the crop they were fasting on, how would another crop grow? Throughout December, as the sun sank and sank to its lowest point on their horizon, they felt the shadow of primal fear – fear for survival – crouching over them.”

I don’t know if there are any Game of Thrones fans here this morning, but one of the mottos of one of these houses is “Winter is Coming.”

It is a reminder that dark and difficult times are ahead. It is an echo of that primal fear of a long winter. It is the sentiment that says nothing good happens after midnight.

It is the dread that overcame the people of Narnia as the White Witch took over power. Her cold power overwhelmed the land and even her touch would turn people to ice and stone.

The land of Narnia came to be known as the place where it was always winter, but never Christmas.

And in that place, hope can be hard to find. Anxiety grows. Fears are plenty.

The people of Narnia thought that winter might last forever. Many thought they would never see Christmas.

And yet some clung to the promises, the hopes, the prophecies to sustain them through the long, dark, cold nights.

Folks like Mr. and Mrs. Beaver waited, they longed, they believed that Aslan would return to Narnia and that four children would sit on the throne and bring a reign of peace.

What I love about the “Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” is that there are glimpses of the end of the witches power… the end of winter… long before Aslan ever appears in the story.

The hospitality of even enemies like Mr. Tumnus.

The snow begins to thaw.

Flowers start to bloom.

Father Christmas shows up to equip the children with the tools they will need in the upcoming battle.

Aslan is near and winter is already disappearing.

A few days ago, the season of winter technically began in our part of the world. The winter solstice marks the turning of the seasons and on that longest night, that darkest day, winter began.

And you know, it was in the dark… At about midnight last night… or this morning… whichever you want to call it, that our Christmas Eve service wrapped up.

And in the darkness, in the quiet stillness, in the bleak midwinter, something amazing happened.

We welcomed Jesus into our lives.

We proclaimed Hallelujah and celebrated the good news of Jesus birth.

In that hour and season that represents the height of our fears, where nothing good is supposed to happen.

My colleague Melissa Meyers wrote last night about that phrase, but then she went on to list all sorts of blessings of midnight:

“Midnight is pregnant with possibilities… just waiting to be birthed…

Midnight gives you a chance to start over …

Midnight gives you an opportunity to forgive that person who has wronged you…

Midnight gives you the opportunity to ask for forgiveness…

Midnight gives you the possibility of something new…

Midnight is not the darkness, but a reminder that the dark doesn’t last forever”

Midnight is not the darkness, but a reminder that the dark doesn’t last forever.

And it’s not only midnight… it is right now, in this cold, dark, time when everything else is stripped away and seems lost and full of fear that we actual glimpse the most profound sign of hope .

That longest night of the year… this season of cold and reflection and barren earth… it is not the darkness either, but a reminder that the dark will not last forever.

It is in that amazing moment when all seems the darkest, the coldest, the loneliest, that God creeps into our lives, our world, our hearts.

The beginning of the winter season is actually the moment when the light begins to return to the sky.

It is the moment the days grow longer.

Gayle Boss reflects upon this, she notes that “to their and our abiding fear of a dark ending, the Church spoke of an advents: a coming. Faith proclaimed, When life as we know it goes, this year and at the end of all years, One comes, and comes bringing a new beginning.”

Every midnight is a new beginning.

Every year end is a new beginning.

Every time winter begins with the solstice and the longest night, the reality is that the days are already growing longer.

Winter is not coming.

Winter is already over.

The power of cold and death and barrenness cannot remain.

The White Witch is defeated before the battle has even begun in the land of Narnia.

Heidi Haverkamp writes in the reflections we have been reading this Advent and Christmas season that the power of the White Witch was “foiled by the faith and perseverance of a group of otherwise small and humble creatures who have been surviving under her tyranny… Their watching and waiting have prepared the way for Aslan’s coming.”

Today, we proclaim that God has come near.

We celebrate that the Christ Child has entered our human lives to wipe away the despair and fear, the hatred and sin.

But like those people of Narnia… although we know that winter is already over… although we know that in God’s time the powers of this world have already been defeated… still the final battle has yet to be fought.

We wait… still.

We hope… still.

We long… still.

Waiting for the final victory of Jesus. Waiting for the second coming of our Lord.

And living every single day as if the powers of this world cannot hold our hearts.

As Melissa Meyers wrote in the wee hours of the night:

“Midnight is not the end of the story, but only the beginning…

Midnight invites you into the story of resistance, subversion, radical inclusion, and peace…

Midnight brings us a thrill of hope as the weary world rejoices…

Midnight births a King of Kings that changes the world in ways that we continue to discover…

Midnight brings to us the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel… “

Thanks be to God.

Amen.