Immanuel – Salvaged Faith

All Things Renewed

Posted on May 22, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Revelation 21:1-6, 21:22-22:5

Many of you know that I love to garden.

Digging in the dirt is a spiritual practice for me.

Pulling weeds is cathartic.

There is nothing better than an afternoon spent tending and nurturing life in my yard.

And enjoying the fruits of that labor – whether the beauty of a flower or the taste of a fresh tomato – is nothing short of holy.

This year, my garden is being renovated.

Well, the entire back yard is being renovated.

Our retaining wall had started to buckle outwards and our deck was beginning to rot. Both needed to be replaced.

And so we found some experts to help us out and they have brought in big machines to tear everything out and recontour the land and prepare for what is to come.

Only, this has been a very weird and wet spring.

It was too muddy to work for weeks.

The new deck was completed in between storms and we are almost, finally, just about ready for the new retaining wall to go in.

Perennials were moved around in order to prepare for all of this work and most of them have found a temporary home in what had been my vegetable garden.

So right now, that space holds irises, black eyed susans, salvia, strawberries, herbs, and one gigantic pile of dirt.

I have spent much of this spring itching to get busy and get dirty and get to growing.

And I must admit, there are times that I feel a bit impatient waiting for it all to get done.

I can imagine… sort of… what it will look like when it is all finished… but we aren’t there yet.

Throughout our study of the Book of Revelation, we have kept before us a couple of truths:

Jesus is coming and will sit on the throne… and the powers of this world will not.
Only Jesus is worthy to transform the world as we know it into the world as God intends for it to be. And he does so not through violence, but through love.
Our job is to allow God to make us into a kingdom. The role of the church is to be a community of diversity, equality, and praise. We serve the Lord and witness to his glory.

John of Patmos looked around him and saw all sorts of problems.

Christians were being persecuted by Rome.

Churches were giving in to the lure of empire and siding with economic and national powers.

Or, they lost the energy and fire of their faith and grew lazy and comfortable in the world around them.

They didn’t see or respond to the needs of their neighbors.

They forgot to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those who were grieving, oppressed, or lonely.

In some ways, they were like my retaining wall and deck… starting to fall apart, sagging, rotting.

And the vision that John of Patmos received is that the world as he knew it…

The world as we know it…

Needs to be renewed.

Renovated.

Made new.

I must admit that in the past I thought of this process in the Book of Revelation as wiping the slate of everything that was and starting from scratch… just like God created everything in the beginning from nothing.

I had a picture of everything being totally destroyed.

But the Greek word kainos is also used to talk about transformation, renewal, and renovation.

Eugene Boring writes in his commentary: “This world, God’s good creation, is not replaced but redeemed.”

The substance is the same, but it has been freshened up and it is better than it was when it started.

In other words, I’m still going to have a deck.

I’m still going to have a retaining wall.

I’m still going to have a garden.

But it is going to be way more amazing than it was before.

Today in our scripture reading, John of Patmos is given the blueprints, the architect’s rendering, a picture of what it will look like when all of the renovations are complete.

We aren’t there yet, and we have to use our imaginations, but we are at least given an idea of the process and are reminded what the key features have always been and always will be.

First: God dwells with us.

He is our God and we are his people.

And we have to remember that this isn’t anything new.

It is how God has intended it from the beginning when the Lord walked in the garden with Adam and Eve…

and led the people through the wilderness.

God became flesh and lived among us, the gospel of John tells us.

The Holy Spirit is poured out upon us and lives within us.

And in this newly renovated creation, God moves into the neighborhood and is intimately connected to our lives.

There are times we might forget this or turn our backs on God to embrace the powers of this world… but God has never left our side.

In this new creation, this truth will be so apparent that the glory of God will shine over every part of our lives.

We will not be able to hide from God’s light, but it will always be seen, always accessible.

In the world as we know it, there are places where things might stand between us and God, casting shadows.

There are times of night that feel like separation, but all of that will come to an end, and the radiance of God will known by all.

Not just morning by morning, but every day and night in every time and place.

God reminds us that these words are “trustworthy and true,” because God has always been faithfully present in our lives.

Second: There will be an end to sorrow, pain, and death.

We are shown a crystal clear river and a Tree of Life planted on each side, bearing twelve kinds of fruit and whose leaves will heal the world.

This image takes us back to the garden.

In the beginning, God gave humanity everything we needed to have abundant life.

But our sin, our turning away from God, our striving after what we thought we wanted, had consequences.

The pain of childbirth.

The violence of brother against brother.

The sweat and labor needed to produce basic necessities.

Death itself.

Magrey DeVega describes the promise we find in these chapters in this way: “God will not stop transforming the pain, heartache, and dark places of our lives until the moment with the transformation reaches ultimate completion in glory… All that humanity has lost in its downward spiral of sin is reclaimed and transformed by the power of God’s grace and power.”[1]

The curse, the consequence, is brought to completion.

God intends, as God has always intended, for there to be abundant life and health and joy.

Third: it is all happening right here and right now.

There is another theme that has been pretty consistent throughout the Book of Revelation that is important to remember.

On one hand, all the nations gather within this holy city, a multitude that cannot be numbered.

The gates of the city are always open.

But there is also a sense of exclusion.

There are some things that just don’t belong in the new heavens and new earth.

The message here is not one of eternal condemnation by a fierce and angry God.

After all, the Lamb of God has died for his enemies, defeated the spiritual forces of wickedness, broke the chains that held us captive to sin and death.

We now have a choice.

Just as John of Patmos wrote to the seven churches, we can choose the powers of this world or we can choose to live as servants of God.

If we choose to worship this world – its power, its practices, its glory – then we have separated ourselves.

Or as Christopher Rowland writes: “Rejecting the lure of the beast and Babylon is the criterion for inclusion in the new age. Sharing the diving reign is a key feature of the eschatological future. This is something already glimpsed by those who share the life of Jesus and are a kingdom of priests.”[2]

We choose to follow the Lamb.

We can reject the powers of this world.

We not only pray the words Jesus taught us: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” but we act upon our prayers.

Theologian C. Wess Daniels reminds us that “revolution and redemption do not happen someplace else, they take place right here with the material of the world we live in.”[3]

In other words… the world as we know it is not going to go away.

It will not all be destroyed.

And we don’t get a golden parachute to escape out of here… beamed up to some heaven light years away.

God is in the business of redemption and restoration and revolution!

The first will be last and the last will be first.

Nations and kings will be toppled.

The lowly will be lifted up.

And these promises are about the real people and situations that we are experiencing in our lives today.

This passage of scripture doesn’t say that God has made everything new, as if it is done and over with.

It doesn’t say that God will make everything new, at some point in the future.

God is making all things new.

It is happening all around us.

And as servants of God and followers of the Lamb, our work is to embody God’s presence among our neighbors.

It is to share God’s love and mercy with all we encounter.

Our job is not to hunker down, turning inward, but to reach out as disciples of Christ and work for the transformation of this world.

You know, my back yard right now is a mess.

It is a work in progress and not yet complete, but it is being transformed and even in the midst of the chaos there is work of tending and weeding and watering to be done.

This world is a mess.

There are nearly ten million people who have been displaced by the war in Ukraine.

We have lost one million neighbors to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Families in Buffalo and Milwaukee and Laguna Hills are grieving and entire communities are filled with fear because of the hatred and violence that stems from white supremacy.

The world as we know it is broken and bleeding.

But God is with us.

And God is at work transforming the pain and sorrow.

And God is calling us to be servants of that new creation right here and right now.

It is the work that we share through UMCOR – together we have allocated millions of dollars through grants to United Methodists in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania to welcome and care for refugees.

United Methodist camps in Estonia and the Czech Republic are being transformed to care for those who have fled the war.

Our Love Beyond Borders initiative has helped to supply 4.1 billion COVID-19 vaccines across the globe in 2022 through UNICEF and other Covid-19 responses have helped 300 partners in 57 countries provide equipment, education, and basic needs assistance to vulnerable communities.

Work within our denomination and conference, and even small group discussions in our church around anti-racism is equipping us to respond to hate, to take responsibility for our complicity, and to work towards a future in which all of our siblings can live without fear.

God knows we aren’t there yet.

But we know where we are going.

And with our eyes fixed upon the Lamb, each day we are taking one step towards that reality.

We are living more and more each day in the light and love of God.

And we do it with God at our side.

[1] A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series Vol. 2, p. 202-203.

[2] Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, p. 489.

[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-revelation-211-6-5

Behind Closed Doors

Posted on April 12, 2020Leave a comment

Text: John 20:18-20

Almost every Easter, we focus on the tomb.

We focus on the women.

We spend all of our time and attention on that glorious moment when they discover the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive and they have a story to tell.

But this morning, I want to focus on the rest of the disciples.

As my friend, Rev. Allison Lanza, reminded me a few weeks ago, the rest of the disciples were not at the tomb.

They were not in the garden.

They were not taking risks and bringing oils to honor the body of their Lord.

As Rev. Lanza wrote,

“On the very first Easter the disciples were locked in their house. It was dangerous for them to come out… They were living in a time of such despair and such fear. If they left their homes their lives and the lives of their loved ones might be at risk.”

Only a few of us are able to gather here at this empty church to lead worship for this morning… just like only a few ever gathered to witness the empty tomb.

The rest of the disciples… the rest of the church… the rest of the faithful…

Well, you are home.

You are home where you are safe.

You are home where you are doing everything you can to protect your loved ones.

You are home because it is dangerous not just for ourselves, but for our vulnerable neighbors as well, to go out.

It is not irrational fear keeping you home… but very real concerns and worries and sensible measures that we need to take to care for one another.

This year, we may not be dressed up in fancy clothes and crowding into the pews.

One of our biggest disappointments might be missing out on that beautiful and delicious Easter Breakfast put on by VIM.

We aren’t watching the kiddos squeal and run past each other finding eggs and crashing after eating all the candy.

But maybe what we are experiencing this year is a glimpse into what that very first Easter was like for those who followed Jesus.

It wasn’t about candy or food or clothes.

It was a group of people who were grieving and lonely and scared.

They were heartbroken and frustrated.

Everything they had planned and all of the possibility vanished on the cross.

They were desperate for a glimmer of hope, a hint of good news, a ray of possibility.

We don’t have to imagine what that was like.

We are living it.

We have loved ones who have tested positive for Covid-19 and you are worried about them and unable to go visit.

We are longing for connection and know you shouldn’t risk it.

We are grieving people in our lives that we have lost but have been unable to go and properly mourn.

All of the plans that we had for this spring… concerts, games, graduation, weddings… heck, even simply barbeques or camping trips or playdates…

In the blink of an eye it was gone.

Postponed indefinitely.

We are desperate for a glimmer of hope, a hint of good news, a ray of possibility.

I have to be honest… somewhere early in the midst of this crisis, I suggested that we postpone Easter.

I just couldn’t wrap my head around Easter with the church filled up with people.

I couldn’t imagine laughing and singing and praising God and shouting CHRIST IS RISEN… without having all of you shouting it back to me.

And Easter is technically a moving holiday… we celebrate it on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox… which is another way of saying, it doesn’t matter what day it is.

So I got this idea that we should just wait and sit in Lent for a little while longer and postpone Easter until that Sunday when all of us could gather and hug and sing and shout and stuff our faces with food.

But then I realized… this was not going to be a delay of a week or two.

And maybe more than ever we need a glimmer of hope.

We need a hint of good news.

We need to see that ray of possibility.

Easter wasn’t cancelled or postponed or forgotten because the disciples were huddled together, shut behind locked doors, closed off to the world.

Easter wasn’t limited to the few people who were able to gather at the empty church… I mean tomb… on that morning.

Easter wasn’t simply a rumor or a story told by others.

And you know what, that first Easter wasn’t even something the disciples had to risk their own lives to go out and experience.

No, John tells us in his gospel account that even there amid the apprehension and uncertainty and fear, the miracle of Easter showed up.

The resurrected Jesus somehow slipped passed those dead bolts and latches and stood among them.

Right where they were.

In the safety of their homes.

God-with-us… Immanuel.

On Easter Sunday, there were a few who were called to go out and proclaim the story.

In some ways, I resonate with Mary, tasked with bringing the news from the empty tomb to share it with all of you.

But not everyone could.

Not everyone was safe.

Easter was for them, too.

I don’t know what your Easter will be like this year, but here is one thing for which I am certain.

God is with you.

The Lord of Life is with you.

The Hope of the World is in your midst.

And when he showed up with those first disciples in their homes, the first words he uttered acknowledge their… our… difficult reality.

“Peace be with you.”

He didn’t scold them.

He didn’t open the doors and push them out into the world.

Jesus offers a word of reassurance.

He simply offers peace.

Peace unlike any else that the world gives.

A breath of the spirit that reminded them of the words spoken just days earlier as they gathered around the table in the upper room.

“do not Let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27 NRSV)

“In the world you have distress. But be encouraged! I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33 CEB)

We sometimes think about peace as a calm.

Or as the absence of war.

But the Hebrew use of peace was an all-encompassing word of complete and total well-being.

It meant salvation.

It meant being “uninjured and safe, whole and sound.” [1]

Jesus stands in their midst, wounds still visible, and yet he reassures them that all is whole and well and that his earthly work among them is complete.

Jesus is our peace.

He is our shalom.

Through him, we are restored to God…

We are restored to one another…

And we are sent forth to restore the world…

My prayer for you, today, is that that same peace would show up in your homes.

That the Easter blessing of peace might find you wherever you are.

I pray that in spite of everything, you might be able to breathe in that gift of peace.

The apostle Paul knew a little something about being under house arrest, imprisoned, unable to go out and visit and care for those whom he had grown to love.

But even in a prison cell, the peace of Christ was with him.

And so his words to the people of Philippi, I share now with you.

⁴Rejoice^[^c^] in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.^[^d^] ⁵Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Wherever you are this morning, friends, let that Easter gift of blessed peace fill your lives. Amen.

[1] https://www.efca.org/blog/sunday-resurrection

An Altogether Joy

Posted on December 22, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Psalm 30:2-3, 5; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

One of tasks of preaching is to take a part a text, study it, let the Holy Spirit do her work, and then share the good news back with all of you in bite-sized, easy to digest nuggets of helpful information.
So imagine my dismay when I dive into our chapter from Almost Christmas for this week and I read:
“Joy cannot be manufactured, sought, or studied.” (p. 86)

Well, shoot.

I can’t break it down into three simple steps.
There is no top ten list for an Altogether Joy-filled Christmas.
You cannot create it through a project from Pinterest.

Sure… there is plenty of almost joy this time of year that does come from our blood, sweat, and tears.
A few years ago, my niece wanted nothing more than an American Girl doll. A friend of mine had one from childhood that she was now parting with as an adult and so I was able to purchase Samantha with a number of books and outfits for a fantastic price.
When my niece opened that box on Christmas Day – she was so happy that she literally burst into tears. Her squeals of joy and excitement simply could not be contained. It was overwhelming and ridiculous and everything we hoped for.
I would have paid a thousand dollars to create that kind of experience for her or my other nieces and nephews all over again.

But that joy is fleeting.
It is a burst of energy that fizzles out nearly as soon as the wrapping paper is tossed in the trash can.
I think about the feeling I have sitting by my Christmas Tree at home each night, with those gentle lights twinkling.
I feel truly happy to just be in that space.
But in a couple of weeks, we’ll pack it all back up and there will feel like there is something missing where that bright spot of joy used to be.
Maybe that’s because it was only an almost joy… when it fades we feel emptier than we did when we began.

An altogether joy is a joy that lasts… a joy that sustains us even through difficult times.
And that kind of joy cannot be manufactured, sought or studied.
Altogether Joy is a gift.
Joy is a gift of God’s grace.
It is a gift of God’s mercy.
It is the very gift of God’s presence with us.
Immanuel.
Matt Rawle writes in this final chapter of Almost Christmas, that “receiving joy often means we have to get out of the way and allow the Holy Spirit to move.” (p.93)

How do we do that?
How do we create space for God’s grace to move in our lives… even in the tough times?
I think we find guidance in the words of Paul to the Thessalonians.

Acts 17 tells us that Paul and Silas first came to Thessalonica and proclaimed Christ, but not all were open to his message.
Some of the leaders became jealous and stirred up a mob which led to a riot.
Many were arrested and Paul had to flee for his life from the city.

So when he writes back to the Thessalonian believers, he knows that hanging on to their faith in the midst of hostility has not been easy.
He knows that many have suffered because they received the gift of Christ in their lives.
He knows that in the face of such persecution, it would have been easy to abandon the message…
And yet they have continued on!

Perhaps that is because they had received the gift of God’s joy.
They knew God’s mercy.
They knew God’s grace.
They knew God’s presence.
And it sustained them even when they found themselves in the darkest places and in the toughest moments.

Paul’s words at the end of this letter are an encouragement to keep going.
They are a reminder to keep creating space for the gift of God to take root in their lives.
In the midst of such trying times, it would be easy to be on edge, snapping at one another for the slightest thing.
It would be easy to get discouraged by setbacks.
It would be easy to listen to the voices of those who are turning back and turning away.

Instead, Paul asks them to each do their part.
Encourage those who are straggling behind.
Reach out of those who are exhausted by the fight and pull them back on their feet.
Be patient with one another and aware of when you are pushing each other’s buttons.
Look for the best in each other.
Pray.
Pray, pray, pray.
Pray always and everywhere.
Thank God for what is before us… the good and the bad.
Rejoice always.

If joy is a gift… then I think that means that we need to create space to focus on God’s mercy.
We need to focus on God’s grace.
In the best and worst moments we need to focus on God’s presence.
As Matt Rawle reminds us, “For Wesley, salvation and joy go hand in hand. There is no joy for those who feel there is no forgiveness. There is no joy for those who have no assurance of salvation. Without joy there is little for which to give thanks. Joy comes from knowing that God is near and salvation is offered to all.” (p. 90)

God is near and salvation is offered to all.
God’s gift of grace and mercy and love is not just for us.
It is for those who are falling behind.
It is for those who are discouraged.
It is for those we have forgotten.
It is even for those who are persecuting us.
And if we can find room in our heart to remember that, we might just glimpse what an altogether joy looks like.

Our Wesleyan hymn for this morning is one of my favorites… Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
Charles Wesley’s words remind us that the newborn King has arrived not just for me.
Not just for you.
But with mercy and peace he has come to reconcile God and all sinners.
God has made a home in all places and among all peoples.
The gift of God’s presence is for all.
All nations are filled with joy in light of this gift.
All people, not just the ones who think like us.
Everyone is invited to proclaim the good news of this precious gift.

Maybe that is why, in his sermon, “The Character of a Methodist,” Wesley goes to great lengths to remind us that Methodists are not people of one opinion.
We are not people who discriminate.
We don’t boil our faith down to one issue or cause.
Because if we did, we would soon believe that we have the truth… the answer… the gift… and those who disagreed with us do not.

No, a Methodist is one who has received the love and presence of Christ.
A Methodist is one who extends the same grace to others that we ourselves have received.
A Methodist is one who never speaks evil of a neighbor, but seeks always and everywhere to share the gifts of salvation we have ourselves received.

What does this look like?
I stumbled across the story this week of a guy named Stan. Stan goes to church in Denver and his church was working to support a family who had come on hard times. Medical bills had overwhelmed them and there was nothing left for Christmas. So, among the various things the church was going to do to support them, Stan volunteered to go pick up a Christmas tree.
Stan put his son Jay in the truck and they headed up into the mountains to cut one down. But the truck slid off the icy road and crashed into a boulder. His boy was covered in glass from the windshield and both were shaken by the trauma.
As cars sped by, no one stopped…
In the midst of trying to create joy for others, they found trouble themselves.
But then a car pulled up and a couple got out. The woman began to comfort the boy and put him in their vehicle while the man helped Stan move his truck farther off the road. Then the drove Stan and Jay home. In their shock and dismay, they never got the couple’s names.
Frustrated that he had failed in his task and his truck was wrecked and eager to do something to help out this family, Stan took on the task of delivering the other items to their house. He walked up to the door, rang the bell and waited.
When the door opened, there stood the couple that had helped Stan and Jay in their own moment of need. (Story adapted from one by Steve Goodier – http://stevegoodier.blogspot.com/2008/12/surprised-by-joy.html)

That’s what an altogether joy looks like.
It goes the extra mile to help out a stranger.
It shows up when no one else will.
It is grace and mercy and presence.
It is God with flesh on.
And we discover it when we allow ourselves to accept the gifts of God in our lives.
But we also find it when we turn around and share it with others.

May it be so…

Grounded with our Ancestors

Posted on November 3, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Matthew 1:1-17

The very name of our church, Immanuel, means “God-with-us.”
God is with us.
Right here in this very time and place.
Living, moving, breathing.

In times past, we relegated God to the heavens while we mundane humans continued our life here below.
And then we cried out in times of tragedy… “God, where are you?!”

In other times, the suffering in our midst was so stark that we thought surely God was dead… or even worse, didn’t care.

But that is not who God claims to be.
God takes on flesh and makes a home among us.
And his name is Immanuel.
God is here.

Diana Butler Bass is a respected Christian academic whose books offer hope and meaning to many. In particular, she is helping us all to navigate what it means to live as people of faith in a world that increasingly doesn’t care about what Christianity has to offer the world.
In her book, Grounded, she wrestles with what it means to really understand that God is with us. She describes it as “a social and political question with sweeping consequences for the future.” If we really focus on rediscovering and relocating and reacquainting ourselves with God, Immanuel, with us right here… it will reground our lives.
It will center us.
Give us purpose.
Remind us of who we are.
And…
It will call us to a new way of being in this world.
As Butler Bass writes,
“God is.. that which grounds us. We experience this when we understand that soil is holy, water gives life, the sky opens the imagination, our roots matter, home is a divine place, and our lives are linked with our neighbors’ and those around the globe. This world, not heaven, is the sacred stage of our times.” (p 26)

We are turning the corner on the Christian year and preparing for Christ to be born among us once again.
So I wanted to invite us to look at some of those relationships throughout the month of November that Butler Bass claims ground us in the life of God. Our roots – or our history and ancestors…. Our home lives… our neighborhoods… and this common, kingdom life to which we all belong.
How should we look upon those relationships if God is truly present in the midst of them?
How might our relationship with one another change?

Today, we celebrate the saints who have completed the race and now rest in the presence of God.
We remember their lives.
We cherish their memories.
Each one planted seeds of faith and hope and love in us and have shaped us.
I asked you to share with me some of your own stories of these saints in your individual lives.

One of you told me about Gramma Gert – or GG – the nucleus of your family. She never drove, but either walked or got a ride to church every Sunday. If you had anything to pray for… you took it to GG… because you knew it would get plenty of Godly time and attention.

Someone else fondly remembered their third grade Sunday School teacher, Mr. Going who taught them the Lord’s Prayer. Rather than simply memorizing it, they took it line by line and rewrote it in words that were easier for a child to understand. Mr. Going made faith real.

Another of you shared with me the story of your great grandmother who came to Iowa from Norway in 1862 at the age of six. She dictated her own life story and left these words at the end… Love one another, Jesus has said, “If you don’t love one another you don’t love me”… and she addressed her children and their future families saying, “I have prayed for you all, I put you all in the Lord’s hands… God bless you all, may we me up yonder where there is no parting anymore.”

Whether it was a parent, or teacher, a neighbor or great-grandparent, these people of faith left a mark on your life.

One of the things I have been challenged by in Butler Bass’s book, however, is to remember that our roots are far deeper than our memory.
We are shaped and influenced by generations that have come and gone… and yet we seem to have forgotten their stories.

I actually thought I was doing pretty good by this account.
My mom and I have done a bit of genealogy work on our families. We have spent hours researching names through the Mormon genealogy center. We’ve created family trees that go back not just hundreds, but thousands of years. In fact, one line that we traced goes back all the way to the year 6!
Together with great-aunts and cousins, we have trampled through cemeteries in south central Iowa to find tombstones of relatives long dead and gone.
We’ve even gathered iris bulbs from one of those long forgotten places and brought them home to bring a piece of the family back with us.

But Butler Bass notes that we save things and we gather information, but we don’t often collect what those details mean to our lives. “We have more information about the past,” she writes, “but less actual connection to it than those in previous ages.”
The truth is, I don’t know the stories of most of those names I have collected together in my family history. I can tell you where they lived and died and where they are buried… but what did they experience in this life? What brought them joy? What struggles did they over come? Their stories are largely forgotten because we stopped handing them down.
And even on days like today, when we celebrate communion with the saints of God, with those who have gone before us, when we invoke their presence and their memory… do we have any sense of whom we are eating with today?

Our text for this morning is in essence a family tree. It is a genealogy of Jesus Christ shared with us by the apostle Matthew in his gospel.
And truth be told, often we glance at those names and the same sense of dryness and lack of life and history overcomes us.
We gloss over their names as a boring list of people we don’t know.
But they are our spiritual ancestors.
And who they were matters.
And who was included in those histories matters.
One of the things that you might notice if you compare the genealogy of Matthew and Luke is that Matthew actually includes the names of some women!
We find the story of Tamar… who was left widowed and childless in an age in which that was a death sentence. This family tree continues only because she tricked her father-in-law, Judah, into getting her pregnant by dressing up as a prostitute.
Rahab was an actual prostitute who was part of the battle of Jericho… Joshua sent spies into the city to scout it out and Rahab is the one who sheltered them. As a result, her family was rescued and she married into one of the important families of Israel.
Her son, Boaz, married an foreign immigrant, Ruth, who tricked him into the relationship by getting him drunk one night.
We are reminded in this genealogy that Solomon’s mother was Bathsheba. His family story is one of adultery and murder as Bathsheba was taken advantage of by David.

These are stories of scandal, but also intense strength, compassion, resolve, and determination. These women and the lives they led are our spiritual ancestry!
I wonder if Matthew perhaps included these women in his ancestry of Jesus as one way of grounding the story of Mary and Joseph and rumors and scandal circulating around his birth. But also, it was a testimony to the faithful ancestors that gave someone like Mary the courage to keep trusting God would be with her in the midst of the journey.

How does knowing these stories ground our sense of purpose, identity, and ability to navigate the trials and tribulations of our lives? Might we call upon these ancestors and their faith in God to help us persevere in our own journey?

Another thing you’ll notice if you look at the family tree included in Matthew as opposed to the one in Luke, you’ll actually find two very different stories of where Jesus comes from and what his life means, claiming political and spiritual authority from different sources!
Matthew grounds the life of Jesus in the history of the Jewish people. As verse 1 proudly states: A record of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. He is the heir of the Kingdom of David and of the covenant of Abraham. He is the King of the Jews.
Luke’s version ignores most of kings and focuses on ordinary, everyday folks who don’t appear in grand stories of scripture. And his version goes all the way back, not just to Abraham, but to Adam… emphasizing the whole family of earth.
There was actually a joke I heard frequently growing up that all the Czechs on the south side of the Cedar River were related to one another. Not originally, of course, but because “bohemies” couldn’t swim, we all ended up marrying one another.
I saw this in my own lifetime… My Babi (grandma) was a Benesh and my Deda (grandpa) was a Ziskovsky.
Just two generations later, a second cousin from the Ziskovsky side married a fourth cousin from the Benesh side…
That’s in essence Luke’s point… Instead of emphasizing one thread of one famous family, he brings home the point that we’re all eventually related to everyone else. His is a family tree that is a lot like the image on the front of your bulletin… with a single origin for us all.
What does it mean for our relationships with one another, if we recognized our common ancestory and inheritance as children of God? If we remembered that our stories all start in the same place, grounded in the same history, created by the same God?

Today, we feast with our ancestors.
We remember the lives they lived.
We remember the faith they handed down.
And their lives help us to become even more grounded in our relationship with the one who not only created us, but who is right here with us.
A God who was, and is, and is to come.
Immanuel…
God with us.

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.

God Moves In

Posted on December 24, 2017Leave a comment

“Before the creation of the world,” Ephesians tells us, God had a plan.

Before you made plans to join us here in worship at Immanuel.
Before the star in the sky led the Magi to Bethlehem.
Before the prophets first heard the voice of God.
Before the moon and the stars were set in the sky.
Before everything!
While “the earth was without shape or form” as the first words of the Bible tell us…
And while “the Word was with God and the Word was God” as John proclaims…
There. Was. A. Plan.

What kind of a plan was this?
If we look to the root of the word used here in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, oikonomia, we find that it describes the administration of a household or an estate.
It’s the same word we find at the root of ecology and economy.
It describes how something is held together… the rules that govern how it functions, what sustains it, how it thrives.
So Paul is telling us that from the very beginning, God had a plan for how all of creation, God’s household, was going to work.
God wanted to bring everything – from the highest heights of heaven to the deepest crevices of the earth – together and to make a home among us.
And God’s plan was made known to us in Jesus Christ.
Immanuel.
God-with-us.

In these weeks leading up to Christmas here at Immanuel, we have been exploring God’s love for all of creation.
When we open up our bibles to the very first chapters, we discover this plan of God’s was already set in motion.
For six days, God was building, creating, and giving life to all things in the heavens and on earth.
And God looked around and saw that it was all very good.
And then God rested.

Now, I have to admit to you. Typically, when I think about God resting, I imagine that God goes back to wherever God has come from… leaving earth to go and take a day off.
After all, that is how we treat Sabbath, isn’t it?
The day we get away from everything?
Turn off the work email… veg out in front of the television and watch Netflix… get away from everyone and go fishing or golfing?

But, what if we have it all wrong?
What if the Sabbath is part of God’s plan?
What if in that moment of rest, God is with us?

The theologian Jurgen Moltmann describes Sabbath as a time when God “begins to ‘experience’ the beings he has created… He adopts the community of creation… He allows them to exist in his presence. And he is present in their existence.” (God In Creation, page 279)
God-with-us. Immanuel.
God creates us and on the Sabbath day of rest and presence, heaven and earth are one.
That’s why we are called to honor the Sabbath and make it holy.
Because whenever we truly stop to rest and worship and simply be in God’s presence, we are participating in that amazing plan set in motion before the stars were put in the sky.
We remember that God has already moved into the neighborhood.

If we are honest with ourselves, however, we know that is not how we usually keep the Sabbath.
In fact, throughout human history, the people of God have often forgotten the presence of God in their midst.
We turn our backs on God.
We seek our own will.
We make mistakes and fail in our humble striving.
But God is not content to be driven out of our lives.
God refuses to be turned away.
God has a plan, remember, and so God acts over, and over again, in ways that bring heaven and earth together.
After all, as John’s gospel tells us, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.” (John 1:5)
And so God heard the cries of the oppressed and rescued them and brought them into the land of milk and honey.
And so God called the people of faith over and over again through the words and actions of the prophets.
And then God acts by coming in really close… diving in deep to all of the mess and the struggle, the pain and sorrow of our human worldly lives.
As we moved away from God, God moves towards us.
The Word became flesh.
Immanuel.
God-with-us.

And it happened in a particular life, in a particular time, in a particular place.

Now… I don’t want to ruin the Christmas story for you… but I’ve come to realize that we’ve been telling it wrong.
And I think when we hear this story again, put back into its context and place, in many ways the story of Christmas becomes all the sweeter and more meaningful.

You see, as we read in Luke’s gospel, Jesus was born in the city of Bethlehem to parents who really weren’t anyone important. And Mary “wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom.”
When you look back to the original koine Greek, it says katalyma. This was a place where travelers spent a night… and while it could have referred to an inn, it was used to describe “the sleeping area in a single-room Palestinian peasant home” or a guest space in such a house.
The homes in Bethlehem would have had one large living space and if they were lucky, they might have had a smaller private room set aside for guests.
There would have been an area by the entrance where animals were brought in at night to keep them safe and warm.
And that large multi-purpose room would have not only had places to sit and eat and cook… but also mangers, built out of wood or hollowed out of the ground, where straw for those animals were kept.

The scene reminds me a lot of Christmas celebrations among either sets of my grandparents. You see, my dad was one of five kids and my mom was one of seven kids and the holidays were always a big deal. Everyone would come back home and the grown-ups would get the bedrooms that they slept in as children, but the grandkids would all pile together in the living room with sleeping bags and pillows. If you had to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you had to take care not to step on one of your relatives!

If we peered back into Bethlehem on that night long ago, instead of a cold and lonely couple huddled in a shed, we probably would have discovered Mary and Jospeh surrounded by family… in fact, maybe a bit too crowded by family – remember, Luke says there wasn’t room in the guest room. Everyone had come to town to be registered in the census so aunties and uncles and cousins galore would have been packed into the room together.
And right there in the midst of it all – in a normal home, in an everyday life, in the midst of community and the animals, Christ was born.
God moved into the neighborhood.
Immanuel.
God-with-us.

I think the most powerful statement of the incarnation is the reminder that right here… on this earth, among all of creation, surrounded by our community, is where we are redeemed.
God’s plan is not that this earth will waste away and we will be whisked away to some far off heaven.
No… in Jesus Christ all things in heaven and on earth will be brought together.
Right here is where salvations shows up.

As we have been leading up to this day, this time of worship, when we remember the birth of Christ, we have also been looking ahead to a moment that is yet to come.
For, we are still waiting.
This morning, I prayed for two colleagues who lost their mothers yesterday.
This world is still filled with disease and struggle and this might be the last Christmas we celebrate with certain loved ones.
We even remember that places like Bethlehem are today places of conflict and strife.
God’s plan isn’t complete yet.

So as people of faith, we are also looking ahead to that day of new creation when the kingdom of God is made known.
John tells us that the light shines in the darkness and has not been overcome by it… and when we keep reading to the Revelation, we find hope in the words that “death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying or pain anymore… There will no longer be any curse… Night will be no more. They won’t need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine on them.” (21:4, 22:3,5)
At the climax of all times, when the plan is fully complete, the heavens and earth will be brought together and God will make a home among us.

The Letter to the Ephesians may seem like a strange text to share together on Christmas Eve, but for me it is a reminder that the promises we hope for can already be experienced right now. Paul’s words here remind us that while the plan isn’t quite yet complete… it has already become a reality within the church.
You see, from the moment the heavens opened and the angels began to proclaim the birth of our Messiah, we have been invited to participate and respond to the kingdom of Glory.
Shepherds left their flocks to search out the baby in the manger.
Magi traveled great distances to greet the newborn King.
Fishermen would leave their boats to follow the Messiah.
Rich men like Zacchaeus gave away their wealth.
Scholars like Paul set aside everything they thought they knew about God to discover the message all over again and then carried it across the world.
The ripples from the birth of that one moment built the church, the Body of Christ alive in this world today.
Friends, you and I are that body of Christ right here and right now.
And as Ephesians 2 tells us, “we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.”
We have been adopted into God’s household, filled up with the Spirit of God, and called to imitate Christ wherever we go.
So fall on your knees in this time of worship.
Remember that God set the stars in the sky and the ground beneath our feet.
Imagine the birth of that child in Bethlehem.
And ask how God is inviting you today to love one another and to bring peace and joy to all who struggle.
Because it is through you… and you… and you… that the presence of God can be known in this neighborhood today, and tomorrow, and the day after that.
YOU are also God’s plan for this world.

The Peaceable Kingdom

Posted on December 17, 2017Leave a comment

Since the end of September, we have had a guest at the Dawson house… a young female cat named Twiggy.
Twiggy belongs to my brother and sister-in-law who are just finishing up ten weeks in Germany getting to know the new company they work for. They also have a black lab, Rachel, but she was staying with a family that better understands how to take care of dogs.
Now, Twiggy is adorable and playful… but she is also ferocious and territorial and quickly became the alpha in our house. My husband has nick names for both of our kitties… Black Cat and Fat Cat… he affectionately refers to her as Satan cat. This is an evidence-based conclusion… She is known to hiss and growl, strike and chase the other cats, block their way to the food, and overall, causes a lot of racket.
The other day, though, I walked into the bedroom. All three kitties were curled up sleeping on the bed together.
For that moment, there was peace again in the Dawson house.

In our candle-lighting text for this morning, we hold before us a vision of that kind of peace for all creatures. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard with the young goat, the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11)
When we look around us today, this is not the reality we experience.
We read about violence in Jerusalem, we lament the five-year anniversary of Sandy Hook, and just this morning, there are reports of a suicide bomb and gun attack on a Methodist church in Pakistan…

Our relationships with one another and with the animal life of this world was intended to be very different. As the days of creation unfold in Genesis, God commands the waters and sky and land to be filled with a diversity of creatures. And unlike the plants, each of these new creations require relationship in order to reproduce. God then shifts attention towards humanity, creating us “in God’s own image,” so that we might care for and have dominion over all the living things that breathe.
And then verse 30 tells us – God gives to all creatures all the green grasses for food. What is laid out in this chapter is not a science-based description of the violent food chain we experience… but of peace and sustenance.
The vision of the peaceable kingdom we long for in the new creation is simply a restoration of how God created us to live.
But as the next chapters of Genesis tell us, and as we explored in the first week of this series, humanity quickly rebels against God’s plan.
We were cut off from the abundant life of the garden. All of creation was impacted – from the soil to the air to the creatures that were to be our companions and helpers.
John Wesley, on of the founders of our United Methodist tradition wrote about how our sin shook the foundations of creation and changed our relationship with what he calls the “brute creatures” of this world. Although they were formed to be our helpers, no longer do the creatures love and obey humanity – they flee from us or would seek to destroy us. Just as our hearts are caught up in violence and destruction, so too, do they turn and destroy one another. Nearly every creature on earth “can no otherwise preserve their own lives,” Wesley writes, “than by destroying their fellow creatures!” (“The General Deliverance”)

As John Wesley notes, it isn’t just the large creatures of prey that are violent; even the “innocent songsters of the grove” eat forms of life that are lower on the food chain than themselves.
In 2015, when I took the Organic Ministry class, I spent an entire day each month on my friend Tim Diebel’s farm, Taproot Garden. One of my favorite things to do during our afternoon sabbath was to sit by the chickens and watch them interact and strut around the yard. They appear so gentle and beautiful, but they are part of the violent circle of life. When you watch them there in the yard, they peck and scratch and will rip apart any worm or bug that crosses their path.
“The girls,” as Tim calls them, are well cared for. He lets them out of the coop every morning, pampers them with choice feed and treats from the garden, gathers their eggs, and safely tucks them in every night. Occasionally the chickens get territorial, and sometimes bigger ones would pick on the smaller ones, so multiple coops and a process for integrating new birds into the flock helped to manage that process. But you can’t guard against every danger and you can’t change the fact that chickens are also prey.
My heart broke one afternoon as I saw a post from Tim on his blog about “nature’s harder edge.”
Just as he was heading out to put the girls to bed for the night there was a commotion in the yard. The chickens were in chaos and making a ruckus and Tim caught out of the corner of his eye something larger that had been scared away by his presence. When he finally had a chance to take in the scene, three dead hens were found. It had been foxes, who had watching for just the right moment to grab dinner.
In the midst of his grief, Tim’s words capture the tension of what it means to live in this time of longing for the new creation:
“Here in the rawness of God’s order are pests and diseases in the garden and thieving birds and squirrels in the orchard. There are moles tunneling through the yard, and there are predators above and around the chicken yard attentively watching for and eventually seizing their hungry opportunity. It’s beautiful out here, and serene, but it’s also torn feathers and blood, rot and thorn.”
The reality of torn feathers and blood, and the pain and the violence, death and destruction, amplify the longing of all living beings for the peaceable kingdom.

Wesley reflected upon the violence of creation, but also had harsh words for how the brute creation is treated with cruelty by “their common enemy, man…” and… listen to these words, to what Wesley calls us, “the human shark, [who] without any such necessity, torments them of his free choice.”
From inhumane confinement operations, to dog or cock fighting rings… from the neglect experienced by so many pets to the ways some beasts of burden are abused. Not only did Wesley believe that in the new creation these creatures would be restored to full and abundant life… that all dogs and cats and lions and bears WOULD go to heaven… but that God’s creatures would “receive an ample amends for all their present sufferings.”
He encouraged people to reject our sense of entitlement and to remember God’s care for every inferior creature… in the hope it would soften our hearts towards them here and now. And he was not alone.
Charles Spurgeon wrote, “cruelty hardens the heart, deadens the conscience, and destroys the finer sensibilities of the soul … For the man who truly loves his Maker becomes tender towards all the creatures his Lord has made.”
And so we cannot divorce Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kingdom in our focus text for this week from the verses that precede it.
In verses 1-5, we hear good news of hope for all who are needy and oppressed. The promised one will come to transform all relationships, human or otherwise.
And as Gene Tucker notes, “the rule of justice in human society is followed or paralleled by a transformation in the relationship among animals and between animals and human beings.” When our hearts are right, peace will prevail for all creatures.
And God calls us to account.
In these days of Advent, we are comforted by the image of peaceful animals around the manger and we hear the good news shared with the shepherds and sheep in the fields of Bethlehem.
But the expectation of Advent is not only about preparing our hearts for the birth of Jesus, but for Christ to come once again.
We are waiting for God’s kingdom to burst forth and set us free from the endless cycle of violence and death, revenge and pain.
We are waiting for that day of endless peace, justice and righteousness.

How shall we wait?
Well, first, we need to remember that when the Prince of Peace comes, there will be a great reckoning… Our Great Shepherd will gather the flock together and as much as we want to identify with the sheep and not the goats, we have to remember our obedience to God is shown in how we care for the most vulnerable of this world – the least and the last and the lost.
So, this season of Advent is a great time to remember the creatures around us…
You could donate items to local animal shelters and veterinary offices like old towels, pet food, and cleaning supplies. We also collect pet food and take it out with Joppa when we visit the homeless in our community.
Or you could give the gift of animals through Heifer International and help empower small-scale farmers across the world…
or maybe, you could foster or rescue an animal yourself.
God has never stopped calling us to practice care and dominion for the creatures of this world.
And when we do so, when we take up our responsibility, we are ushering in the peaceable kingdom in our little corner of the world and stewarding it until that day comes the little child shall lead us into the promises of the new creation.

Drop Kick Me, Jesus

Posted on September 10, 2017Leave a comment

Yesterday after the Iowa – Iowa State game, Chad Leistikow wrote that it was a game “neither team deserved to lose.” [1] You all know I’m a huge Iowa Hawkeye football fan… but I am also the sort of fan who loves to cheer on Iowa State or UNI or any other Iowa team, as long as they aren’t playing the Hawkeyes. But the game yesterday was the sort of game where you were really happy that neither team beat themselves. Sure they both made mistakes, but none they couldn’t overcome. It was a great game.

There was another rivalry game this weekend. Creston/Orient-Macksburg were on the road verses their conference opponent Harlan. This week, five Creston players were kicked off the team after posing in a KKK style image with hoods and a burning cross. The community, including their African-American quarterback, Kylan Smallwood was stunned… he thought of those kids as teammates and friends. One of the families issued a statement – “We sincerely apologize for the hurt and strive we have caused this community. We do not condone the behavior… Our family strongly believes that all individuals are created equally in God’s eyes.” [2]

The community is only beginning to respond in a way that allows for conversation and healing in the midst of the tension they expereince, although it is yet to be seen how that will play out. In some ways, Friday night’s football game was a chance to return to “normalcy” for a moment, but the real work is just beginning. It will take that whole community, standing up against racism, demonstrating repentance and forgiveness for healing to truly take place. But even a football game can show a glimpse of hope. In an act of solidarity, the Harlan marching band turned towards the Creston fans and played their opponents fight song. It was a reminder that whatever happened on the field Friday night was just a game and really, we are all supposed to be on the same team.

My friend, Laura, is a pastor in Ohio and she is a huge Buckeyes fan. After a frustrating loss last night, she posted on her facebook wall that her faith has given her a different set of lenses to view such heartache. Football is only football. “It is not oppressions, hunger, disease, poverty, devastation, or in this moment hurricane force winds. Keep perspective Buckeye nation.” [3]

Keep perspective, Immanuel.

Because Laura is right. Football is fun and exciting and we all enjoy giving one another a hard time, but we are here to play a different sort of game.

As we heard in our scripture reading this morning, we are called to follow Jesus and to run with perseverance the race that is set before us. As the Message Bible updates this passage in every day language:
“Start running – and never quit!… Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed – that exhilarating finish in and with God – he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever… When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long list of hostility he plowed through. THAT will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”

Here at Immanuel, we do believe that God has given us a race to run. For over five years now, that vision has been to “In Christ, live a life of love, service, and prayer.”
Like tackling, passing, and running in football are the basic skills that players must learn and practice, in many ways, love, service, and prayer are the basic moves we utilize in our faith. In everything we do, they help us to run the race of faith.

But one of the things that we have been talking about for more than a year now as the leadership here at Immanuel is that they don’t paint a picture of where we are going. They don’t tell us what the finish line looks like.
How will this church, how will this community, how will this world be different because we have been loving and serving and praying?
So last fall, our Administrative Council began praying and brainstorming with one another. We took the values and priorities that you as a church named in last year’s CAT Survey. We looked at our community demographics. We explored this history of Immanuel and the vast resources that the vision team had put together five years ago.
And today, we want to put some meat on the bones of this vision. If you look at the half sheet, you’ll notice that is still our vision, but we have fleshed it out a little bit.
We believe God is calling us to personally engage in and partner with our community as we live out this life of love, service, and prayer, so that broken people and places might be healed by God’s grace.
If love, service, and prayer are the basic skills that we each will employ, the goal… the endzone if you will, is that this community and this world will experience God’s healing and wholeness.

As my friend, Laura said, there is a lot in this world that is broken.
Broken relationships can be seen all around us: in the partisan division, in racial tension, and in family strife.
Lots of people in this world also experience the pain of broken bodies – we are surviving and thriving in the midst of chronic disease, broken bones, addictions, and poor health.
And there are places that experience brokenness, too. This morning, we look out on the devastation caused by hurricanes and wildfires, but closer to home, we can see the impact of poverty and how our economic choices impact the environment around us.

We believe God has called us to love and serve and pray in each of these places.
We can help people heal relationships, reconcile, and learn to talk to one another again – like we did with our Cookouts and Conversations this summer and will do with the “My Neighbor is Muslim” study this fall.
We can be present with one another in the midst of pain and loneliness and isolation – like we will when we train folks from Immanuel to go out and visit our homebound seniors next week and like we do when we go out with Joppa to the check on the homeless.
And we can pool our resources to make a difference all across this world – whether it is through disaster relief and health kits, through donations to the food pantry, or through the Season of Creation organized by our Green Team.
God is calling you and me to love, serve, and pray… to practice those basic skills… so that God’s goals might be reached.
But basic skills alone will not help us get to the end zone.
In football, you put those things together in strategic plays. Those are the ministries of our church. Whether it is choir or children’s church, Ratatouille or Under the Bridge Casseroles, Re:Ignite or Men’s group… every activity we do, is aiming for that end zone and helping us to live out God’s mission in this church.

The other thing that I have learned after many disappointing seasons watching my favorite team is that in order to be successful and reach that end zone, every single player has to play every single quarter. And the coach needs a game plan that will help those players be successful.
If you flip to the back side of this sheet, you will find our game plan for ministry here at Immanuel. We can each practice our basic skills… but part of being on this journey together is that we should all be moving the same direction.
And as your pastors and your staff and your leadership, we think there are four different areas, four quarters of this game that we all have to play in if we are going to be successful.

We need to worship together. If we don’t show up in this place to hear the story of God’s love and grace and to renew and strengthen each other, we will not reach the end zone.
We need to connect with one another. We need to reach out in love and help one another out. We need to build relationship both inside and outside of this church.
We all need to grow. Each one of us should be a part of a group that is helping us to grow in our faith and use our gifts and as we mature, we should be helping other people to grow in their faith as well.
We need to go out into the world and serve. Through financial gifts, through hands-on mission, we can only help this world experience God’s grace if we get out of this building.

Friends, this is our game plan. With our eyes fixed on Jesus, we will live lives of love, service, and prayer and this world will experience God’s healing and wholeness.

And the best news is that we don’t have to do this alone.

There is this country gospel song called “Drop Kick Me, Jesus” by Bobby Bare and Paul Craft and it reminds me that God has our back in this work:

Make me, oh, make me, Lord, more than I am
Make me a piece in your master game plan
Free from the earthly temptations below
I’ve got the will, Lord, if you got the toe.

Drop-kick me, Jesus, through the goalposts of life
End over end, neither left nor the right
Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
Drop-kick me, Jesus, through the goalposts of life

[1] http://www.hawkcentral.com/story/sports/college/iowa/football/2017/09/09/leistikows-first-word-hawkeyes-win-cy-hawk-classic-neither-team-deserved-lose/649140001/

[2] http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sports/high-school/2017/09/09/creston-game-frayed-nerves-calls-unity-after-photo-students-white-hoods-confederate-flag-rocks-town/647639001/

[3] https://www.facebook.com/laurakennedyjaissle/posts/10154632317611986