Jesus – Page 3 – Salvaged Faith

Do you love me?

Posted on May 17, 2020Leave a comment

Text: John 14:15-21

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

If you LOVE me, you will keep my commandments.

Do you love God? Do you love Jesus? My heart wants to say, YES!, I do! Of course I do!

I love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength! Don’t I? Do I? Do you?

If you love me, Jesus says, you will keep my commandments.

I think all of us are really trying to love Jesus, but if we are honest with him… and with ourselves… we are probably not keeping them, obeying them, living them as well as we should.

Maybe we should back up a step. What commandment?

Well, this passage comes from the gospel of John and just a chapter before, Jesus sits down the disciples and shares with them this last meal and he tells them:“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

So…. If we love Jesus, then we have to love each other. And love each other in the way that Jesus loved us. I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job of that during this pandemic. You’ve been making phone calls and sending cards and checking in on each other. We’re making masks and picking up groceries and trying extra hard to be nice to the people we live with. We’ve taken care of each other as the church. And that’s a good thing.

But I also remember that John’s gospel is just one version of this commandment. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospels, Jesus tells us about the greatest commandment. A lawyer or a scribe comes up and wants to test him, so he asks what commandment in all of the scripture is the most important. What one law would sum up all the others? And there, we get some version of that phrase we know quite well: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27, CEB)

This is where it gets a little harder. You see, our call isn’t just to love others in the church. Not just to love the people like us who do the same things as us. But to love our neighbors. Strangers. People we disagree with. Folks we can’t stand. Even when it is hard. Even when it is uncomfortable. Even when it puts our own freedom or lives on the line. Because that is how Jesus loved us.

These last few weeks, we have been exploring some of the resurrection stories of Jesus. Two weeks ago, we remembered how six of the disciples got in a boat to go fishing and Jesus showed up for the third time. When they dragged their catch to shore, there he was, waiting, with breakfast cooking on an open flame. But there is more to that story.

You see, after they eat, Jesus turns to Peter and asks him a simple question: “do you love me more than these?” Peter is a bit taken aback. He sputters out a response: “Yes, you know I love you.”

“Feed my lambs.”

It’s almost as if Jesus is pointing back to that conversation they had before his arrest… If you love me, keep my commandments. If you love me, take care of each other. If you love me, love your neighbor as yourself.

And it happens not once, not twice, but three times Jesus asks Simon Peter this question: “Do you love me?” And those three times are important. Because you see, three times, Peter turned his back on Jesus. Three times, Peter denied that he knew him. Three times, Peter chose to put himself before Jesus, before others.

Did Jesus turn away or cut him off? No… Jesus look at this imperfect, selfish, human being who finds it hard to keep his commandments… and keeps giving him another chance. Gave him the opportunity to redeem himself. A do-over.

We started out today thinking about whether or not we love God. Whether or not we are keeping the commandments. Whether or not we are loving others as much as ourselves. And we have fallen short. We haven’t always put that love into action. We’ve been selfish. We are human. And God keeps reaching out to us.

Today, you have a chance to show you love God by keeping his commandments. Whatever happened yesterday is in the past and if you offer it up to God it is forgiven and wiped clean. TODAY you can love God with your whole self by loving your neighbor as yourself. EVERY DAY you get a chance to start anew.

You know, here at Immanuel, when we talk about what it means to follow Jesus, what it means to be a disciple, we like to use three little words. Love, Service, and Prayer. In a way, it’s kind of how we sum up that great commandment. In everything we do, we try to make love, service, and prayer part of it. At the food pantry…. At Wednesday night supper… In small groups… In music rehearsals…In our interactions at school or work… Everywhere we go and in everything we do.

Today, we are marking the closing of another year of school at that means we have some high school seniors who are graduating. And one of the things about these young people is they get it.

They know who God is and they each, in their own way, are out there loving others and serving their neighbors, and prayer is an important part of who they are. And some of that is because they have amazing parents who have helped them to grow in their faith. But another part of that is because of you, the church. You’ve lived out what Jesus commands us in John.

[image of kindergarten bibles for Peter, David, Laurel, Ana, Rachel]

From the time they were knee high, you have been part of their lives, helping them to love, showing them how to serve, joining them in prayer. So thank you, for being a part of their journey…

An Act of Holiness

Posted on April 9, 2020Leave a comment

Text: selected verses from John 13

Never before in my life have I thought so much about washing my hands… how about you?

I mean, I washed my hands before… and I hope you did, too…

But never before did I see it as such a holy and important act.

A life saving act.

In the midst of this pandemic, washing our hands so frequently is flattening the curve.

It is giving our health care workers a fighting chance.

It is protecting the vulnerable in our midst.

Never before in our lifetimes was hand-washing such an act of service to our neighbors.

An act of service and humility and love just like Jesus shared with the disciples when he got down on his knees and washed their feet.

In the midst of Peter’s protest, he reminded them that this is not just an act of hygiene… not just something that he was doing to make them clean…

It was an act of holiness.

It was a means of grace.

It was a sign of love.

So tonight, gather at your table and to eat your supper and think about our call to love…

But before you do that.

Before you eat.

Take a moment and wash your hands.

If you are gathered with your family, crowd together around the sink and wash each other’s hands.

And as you wash your hands, think not just of hygiene.

Think not just of scrubbing germs away.

But remember that this is a holy act.

An act of love and service and humility and grace.

The Stones Would Shout

Posted on April 5, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Luke 19:29-40

If the disciples were silent, the stones would shout.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how no matter what happens in this world… no matter the destruction or devastation…no matter the obstacles or despair… there is nothing that can stop God from being praised.

About three weeks ago, tornadoes filled the skies over Nashville. My friends at East End UMC woke up to discover their building had been destroyed. But they gathered that Sunday morning in the park next to the church. An alter made from broken pieces of their sanctuary grounded them. And they sang their hearts out, surrounding one another with love and lifting up the name of God in praise.

This week, I tuned into “Some Good News” a web series launched by John Krasinski, whom you might know from the Office or the new Jack Ryan series. One of the stories he shared was of an elderly couple separated by COVID-19, because the wife is in an Alzheimer’s care unit. Even in the midst of their separation and struggle, the husband stood outside of her window, singing “Amazing Grace” and you can hear her gradually catch on and start singing out her own praises of God.

I think about those disciples of Jesus, headed into Jerusalem on that morning. They had seen mighty and amazing things done by this man, their teacher. They had witnessed the dead being raised. The blind and the sick healed. They had witness barriers and boundaries being crossed as women and children and Gentiles and Samaritans were welcomed by their Master.

Jerusalem was the seat of power. And heading there, on that day, on that morning, with that colt… Well… it felt like a victory march! Of course they were singing and shouting and praising God with a loud voice:

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!

These are echoes of the cries of the angels in the field… Of the psalmists…Of the prophets throughout history… They were witnessing God’s glory revealed and present…

and it was all taking place before their eyes! Of course, they were praising God.

Only…

If we move just one verse past this Triumphant Entry, there is not joy, but weeping. Jesus weeps. He looks out over the city and can’t contain himself. Because he knows that this Kingdom they are waiting for, it will not arrive in an instant. He knows that in the coming week, those same disciples that were praising him would betray him. He knows that there will be wars and destruction and illness and death long before these visions are ever realized. He knows that this moment of God’s embodied presence with the people is fleeting.

We live in that in-between times. That Kingdom of God, it’s not fully here yet. Conflict rages in our world. A virus has brought us to a standstill. I could go on about the climate, and poverty, and racism… Jesus still weeps over our cities and towns and neighborhoods.

And there are days when it is awful hard to praise God. It’s hard to lift up our heads and see the good. Some of you are already exhausted and the peak of this illness is still weeks away here in Iowa. Some of you are worried about loved ones who are sick. Some of you are on the front lines and every day you put yourselves at risk for others. And we can get so focused on the task before us, that sometimes, its hard to stop and focus on God’s goodness.

Maybe your own heart has been quiet this week. Maybe your lips have been silent. Maybe it’s not just this week, or this crisis, but the grief or the pain in your life has been weighing on you for some time.

I keep thinking… how do we praise God when the words just won’t come?

And then I realized… maybe you don’t.

If the disciples were silent… the stones would shout. That’s what Jesus told the Pharisees who were trying to silence their voices. He was telling them that there is nothing that can stop God from being praised. There is no force on earth or on heaven that can stop this momentum. The Kingdom is coming and there is nothing they or any other power in this world can do about it.

This week, Billie shared with us a passage from Romans 8 as a part of our staff devotion. And I got to thinking about how Paul captures this sentiment in his particular chapter.

He tells us that there is no comparison between these hard times and what will come next…But Paul also reminds us that it isn’t just us, not just human people, who are waiting for God’s Kingdom. Even the creation is groaning and waiting and breathless with anticipation.

And the moment we get worn out and can’t wait any longer and don’t know what or how to pray… well, that’s when the Spirit steps in. That’s when our “wordless signs, our aching groans” are turned into prayer by God’s very spirit. Even the groans of creation are turned into prayer. Because when we fall silent and have no words to say, even the stones will shout. It will shout out the truth that there is nothing at all in this world or beyond this world that can separate us from God’s great, amazing, sacrificial love. Not trouble or hard times or hunger or homelessness or danger or threats… Nothing. No thing. No power. No principality. Nothing that was created. Not even death itself.

When we don’t have the words to sing. When the world overwhelms our hearts. When our lips fall silent. Look around. Look around at the signs of this great truth blossoming everywhere. Look at the crocus and the daffodils with their white and yellow and purple blossoms of joy. Look at the buds forming on the tree and the grass turning green. Open the windows and listen to the birds sing their own tunes of praise. Watch the squinnys play in the yard and the wind blow. Let the warm sun fall on your face. How are these not divine messages…songs from above… creation itself shouting out God’s praise?

We might not be gathering in the sanctuary this morning to praise God together. We might not be waving palm branches and lifting our voices. But we are not alone. No matter where we are today, the creation has joined us in praising our maker. The creation has joined us that hope-filled wait for the new creation, the Kingdom of God.

So my challenge to you all… Get out there and join in the song. Where do you see God’s wondrous world shouting out praises? Take a picture…. Make a short video… Send it to us here at Immanuel on our facebook page or by email… But also – share it with your friends and neighbors and loved ones. Think of all the mighty things you have seen God do in your life and with a photo or a snapchat or an email… share the good news… shout God’s praises… let your voices raise in glory. Amen.

Getting Off the Mountain

Posted on February 23, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Exodus 24:12-18, Matthew 17:1-9

There are a number of places in scripture where the divine is revealed in those thin places where heaven and earth meet.

I think about Elijah hiding on the side of the mountain.

Or when Moses heads up the mountain and receives the word of God for the people.

Or our reading from the gospel today when Peter, James, and John travel up to the mountain top with Jesus.

You know… I was thinking about Moses’ time up on the mountain and this renewal leave that I just finished.

Moses took this time to head up the mountain and spend some time with God.

This is actually a story that we’ve looked at this past fall with our Bible study groups on Wednesday’s and one of the things we discover if we read ahead a few chapters is that the people started to get worried that maybe he wasn’t coming back!

Forty days and nights go by and for all they knew, Moses had been engulfed by the cloud and the darkness on the top of the mountain and they were on their own!

In fact, Moses only comes back in chapter 32 after they discover that the people down below have begun to rebel – forming a golden calf and offering sacrifices.

Well, good news friends… I’m not back because I’ve heard you were misbehaving!

But these mountain top experiences were all surrounded by something really hard.

They came in the midst of stressful and difficult times of ministry.

Persecution.

Exodus.

The first prediction of Jesus death and suffering.

They are transition moments that remind each of these people who God is… and who they are.

They remind them that God is there.

They remind them they still have a job to do.

And in many ways, that is what my renewal leave has been about.

In the midst of the mounting pressure and stress of our denominational life…

In the midst of staffing transitions…

In the midst of some personal relationship struggles that I needed to focus on…

This set-apart time to breathe, and sleep, and focus on God and finding a new balance and rhythm in my life has been so important.

So many of you have been asking already, and so that I don’t repeat myself a hundred more times… my work on renewal leave was pretty simple.

I completely disconnected from email and the constant call of social media.

I spent time every morning reading – scripture, books, resources to help ground myself in God.

I spent hours talking and cuddling with my spouse.

I hiked in the snow.

I didn’t set an alarm for an entire month.

I laughed a lot with friends.

I listened to the birds.

I made some really good homemade bread.

I had the opportunity to really drink deep from the living water and to fill my cup back up for the season ahead.

And I am so grateful that you have been supportive of this time away.

But in some ways, I also have a new insight into how Peter, James, and John felt at the top of that mountain.

They had been following their teacher for quite some time now and they had witnessed some pretty amazing things.

But they also had just learned how difficult the journey was going to be.

They were starting to experience push-back.

And Jesus had just shared with him for the first time that he expected to be executed.

He was calling them to lose their lives, too.

This trip up the mountain must have seemed like a welcome respite from the stress and strain of this work.

As they get to the top of the mountain, Jesus changes before their eyes!

His whole body radiates with glory and even his clothes shine… brighter than the sun!

And as their eyes adjust to this brilliance, two others appear… Moses and Elijah.

Our text says that Peter reacted in this moment.

He reacted by wanting to bottle it up and capture it right there, just like that forever.

He interrupts Jesus and Moses and Elijah and offers to build some shrines where they can sit down and get comfortable and just stay right there.

None of this talk about losing your life.

None of the persecution that was happening back down in the valley.

None of the stress.

Just this perfect presence of the divine.

Light. Life. Glory.

If you encountered it… you wouldn’t want to leave either.

When you have a chance to catch your breath and rest in God’s presence it’s awfully hard to not want to just stay right there forever.

Trust me… I’ve just had four weeks to dwell in this beautiful space.

And while I’m excited to be back, it was also really, really hard to let go of that precious time away.

I’d be fibbing if I didn’t admit that a part of me imagined what it would be like to just leave it all behind and stay in that place forever.

During Lent this year, as a church, I’m challenging you to participate in one of our small groups focused around the book, “Unbinding Your Heart.”

I think this particular study is so important right now, because in some ways, I think we have got a little comfortable.

We’ve taken rest in the familiar and the holy and everything we know about God and the church.

We get into our patterns and routines and sit in the same seats on Sunday mornings and like Peter and James and John have built a little beautiful shrine around everything we believe about God and church.

This holy place is amazing and we want to stay right here in our comfort zones.

But on the mountain top, the voice of God quickly sets things straight. Out of the clouds, the glory of God rumbles: This is my Son, This is my Beloved! Listen to him!!!!!!

Just as quickly as it appeared, the clouds and fog dissipated and three bewildered and terrified disciples opened their eyes to find their teacher Jesus, standing before them alone.

It was time to head back down the mountain.

It was time to get back to work.

You see, the mountain top is not a destination.

It is more like a rest stop.

It is a place to fill up your tank, to pick up some snacks for the road, to take a nap if you need to…

But it is not the be all and end all of the journey.

This mountaintop transfiguration comes at a key transitional moment in the gospel.

It is framed in Matthew’s gospel by these two predictions of his suffering, death, and resurrection.

Jesus has set his face towards Jerusalem.

The disciples were being called to leave behind the healing and teaching and instead to head straight for the seat of power.

They were being called not to violence or revolution, but a display of righteous love that would “refuse to play the world’s power game of domination, exploitation, greed, and deception.”[1]

In the church year, it is also a moment of transition.

We, too, are setting our faces towards Jerusalem as we enter the season of Lent.

This Wednesday, we will remember our mortality when a cross of ashes is placed on our foreheads.

We, too, will live together the last week of Christ’s life.

We, too, are called to live out God’s righteous love in a world that doesn’t always accept or understand it.

As people of faith, we were never called to build tents and tabernacles to enshrine these moments forever.

We can’t say – oh, well, we accomplished that, look how great we were, and be done.

We can’t neatly wrap up our faith with a bow and put it on a shelf.

We have to set it free.

We have to keep working.

We have to keep seeing what changes need to be made.

We have to keep following the guidance of the spirit.

And that means getting off of the mountain top, rolling up our sleeves, and getting to work.

We do it all, because Christ has already gone before us.

He is the one we are following down the mountainside.

Jesus showed us you can take a moment for affirmation and to rest in the glory of God, but then we have to be on the move.

We have to let the good news out.

That light that overcame Jesus on the mountaintop – the glory that transformed him into a dazzling visage – wasn’t meant for him alone.

Christ is the light of the world and he knew that in order for that light to dwell within each of us, he was going to have to shine even in the darkest places of the world.

He was going to have to confront evil powers.

He was going to have to withstand betrayal and abuse.

He was going to have to carry his cross and enter the grave of death.

And we can’t stay on the mountaintop either.

We can’t rest for a moment longer.

We have to come down and let that light of Christ shine through our hearts.

If you haven’t already signed up for one of our Lenten groups, I urge you to do so today.

They will be starting this week and next and the discussions we will have as part of them will help us learn what it means to get out of church… to get out of these shrines and tabernacles we have built… and go out there to where people are waiting and hungry for the good news of God.

It is a chance to spend some time listening to God, listening to Christ, listening to the cries of our neighbors.

It is a chance to push ourselves out of complacency and into the harder and more beautiful realm of real ministry.

It is a chance to unbind the gospel… to set it free from those quiet mountaintop moments so that every moment can be filled with the good news of God.

Friends, it’s time to listen to Jesus.

It’s time to let God’s light shine through us.

It’s time to plant the seeds of the Kingdom of God everywhere we go.

It’s time to get off the mountain.

[1] Rodney Hunter, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol 1, page 454.

What are you even doing here?

Posted on January 27, 2020Leave a comment

I am exactly nine days into my renewal leave and I had a dream last night about an Administrative Council meeting.

I was back at church with all of those familiar faces, reconnecting and catching up and it was wonderful… only something was terribly wrong.

I wasn’t supposed to be there.

Last night, in reality, there was an Ad Council meeting at church and I didn’t actually go. We have great capable leaders and they are awesome without me.

But in my dream… I was there.

In my dream, I had stopped by for some reason or another. And I kept talking with people. I kept answering questions. And before I knew it, I looked at the clock and it was 10:15 pm!

I remembering a feeling of intense panic. I was on renewal leave. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was supposed to be home with my spouse and I had completely blown him off. I turned to a colleague who was sitting next to me with terror all over my face. He looked at me, partly with pity and partly with frustration. “What are you even doing here?” he asked.

One of the things that I find incredibly difficult is disconnecting from work. Because I love it. Because I’m good at it. Because it feels good, even when it is stressful, to help other people and make things work the way they should.

So far, I confess, on this renewal leave I have checked my email once.

I was looking quickly for responses to a very last minute proposal I had about changing a meeting date when I returned. I wanted to see what the responses were so I could communicate the date change with my family.

But I also glanced and saw a notification from the hospital about a church member who had been admitted. The feelings of guilt started to creep in. What if they need me? What if no one shows up? What if, heaven forbid, someone dies while I’m gone? I had to pray to God for peace and talk myself down for about an hour. “This is why you left them in the absolutely capable hands of an amazing colleague… Even Jesus took breaks… You are not the be-all and end-all of the care system at that church… Even if you miss a funeral while you are away, that doesn’t mean that you can’t still provide care when you get back...”

But there was also that pesky internal critic: “See, this is why you shouldn’t check your email when you are supposed to be on break. It sets you on a tailspin of wanting to be there and respond and make it all better. And that’s not what this time is about.”

And you know what… that internal critic is right. There do need to be boundaries between my church life and my home life. I need to be able to have some dedicated space carved out for sabbath and family and renewal – not just during these four weeks, but every week. Every day, really.

For years I have had a signature line on my email that reads, “Fridays and Saturdays are my Sabbath days. I look forward to responding when I am back in the office on Monday.”

But in the past year, have I actually stopped checking my email on the weekends? Have I been holding firmly to that boundary?

The week before I left, I sent a pretty important email to my SPRC chair. Before bed, I checked my email, saw he had responded, and shot off a reply.

And immediately I got another back. He said something to the effect of: Are you on call 24/7?

It was a reminder that the expectations I have been putting on myself are not the same as what the congregation actually needs or expects.

Or maybe it should have been heard more like that colleague in my dream, with pity and frustration: “What are you even doing here?”

There have been legitimate emergencies and exceptions in the course of my ministry that have called me away from my Sabbath and home time. The panicked texting of a teenager in the middle of the night who feels unsafe. The early morning trips to the hospital before a surgery to pray. The call on a Saturday afternoon that someone has died. Two entire weeks spent out of state for General Conference.

But an email is not an emergency.

A meeting I am not responsible for is not an excuse for breaking boundaries.

A text or voicemail that can wait until the next day is not a sufficient reason to give up time with friends or family.

And maybe in those spaces and those moments when I am tempted to show up or respond or engage I need to keep that voice in the back of my mind:

“What are you even doing here?“

That voice comes along with other questions like:

Why have you given this energy when it can wait?
Why are you sacrificing this time you have set aside for family?
Is this really about them? Or is it about you and your own need to feel needed?
What are you avoiding by choosing to spend your time this way?
Who else can help/support/respond?

I woke up from that dream with my heart in my throat. I’m anxious that this time of renewal and rejuvenation will simply result in a return to old patterns and behaviors.

I mean, I’ve never been five hours late home, like I was in this dream… but I have spent an entire evening only partially present: checking emails, responding to texts, thinking and pondering something that needed to be done the next day.

And when I’m in that space, the truth is, I’m not really home. Not fully, anyways.

So if nothing else, one of the things I want to carry back into the real world with me is the avoidance of that little voice: “What are you even doing here?”

And I think that I can prevent that question from needing to be asked by utilizing some tools that have been really helpful during this time away. Things like changing my notification settings on my phone so that emails don’t show up during evening hours. Or, putting my phone with my wallet instead of carrying it around all the time. Or removing the Facebook app from my phone. Honestly, its randomly coming across a pastoral care concern or a church polity question on facebook that often prompts me reaching out with an email or a text or response when it could legitimately wait until the next day.

I think remembering that little voice will hold me accountable to my boundaries. I think it will remind me that I don’t have to be “on” 24/7. I think it help me think of those who are impacted by where I choose to spend my energy – for good or for bad. There is a whole lot of truth jam-packed in that little question: “What are you even doing here?”

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.

Imagine the Abundance

Posted on October 27, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Ephesians 3:14-21, Matthew 14:3-21

Friends… do you know how much potential you have?
I’m not talking about the potential for worldly success… although you have that.
I’m not talking about the potential for raising funds as a church… although I know its there.
I’m talking about your potential in Jesus Christ.
I’m talking about the untapped depths and lengths and height and breath of Christ’s love in your life.

Oh friends…
I’m going to take a few minutes to be honest this morning.
Honest about the discouragement and frustration and heartburn that some of us as your leaders here at the church have been feeling.
Our worship attendance has been down, but so has participation on Wednesday nights.
I had one gentleman stop me the other day in the hallway and say, “Pastor, I think you are doing a great job… but where is everyone?”
And it is hard not to take it personally.
And I know that our families and our members are busy.
You are engaged in your community and sports.
You are working more hours than you want.
You are traveling to visit family out of town.
You want a morning to sleep in.
It’s hard to get your tired bones moving as fast you could before.
I get it.
I’m right there with you.

But, if you are anything like me, when you take a moment to catch your breath in the midst of the rushing too and fro, do you ever wonder if there is something else you are missing?
Do you stop and notice that perhaps there is something… some power… some spirit that is lacking in your heart?
Do you ever feel like you are going through the motions instead of tapping into the incredible love and power and promise of Jesus?

For many, and this isn’t only Immanuel… this is the state of the church in the U.S…. church has become just another item on a long list of activities and social commitments. As your schedules ebb and flow, it might be something that falls off the calendar for a season.
And as at least one person recently shared with me, when they stopped coming, nothing much in their life really changed.

In my head, I thought – surely that can’t be the case.
But in my heart, I started to fear that maybe this was true.

Does church actually make a difference in your life?

If it is simply a collection of activities and social commitments – maybe not.
You can join other clubs.
You can busy yourself with other volunteering opportunities.
If you aren’t happy about a decision either locally or in the denomination, you can step away to find a place that is a better fit.

But to be honest, that’s not how most of you describe Immanuel.

At the start of this series on the Feeding of the 5000, I asked what drew you here.
What was it that compelled you to join the crowds of people here on 49th Street?
And you talked about the people.
You talked about the relationships.
You talked about family.
And something we are all learning in the midst of our incredibly busy lives is that you have to make time for family.
You have to guard your time with your family.
You have to set it as a priority, or something else will come in and decide it is more important.

Starting in Lent, eight of us began gathering at 6:30 in the morning at Java Joes for a Covenant Discipleship Group.
It was dark and none of us wanted to be up that early, but we decided to make time and carve out this little window, because it was important.
We were initially only going to meet for eight weeks, but those relationships became so important that we have continued to meet once a month at 6:30 am, just to maintain them.

Our Wednesday Night Ladies give their time every single week to be here and to prepare meals for our Immanuel family.
It is not just a service opportunity, it is a community, a small group. They watch out for one another and check-in when one is struggling.

The same could be said for the Monday night group at Java Joes.
Or Wednesday afternoon Bible study.
Or Re:Ignite.
Or Chancel Choir.
Or the Sunday morning Women’s group.
Or Praise Ringers.
Or the list goes on…

When you set aside time for your family and make it a priority every single week, you solidify relationships that will sustain you for the long haul, through thick and thin, good times and bad.
You learn how to be present in the midst of disagreement and work through it.
You discover what it means to be served, but also to serve.
You get to know someone’s beautiful quirks and annoying habits and what it means to love them anyways.
THAT’s what it means to be family… and it is why so many of you show up here week after week.
And let me tell you… if you haven’t connected with one of these opportunities, you actually are missing something that will change your life and I or any other staff member would love to have a conversation with you about how to get involved.

But I would be lying if I said that after that first Sunday of this series I went home encouraged and energized.
I didn’t.
I actually felt a little bit frustrated.
Because I think that church is about far more than family.
What it means to be church is not just about the relationships that we have with one another – as beautiful and holy as they are.

Being church is about being caretakers of an incredible message that this world is hungry to hear and experience.
That is why thousands of people left their work and picked up their families and traveled to the countryside to catch a glimpse of Jesus.
There was something about his message and his actions that tapped into this yearning in their souls. A hunger to be healed, to be known, to be empowered.

I think about those first disciples.
They were kind of like a small group in the church.
They spent a lot of time together and traveled and ate.
They became like a little family and they cared for one another.
They provided for one another.

But in this miraculous event, Jesus invited them to not just look to their own needs, but to look outward at the crowds all around them.
It was an invitation to not just be a part of Jesus’ church, but to BE the church. To themselves be the hands and feet of God in the world.

And so he took their meager gifts and transformed them and the result was this amazing abundance of food and relationship and ministry.
I’m not just talking about their five loaves and two fish on that day in the countryside.
I’m talking about their very lives.
He transformed them from a faithful little family group into a world-changing movement that has turned everything upside down.
He directed their eyes and their hearts outward.
Jesus put his Spirit within them and strengthened them for the work ahead.
And they traveled the world with this message.
They faced controversy and conflict.
Some were killed for the good news they proclaimed.
But even persecutors like Saul were transformed by the power of Christ and became leaders in sharing the gospel.
It couldn’t be stopped!
It couldn’t be tamed!
Everywhere they went, people were hungry to hear and experience it…
and people were afraid and challenged because they really did challenge the powers of this world that are hellbent on sin and death.

We are here today, this morning, because the power of God poured out upon those disciples and their gifts. It filled them up and it spilled over to everyone they encountered.
We are like those twelve baskets of leftovers gathered on that holy, miraculous, evening… the outpouring of God’s abundant spirit of love that has no end and cannot be stopped.

And thank God for that… because that good news is still desperately needed!
I asked you in worship two weeks ago to lift up what kind of ministry you would do if you had incredible resources at your finger tips.
You lifted up the need for daycare and rent relief, homeless youth and a clothing closet, hungry children and adult language classes for immigrants and refugees.
You named the potential for ministry with troubled teens and mental health needs, for warm coats and temporary housing, scholarships and pay it forward opportunities.
You see the needs of veterans and teachers, families at the Ronald McDonald house, single parents who struggle, and the potential for a garden. You named the opportunity to buy back guns or create a soup kitchen or help the underemployed.

Oh friends… imagine our church doing all of that?
Can you imagine the difference we would make in the lives of our neighbors?
Can you picture how the love of Jesus would become real to so many people?

But also… I imagine just thinking about it you will first become incredibly tired, because we can’t do all of those things – at least not all at once.

But I also think about what might happen if we don’t.
If we didn’t even try.
If we keep thinking of ourselves just as a family… simply as a social club… merely as a place to stop by a few times a month and make ourselves feel better…

Peace Lutheran Church in a suburb of the Twin Cities was about to close.
The congregation experienced conflict. And then greying… which literally means the hair in the congregation was getting whiter. Young people weren’t showing up. The decline of U.S. Christianity was partly to blame, but so was the internal focus of the church members.
They only had twenty folks left in worship and when their new pastor arrived they had 18 months worth of funding before they would be done.
So Pastor Greenlund asked if they wanted to go out with a whimper… or with a bang.
They said if we are going to die, lets die well.
So they sent fliers to their entire neighborhood saying that they would fix anything in homes – free of charge – no expectations or qualifications.
They fixed roofs and furnaces, made kitchens accessible, cleaned homes for shut ins, rewired houses.
And you know what… people noticed.
They thought the church might have died already, but neighbors began to believe and trust that the little church on the corner actually, really cared.

This church was on the verge of giving up… but they tapped into something beyond themselves.
They let go of what they wanted and started to ask what God wanted.
They let themselves and their gifts be transformed.
People from the community are throwing in their own money to keep the amazing work of this little church going.
Their membership has quadrupled.
Abundant miracles are taking place all around them. (Read more here!)

When I think about you… this congregation… this family… I see incredible potential.
Not because of anything that you already possess, but because I know and trust in the God who has called us together.
Right here in this time and in this place.
God didn’t do that by accident.
And the prayer that Paul got on his knees to pray for the Ephesians, I am praying now… daily… for you:

I ask God to strengthen you by the Spirit.
Not with a brute strength, but a glorious inner strength.
I pray that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in.
And I ask Christ that with both feet firmly planted on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love.
Friends, I pray that you would reach out and experience the breadth!
Test its length!
Plumb the depths!
Rise to the heights!
Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
God can do anything… far more than we could ever ask or imagine, by working within us… deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in Christ.
Glory to God in the church.
Amen.

Imagine the Transformation

Posted on October 20, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Matthew 14:13-21 (focusing on verses 18-19), Philippians 1:3-11

Last Sunday in worship, I preached about our limitations.
About how little we have… or think we have… that can be offered up for ministry.
When we see so much need around us in the world, it is easy to believe that we can’t possibly begin to make a difference.

And the truth is, we can’t.
Not on our own.
Not by ourselves.
But the good news is… it isn’t about us and what we can do.
It’s about what God can do through us.

This morning as we heard, once again, the miraculous story of how five thousand men (plus women and children) were fed, I want to focus in on just two verses of this pericope.
First, Jesus invites the disciples to hand over what they have.
“Bring those fish and loves to me,” he says. “Let me see what I can do with it.”
And then he invites people to gather around and he does something that is all too familiar to us when we gather for communion…
He prays.
He blesses the bread.
He breaks it.

What does that remind you of?

Communion!

Jesus blesses the gifts, breaks them
And he gives it back to the disciples.
Only then do they give it to the congregation…
To the crowds…
To the multitudes.

Only AFTER Jesus has taken their gifts and blessed and transformed them do the disciples head back out in service.

Or maybe it is simply after we recognize that our gifts are from God that we are truly able to share them with others.
There are times in our lives when we underestimate and we under appreciate our gifts.
We devalue ourselves and others and the most common way we do it is with a tiny little word: “just.”

We “just” have five loaves and two fishes.
I “just” have five minutes to give.
She is “just” a stay at home mom.
They “just” come to coffee time.
I “just” sing at church.

Can you hear the limitation?
Can you hear how we are denying the possibility?

What if instead we claimed:
We HAVE five loaves and two fishes – Jesus, what can you do with them?
I HAVE five minutes that I can give, how can I make the most of them?
She IS a stay at home mom and is able to be present for her children and volunteer in a really special way.
They come to coffee time and build these amazing relationships where they share about their families and check in when no one else is there and laugh until their bellies hurt.
I sing at church and praise and make music to God!

If instead of dismissing our gifts, we offered them up and let God transform and use our minutes and presence and abilities – imagine what could happen.

Now, I want to highlight that last one because it was something that might have been said by a middle aged woman who lived alone with her cat, Pebbles.
But when Susan Boyle stepped on a stage in 2009, she allowed her gifts to be used for something far bigger than she could ever imagine.

When she walked out on that stage, everyone underestimated what she could do and what her gifts were. And, I’d venture a guess that she probably also underestimated herself.
In fact, as much as she might have believed in herself, the immense joy that crossed her face when the judges all said yes was simply amazing.
Stored up inside of her for all of those years were these powerful notes and no one took them seriously.
It wasn’t until she was given a chance to really and truly share her gifts with others and to receive encouragement and affirmation did she realize what a blessing she had received and what it could do to change the world.
In the aftermath of her performance, Susan Boyle caused millions of people to take a second look at their preconceptions and to reach out to affirm the gifts they see in others.

In many ways, I think that is part of what the Apostle Paul is doing in his letter to the people of Philippi.
He sees their gifts.
He notices their generosity.
And he thanks God for the ways that they are allowing themselves to be used by Jesus to make a difference in the lives of others.
One of my favorite lines from this comes in verse six, and here it is from the Message translation:

There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.

Friends, God is doing a great work among you here at Immanuel, too.
I look out at this congregation and my heart is full of prayers of thanksgiving as well.
I think about the way a mission trip got started decades ago and how every single year communities are transformed by our Volunteers in Mission who are willing to hammer nails and lay floors and serve their neighbors. THANK YOU GOD.
I think about how a simple garage sale a couple of years ago raised over $7000 for our homeless neighbors. THANK YOU GOD.
I think about how a idea sparked at the worship vision conversation turned into a benefit concert for DMARC this summer. THANK YOU GOD.
I think about all of the adults who joined forces to work on our Vacation Bible School sets – offering up their carpentry or painting or crafting skills… sets that not only blessed our children, but those at other churches, too. THANK YOU GOD.
My mind wanders to the women who gather to knit and crochet on Wednesdays and in their own homes and all of the lives who have been comforted by prayer shawls. THANK YOU GOD.
I think about the parents who are so blessed because people give their time on Wednesday afternoons to come in and prepare meals for our evening programming. THANK YOU GOD.
I think about our neighbors who walk by this building and can look out on our beautiful flowers and plants because some generous souls have given their time and energy to plant and water and maintain our gardens. THANK YOU GOD.
I think about the homebound folks who know they are not alone because one of you has stopped by for five minutes to drop off a simple card or gift or just to say hi. THANK YOU GOD.

And I know and believe and have no doubt that the God who started all of these good works in you will keep at it and keep using and multiplying and blessing your gifts so that they will continue to spill out into this world.
What you do matters.
What you give matters.
And it matters because God is working through you to bless this world.