Jesus – Page 8 – Salvaged Faith

The Sweetest Grapes are Closest to the Vine

Posted on October 2, 2016Leave a comment

This spring when I planted my garden, I included some pumpkins for my husband.

Typically, I try to avoid plants with vines, because they tend to take over the entire garden. I plant bush varieties of cucumbers and squash and beans to keep everything more compact.

But pumpkins don’t come in bush varieties 😉

I planted only four seeds… all together in one mound…

They were planted at the right depth, they were watered and weeded. And the vines grew.

As the summer went on, the vines took over the garden with their broad leaves and bright yellow flowers. Stretching the entire length of my garden were glorious vines and the beginning of fruits. The weather was perfect for vine production… maybe not so much for fruit… but definitely for vines.

But there were some scattered ugly brown vines here and there.

In the midst of all of the living, thriving vines, some were dying.

Now… the pumpkins really did take over much of my garden. And so I had to tread carefully through the chaos to trace those dying vines and find the source of the problem.

All of them were connected to a single branch… a single shoot off of the main stalk that had been severed from the vine. Perhaps it was a rabbit or a chipmunk. Maybe a bug. Maybe I stepped on it. No matter what had happened, every vine that branched off from that point was dying because it was no longer connected to the roots and stem that gave it life.

In our scripture this morning, we are reminded that we will die spiritually… that we are incapable of producing fruit when we are not attached to the vine, when we are not connected to the roots which nourish us.

And our true vine is Christ… the Christ we meet in worship… the Christ we meet in God’s Word… the Christ we meet in fellowship and in the face of the stranger.

As I studied this scripture, I set aside my paltry knowledge of pumpkins and turned to the world of grapes.

Did you know that the best and the sweetest grapes are found closest to the vine?

Nancy Blakely reflects that this is because they are closer to the source, “where the nutrients are the most concentrated.” In fact, this is why growers of grapes are so diligent about pruning their vines… because the farther away from the vine the grapes are, the bitterer and the smaller they will be.

But close in, close to the heart of the vine, abiding near the heart, they find the nourishment they need and produce bountifully.

As we have been exploring a life of discipleship, so far we have explored what it means to be people who worship and people who share in God’s hospitality towards others.

But we also need to be fed and nourished in our work. As Jesus reminds us in the gospel of John:

“A branch can’t produce fruit by itself, but must remain in the vine. Likewise, you can’t produce fruit unless you remain in me… without me, you can’t do anything.”

So today, we turn our attention towards our spiritual formation, or how we stay connected to the vine. What it means to abide in God and to remain in Jesus.

Take out the half sheet of paper that describes those various levels of spiritual formation.

Maybe you are a small bunch of grapes way out there on the edge of the vine. Many of us in worship today want to know more about God and Jesus and you are curious and getting started. And that is amazing.

We have third graders who will be learning today with their bible partners after worship… but even if you are older than a third grader, its not too late to start.

All of us should be reading the bible… it is the number one way that we stay connected with Jesus. And it is a whole lot easier when you are in a safe place where you can ask questions and learn together.

We have been trying to offer Sunday morning bible studies, and I, personally, have been disappointed that more of you have not signed up. Maybe it’s not the right time… but bible study itself is something that this church really needs in order for us to grow spiritually.

In fact, this is so important to me, that starting in November, I’m going to be leading a bible study every Wednesday night, and I’d love for you to join me.

Maybe you are a bunch of grapes that is a bit closer in to the vine. Growing a bit sweeter and bigger and fuller. Do you regularly spend time reading your bible? Are you finding other ways to connect with God through prayer or contemplation?

Maybe then your next step is to go deeper with others. Our life groups have been places where many have been formed and have grown in their faith as they connect with God or each other. They have made prayer beads, and explored topics like forgiveness and stewardship. Some of our in-depth scripture studies like Covenant or Disciple have really challenged people to take seriously the bible in a new way. If you are ready to go deeper… we have resources – either within the church or through retreats like Walk to Emmaus to help you connect more fully to the one true vine.

Maybe you are a strong bunch of grapes… ripe, sweet, and full… right up there tucked in close to the vine. Are you in a place where get up every day, ready to connect with God? Do you not simply wait for the church to offer something, but seek out opportunities to learn and to grow?

Maybe your next step is to turn your life-giving energy towards others. Whether it is a partner for our third graders, or a leader of a class or life group, or personally mentoring someone… in helping another person grow, you will grow in new ways yourself.

One limitation of our vine metaphor is that it makes us think we are fixed in and we are not.

You are not limited by wherever it is you are on the vine.

If you are a tiny, sour little bunch of grapes way out on the edge, you can take the next step and move a bit closer to God.

If you are a bunch of grapes that is not yet ripe, but growing… you can take the next step and move a bit closer to God.

And you can carry the vine itself with you wherever you might go. This vine is not meant to be stuck in the ground at 2900 49^th Street…. We are meant to move and be engaged in the world with Jesus.

Now, there is another category of people who are not listed on this sheet, but who come up in our scripture: The spiritually wilted and dying.

Maybe you were closely connected to the vine at some point, but that day has come and gone.

You know, none of us are perfect.

All of us let things besides God into the center of our lives at one time or another.

Just like my vines were cut off by critters or bugs or clumsy feet, maybe you were disconnected by work or family responsibility, disappointment or doubt.

The troubling part of this scripture for me is always the part about the pruning. It appears like God the vinedresser simply snips off those dead and wilted branches from the vine, throws them in the fire or compost pile, and forgets about them… just like I did with my pumpkin vines this summer.

So is there any hope for those of us who aren’t as connected as we would like?

No matter who you are or where you are in your relationship with God, there is always a chance to take a next step and be formed spiritually.

Even if you have broken away from the vine.

You see… the same God who talks about pruning also talks about grafting.

Grafting is a process where a branch can be attached to the trunk and roots of another tree – in many cases, different types of trees and plants are connected together for hybridization and for strength and growth.

In the scriptures, Paul talks not about vines, but about trees… the family tree of God. The gentiles were grafted on to that tree… brought into the family after some of the faithful branches broke off.

In Romans, chapter 11, he talks about those branches were broken off because of their own unbelief.

But if God could take us… gentiles who didn’t belong… and graft us on to the tree… then God has the power to reattach the broken branches, too.

Even the branches that appear to be dead and dying have the ability to be restored by God’s grace.

This morning, the bread and juice from this table will go to our homebound members who are not able to be physically present with us today, so too do we need to take the vine with us to those who are in danger of being cut off.

You are the hands and feet, the branches and leaves of Christ in this world. And maybe you are the reconnection point for someone you know. Maybe it is your own son or daughter. Or a friend. It might be a neighbor who hasn’t opened a bible or door to a church in a very long time.

With God’s grace and strength flowing through you, let the love of God that abides in you overflow into your love for them.

This World Communion Sunday reminds us that we don’t do faith all by ourselves. Every part of the Body of Christ across this globe is a branch of the one true vine. And parts of this world are broken and hurting, full of anger, pain, and grief.

But as Kate Huey puts it, “Here, up close to the vine, immersed in [God’s love and peace], we find not only nourishment but also hope and joy, and we let God’s word ‘find a home in us through faithful devotion… ‘ When we remain that close to Jesus, we attuned to him and he to us, the remarkable result is that what we want will be what God wants, and it will surely come to pass.”

And it will take all of us, living together in love, growing deeper in our love and knowledge of God, to truly transform this world into what God desires. But we aren’t alone.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Untitled

Posted on September 4, 2016Leave a comment

In today’s parable, Jesus is in the middle of teaching his disciples one last time. He is only days away from his crucifixion in Jerusalem, days away from leaving them, days away from his death. Jesus wants to make sure they are prepared for life after he is gone.

He is asking these people to live out their discipleship – to follow him, to become like him, to take care of each other and to carry on his ministry in the world

Much like the master in this parable who is going on a long trip, Jesus is trying to put his affairs in order so that his ministry is taken care of while he is gone.

The master, like Jesus, is entrusting an extravagant gift in the hands of his servants.

One single talent was a gigantic weight of money. It equaled 6,000 denarii. One denarii was roughly equal to a day’s wages… so if you do the math, each one of these talents was about twenty YEARS worth of pay.

In today’s terms a talent might be thought of as nearly a million dollars.

Now… this is the kind of money that most people never saw. Especially not at once.

But the Lord and master in this story has eight times this much to divvy up among his servants. One hundred and sixty years’ worth of pay… and he is leaving it in their hands.

This is a lifetime’s worth of money. It is costly. And being given all at once, you wonder what the Lord and master could possibly have left. This could very well be everything that he has.

And we know that in reality, the gift of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection was costly.

And this talent, this incredible gift, is placed into your hands.

The gift of discipleship… the gift of a lifetime of following Jesus has been given to you…

What are YOU going to do with it?

One of the fascinating features of this story is that not everyone is given the same amount of talents. The master in this story looks over the skills and abilities of those who are standing in front of them and recognizes they are not the same.

As William Herzog notes, the word used here for ability could also be translated as power. They are given these gifts because of their power, their position, because of what they have already demonstrated they could handle.

In other words, this is not a test.

No master would be foolish enough to use this much money as an experiment.

No, this ruler knows the servants, honestly assesses them, and puts in their hands exactly what they can realistically handle.

One of these servants receives a single talent. Another two. Another five whole talents.

What we discover in this parable is that it is not important what your power or abilities or talents are today. It doesn’t matter how much you are given. It is what you decide to do with your discipleship that really counts.

This past spring, many of you helped our church to honestly assess our ministry and our life together through a really long survey: the Congregational Assessment Tool.

We have learned a lot of things through this tool and the leadership of our church is starting to wrestle with how to respond to various pieces.

In worship over the next couple of months, we are going to be exploring a few areas that reflect our discipleship as a church.

Now, in these scores, we were compared to 500 other churches our size around the entire country. So these scores are not the percentage of you that said these things… but how our church as a whole compares with others

I work to connect my faith to all other aspects of my life (32%)
I experience the presence of God in my life (36%)
We do a good job supporting people in ministry by reminding them they make a difference (48%)
We prepare our members for ministry by helping them discern gifts (51%)
We understanding that we have a spiritual responsibility for life-long learning and formation (47%)
We welcome and are enriched by persons from many different walks of life (39%)

If I were to name a common thread that I see in these items, it would be that we as a church have abundant, extravagant gifts in our midst… and we don’t know what to do with them.

These results tell me that when it comes to living out our faith, when it comes to our discipleship, we act a whole lot like the third servant in our scripture today…. Both personally, and as a church.

And I think there are two factors at play here.

1) As a church, we have not taken the time and energy, like the master of the story did, to help one another figure out what our abilities and position and gifts really are. You need to know where you are starting in order to know what you have to work with.

2) Even if we DO know what our abilities, skills, and gifts are… even if we have this talent in our hands… we aren’t sure what we are supposed to do with it. We don’t have a clear sense of how to help it to grow

Here at Immanuel, we define discipleship with a phrase we use every single week: In Christ, live a life of love, service, and prayer.

It’s a great, easy to remember phrase… but…

What do we mean by love? How are we supposed to pray? Who are we serving?

How do I know if I’m doing it?

And above all… How can I do it better and more fully next week that I did last week.

That’s what today’s parable is all about, after all… taking what you have and helping it to grow.

So, starting today, and over the next eight weeks, we are going to break down that vision of discipleship at Immanuel into bite sized pieces.

We are going to explore what this looks like in worship and hospitality, service and generosity, formation and practice.

We’ll start next week with this whole pie and what each area of discipleship looks like at Immanuel, then over next six weeks, we’ll explore how we can take the talent placed in our hands and help it grow.

Figuring out where you start is the key to taking the next step.

You may have noticed a bulletin board in the foyer that includes four words:

Exploring.

Beginning.

Growing.

Maturing.

These words are going to help us to claim where we are in this journey of discipleship.

Are you someone who is brand new to this and has no idea what the possibilities are?

Are you someone who is just beginning your faith journey and you are starting to try some things out?

Are you someone who has been working on your discipleship for a while, but you still know you have room to grow?

Are you someone who understands what discipleship is all about and you have been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, and now you aren’t sure what comes next?

The truth is, it doesn’t matter where you start on this journey today.

It doesn’t matter if you are the servant in our story who was given one talent or five talents… or the servant that didn’t even get talked about who wasn’t entrusted with a talent at all.

What matters is what you do with what you have.

The truth of this parable is that any one of these servants could have been the ones who chose to let fear or ignorance or laziness creep in. It could have just as easily have been the one who had been given the most who chose to do nothing with his gift.

Here at Immanuel, we are going to try to help one another not only figure out what we have, but what we can do with it.

We are going to help each other take the next step in our discipleship.

You don’t have to start with a lot in order to be faithful. You just have to choose to do something with it. Together… we’ll figure out how.

Amen.

Faithful. Kind. #UMCGC

Posted on May 11, 2016Leave a comment

This afternoon, as General Conference opened with worship, I was moved by the many first languages echoing through our space… One audible witness to the immense diversity of context, theology, and experience in the room.

As we approached communion, and partook of the bread and the juice, I returned to my seat and prayed. And prayed. And prayed.

In fact, I was kind of afraid to open my eyes.

There was a silent witness by a group of folks encouraging full communion. And as I sat there, praying, knowing the impact of their witness was rippling through the room, two words kept returning.

Let us be faithful.
Let us be kind.

Faithful.
Kind.

Those words echoed as a prayer for our gathering and as a plea to God and one another. Lord, may we be faithful. Lord, may we be kind.

I’m going to be totally honest.

Sometimes when I pray following communion, I’m simply going through the motions. I do a little prayer and I’m done. As a pastor, I rarely have the time to really pray and focus my attention on God, because it is time to clear the elements or refill the cups, or make sure the next group is served.

And I started this time of prayer intended to say a little prayer and be done.

But those words caught me.

The tension in the room and in those sitting around me caught me.

I closed my eyes tighter, clutching my prayer beads, and just kept repeating those two words.

Faithful.
Kind.

God knows, we each are bringing to this gathering the deep yearnings of our hearts. And, when we are honest, those yearnings can be a mixture of our faithfulness and our selfishness.

In part, the word faithful reminds me that every person I broke bread with is trying to be faithful. We earnestly love God and seek to do God’s will. I prayed that I might remember each person in that space was trying to be faithful.

And, we all need the reminder to be faithful. As Bishop Warner Brown Jr. proclaimed in the message: Jesus, we are here for you! If I had to summarize his message (and the GCORR and Christian Conferencing presentations) in two sentences: Keep Christ at the center…. And don’t say something you couldn’t say in front of Jesus.

Which leads me to that kind word.

We are called to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

Kindness in this instance is sometimes referred to as mercy.

Undeserved and unexpected acts of compassion and love, service and hospitality.

As I kept repeating that prayer for kindness, I prayed that in our breaking of the bread, we might remember the outpouring of love at the last supper that included even the one who was about to betray. I prayed that we might remember the mercy and forgiveness of the Cross.

And deep down, I was also praying that there was a safe space for all people to be fully present. I was praying that hurtful words would not be spoken. I was praying that I would let go of my own uncharitable feelings. I was praying for us to create opportunities to really hear one another.

Faithful.
Kind.

I’ve posted a lot on those few minutes.

I’m also serving on the Committee on Reference (no clue how that happened) and will have 7 am meetings all throughout conference. Yay! (Insert sarcastic face here)

We skipped a break in favor of getting our work done, and then had to take a dinner break because we hadn’t decided anything and had to get something done.

We also nitpicked the procedural process for approving our rules for a very long time. We talked for 95% of the time about the process and not the content. And ended up passing all but one without any changes.

(Not that I didn’t try)

Tonight, I returned to my Portland “home” and broke bread again… Some cheese and bread and a glass of wine with friends, as we laughed (a lot), decompressed, all so we can get up and do it all again tomorrow.

Renegade Gospel: The Red-Letter Rebel

Posted on February 21, 2016Leave a comment

There was a challenge issued TWICE by Mike Slaughter in chapter one of this Renegade Gospel book we are examining during this Lenten season: to read through one of the gospels and pay specific attention to the red letters… to the words of Jesus… spoken there.

I pulled out my bible and started with Luke. Luke is the gospel assigned for this particular Lenten season according to the powers that be. It is the gospel we will be following most weeks during worship.

The very first time Jesus speaks in Luke’s gospel, it is in the synagogue in his hometown and he is preaching.

Jesus reads from Isaiah, explains a bit about what he has read, and makes everyone so angry they drive him out of town and try to throw him off a cliff.

I really hope you don’t try to do that to me this morning!

Now, many of his words, like the ones we find today in the reading (Rod/Natalie) just shared with us, are words of healing or forgiveness or calling.

“Woman, you are set free from your sickness” (Luke 13:12)

But almost every single time, like we found in our reading today, when Jesus does so, he really makes people angry.

He calls the wrong people, he forgives the unforgiveable, he heals on the wrong day…

The synagogue leader, in this particular healing, was “incensed” (as my bible puts it) that Jesus was healing on the Sabbath.

And all of this anger and frustration on behalf of the system was slowly coming to a boil, as we find just a few verses later.

As our reading continues, the Pharisees (the religious leaders) are plotting together with the political leader, Herod, to be done with Jesus for good.

Now, Herod’s father was the one who had tried to kill Jesus as an infant because he thought he might be a threat to his power.

And this Herod has already beheaded John the Baptist.

Both Herod and the religious leaders were upset about the populist movement stirring up in response to the ministry of John and Jesus.

As Mike Slaughter writes in Renegade Gospel:

“Jesus could never be perceived as a protector of the status quo” (p. 27)

I think the same is as true today as it was then.

Jesus is never satisfied with things the way they are, because Jesus has a vision of the way things can and should be.

He is constantly getting into trouble for doing what is “right for the sake of people” … even if it was against “the rules.”

I think, at the core, Jesus is always pushing the status quo, always challenging us to do more and to be more faithful, because his goal is nothing short of the Kingdom of God lived out on earth… and friends, we aren’t there yet!

Those of us gathered in this room are incredibly blessed… even if we struggle… because we have more resources at our fingertips than most people in this world.

But even here, in a great city, in a great state, in a great country, can we agree that we’re not in heaven yet?

And the KINGDOM is the standard Jesus is holding us to. The KINGDOM is the standard Jesus is holding the political and religious leaders to. The KINGDOM OF GOD is the standard.

And so even today, as a modern religious leader of the Christian faith, I read these words of Jesus and I am still challenged and pushed to really think about the teachings I share with you and how I call us to live them out together.

And all of those harsh words Jesus has for the Pharisees…. well, they are for people like me, too. Because too often, as your leaders, we have simply not preached the gospel! We haven’t shared the vision of the Kingdom of God and we haven’t given you the tools to truly be the Body of Christ, in the world, helping to bring that Kingdom to fruition.

And friends… I think that’s what we, the Body of Christ, are supposed to do.

When I re-read Luke’s gospel, over and over again, Jesus asks us to not only hear his words, but to obey them. Just on a glance back through this morning, I counted at least 9 times (Luke 6:47, Luke 8:21, Luke 9:48, Luke 10:1, Luke 10:28 & 37, Luke 11:28, Luke 12:1, Luke 18:22)… Jesus asks us to not only hear but to do them. To live them. To go and do likewise.

We are trying to be faithful Christians and put into practice what Jesus says.

And, here is the good news I discovered in these commands to “go and do likewise.”

Jesus is NEVER angry at ordinary people who doing the best they can to live out their faith.

He never shames them.

He never scolds them.

He invites them! But he doesn’t get mad at them for where they currently are in their journey of faith.

He is never upset with someone if they aren’t ready to do it. Jesus simply sends them on their way. Maybe another day, in a different sermon, they’ll be ready.

In our United Methodist tradition, we call this “going on to perfection.” Discipleship is a lifelong journey and you are wherever you are today without any judgment.

We are called to be like Jesus, and we fully acknowledge and admit that we aren’t there yet!

And why would we be? Jesus is divine! The Son of Man AND Son of God. The standards are the very KINGDOM OF GOD!

We are mere mortals, trying to live up to the standards of the divine.

There is a quote by Barbra Brown Taylor in her book, “The Preaching Life” that has always stuck with me:

Over and over, my disappointments draw me deeper into the mystery of God’s being and doing. Every time God declines to meet my expectations, another of my idols is exposed. Another curtain is drawn back so I can see what I have propped up in God’s place – no, that is not God, so who is God?

It is the question of a lifetime, and the answers are never big enough or finished. Pushing past curtain after curtain, it becomes clear that the failure is not God’s but my own, for having such a poor and stingy imagination. God is greater than my imagination, wiser than my wisdom, more dazzling than the universe, as present as the air I breathe, and utterly beyond my control. (p. 10)

Every day, when we read the gospels, we pull back the curtain, as Barbara Brown Taylor writes, and we discover that we aren’t Jesus yet… we still have a ways to go!

We still have discoveries to make about what it means to be a faithful Christian.

But here is the beautiful and amazing thing about “going on to perfection”…

Every day, we also have an opportunity to grow more faithful.

Every day, we also have a chance to be more loving.

Every day, we also get to be a better Christian than yesterday.

The words of Jesus are NOT easy. The standards he sets for us are incredibly high! You know, Kingdom of God level!

But even in the midst of those Kingdom standards and Jesus’ never ending call for us to respond accordingly, there is grace upon grace upon grace.

One of my favorite lines in the chapter for this week from Mike Slaughter was this:

Although Jesus always called his followers to enter the small gate and take the narrow road to the Kingdom, he repeatedly taught mercy and relationship over rigidity and judgment. (p. 28)

And he points to Peter as the prime example.

You know Peter… the disciple who constantly questioned Jesus motives and got it wrong.

You know, Peter… the one who fell asleep in the garden.

You know, Peter… the one who denied Jesus three times when he needed him the most?

Jesus has ridiculously high standards. But when we don’t meet them… when we fail… and we will… Jesus keeps welcoming us back.

Keeps loving us.

Keeps showing mercy and love.

Keeps pouring God’s sanctifying, perfecting grace into our lives so tomorrow we can pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and try it again.

There is life and power and love and grace and mercy in the red-letter words of Jesus.

Jesus is constantly pushing our world through these words to rebel against what is… in light of what could be.

Jesus is asking us to examine ourselves, our church, our world, and to ask:

Can we be greater tomorrow than we are today?

Can we be more like Christ tomorrow than we were today?

Can this world look more like heaven tomorrow than it does today?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Always.

Thanks be to God.

Returning from Thin Places

Posted on February 14, 2016Leave a comment

There are places in this world that are “thin.”
It is a label given to places, in the Celtic understanding, where the barrier between the human and the divine, heaven and earth, is nearly imperceptible.
A place where we experience the divine more readily.

In biblical history, we see a number of these “thin places” or holy locations: like Mount Sinai or the temple in Jerusalem, or that mountain where Jesus was transfigured. Sometimes, it is the location itself that is key… sometimes it is the hearts of the people gathered who seem to transform it.

Perhaps you have known a “thin place.”
Experiences that have filled you with a sense of awe and purpose.
Sometimes people call these “mountain top moments”… even if they didn’t actually take place on a mountain because they are the peaks of our spiritual journey.
“Thin places” are where you have felt God’s presence more than any other.

As I think back in my own spiritual journey, I’ve had these kinds of experiences in large gatherings of faithful folks at retreats, and I’ve had them in silent moments at the top of mountains. I’ve also had them right here, in this sanctuary, in this building, as we have gathered to worship and praise God.

And what I have noticed is that it is always hard to leave those places.
You want to linger.
You can’t imagine normal life in the same way again.
The pull to stay is almost irresistible.
But eventually you have to return.
Return to your life.
Return to solid ground.
Return to the mundane and the thick and the muck and mess.

In our gospel this morning, we find Jesus returning from one of those “thin places.”
The Jordan River was a place of healing and transformation.
John the Baptist called people out to the river to repent and be baptized.
And when Jesus visited, that barrier between the heavens and earth grew so thin that the skies burst open and the Holy Spirit descended upon him.

But like us, Jesus can’t stay there.
He can’t set up shop there on the banks and wait for the world to come to him, any more than we can’t live here in the church for our whole lives… waiting for flocks of people to come into our doors.
No, he has to return to the rest of the world.
There is work to be done.

So, full of the Holy Spirit, like we often are after these holy moments, Jesus returns from the Jordan.

And there is something that happens in this returning, in this transition.
In between verse 1 where he returns from the Jordan and verse 14, where he returns to Galilee, there is a gap.

The wilderness.
A liminal space.
40 days of discomfort, of waiting, of transformation.
40 days of fasting and wrestling.
40 days of trial and temptation.
40 days.

Biblically, this 40 days reminds us of the great flood in Genesis, or the Israelites wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. Moses fasted for 40 days… so did Elijah.
This number 40 doesn’t have to mean a literal forty days… but it signifies the right amount of time it takes to get you ready for whatever comes next.

As Jesus returns from the Jordan, he needs to prepare himself for his ministry in the world. And the devil shows up to tempt him. As Jesus is shown all of the possibilities for what that ministry might look like, he has to figure out what kind of savior he will be. He wrestles with his calling. He takes time to focus fully on the presence and power of God that will sustain him in his work.
And in that time, Jesus is preparing himself to go and BE a thin space in the world.
To be the very presence of God, Immanuel, with the people.
And if Jesus, the very Son of God, needs this liminal time to get him ready to return to the world… don’t you think we do, too?

Every week, we gather in this church to worship and experience the divine. It has become for us a sort of thin place… [And soon, some of us will be worshipping in a new thin place].
And what we experience here… the friendships we make, the prayers, the support and accountability, the life-giving spirit… is good and awesome and holy.
But we can’t stay here forever.
Every Sunday, when the worship has finished and we take leave of the building, we have to return to the world.
We have to go out into Galilee, into Des Moines, into our mission field.
There is work to be done for the sake of the gospel.

But I’m afraid that too often, we come to a holy and thin place like this, we get filled up with the Holy Spirit, and then as soon as we step outside of the doors, the devil is waiting for us.
And the devil prays on all of our insecurities and temptations.
I fear, that most days, instead of holding on to the spirit of God… we instantly fill ourselves back up with worries and concerns, with politics and ideology, with work and school and family troubles.
We walk out the door and forget about what we have just experienced.
Back to the normal, mundane, ordinary world, as ordinary, normal, mundane people.

What if, before we left the building, we took a moment to get ourselves ready?

Sometimes I give you big challenges, but this morning, I want us to think small.
I want to challenge all of us to carve out not 40 days, not 40 minutes, but 40 seconds of space…
40 seconds of wilderness time… to help us return back to the world.
I want to challenge you, before you walk out the doors today, to spend just 40 seconds putting your trust in God.
40 seconds to remember who we are and whose we are.
40 seconds to lift up the temptations we know we will face and place them in God’s hands.

Our churches have work to do. We have a kingdom to help build. There are lives that are lost that need the love and grace and mercy of God.
And we cannot do it by ourselves.
We can’t do it without being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Here’s the thing… YOU are the temple of God. God’s Spirit lives within YOU.
And God wants you to be the hands and feet of Jesus out there in the world.
God needs your ministry and your work out in the world.

So let us get filled up with the Spirit.
And let us go out, to live as “thin places,” to be people who bring the love of God to every person we meet.
Amen.

Practicing Our Religion in Public

Posted on February 11, 2016Leave a comment

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

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

We were out there, practicing our religion in public.

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

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

When you give, don’t look for praise.

When you fast, don’t let it show.

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

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

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

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

Jesus did come to re-instigate a relationship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are dust.

We are nothing.

We are sinful.

We need help.

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

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

And because Jesus has come.

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

There is mercy and forgiveness in this place.

There is life, even in the midst of death.

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

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

Thankful Giving

Posted on October 25, 2015Leave a comment

In our gospel reading this morning, we meet Zacchaeus, that “wee-little man”, who was really a terrible, awful person.

As Carol Howard Merritt describes him: he was “a man who collected taxes from his own people and gave it to the Roman government. And if that wasn’t nasty enough, Zacchaeus skimmed money off the top. This despicable man stole from the poor to line his own pockets… he was like the broker who added hidden fees to our widowed mother’s mortgage so he could vacation in Barbados.”

And he wasn’t a tax collector in our modern sense. In this world, you could be stopped on the street by someone like Zacchaeus and duties could be assessed for anything in your possession. “A cart, for instance, could be taxed for each wheel, for the animal that pulled it, for the merchandise that it carried.” (Rev. Wilson) No one, except for the tax collector knew how many fees he was really taking, so he could send to Rome whatever he wanted and keep the rest for himself.

As a fellow pastor pointed out, when verse 2 of our reading says that Zacchaeus was wealthy, it was an indictment about just how corrupt he truly was.

I imagine that he must have been profoundly lonely.

You see, when you live your life as a taker, you don’t make too many friends.

He also lived in a precarious position between his own people and the Roman government. He had to take from his neighbors in order to keep the occupying force happy. But that doesn’t mean he was valued or welcomed by the Romans either.

Not only that, he was a ruler among the tax collectors… which meant he couldn’t even hang out with all of the other greedy, mean old tax collectors in Israel, because he was their boss.

As much as the lepers or the Samaritans, he was on the margins of society. He had all the money he could want, but he didn’t have relationships.

He was living the opposite life described by 1 Timothy… he had placed all of his hopes on his finances, and the treasures of faith, salvation, friendship, and hope were rotting away.

Until Jesus walks by.

Jesus, who knows how to see the lonely and the lost, caught a glimpse of this sad, despicable little man in a tree.

And Jesus invited himself over for dinner.

There is a sequence of events that happens here that can confuse how we understand the story.

Zacchaeus wants to see Jesus… he is seeking and searching for something new in life.
Jesus sees Zacchaeus… and not only sees him, but knows him by name…. and probably knows every detail about his sordid little life.
Jesus initiates the relationship with this person.
Zacchaeus accepts and happily welcomes Jesus into his life.
Zacchaeus commits to giving away half of his possessions and to repay anyone he has cheated… four times over!
Jesus responds: Today salvation has come to your home, because I came to seek the lost.

If we aren’t paying close attention, we might think that it was Zacchaeus’s changed attitudes and his radical offering of wealth that brought salvation to his door.

We might start to think that unless we give, and give sacrificially, without abandon, that we can’t be saved.

But friends, this isn’t true.

The money you just put in the offering plate will not save your soul.

Your pledge card will not bring you salvation.

You see, before Zacchaeus ever offered to give a single penny back, Jesus found him.

And Jesus initiated the relationship, offered to come into his home, his life, his heart.

And Zacchaeus welcomed him in joyfully.

In our United Methodist understanding of grace, at that moment, Zacchaeus was saved.

At that moment, Zacchaeus accepted God’s acceptance of him.

At that moment, salvation came to his household.

It wasn’t because he gave everything to the poor.

I actually think the exchange that comes between Zacchaeus and Jesus after this moment drives home the point.

Zacchaeus stops along their walk and suddenly feels like he has to do something.

God’s grace has already entered his life and changed him and he isn’t sure he deserves it and he needs to respond in some way.

So he makes this radical and amazing offering of his own wealth to help others and he promises to make amends for past wrongs.

And what I think Jesus does in response is not praise Zacchaeus for his gifts, but remind him that he’s already saved.

Today salvation has come. You, too, are a son of Abraham. I came to seek the lost.

That might seem like a counter-productive message for Stewardship Sunday.

But I think it is important for us to understand that we can’t earn our salvation by our offering.

No, giving is our response to what God has already done for us.

It is the fruit of a life that has already been transformed by God’s grace.

It is a demonstration of gratitude for the gift that we could never possibly repay.

This morning, as I was driving in to church, I heard an interview with Adam Grant, author of “Give and Take.”

He said that “we all… receive unexpected and meaningful gifts – we want to pay it back, but there’s really nothing you can do to pay it back. So the next best thing is to pay it forward.”

Grant might be talking about human gifts, but it applies to divine ones as well.

We simply cannot do anything to repay God for the amazing, abundant, overflowing gift of salvation.

But we can pay it forward.

We can take what we have and we can bless others.

Our offerings, our giving, our pledges of time, talent, and treasure are one way we can say thank you to God and this church.

We are grateful for the Sunday School teacher who first taught us to sing “Zacchaeus was a wee little man”…. so we give to the church so other children might be blessed.

We are grateful to the Trustee who gave up their Saturday afternoon to install new lights in the bathroom… so we give to the church so that we can continue to provide a safe, welcoming space for others.

We were in the hospital and someone made us a prayer shawl… so we give thanks and we give to the church so that caring ministries might continue.

We lost our job and the people of the church prayed for us… so we give thanks and work to provide support to others.

Whether you have been a part of this church for a month or for ninety years, you are here today because someone somewhere along the line gave and made a difference in your life.

I want to invite you to turn to your neighbor right now and share who that person was who blessed you… who shared God’s love and grace and mercy with you… who do you give thanks for?

****

Those people you just named, that grace of God you just pointed to… that’s why we give.

We give because we have been blessed.

We give because we have been saved.

John Wesley wasn’t giving his advice to “earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can” to people who were still outside the life of faith.

He was speaking to people like you and me who had already experienced God’s grace.

And they were asking what they should do now.

How could they pay it forward?

How were they supposed to live as redeemed people?

If we have been forgiven, then we should forgive others.

If we have been healed, then we should help heal others.

If we have been blessed financially, then we should financially bless others.

I often wonder what happened to Zacchaeus after his dinner date with Jesus, because he isn’t mentioned again in the scriptures.

But we can imagine that he was no longer the same person.

His priorities were changed.

He let go of his old life and committed to something new.

He probably spent the rest of his life trying to say thank-you to God for seeking him out, a lost and despicable man, someone who didn’t deserve an ounce of grace or salvation.

The way we say thank-you for every gift of God is to use it, to share it, to pass it on to the world.

And that is why these pledge cards we have don’t only include our financial commitment to the church, but our commitment of time and talents and skills as well.

God has blessed you with something and today, you can say thank you to our Lord and Savior for every ounce of grace you have received, by making a commitment to share your gifts with the world.

*image: Artwork for Texas Baptists Vacation Bible School curriculum by Scott Byers

Hungry?

Posted on July 20, 20153 Comments

Yesterday, I preached on Jesus and the fig tree. It is such a strange pericope (aka story). Both Matthew and Mark tell us (Matthew 21 and Mark 11) that Jesus was walking along, sees a fig tree, doesn’t find fruit, curses the tree and wham-o, it dies.

What?!?!

There is a broader point to the story, as I mentioned in the sermon: about prayer, about asking for what we want, and about the power of God to move mountains. [And as reminded by a commenter, there are broader symbolic connections with the nation itself.]

But, c’mon… what is it with this fig tree?

This morning I sat down with my devotions and read from Albert Edward Day’s The Captivating Presence:

Sometimes the best of us have days when our dearest friend must say, “you are not yourself today”. That fact gives them a hard time and sends them away deprived of what they should have from us. BUT GOD IS ALWAYS GOD.

“You are not yourself today.”

That’s what I wish the disciples had told Jesus when he cursed that fig tree. It wasn’t even the right season. What was he thinking?

Well, probably, he wasn’t.

Have you seen those Snickers commercials with Betty White and Joe Pesci and the like?

You know… the one where they are handed a Snickers and transform back into their real selves with just one bite?

The tagline is “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry.”

This story is also a reminder that while God is always God, Jesus was also fully human.

And human beings get hungry.

The next day, after leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. (Mark 11:12)

Early in the morning as Jesus was returning to the city, he was hungry. (Matthew 21:18)

When I get hungry, I get grouchy. Seriously cranky. My head hurts. I don’t want to do anything. I’m a bear to be around and I often lash out at whatever or whomever might be nearby.

What if Jesus just really needed a candy bar?

I wish I had the answers about how Jesus could be fully God and fully human all at the same time, but to me it is a mystery. And I’m okay with that.

I’m okay with the unchanging, holy, everlasting, eternal, awesome God becoming one of us.

I’m okay with the idea that Jesus can be totally divine and holy and merciful and good and loving AND that he was a human being who cried as a baby and learned and changed as an adult, and yes, got hungry sometimes.

It doesn’t have to make sense and it doesn’t change my ability to turn to God or learn from Jesus.

Well, maybe it does change my feelings… maybe it deepens my appreciation of God’s love for us. That God would go so far to get to know us so well.