John – Page 7 – Salvaged Faith

Becoming Disciples Through: Prayer

Posted on May 3, 2009Leave a comment

Prayer is one of the ways that we support the Body of Christ that is the church.

Caveat: in our vows, we talk about supporting the ministries of the United Methodist Church… but if we are thinking about this as a path to discipleship, and not merely supporting the institution of the church, then we can expand that concept a little bit.
The first letter of John reminds us that this isn’t about some institutional church – this is about claiming the fact that we are now God’s children – we belong to God! That is the message also from the gospel of John – Jesus Christ is the good shepherd who watches over the flock. We have nothing to fear, we know that we are in God’s hands. So how will we act as children of God in the world? What do we do?
What if we practice these things: our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness as we work to strengthen the Body of Christ that IS the church and in doing so become disciples and members of that body? That sounds a bit more appealing, doesn’t it?

What do we mean by prayer

Ask! What do you think prayer is? What comes to mind when you hear it?
In 1 Thessalonians, Paul asks us to pray without ceasing. When I think about what else we do without ceasing – my mind goes to breathing.
Breathing, for centuries, has been thought of as a wonderful companion to prayer, and a great way of physically understanding prayer.
So I looked up some things about breathing.
1. most of us breath unconsciously – and most of us breath the wrong way –
at least if we are to get the most out of our breaths.
2. If you watch a baby breathe, you will notice they breathe deep from
their bellies, rather than the shallow chest breathing that most of us
have grown accustomed to. I found a couple of guesses as to why our
breathing changes, and some people think that it’s because we are taught
to suck in our bellies and puff out our chests to look skinnier… in any
case – most of us have to relearn how to breathe.
3. Athletes, musicians, practicers of meditation and yoga – and yes even pray-ers benefit from relearning how to breathe.
4. Diaphragmatic breathing technique: exhaling and inhaling) correctly is critical in maintaining the appropriate level of oxygen for energy, keeping the correct pH levels in our body, and maintaining the correct carbon dioxide level for bodily functions” (about.com)
5. in other words – breathing correctly helps us to live better – it calms our spirits, allows us to accomplish more, gives us more energy and power…
6. and so does prayer. Prayer is not so much about communicating our will to God, but about aligning ourselves with God’s will. It is about building a relationship in which we live within God. When we pray deeply our spirits are calmed and our fears are dissolved, we accomplish more of God’s will in the world, and we are strengthened through the Holy Spirit to do and speak the things of God.
We breathe in and out… and we pray in and out and as unconscious as we think both prayer and breathing might be – we have to practice it in order to grow, change and thrive.

How do we practice prayer?

You practice by doing…
1. As swimmers learn Diaphragmatic breathing, they first practice sitting or standing still… then they practice with breathing while walking – every right step, or every left step… then they practice every fourth step.. then they practice breathing this way while they move their arms…
“Although there are some people who can talk to anyone, anywhere (like my dad`), most people make small talk initially. This changes as their relationship develops. Sometimes this happens very quickly, other times it takes time. In all cases it takes effort…
Now, I don’t want to make it seem like we are all terrible at praying and have to start from the ground up. In fact, Richard Foster reminds us that: . . . Countless people pray far more than they know. Often they have such a stained-glass image of prayer that they fail to recognize what they are experiencing as prayer and so condemn themselves for not praying.”
1. in fact, we pray in different ways all of the time. Just as deep breathing is not limited to learning how to swim, but is a skill that we adapt and take into every facet of our lives, so is prayer. As we continue to practice prayer with one another, we learn both that many of the things we area already doing are prayerful, but we also learn how to incorporate prayer into other parts of our being.

We know what prayer is, we know how to practice it: by doing… now – what should we be praying for?

if we were to look at all of the Hebrew and greek words for prayer we would find meanings like: seek, ask, desire, question, grieve, complain, intercede, bow, beg, demand, wish, meditate, ponder, contemplate, search, draw near, worship, visit
We began today by thinking about committing to prayer in order to support the Body of Christ.
1. First, I think we need to think of ourselves as members of the body. What are our needs? What are our struggles and frustrations? Bring those to God!
2. We think about the members of the body: who is ill, who is hurting? The stronger the body of Christ, the more God’s will can be accomplished.
3. What members of the body are missing? Who are the people in our community that are not working and supporting the body? Do we have hands that aren’t giving? Do we have ears that aren’t listening? We need to pray for those who are already members but who aren’t active or have forgotten their way.
4. What parts of our body are working but need encouragement? Pray just as fervently for the leaders among you as you do for those who aren’t active.
5. What is the larger body that our congregation is a part of? We can likewise pray for other churches in our community, in our district, for the United Methodist church and the church worldwide.
6. What is the purpose of the Body? What is the ministry of the Body of Christ? We can pray for direction and discernment. We can pray for the courage to practice the ministry God has given us. We can celebrate with thanksgiving what God has already accomplished in the world.
All of those things are exhaling. We are praying for and strengthening and accomplishing the work of God in the world through our prayer. But we also have to remember to breathe deeply and to listen. Let yourself be filled up with God so that you can be strengthened and encouraged to go back out there and do it all over again. Amen and Amen.

Broken Open, Filled With Love

Posted on March 29, 20091 Comment

Sermon Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 12:20-33; Psalm 51

It takes a long time for any of us to learn something new. At Christmas time, I was absolutely set on learning how to play the guitar. I headed to the Guitar Center in Cedar Rapids and found the perfect guitar for me and bought it on the spot. My brother-in-law gives lessons, and so we worked out an arrangement that I would have a lesson each week when we came over for dinner. So far, so good.

For the first few weeks, I practiced nearly every night. It was exciting to hold this instrument in my hands and to hear the intonation of the strings. I learned a few new chords each week, but I think the more I learned, the more I realized how little I in fact knew. Every new lesson opened up a whole world of possibility and questions and soon it was almost overwhelming.

And then, I got busy. Or rather, other things in my life started creeping in and taking importance once more. My practicing suffered. I began to dread my Friday night lesson and on more than one occasion conveniently “forgot” my guitar at home. I know, it’s pathetic really, but eventually I just stopped playing.

For a few weeks now, my guitar has sat in its case in the corner of my office waiting to be played. Waiting for me to pick it up once again. And I think the thing that makes it so hard to do, is that I know I’m going to have to start all over again. I’m going to have to go back to the basics.

As I glanced over at my guitar this week, I realized that many of us could easily substitute the words “faith” or “church” or “prayer life” for my experience learning how to play. When we begin this journey and this relationship with Christ, we are so full of energy and excitement and we dive in head first, eager to learn.

But life creeps back in. Or at least, life as it was before, and if we do not give our relationship with God the care and attention it needs, before too long we find that our faith is sitting in the corner, gathering dust, rather than an active and vital part of our lives.

In many ways, I don’t know that we are necessarily to blame for this phenomenon. Maybe it’s because we are lazy, or too easily swayed by the ways of this world. Maybe it’s because we are weak. But it seems like each of us has built into our nature this inability to fully follow God the way that we want to. Call it what you want – the consequences of free-will, original sin, or the brokenness of humanity – but there is just something that seems to prevent us from truly accepting and embodying the will of God in our lives.

In Romans, Paul talks about this struggle in his own life, saying “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am!”

This problem of will, this problem of sin isn’t something that just plagues us. It isn’t something that just plagued Paul… it has plagued us as a people of God from the very beginning.

There is a bible study group in our church that meets on Wednesday mornings. And in the past few months, they have been working through the first books of our Bible. We have listened in as the Hebrew people hear God’s call and say that they are willing to follow God’s law… but then time and time again grumble, and try to do things their own way, and fall by the wayside. Over and over again, God reminds them that they are a chosen people, reminds them that they have been brought out of slavery and bondage – that they have been freed to live a new life in relationship with God. And over and over again, they fail.

In the midst of a time of failure, one of those moments in the life of Israel when they were the farthest from God and seemed irredeemable – God sent a prophet named Jeremiah into their midst.

Now, Jeremiah had some tough words for the people of God. He spoke harshly against their worship of other gods and their mistreatment of the poor and told them very clearly that God was about to let Babylon come in and carry the people off into exile.

And before too long – the things Jeremiah spoke of began to happen. The king was taken away, the army collapsed, the temple was ransacked.

But then, in the midst of their despair, Jeremiah laid aside the words of judgment and condemnation and began to speak a word of hope.

“A new day is dawning” God spoke through Jeremiah, “ A new day is dawning where I will put my law within you… I will write it on your hearts. It will not be like the promises we made in the past – promises that you could never live up to – even though you love me, and even though I was faithful. This law, this new way I will write on your hearts and I will be your God and you will be my people. I will forgive you, I will restore you, and I will remember the ways that you failed in the past no more.”

The law – the beautiful words of God that are meant to guide our actions and to help us to live in love with one another – is a good and holy thing. But try as hard as we might – I’m not convinced that we can do it alone. Left with just good intentions and our own hearts and minds and wills – the law is an unattainable goal that will always show us as wanting. None of us is perfect enough. None of us is good enough. None of us, no matter how much we love God, can do it on our own.

But something changes in these words from Jeremiah. The law is transformed from some external measure that we must live up to – to a relationship, a way of being, that God writes on our very hearts.

The Psalmist cries out – give me a clean heart, O God, put a new and right spirit within me. Take that old self of mine that never seems to get it right, and fill me up with your will. Because I can’t do it alone. Only you can sustain me. Only you can help me to do it right.

In our United Methodist tradition, when we talk about grace, we talk about it in three ways. First, there is the grace that comes to us before we even know or understand who God is – prevenient grace. Then, there is the grace that helps us to see clearly what God desires of our lives. Through justifying grace, we begin to understand just how much we have failed according to the law, and just how much God loves us anyways. And when we accept that love of God – a third kind of grace pours into our lives… sanctifying grace. The grace that will sustain us and help us to grow more into the likeness of God each and every day.

It’s easy to describe those three types of grace. It’s a lot harder to accept them in our lives. Doing so means letting go of our former lives so that the love of God can live within us. We can only receive a new spirit within, if we are willing to let our old spirit go.

There is an old Hasidic tale that relates to this struggle.

A disciples asks the rebbe, ‘Why does the Torah tell us to “place these words upon your hearts”? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?’ The rebbe answers, ‘It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay, until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.’

Only when our hearts break open, only when we truly let go of our old ways, does the perfect, loving, powerful word of God fully rest in our being.

This is the message that Jesus tells his disciples over and over again – using the simple image of a grain of wheat.

Unless a seed falls into the earth and dies, it is simply a seed. But when it is planted – when the earth and water go to work on that tiny seed, it is broken open. And before long it stops being a seed and it becomes a sprout, a glimmer of new life that peeks above the soil and will grow and bear fruit.

Our lives without God are a lot like that seed. Without help – a seed will simply remain a seed. And without help, we cannot transform ourselves into what we were meant to be. But through the warm soil of community and the refreshing waters of the holy spirit, we too, can be broken open; we too can die to our old selves; we too, can find new life and bear fruit.

On my own – just me and my guitar won’t go very far. I need instruction. I need encouragement from my teacher. I need people around me who know just how much I want to play and who are willing to hold me accountable. But perhaps even more than those things, I need to go back to that first desire I had to play. And I need to let the love of music and song rest within me, place the notes upon my heart until one day my closed heart breaks and the music falls in.

Who is Missing

Posted on August 3, 2008Leave a comment

Last week while on vacation, I got to spend a lot of time with my neice and nephew. My neice is three and my nephew is almost seven years old. And whenever you spend so much time around little ones, you are guaranteed to hear the cutests and darndest things.

As we began to make our long journey back home, our car pulled out onto the highway right behind a logging truck with eight foot, freshly cut logs piled high in the back.

We pointed out the logs to my neice, who immediately wanted to know why the trees broke. We tried to explain that they had been cut down, but her only response was, “tell me the truth, guys!”

We went on to share how those tress would be made into things like toothpicks and tables and paper, but after every explanation, every description that seemed completely logical to our adult minds, she looked at us, with a face of pure unbelieve and shouted back, “That’s not true! Tell me the truth, guys!”

Her little mind hasn’t yet formed the connections between a tree growing in the forest and the paper she colors on every day. The ability for one thing to become another isn’t a concept she can comprehend yet. And so she thought we were all lying to her. Me, her huncle, her father, all of us. And it only got worse the more we laughed and smiled – not because we were fibbing, but because of how adorable she was.

My neice didn’t believe us because she couldn’t yet, but there are times in our lives when we have something deeply true and important to share and when no one believes us it can be very painful and frustrating. As we explore both of our scritpures this morning, we fill find both those who don’t believe and also the longing to include them on this journey of faith.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans this is more obvious. He writes to his fellow Israelites – those who have grown up reading the same scriptures – who understand the same prophecies – to those whom God has chosen – and Paul is in anguish over the fact that his brothers and sisters of Israel don’t believe him. No matter how many times he shares his store, they don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah they have been waiting for. But still, Paul never gives up and keeps writing to them, trying to share what he has found. And he keeps praying and rusting in God’s promises to Israel, to us all.

In our gospel lesson this morning, the unbelieving ones anre a bit harder to find. When Jesus needs some time away – som rest and a space to grieve the death of his friend, John the Baptist, he tries to leave quietly in the morning. But the crowds of followers watch his every move and they all gather together at his destination before he even arrives.

Now – having just been on vacation, I can assure you – as much as I love all of you – if you had journeyed up to Northern Wisconsin and were waiting beside my cabin when I pulled up last week – I might have been pretty upset. I probably would have ordered you all back hom, or I might have hopped back in the car and tried to find a better hiding place.

In any case – I don’t know that I could have mustered up the compassion that Jesus had for all of those men, women and children who had journeyed out to that deserted place to be with him.

So moved was Jesus that he spent all day moving among the crowds and healing those who were sick. He set aside his own plans for the day, his own need to grieve, and he ministered to their needs.

After hours upon hours of these acts of sacrifice, mercy, and compassion, his tired disciples come up to Jesus and begged him to send everybody home.

“There is no food here,” they cried.

“It’s hours past supper time”

“My blood sugar is running low,” they chimed in.

“My tummy is rumbling.”

“Send everyone back to the towns so that they – and we – can get some food!”

I can just picture the mischevious, knowing smile that comes across Jesus’ face as he responds, “No need to send them away – you give them something to eat!”

Because, you see, Jesus already knows the disciples are thinking about scaricty – about how little they have -the few loaves of bread and fishes they brought with them that morning for a meager lunch they didn’t have time to eat. And Jesus knew that what sometimes looks tiny and insignificant can be full of life and life abundant.

So in front of all of those people, all of those faithful crowds who followed Christ into the wilderness, he took the bread of his disciples, blessed the bread and broke it, then gave it to his closest followers so that they could serve the many.

All of those who gathered to see Jesus – to hear him speak and maybe ever tho be healed – got so much more than they were bargaining for that day. They didn’t just catch a glimpse of Christ and spend some time at his feet… they caught a glimpse of the last supper. They got a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. They witnessed a radical outpouring of life and generosity and abundance like hadn’t been seen since the days of the prophets or since Israel journeyed in the wilderness and the people were fed by manna from heaven.

All who were gathered there ate and were filled. Filled with life, filled with hope, filled with the love of Christ, who shared himself with them in the breaking of the bread.

Now all of that is well and good, but like Paul Harvey – I want to know “the rest of the story.” You see, in the “rest of the story” my mind sees unbelieers. In the rest of the story, I feel my heart breaking like Paul’s because I think about all of those people who didn’t show up, who stayed home to mow the lawn, who didn’t think they were worthy or welcome, who were too sick to come.

I think about all of those people today who don’t believe God is real, who can’t understand that God loves them and who live their lives empty of that reality. I think about them and I understand Paul’s frustration.

And you know what, I re-live that feeling each month when we gather around this communion table. I re-live that pain and longing because I know that there is enough here:

enough bread and enough juice
enough love and enough grace
for all to come and be filled.

There is more than enough here, and yet there are many who won’t taste this meal today.

Maybe they are family members who are too busy for church. Maybe they are co-workers that you have never thought to invite. Maybe it’s the person down the street who lives along and longs for a place to belong… but who doesn’t know we exist.

Each time we gather around the communion table, I have asked you to look around and notice who is not with us. It is not a typical part of the litany – but something that one of my pastor’s shared with me that really rocked my world.

Before that, the communion table was about my own personal relationship with God – it was a private act done in a public place. But then, I realiced that this is a table set not just for me, or even just for those in this room, but this is a table set for all. Everyone is welcome here. Everyone will be fed here – if only they are able to gather around the table.

I want us to take a few minutes this morning to think about “who is missing” more seriously. Who in your life, who in this community, is NOT gathered with us or other people of faith around the table?

Here are some slips of paper and I want to invite you to prayerfully write down the name of someone you know, someone you want to invite to join us on this journey. I also ask you to include your name, so that together you and I can reach out to that person or family. When we take the offering after the message, place those names in the offering plate.

My prayer is that when we gather agian around this table next month, that some of those people for whom our hearts break might be able to share in this amazing feast with us.

Over the next few weks we will explore ways to share the love we have experienced with each of these people. Some may simply come and are eager for the invitation. But we might find that there are others to which we have to go – to take the church to them – to gather around other tables in other places. But let us remember that Paul never gave up on his message – and while people may not believe us or won’t come at first, God does and through his power others will too.

If the man was right.. the world would be too

Posted on May 18, 2008Leave a comment

In the beginning…. Before even this world was created… from the very start of it all… there was God.

I don’t know about you, but thinking about what was going on before our world was created gives me a headache. It makes my brain go all fuzzy. Because we don’t know and we can’t know what God was doing, what God was thinking, and what God was feeling.

If we look at the beginning of Genesis, we can figure out a few things… the earth actually did exist in the beginning… it was a mushy, gushy, blob of matter, but there was something there. And there was darkness… lots of darkness… everything was dark. And there was water. “The deep” is what Genesis calls it… the bottomless, endless, Iowa River out of its banks kind of water.

And… there was God.

Now, I’m going to think of this purely from a creative and imaginative perspective. If all that surrounded me was a blob of shapeless matter, utter darkness, and water, water, everywhere, I’m not sure that I would be a very happy person. It would be kind of depressing. It would be so dark and damp and cold. Part of me thinks – well, no wonder God created the heavens and the earth – just for some company! Just for something to do!

But if we think this way – we are ignoring the fact that God wasn’t alone. God wasn’t unhappy. God didn’t decide to create the heavens and the earth to make some friends or to play with us. God was perfectly complete already.

Do any of you remember what I showed to the kids a few minutes ago? What did I say that God was like? (ROUND DANCE)… Round Dance, that’s right… Now there is actually a big fancy word for that round dance that is God… and it’s called Peri-choresis… say it with me now: peri-choresis.

Now, this can be a really strange concept to understand, but it describes the way that the three persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all relate, all dwell with one another. Just listen to these scriptures for a glimpse of what I mean:

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. (John 1:1-3)

”I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17: 20-26)

“I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Therefore, “whoever sees me, sees the Father,” for “I and the Father are one” (John 14: 9-11, 10, 30).

How this happens is a complete mystery to me, but over and over again, we are told in the scriptures that the Father and the Son are one, along with the Holy Spirit. Together, within each other, moving in unison, with one will and one desire, the Holy Trinity is complete, perfect, and needs nothing else.

I guess another way to say it is that before creation, before you and me, before this planet was formed… there were relationships and there was love. Jurgen Moltmann writes in The Living Pulpit that “achievement, individualism, independence, and self-assertion are contrary to the very nature of reality— for all that God has made reflects the character and nature of God.” Our God is not a single, solitary, God… no, with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together, our God is a community.

And the world that God creates is meant to be about relationship as well.

You see, from the very beginning, we were created as an extension of God’s love and relationship. We were created to participate, to share, in God’s love.

Each and every thing that is created by God has a place…. the earth and its vegetation relies upon the light of the sun for its food and energy… the creatures of the earth rely upon that same vegetation for their food…. I’m reminded of Disney’s movie – The Lion King, and Elton John’s song… the Circle of Life

“From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There’s more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There’s far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

It’s the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life”

As someone who studied science for a brief while before venturing back over into the world of religion, I am always amazed at how fragile and delicate that circle of life is. How intricate the relationships God created in this planet are. How this earth holds just the right balance of sun and water and air to sustain life. And how all of it is God’s doing.

You, know we could spend hours debating which of the two creation stories (yes, there are two versions within our very bibles) are the most accurate… we could launch into a huge discussion about the bible verses science or creation and evolution… but I am not really sure that any of those debates matter. Because the one thing we know is that God has a hand in our creation… and we are made for relationship.

After the rest of the world was finished… God look around and saw that it was good. But then God decided to make one more thing… to make humankind… to make us… in the image of God.

This week in the roundtable pulpit group, we talked a little bit about what that image of God might mean. And we talked about our ability to think and to reason. We talked about the power that we are given to care for other things.

The image of God can also mean that we have been stamped, have been marked as belonging to God. In much older days, a messenger would carry the image of his master in order to prove to another person who he belongs to – who he represents. And so for us to be created in the image of God, means that we represent God to the rest of the world – and to one another.

On this Trinity Sunday – on the day that we remember and celebrate that God is Three-In-One… I think that the image of God and what we represent takes on a whole new meaning.

The image of God means that we are created for and in relationship.

If we jump ahead to the “other” creation story, God actually creates only one human being. And that being is made out of the earth and God breathes life into this human. But then God realizes that it is not good for the human to be alone – that like the divine God – the human needs a partner, needs a relationship with others to be complete, to be whole.

In Genesis 1 we read: So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Unique, distinct, and yet the same – created to be one.

And created with a job to do. This world is not our playground – it is not a treasure chest of goods that we can plunder… it is given to us to take care of. When we think today of the words subdue and dominion we often think of power and tyrants… but we have to think of “dominion” from the perspective of Israel… where the King had dominion over the people – but that also included a responsibility to care for those he ruled. We are to be stewards of the creation, to care for it and tend it, because after all, it does not belong to us – but to God. We are merely servants of God.

Within our United Methodist Church, today is not only Trinity Sunday, but also Peace with Justice Sunday… and it is also a reminder that we are created to care for one another – to be in relationship with one another.
In the resources for Peace with Justice Sunday, there was this story of a father and a son…

A father was minding his son while trying to study. The boy simply would not leave him alone.

In desperation the father thought of a plan. Thumbing through a magazine, he saw a map of the world and explained to his son that this was a picture of our hemisphere. Tearing the picture into pieces, the father said if the boy would put it back together, he would reward him with a surprise. The father left the room, confident he would not be disturbed for the rest of the afternoon. Imagine his surprise when his son soon called him to the other room to see the finished puzzle.

“How did you do this?” the astonished father asked. “You don’t know what the world looks like.”

“No, Daddy,” the boy replied, “but when you tore it out of the magazine, I saw a picture of a man on the other side. I know what a man looks like, so I put the man together. If the man was right, the world would be right too.”

What a profound truth: “If the man was right, the world would be right too.” With God’s help, we have the power to make the world right.(–Jeanie Stoppel)
Peace with Justice Sunday reminds us that the power we have is a gift from God and we are to use to towards the same ends God desires for the world. We are to love with the same kind of love as God. We are to see others as fellow beings, who are created for relationship with us. And we are to see this world as a gift, as God’s holy place, as the place where we are meant to live and grow and thrive.
Let us live our lives as good stewards of this creation. Let us live our lives as brothers and sisters with all of our fellow human beings. Let us live our lives always searching for God’s will. And let us live our lives representing the one who created us… the three-in-one triune God… let us live our lives in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Gracious God,
Thank you for this new day.
Thank you for the opportunity to worship as your body of Christ.
Thank you for the Holy Spirit who fills us with the truth and wisdom.
Holy one, we pray for those who are suffering in China from Earthquakes, Myanmar from the Cyclone, and those who suffer from starvation.
Lord we pray for your peace with justice throughout your whole world.
And now;
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Amen.

Easter is for the Hopeless

Posted on March 23, 2008Leave a comment

A rollercoaster of emotions. In the sunrise service this morning we began a little bit differently and instead of starting off with the joy of the resurrected Christ, we began with the despair felt by Mary and the disciples because their Lord and Teacher was no longer with them. You see, for the disciples, Easter morning began with a hopeless situation.

Of all the things I could preach about this morning, it is that hopelessness that I think we should address. Sometimes in the halls of this church, but more often around the dinner table, or in the grocery store, or in the varied and sundry places that we gather in our lives – there is so much talk of hopelessness. We gossip about neighbors who just can’t seem to get their act together. We watch the evening news and everything seems wrong with the world.

We sit through this long, cold and snowy winter… and to be honest, I start to feel a little hopeless myself. This year has been especially bitter, and isolating. So many of our lives have been disrupted by weather that has kept us home, kept us inside and kept us away from the lives we are used to leading.

Not that if the weather was better we could have gone anywhere! With gas prices escalating, heating costs rising, and the simple cost of food going through the roof, it is a wonder we have made it through this winter at all!

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

This past year we have gotten used to a lot of things. Besides our economic situation, the violence of the world almost ceases to phase us. Our lives were rocked and our foundations shaken by the shootings at Virginia Tech last April… and yet a similar incident, closer to home at Northern Illinois University in February barely seemed like a blip on the radar.

Not to mention the violence and human rights violations occurring across our planet as war-torn countries continue to destroy the lives of innocent men, women and children. This very week marked the five year anniversary of our entrance into Iraq and often that situation itself feels entirely hopeless. It seems that no matter what we do, or maybe because of what we do, new groups and new people spring up to fight, instead of searching for ways to work together and to rebuild lives.

Now, I know what you are all thinking… Pastor Katie, it’s Easter morning… isn’t this supposed to be a happy day?! You know what… it is! But I think we also get so bogged down in the problems of our lives, in the problems of our country and the problems of this world that we forget the real promise of Easter!

I think that too often, Easter morning comes with it’s beautiful flowers and it’s joyful music and lovely tables set with ham and we enjoy it for a few hours, but then on Monday morning – life is back to the way it was. Nothing has changed. Nothing is really any different.

A few weeks ago, as we shared with one another the story of Lazarus, I read a poem by Wendell Berry. And the last line of that poem said: “Practice Resurrection.” Time and time again in the Christian faith we are called to be a “resurrection people” to carry the joy and the hope and the promise of the resurrection with us throughout our lives. Both of those two things mean that what we experience on Easter Sunday has to stay with us longer than dinner time.

In our gospel reading this morning, Mary goes to the tomb and she is not going with expectant hope. She is going to bring spices and oil and to continue to prepare his body for burial. You see, Jesus was laid in the tomb just before sunset and the beginning of the Sabbath Day and so the women did not have enough time to properly lay him to rest. So as the sun rose on this Easter morning, Mary Magdelene went to the tomb to mourn, to pray, and to say her good-byes.

She was someone who desperately loved Jesus. He was her Teacher and her Master. He offered her new life and a brand new beginning when he cleansed the demons from her life. And ever since that time, she had followed him faithfully. Then, in one fell swoop, everything that she had begun to put her trust into was taken away. Her Lord was gone. The disciples who followed him had scattered and those who remained were hiding out in fear of the Jewish authorities. Mary had no one to turn to and no where to go.

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

But as our scriptures this morning remind us, when she arrived, everything was in disarray! The stone was rolled back and her Master was no where to be found! His body was gone! Desperately, she ran to the house of one of the disciples for she knew that some of them would be there… They have taken away his body! She cried out…. They have taken him and I don’t know where they have laid him!

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

I think many times in our lives, this is how we experience Easter. We know that something happened a long time ago, and we know that Jesus was raised from the dead, and we know the whole story and how it is supposed to go. But we don’t REALLY know what it means. We don’t understand the pain and sorrow of Good Friday because we all know how the story ends. Jesus comes back to life, is raised from the dead, saves us all and goes to be with God forever. Amen.

But that isn’t the end of the story! That is barely even a glimpse of the reality of what God is doing! The disciples knew something had happened, maybe even understood that Jesus was alive, but none of them were prepared for how their lives would change.

The power of the Easter resurrection didn’t just bring Christ to life. The power of the Easter resurrection took a rag tag bunch of disciples who barely knew their left from their right as far as following Jesus was concerned…. And turned them into apostles. It turned these doubting, stammering, disobedient fools into the leaders of a movement that would transform the world! When Christ rose from the dead, the Body of Christ that is the church was brought to life – a community was formed that would love and cherish and carry on the mission and the ministry of Christ!

Each and every single one of us is a living testimony to the power that Christ’s resurrection had on our world. Each one of us is who we are today and is in this place this morning because those first disciples experienced the risen Christ. And because that experienced so radically changed their lives that they had to tell others.

This morning is so full of images – the empty tomb – the voice of angels –

Mary’s encounter with Jesus – the promises made through the prophets coming true. It is so rich – so full – so basic to who we are as an Easter People.

Friday – sad Friday – the day we call Good Friday – is brushed aside in one glorious moment of realization. As Mary stood in that garden weeping out of desperation she heard her Master call her voice. One moment of startling fear and overwhelming joy – a moment of holy awe – as the significance of what is seen – and what is unseen comes crashing in.

Jesus is Risen. Death could not hold him.

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

All that Jesus said about life and death

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

is made real in that empty tomb

and in that encounter in the garden.

Those disciples heard Jesus talk SO MANY TIMES about his death and resurrection and it just never sunk in. They couldn’t understand the promise because they never believed it would happen. So when Jesus shared his final meal with them on Thursday night they let him down and failed to remain faithful. And when Christ was crucified on Friday afternoon, they were paralyzed by their unbelief and forgot the promises he made to them. They couldn’t see past their own pain to remember the promise!

All that Jesus said about life and death

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

is made real in that empty tomb

and in that encounter in the garden.

Today, we share in that promise.

We share in the promises made to Children of Israel and to the entire world through the Prophets.

We share in the promises made to the disciples and to all who listened to Jesus as he walked towards his death upon a slab of wood.

We share in it – for the word that he spoke to them – and to us — is made true and real by what we testify to this morn, it is made true by the resurrection.

And more yet – it is made true by the testimony of our hearts. Hearts here among us – this very day – who have been touched by the spirit of the living Lord. Hearts here which have heard Jesus knocking upon the door and have opened that door and had him come in and dine with them. Hearts that encountered the risen Christ even today, thousands of years after the stone was first rolled back and the tomb shown to be empty and our Lord risen.

Hear again the words from the prophet Isaiah… the promise to each one of us:

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the

former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But

be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about

to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I

will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more

shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of

distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives

but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a

lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered

a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered

accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they

shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not

build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat;

for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and

my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They

shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they

shall be offspring blessed by the LORD– and their descendants as

well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet

speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed

together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the

serpent–its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy

on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

The prophet Jeremiah, even as his city was being ravaged and destroyed by foreign countries, even though he knew that his nation was being torn apart, went out and bought a small plot of land and planted a tree there.

THAT is what it looks like to trust in the promises of our God. THAT is what it looks like to celebrate the power of God and the power of new life, even when everything around us seems so hopeless.

So what is this Easter morn?

It is God’s promise of a new day

It is God’s promise of a new life

It is God’s promise of a new world

coming to pass in our midst.

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

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

Jesus even called out to her “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” But she does not recognize him.

Jesus is risen. Death could not hold him.

I think that Christ is calling out to us all the time, every day. He asks us constantly what we are weeping for. He longs to wipe away the tears from our eyes. And he wants us to see him, to recognize him as the Jesus who is alive – the Jesus who is risen – the Jesus who has the power to bring a new creation to bear on our lives. But our hearts are often so slow to believe, to trust, and to accept that he is standing before us.

There are so many things in our lives that we could feel hopeless about. Loved ones who die too young, People who work away their lives for a wage that won’t even put food on the table. Homeless families… including the 700 children who are homeless in Cedar Rapids, Iowa alone.

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

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

Jesus is risen! Death could not hold him! And the forces that tear us apart in this world will not defeat him either!

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

We are to be like the prophet Jeremiah, who planted a tree, even though the world around him was falling apart. We are to find small ways to live out and practice the resurrection power in our world today.

Christ is risen! Let us crown him the lord of Life, the Lord of Peace and the Lord of Love and may we believe in his power to truly transform our lives.

Amen.

the e-word #2

Posted on July 1, 2007Leave a comment

At the end of my last column, I wrote, “to be an evangelist is simply to share the good news of God with the world.” But before we even look at how we do that sharing, what exactly is the good news? If we looked to the culture, if we tuned into any sporting event, the answer seems to be simple: John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

But I want to take a step back. I do think that John 3:16 is part of the good news about Jesus and about God, but not the only part. If you were to do a concordance search of the phrase “good news” in the Bible – you would find about 40 different hits (try it out at biblegateway.com). Believe it or not, a third of them are from the Old Testament, sometimes using good news in terms of the Davidic Kingdom and deliverance from enemies.

The New Testament references to good news could easily be divided into two categories, or two different types of good news. One you could call the good news of Jesus or what Jesus came to proclaim and initiate. As Jesus begins his ministry, he enters the synagogue and reads from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Elsewhere it is referred to as the good news of the kingdom – a new order is to be established of the last and the least and the lost and that in and of itself is good news.

The second sort of reference to good news is the kind we typically think of: the good news about Jesus. Mark’s gospel begins, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and it is clear that what follows is good news about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The book of Acts goes back and forth when it comes to the phrase, a tension caught in this passage from chapter 8, verse 12: “they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.” It seems the good news is both that this new reign is to be established AND that Jesus is the one who has been sent to bring it about.

If we stick to simply a John 3:16 version of the good news, we find that we are missing half the picture. And from the way that we see that scripture used today, simply proclaiming the sentence is enough! Put it on a billboard, shout it from the mountaintops, knock on someone’s door, share that message and people will follow God. But evangelism will change when the message becomes about the kingdom of God and about the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The ways in which we become part of sharing that story… we’ll talk about that on another day.