lectionary – Page 3 – Salvaged Faith

Lectionary Leanings

Posted on December 2, 2008Leave a comment

The second installment of my articles for the Circuit Rider:

December 7
Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13,
II Peter 3:8-15a, Mark 1:1-8
Anticipation is not an emotion that we experience too often these days. We live in a “have it your way, fast” kind of culture. Anything you want in the entire world is at your fingertips through the wonders of the Internet, and now that the Internet is built into many of our cellular devices, we can literally take the world with us wherever we go.

Not only can we access information, music, images, and people with lightning speed, but we actually seem to be able to fit more things and tasks into our lives through the wonders of multitasking. The other day, I was driving to a meeting, trying to go over my notes, eating pretzels and listening to NPR on the radio. Coincidentally, the morning program was about multitasking. According to the neuroscientist on the program, our minds really can’t do multiple things at once; we simply shift our focus between all of these tasks very, very quickly.The problem with all of these rapid shifts between activities is that we leave ourselves very little time and space to prepare for what comes next.

More importantly, we have forgotten about the importance of waiting. We think we are avoiding all of those terrible feelings like anxiety and impatience and frustration when we occupy our waiting minds with other things, but we also miss out on feelings of what Merriam-Webster calls “pleasurable expectation,” or anticipation.

Just think of the anticipation that would have surrounded the crowds who came out to hear John preaching there in the wilderness. He was a sight to see for sure, with his camel hair garb and that strange diet of locusts and honey. We get to experience
Advent every year. It’s on our calendars and so we know it’s on its way. But those crowds who traveled from Jerusalem out to the countryside had no idea how long they would have to wait or what they were even waiting for. All they knew was that this crazy guy was standing in the river, washing away sins, but that someone even more powerful was coming. Someone who would not only wash them clean, but who could make them whole. Someone who was about to turn the whole world upside down.
Now, that’s what I call anticipation.

Lectionary Leanings – Keep Awake!

Posted on November 25, 20081 Comment

My lectionary leanings for the next month or so are actually going to come from sermon starters that I wrote for the United Methodist Publishing House’s “Circuit Rider”

November 30
Isaiah 64:1-9, Ps. 80:1-7, 17-19, I Corinthians 1:3-9, Mark 13:24-37

Isaiah thinks that we need a dramatic wake up call. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” we hear in the first verse. Mark, too, seems to be drawing our attention to signs and wonders in our readings for this first Sunday in Advent. Get ready! Be prepared! The signs are all around you!

Maybe we are too distracted by the Christmas music that has been playing in stores since the end of October. Maybe we have let the election steal our attentions for the past two years. Maybe our church has been so preoccupied by a building campaign
that we forgot to notice the gospel right in front of us. Whatever it may be, Advent is the time of year when we get slapped upside the head with the challenging images of the heavens shaking and the earth trembling and voices crying out prophetic words from the wilderness. Advent isn’t a time for the soft and cuddly, but a reminder of the ever present Kingdom of God that is about to fully break into our midst – whether we are ready for it or not.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the signs and wonders, but unlike Isaiah; I don’t necessarily believe that God has hidden from us. Maybe we just aren’t paying attention. Barbara Brown Taylor wrote in her sermon, “Late Bloomer,” (found in Gospel Medicine) “…what better way to live than in the grip of a promise… to wake in the possibility that today might be the day. To remain wide awake all day long, noticing everything.” What if the call to keep awake was not a call to be prepared for catastrophic billboards from on high, but to simply notice every day where God is present around us?

Yes, Christ promises to return, and in the Advent season we eagerly await the return of Christ. But Advent is also the reminder that God has already come down and made his life among us, and that while there may have been a star in the heavens, the presence of God was found in the ordinary. An infant born and laid in a manger of hay. Smelly shepherds coming in from the fields. A life lived among the people of God. A holy meal of wine and bread.

We claim and proclaim a Kingdom that is already here and not yet fully realized. To live in that tension is a call to be always aware of where God is active and moving among us, and also to be aware of where and when God is about to do a new thing in our midst.

those silly lutherans…

Posted on November 12, 2008Leave a comment

In my small town, there are basically five churches: Presbyterian, Nazarene, Catholic, LCMS, and my United Methodist church. Outside of town there is a UCC church and an ELCA church that participate with us.

We have a fairly good relationship among all of the churches and together have a ministerial alliance that distributes funds for gas, food, lodging, etc. for those in need in the community.

I have been amazed to discover that the LCMS pastor in town has been one of my best mentors. There is at times very little that we agree upon, but there is plenty of grace in our relationship =)

This morning we got to talking about the lectionary passage for Sunday the 23rd. Neither of us would be preaching on the text, but we thought we’d discuss it anyways. I have always loved the passage from Matthew 25 on the judgment of the sheep and the goats, because, for me it was a reminder that we are supposed to live the gospel and not just speak it with our mouths. For the most part, we talked about how the works described are like the fruits of good trees, they are the natural growth or response of a person to the faith which is alive within. We could agree on that.

We got into a lively discussion and I was amazed to hear about how difficult it was to preach this text to their congregations. In Lutheran theology, there is a very fine pathway to tread between legalism and antinomianism and there is always the danger that the message will be interpreted in a way that causes you to “fall off the cliff” in either direction.

I got to thinking about the difference between that and Wesleyan theology. And the greatest difference is that we believe that the works described in the passage from Matthew – the feeding of the hungry, and caring for the sick, etc., are in and of themselves means of grace. We don’t believe that works earn us God’s salvation, but that they can open us to the grace of God poured out into our lives. Particularly in regards to sanctifying grace.

My Lutheran brothers (they were both male) on the other hand recognize more limited means of grace: the word, the “wet” word (baptism), the “eaten” word (communion), and the “shared” word – fellowship, bible study. And so the works described had the danger of negating the power of faith to save us.

Whew. Yet another day in which I’m glad to be a methodist.

Lectionary Leanings

Posted on September 23, 2008Leave a comment

I am SO excited for this week’s texts. I play a MMORPG (Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game) and I so love the idea of Kenosis that I named my first character that.

Kenosis you ask? Check out the scriptures especially the Christ Hymn for Philippians.

Kenosis translated into English means emptying… self-giving… humility… pouring out

It is the embodiment of Christ into our human form – giving up his power, giving up his seat at the right hand of God, giving up his divinity in some respects in order to become one of us.

It is also the actions of Christ over and over again in his life and in his death. Giving up his power and status over and over to reach out to those who were hurting and sick and were chained by their sin. It is the action of Christ giving up his very life on the cross.

I’m really intrigued by how kenosis affects our views of leadership. A distant family member knew I was in ministry and he and his father are both pastors. We got to talking and they came to learn that I was THE pastor of my church. And not only were they amazed, but they also wanted to know if I called myself the “senior pastor.” Senior pastor? I’m the only pastor was my response. It’s not a question of being the one in charge, of being above everyone else – for me, leadership has always been about servanthood, about humility, about kenosis.

In Powers and Submissions, Sarah Coakley argues that we should come to see the incarnation and the cross as acts of “power-in-vulnerability.” These narratives remind us of our ultimate dependence upon one another and upon God while at the same time reminding us that letting go and opening up to the divine is what enables divine power to work in our midst. This power comes through dependence and relationship, through communion rather than a do-it-alone mentality. The practice of discernment exemplifies this power. Or, as Coakley describes it, “we can only be properly ‘empowered’ here if we cease to set the agenda, if we ‘make space’ for God to be God.”

In his article on postmodern leadership, Leonard Hjalmarson writes:

The leadership style that once dominated our culture is becoming passé. Instead of the Lone Ranger, we have Frodo: the Clint Eastwoods and Sylvester Stallones are replaced by ordinary men. Frodo, Aragorn and Neo (the Matrix) are self-questioning types who rely on those around them for strength, clarity and purpose. Indeed, while they have a sense of the need and a willingness to sacrifice themselves, they may not even know the first step on the journey.

He is describing a form of leadership that takes seriously both the interdependence of the Christian community as well as the idea of kenosis. Authority is shared and the agenda of the formal or ordained pastor is not the sole determinant of the direction of the congregation. At various times, Hjalmarson returns to the metaphor of storytelling and describes the pastor’s role as the narrator who weaves all of the various stories together, much like the mediating interpreter for Nicholas Lash. This vision of leadership is crucial if we are to emphasize the ways in which the Holy Spirit dwells in the community of believers – the body of Christ.

In many ways, I believe that is what kenosis is all about in the church… emptying ourselves so that the Holy Spirit can work through us. Embodying the mind of Christ means to set aside what we are entitled to, what we deserve, what is owed to us, and instead discerning the will of God and living our lives in obedience to it. And it is about coming together as the church – not a pastor leading as a lone ranger, but as the priesthood of all believers.

p.s. i wish i knew who did this watercolor – another blogger had it on their site, with no credits.

lectionary leanings

Posted on September 16, 2008Leave a comment

This Week’s Lectionary

I’m in the midst of my “ABC’s of Being the Church” series, and this week we are on “D.”

After much back and forth, I finally found the inspiration I needed from Lindy Black’s Sermon Nuggets and a thought somewhere on there about Daily Bread.

Our lectionary readings talk about the gift of manna in the wilderness, about the joy of fruitful labor, and about the undeserved pay for the workers who were chosen last.

I think I want to focus my sermon this week on how undeserving we are of the daily bread God gives us. We pray the Lord’s prayer almost as if the daily bread were a right, and not a gift. We stand after a long days work and demand our wages, not remembering that it was a gift to be chosen for the task in the first place. We think the work we are called to is a means of getting somewhere else, instead of seeing the work itself as a blessing – our work every day for the Lord.

Weekly Lectionary Reflection

Posted on September 4, 2008Leave a comment

** I’m giving up on my other blog where I only post lectionary reflections… my life, the life of the church, and the texts are not seperate – they all intertwine, so they might as well on my blog too! **

I’m quite far behind this week, as far as sermon preparation goes. I’m increasingly thankful for my local pastor’s lectionary study, as we always look at the texts a full week and a half in advance.

This week, I’m thinking a lot about the confrontation that is proposed in this week’s reading from Matthew, but also how that is only possible when you are bound together in Christ. So, in continuation with my “ABC’s of Being the Church” theme, this week is B for Bound Together.

I visited with a woman recently about these kinds of confrontations when your neighbor wrongs you, and we agreed that it is a horribly difficult thing to do. BUT – in our families, we have no problems telling someone if they have hurt us, or other people. Especially she said as a parent and a grandparent, or as a sibling, there is a lot of intervening going on (some of it not so healthy). But we treat those people who are in the church with us as strangers, as people whose lives are private and none of our business.

Our text this week reminds us that we are bound together. And the Romans passage makes that even clearer as we hearken back to the 10 commandments. While the first commandments are all about honoring and loving God, the rest are about how we are supposed to live in community – take care of one another – don’t do anything that would harm the fragile balance of our togetherness – because we all need one another to survive. In the United States, we are so individualized into our family units that we can’t see the way that our actions affect other people. Or we ignore the effects. This week, as we talk about being bound together, we have to face the responsibility and accountability that goes along with that.

Lectionary Leanings

Posted on August 26, 2008Leave a comment

I’m beginning a sort of series at the church – each week is one way that we are called to be the church.

I’m tying in very loosly “I Am who I am” with “Who do you say that I am” from last week and the fact that although Peter gets that Jesus is the Messiah, he doesn’t fully understand what it means.

Our word this week is “Accept” – it’s not enough to have the right answer to the question, we have to live out our belief that Jesus is the Messiah and that the God who wouldn’t even give us a name is the one who tenderly holds our lives in the palm of her hand.

Living it out is a lot different than just saying it. I think that’s why Peter had such a hard time… he wanted to follow a Messiah who would save him here and now, who would elevate him, who would give them liberty without the struggle. And to be honest, that’s how we have painted Jesus in our culture today – just say these simple words and believe.

But Romans tells us how we have to live – what embodying and truly accepting “You are the Messiah” means for our lives.

Last night, Michelle Obama said these words in her speech: “They’ll tell them how this time we listened to our hopes, instead of our fears. How this time, we decided to stop doubting and to start dreaming.” It’s a different context, but I think the words apply. We have to stop being afraid of what will happen to us if we truly follow Christ and we have to have hope that if we truly follow Christ, amazing things will happen and the world will be transformed.

That’s where I’m going…

Lectionary Leanings

Posted on August 23, 2008Leave a comment

1. Christ wants us to BUILD HIS CHURCH
2. The Church as a Living Body
a. WE don’t create it… Christ does.
i. Isaiah 51:1-2 “look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham and to Sarah – for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many.”
b. Letting Go of our own ideas – both the “good old days” and the “we shoulds”
i. Romans 12:1-2 “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God… do not be conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of your minds.”
c. BUT we have to use the tools that we have been given!
i. Romans 12:6ff “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us..”
ii. “The church will never be any better than we are.” – Peter Gomes
3. It takes all of us to be the church, not just some. This isn’t some country club that you have joined, this is a community of followers of Christ and starting this fall, we are really going to focus on what that means.
a. Each week until Advent, one way that we are called to “be the church” and “embody God’s Kingdom”
b. Then after we have explored each of those ways, I am going to challenge you to take a step of faith and to make a new kind of commitment to this church (will be covenant discipleship groups starting after the new year – and dividing the congregation up into classes w/ leaders). But first, we need to get back to the basics and remember what we are called to do.