Luke – Salvaged Faith

Soul Reset

Posted on September 11, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 3:21-23

This July, I walked back into my gym for the first time in more than two years.

When everything shut down in March of 2020, I tried to do the online workouts for a bit.

When the gym reopened, I wasn’t ready to go back and sweat and breathe with large groups of people in a small space.

I tried to make my own plan and we bought a weight bench and put it in the basement.

But I never really got back into the swing of doing things on my own.

I definitely wasn’t paying attention to other areas of physical health like what I was eating.

And you know what… my body felt it.

I started going to the chiropractor and physical therapist because of aches in my shoulders and back.

I had less energy and I was drinking a whole lot more coffee to get through the day.

And I realized that I was treating symptoms instead of going back and looking at the cause.

I had stopped taking care of my body and I no longer had a group to be accountable to.

So, in July of this year, I signed back up for classes and I’ve gone at least four times a week for the last two and a half months.

My family has been more conscientious about eating healthier food.

I pushed the reset button.

And I’m starting to feel better.

How many of you can relate to some part of that story?

To falling away from a practice that was working for you?

To trying to solve the problem by focusing on symptoms instead of causes?

To finally pushing the rest button and starting again?

You know, I just shared that experience about my physical health… but I could just as easily have told the exact same story about my spiritual health.

The other day, I was sitting in my office,

juggling an email from someone who needed rental assistance,

preparing for a meeting about episcopal elections,

trying to figure out what prayer to add into the worship service,

when my smart watch buzzed at me.

It said, “Your stress level seems high. You should take a breathing break.”

Oh.

Thanks.

I looked up from the keyboard and my star word from Epiphany is taped to the wall.

“Contemplation” it reads.

Contemplation in the Christian faith is a form of prayer or meditation where we sit still in order to experience the divine.

Next to my desk is a pack of these little 20 minute candles.

Each is designed to burn for just 20 minutes so that you can take a short break to unplug, pray, and renew.

They were a gift from a dear friend and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.

But here I was, sitting at my desk, swamped with important ministry tasks, with a thousand signs all screaming at me saying the same thing.

Maybe you need to stop and be still with God for a minute.

Maybe you need to stop rushing around to fix all the problems and recenter yourself.

Maybe you need to recharge your spiritual battery.

Maybe you need to remember who God made you to be.

Maybe you need to push the reset button in your spiritual life.

Just as I could tell you about the symptoms I was trying to treat with my physical health, I can tell you about some of the symptoms of an unhealthy spiritual life:

Reacting out of our emotions – like lasting out in anger… or ignoring them all together.
Pretending like we don’t have flaws and we haven’t made mistakes.
Dividing our lives into “secular” and “sacred” compartments
Getting busy doing FOR God instead of being WITH God.

Do any of the items on that list resonate with you?

Maybe we all need to push that reset button.

Maybe we all need to stop focusing on the symptoms like stress and busyness and instead start taking care of our spirit.

And the good news we hear from the book of Lamentations that God’s mercy and grace are new every morning.

We may not have been consistent… but God is faithful.

God keeps showing up.

So whenever we are ready to push that reset button… there God is waiting for us.

Where do we start?

You know, one of the things that I have heard from several people is that they stepped away from church for a time during the pandemic and realized that they weren’t missing a lot.

It had simply become one more thing to do, in the long list of things that keep us busy.

If anything, the pandemic has been a time to refocus on what is really essential in our lives… and maybe Sunday morning worship just didn’t seem so essential anymore.

I think part of that is because of how we have gone about worship.

We have treated it like another item on our to-do list rather than an opportunity to be in God’s presence.

We have isolated our spiritual life to an hour or two on Sunday morning and then forgot about it the rest of the week.

We showed up in our Sunday best and didn’t give ourselves… or others… space to be vulnerable and real about what is happening in our lives – the good and the bad.

In some ways, we’ve been playing right into those symptoms of spiritual unhealth.

Peter Scazzero calls this “using God to run from God.” (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)

But you know what… one of the things that we have remembered and tried to embrace during this pandemic is that God is not contained solely within the four walls of this building.

God goes with us wherever we are.

United Methodist pastor and consultant, Rebekah Simon-Peter recently researched what happened to churches during the bubonic plague – which lasted for several centuries in Europe.

One of the positive things she discovered was a growth in lay-led spiritual movements.

The church of the time had been consumed by power and wealth, influence and politics.

But when the plague stopped everything in its tracks, she noted that people were hungry for a relationship with God, for relationships with each other, and found new ways to reach beyond the walls of the church.

The Black Death forced a kind of reset.

Covid-19 has, too.

I think that’s part of the reason that John the Baptist went out and set up camp at the Jordan River.

He knew that people were going through the motions of their faith.

They were focused on checking the boxes and doing what they were supposed to do… and not on focused on their relationship with God.

But once he started issuing that invitation… “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!”… people started flocking from all over the place.

People really and truly were hungry for that experience of God.

They… we… are yearning for a chance to let go of our pasts…

To be made new…

To connect with something larger than ourselves…

John reminded them that this experience of baptism and washing yourself clean was only the beginning…

It couldn’t be compartmentalized but needed to become a part of their everyday experience.

It needed to change the way they lived and interacted with others.

He knew that all by ourselves we don’t have what it takes, but that with God’s help…

Well, with God anything is possible.

One day, as all of those people stepped into the waters to be baptized, Jesus stepped into the water, too.

The skies broke open.

The Holy Spirit descended.

And God spoke: You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

But as Debie Thomas wrote, “In receiving baptism, Jesus doesn’t set himself apart from us; he aligns himself with us.”

What that means is that we are invited into an experience of God with Jesus.

And, “to embrace Christ’s baptism story is to embrace the core truth that we are united, interdependent, connected, one. It is to sit with the staggering reality that we are deeply, deeply loved.”

I have been doing some soul searching these last few months about what it is that we do in worship.

If we are just going through the motions, there really is no point.

God doesn’t want or need our busyness.

And God doesn’t want to be relegated to just an hour of our lives.

What if we pushed the reset button on what we do in worship?

How can we instead experience in this time that core truth that we are “united, interdependent, connected, one”?

What would it mean for worship to help us “sit with the staggering reality that we are deeply, deeply loved”?

I remember the day my youngest brother, Darren, was baptized.
Because they moved churches, he ended up as a junior in a confirmation class filled with sixth graders.

He was a foot and a half taller than the other students, and while he looked slightly out of place, those young kids looked up to him and they grew to be great friends.

And as he knelt to be baptized on confirmation Sunday, the pastor invited friends and family to come up and lay on hands… just like we do here.

Every single one of his classmates came and stood around us and reached out their hands, too.

Darren’s baptism was not just something to check off or going through the motions.

It was an experience of grace.

It was an experience of connection.

It was an experience of the reality that we are deeply, deeply loved.

I think part of pushing the reset button is coming into our time of worship EXPECTING to EXPERIENCE a connection with God and one another that affirms that we are loved.

I think it is creating space for us to be still and simply be in God’s presence so that we might hear and know that we are beloved.

And it is about being in a community of people who will not only affirm that love, but give us the opportunity to connect and share that love with others.

And my hope filled prayer is that what we experience here, with God’s help, will empower us live out that love in our everyday lives.

So we experience in worship a baptism…. And then in our daily life whenever you touch water… whether you are washing the dishes or stepping into the shower… let that water wash over you and remind you that YOU are a beloved child of God.

We experience in worship stillness and prayer… and we can find a quiet moment in each day to sit in God’s presence and simply be still.

We pray and confess in worship, and it helps us remember as we work and study and care for our family that your worth in God’s eyes does not depend on what you have done… but you are loved simply because God has declared it so.

We greet people with the love and peace of Christ… and as you go about your day and encounter other people, think of them first as a beloved child of God… see how it changes your interaction with them.

You see, that’s what our acts of praise and words of confession and moments of fellowship in worship are all about.

They are moments to encounter the holy, yes.

But they also train us to see others… to see ourselves… through God’s eyes for the rest of the week as well.

And YOU my friend… no matter what the world says or what kinds of labels it throws at you…

YOU are a beloved child of God.

Mary the Tower?

Posted on September 5, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 8:1-3, 24:1-11, John 11

As summer draws to a close, we have spent time learning more about some bold characters from our Holy Bible.

They weren’t perfect and in many cases there was nothing all that special about them.

And yet, they were called to stand up, to lead, and to act in ways that were only possible because God was with them.

Today, we get to dive into the story of a woman that maybe we all think we know.

I’m curious… when you hear the name Mary Magdelene… what is the first thing that comes to your mind…

Go ahead and shout out your answers…

In my dictionary of women in scripture, Mary Magdelene is identified as “Mary #3” and the author of her entry, Carolyn Osiek describes her as: “the most famous of Jesus’ women disciples and the one who has been most misinterpreted in Christian history.” (p. 120)

What does scripture actually say about her?

In the passages we heard from this morning, we find Mary Magdalene listed among the women who traveled with Jesus and the twelve disciples.

She is specifically named as someone, “from whom seven demons had gone out,” (Luke 8:2), but also as someone who had her own wealth.

These women were not groupies or even paid to travel and support the men, but it mentions that they ministered out of their own resources.

We also heard from Luke that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to care for the body of Jesus and was a first witness to the resurrection along with a couple of other women.

Her presence that morning is repeated by Matthew, Mark, and John.

John, however, has a slight adaptation. He places those women standing at the cross, but only Mary goes to the tomb that morning.

She has an encounter with Jesus where she mistakes him at first for the gardener and that lovely hymn, “In the Garden” recounts how much she wanted to tarry there in the presence of the resurrected Christ.

Now… How many of you remember Mary Magdalene as the woman who washed Jesus feet?

All four gospels recount this incident and she is often depicted with a vessel of ointment… but is she in the actual bible as doing so?

In Matthew 26 and Mark 14, an unnamed woman comes to him at a man named Simon’s house in the town of Bethany and this anointing is connected to the transition to his trial and execution… preparing him for burial.

Luke places the story in a different context and place, near the beginning of his ministry in chapter 7. He doesn’t name her either, although Luke adds the detail that she was a sinner. What kind of sinner? It doesn’t say, but we tend to assume that she was a prostitute even though the text does not indicate that.

Only John’s gospel includes a name… Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha. Note, this IS in Bethany again, which seems to be in line with Matthew and Marks accounts, although it is Lazarus’ home (John 12). And, this encounter follows chapter 11, where Jesus comes to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead and interacts with Mary and her sister Martha.

And yet, over and over in art, this woman is connected with Mary Magdalene.

And part of that is because in medieval times, some religious leaders like Pope Gregory the Great conflated several women in scriptures all together… including the women caught in adultery, the sinner who anointed Jesus feet, and the Mary we know is from Bethany.

Scholars like Hugh Pope, however, actually agree with this identification of Mary in John 11 with Mary Magdalene because of the central role that she plays in the gospel of John and the praise that Jesus bestows upon her.

What throws a wrench in all of this is when we assume that Mary Magdalene means Mary from a place named Magdalene… like we might think of Jospeh of Arimathea.

However, Luke actually helps us here.

In the Greek passage of Luke, it makes clear that this Mary is called Magdalene.

Not that she is from a place named Magdala or Migdal, but she is named and regarded in this way.

Much like others in this day have nicknames… like Simon who is called Peter, the Rock.

Or Thomas, who is called Didymus, the Twin.

We aren’t actually sure where a village named Magdala or Migdal might even have existed in this time… but magdala in Aramaic means tower or great.

So is Mary of Bethany simply called, Mary Magdelene? Mary the Tower?

To throw a deeper wrench into the conversation, I want to share with you some recent scholarship on John’s gospel and this woman, Mary of Bethany.

I am just learning about this myself, so I am drawing on an account that religious historian and author Diana Butler Bass shared at the end of July at the Wild Goose Festival. (https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/mary-the-tower)

She tells the story of Elizabeth Schrader, who is a doctoral student of the New Testament at Duke University.

Schrader was an active person of faith, but didn’t set out to be a scholar.

However, “one day Libbie walked into a church garden in the city of New York seeking refuge from the city, and sat down to pray. And as she prayed, she heard a voice and the voice said, ‘Follow Mary Magdalene.’”

She thought this was a bit strange, but she listened.

She wrote a song about Mary Magdalene.

She decided to learn more.

And eventually she found her way to seminary and started a master’s program in New Testament studies.

Her final thesis was on John 11 and Mary Magdalene and her professor invited her to look at some of the earliest texts we have.

That is how Elizabeth Schrader found herself sitting with a digital copy of Papyrus 66. Butler Bass describes it as “the oldest and most complete text we have of the gospel of John… dated around the year 200,” and that it “had been sitting in a library for a very, very, very, very long time.”

She uses her newfound knowledge of Greek and reads the first sentence.

Now… here is what my New Revised Standard Version says:

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (11:1)

But that’s not what Schrader saw on this very, very, very, old page.

It read… translated to English:

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and his sister Mary.

What is more, Schrader could see on the manuscript markings of how someone had gone in and tried to change it. His was changed to her. The second Mary in that line (Maria in the Greek) was changed to Martha… as one letter was written over.

At some point, someone had altered the oldest version we have of the gospel of John and split the character of Mary into two.

As Schrader kept reading, in John 11 and 12, in other places where it reads Martha, it originally said Mary.

Where it reads “sisters” it read “sister.”

Pronouns are changed.

And it isn’t just in Papyrus 66. She has discovered evidence of this in other ancient documents as well. (https://today.duke.edu/2019/06/mary-or-martha-duke-scholars-research-finds-mary-magdalene-downplayed-new-testament-scribes)

The repetition of actions and statements might not indicate actions by two different sisters, but a textual reiteration or duplication.

Schrader’s research as a master’s student has proven that the version of John’s gospel we have in our Bible’s today is different from earlier translations which have been altered.

Harvard Theological Review asked to publish her thesis as an article.

And what is more, the Nestle-Aland Translation Committee of the Greek New Testament asked her to come and present her findings to them.

Butler Bass describes this group as “a whole bunch of very old German men who have spent their entire lives making sure the Bibles that we have in English and all the other languages around the world are the closest and most precise Bibles that we can get to the original manuscripts.”

And right now, they are deciding whether or not Schrader’s research should become a new footnote or if we need to actually change John 11 and John 12 and take Martha out.

Now, Luke’s gospel has a Mary and Martha who are sisters. This is the story where Martha is ministering and busy and her sister, Mary, sits at Jesus feet. No mention of a brother, nor being in Bethany.

We aren’t talking about this family.

But in John’s gospel, we are discovering might never have been a Martha.

Why does this matter?

It matter’s because there are only two people in the gospels who confess Jesus is the Messiah.

The first is from Peter… Simon Peter… the Rock.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Peter says: “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.”

And Jesus replies, “You are Peter, upon this rock I will build my church.”

In John’s gospel, this happens right before the resurrection of Lazarus.

And the person who says it in our Bible’s today is this sister, Martha.

“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, the one who is coming into the world.” (11:27, CEB).

However, manscripts by Tertullian – a Christian author from the second century, about the time Papyrus 66 is from… indicate this confession was by Mary.

In her paper, Schrader concludes with some important questions:

“Who exactly added Martha to this story, and why? Is it possible that one very important figure in the Fourth Gospel has been deliberately split into three?” (p. 52, “Was Martha of Bethany Added to the Fourth Gospel in the Second Century?” https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/18592/Schrader%2018.May.2016.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y)

Later traditions and writings around Mary Magdalene describe her as an important disciple, a leader, a spokeswoman.

The kind of woman that we see in Luke 8 who is traveling as an important figure alongside the disciples.

The research that is being done today is leading us to see her as more of a central figure within the gospel of John as well.

I want to close with how Diana Butler Bass understands these implications:

Is it really true that the other Christological confession of the New Testament comes from of the voice of Mary Magdalene? That the Gospel of John gives the most important statement in the entirety of the New Testament, not to a man, but to a woman, and to a really important woman who will show up later as the first witness to the resurrection.

You see how these two stories work together. In John 11, Lazarus is raised from the dead, and who is there but Mary Magdalene? And at that resurrection, she confesses that Jesus is indeed the son of God. And then you go just 10 chapters later and who is the person at the grave? She mistakes him, at first, thinks he’s the gardener. She turns around and he says, ‘Mary,’ and she goes, ‘Lord.’ It’s Mary Magdalene.

…Mary is indeed the tower of faith. That our faith is the faith of that woman who would become the first person to announce the resurrection. Mary the Witness, Mary the Tower, Mary the Great, and she has been obscured from us… This is not a Dan Brown novel. This is the Nestle-Aland Translation Committee of the Greek New Testament. This is the Harvard Theological Review. This is some of the best, most cutting edge historical research in the world.

Who was Mary Magdalene?

At one time, she had been possessed by demons, but they were cast out.

She was wealthy enough to support herself and the ministry of others.

She was a disciple of Jesus.

She knew him to be her Lord.

She was the first witness to the resurrection.

And more and more we are coming to understand that she might have been that sister of Lazarus, who sent word for Jesus to come and heal her brother, and who confessed that he was the Messiah.

The woman who in John 12 hosted a dinner and anointed his feet with nard.

We are starting to discover that she might be a central figure in the Gospel of John and not merely one among many minor female characters.

And for anyone who struggles to see themselves among the followers of Jesus depicted there…

For anyone who doubts the role of women in the church, especially in leadership…

Well, this is a big deal.

Taste and See God’s Provision

Posted on June 19, 2022Leave a comment

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Text: Luke 13:6-9

Brandon and I planted raspberries in our backyard when we moved to Des Moines.

This is officially the eighth summer… and we have yet to see an abundant crop.

A handful of crumbling berries that won’t hold together is all we have ever had the chance to harvest.

There were a few years there when I thought I had done something wrong.

I pruned too much.

Or maybe I didn’t prune enough.

There wasn’t enough water.

Or too little sun.

There have been years when I’ve been like the vineyard owner in our parable this morning and wondered if we shouldn’t just cut it all down and start from scratch.

But we have tried to be patient.

One more year, we keep saying.

Over the last few months, we’ve watched them with care.

We added additional growing medium around them.

We have watered them frequently.

There have been abundant blossoms and the bees are certainly doing their work of pollenating.

But will we have fruit?

I must admit, I’m not entirely sure.

Will we have fruit?

Oh, friends, that is the question, isn’t it?

And it comes at us from so many different directions.

Will we have fruit… in the sense of will we have enough to eat?

Will we have the money, in the midst of rising inflation, to cover the costs of supper?

Can we find enough to sustain us and satisfy our needs?

But then again, we can turn the question around and think about our own productive lives…

Will we have fruit… in the sense of are we bearing fruit?

Are we making a difference in the world or are we just depleting and taking from the world around us?

And as we dive into the scriptures, we find stories of fruit and fruitfulness everywhere.

It starts with the third day of creation when God makes trees bearing fruit according to their seed.

But it continues through to the harvests of the Promised Land of figs, dates, pomegranates, grapes and olives… all fruits!

Prophets are called from the vineyards, and the instructions for the altar of God include images of pomegranates.

In the New Testament, we discover parable after parable filled with fruit.

The branches waved in Jesus’ Triumphant Entry would have been boughs of date palms.

Paul begs us to bear the fruit of the Spirit.

Even in the final chapters of Revelation, the trees bear twelve kinds of fruit, each for a different month.

And all of these scriptures are a mix of both God’s provision and God’s presence and power in our lives.

God provides abundantly so that we might be an abundant blessing to the world.

God is present with us, so that we might be God’s presence in the world.

We are fed… physically and spiritually… so that we might feed others.

As we think of all of those “fruitful” metaphors, Margaret Feinberg focuses in on one fruit in particular… the fig.

It is a constant companion in biblical times.

Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover themselves once they discovered they were naked. (Genesis 3:7)

The mark of abundance, security, and prosperity in the time of King Solomon was that the people lived securely under their vines and fig trees (1 Kings 4:25) … a sentiment repeated by the prophet Micah (4:4) and Zechariah (3:10).

Even the tree that Zacchaeus climbs in order to catch a glimpse of Jesus…

you know, that wee little man Zacchaeus…was a sycamore fig tree.

Fig trees were, after all, big enough to climb.

Big enough to provide shade… and apparently clothing… with their leaves.

They are full of essential vitamins and minerals like potassium and calcium – providing energy, and are easily dried for storage and transport.

In the parable that we heard today, we hear about a fig tree that is not fruitful.

In three years, it has not born fruit.

One fact about figs that Margaret Feinberg discovered in her process of writing “Taste and See” is that a single fig tree can produce tens of thousands of figs every year.

TENS OF THOUSANDS.

So, when this fig tree isn’t producing, the owner is furious.

I might be upset, too!

“What a waste of perfectly good soil!” they exclaim.

But the gardener is patient and merciful.

“Let’s give it one more year,” he says.

“Let me dig around it and add some more fertilizer.”

Feinberg goes on to share about the lifecycle of the fig itself.

“The first year a fig won’t produce any fruit, and depending on the variety, you may see a handful the second year. The third year will produce more, but the fourth year is the one that will yield a substantial crop.” (Taste and See Bible Study Guide, p. 45)

So… the owner might just be impatient.

It isn’t time yet for the fig tree to be filled with abundant fruit.

It needs time.

But fig trees also need to be pruned… extensively… in order to produce.

In the first year, it is cut back by around half so that it can focus on growing deep roots.

In future pruning, you have to care for the suckers on both lower branches and that come up from the ground near the tree.

When the gardener says, “let me dig around it,” they are likely cutting away and removing those suckers and shoots that are detracting from the fruitful growth of the tree.

Pruning creates future abundance.

In the book of Leviticus, amidst all sorts of provisions like “respect your mother and father” (19:3), “do not turn to idols” (19:4), “you must not steal or deceive nor lie to each other” (19:11), and even “any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens” (19:34), is a provision about fruit trees:

“When you enter the land and plant any fruit tree, you must consider its fruit off-limits. For three years it will be off-limits to you; it must not be eaten. In the fourth year, all of the tree’s fruit will be holy, a celebration for the Lord. In the fifth year you can eat the fruit. This is so as to increase its produce for you; I am the Lord your God.” (19:23-25)

Did you hear that? This is to increase its produce for you.

An abundantly fruitful tree requires pruning.

It requires time and nurture.

But it also requires a season of sabbath and rest and dedication to God.

We impatiently ask that question, “will we have fruit?” in the midst of a culture of convenience.

Anything you want can be delivered the next day to your doorstep.

To wait for not just days, but weeks and months and years for fruit is almost too much to bear.

But I actually think this is a story about grace.

You see, in our fast-paced culture, we also find ourselves expecting instantaneous results in our own spiritual lives.

We join a church, we attend a retreat, we go to a bible study and we think that we should now have it all figured out.

We should be ready to go out and bear fruit for God.

And then we have a set-back.

We slip up in our faith.

We get discouraged.

Friends, the good news is, you don’t have to have it all figured out.

Discipleship, faith, and fruitfulness all take time.

And you might spend a couple of years attending a church before you find the ability to take the next step and sign up to join a bible study.

You might be in a book group for a couple of years before you are ready to ask the deeper questions.

You might go out and serve each week filling the food pantry for a good long while before you are ready to confront justice issues around hunger.

And, as the story of Zacchaeus reminds us, you might even be living a life that is not only fruitless, but is actually sucking up life and nutrients and taking advantage of others.

But these parables and stories remind us, it is never too late.

Fruitfulness will require pruning… as we let God cut away those things that suck the life right out of us.

Fruitfulness will require nurture… sun and rain and even a good dose of fertilizer… and in our spiritual lives that comes from things like prayer and studying scriptures and worshipping with others.

But fruitfulness also requires the time and space to simply be.

Earlier this week, I had ice cream with someone who is entering her third year of seminary.

This person has been involved with the church her whole life and a relationship with God was always in the background.

After college, she pursued work in her chosen field and it took her to a number of places and companies across the country.

But one day, her position was eliminated and she found herself without a job.

She went home and sat and listened.

It was only in the space in which she stopped focusing on what she could produce that she noticed God speaking.

Only in the space where she dedicated some time to discernment that she noticed God moving.

Only in the space where she let go that she was aware of how God was already providing.

We often look for fruitfulness in places that aren’t quite ready.

We try to make our own fruitfulness with endless busyness.

We refuse to let go of dying branches so that we can bear fruit in other places.

And we miss out on the provision that God has already planned for us.

“This is to increase its produce for you,” God promises.

You see, fruitfulness doesn’t come from me or you or our actions.

It comes from God working in and through us.

Only when we make space for the Holy Spirit to fertilize our souls will we find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

God has given us commandments like being honest, and loving our neighbors, and honoring the sabbath, not to see how many mistakes we will make, but because these are the things that will increase our fruitfulness.

These are the things that will increase abundance and blessing – not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us.

And God is a patient gardener, full of mercy and love, pruning us, tending our lives, pouring out grace at every turn.

So, that’s the spirit I’m taking with my raspberries.

I’m going to keep working on them.

Will there be fruit?

Only God knows…

But I’m going to try to pass on the love and grace and mercy that God has shown me.

May we do the same.

Not just with our patches of berries or fig trees, but with our family and friends and even with perfect strangers.

And by the grace of God, may there be fruit.

Taste and See God’s Power

Posted on June 12, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 24:28-32

One of my favorite experiences while on vacation just now was sharing tapas with Brandon at Jaleo – one of Chef José Andrés’s restaurants.

From a perfect slice of toasted bread, brushed with crushed tomatoes and garlic…

To an incredible dish of fried eggplant drizzled with honey and lemon…

And beautiful cauliflower roasted with dates and olives…

I left incredibly stuffed… and very happy.

Food is my love language.

Whether it is feasting with friends around a table, baking in the kitchen with my mom, breaking bread as a church family, or gathering over a potluck, food is about bringing people together.

And the Bible is full of stories about food.

As Margaret Feinberg reminds us in her book, Taste and See, “God handcrafted humanity to be dependent on food. The Creator could have required us to survive on air or water apart from eating, but He designed the human body so food is not an option but a necessity.

Even more delicious, God creates food as a source of pleasure… God imbues us with the ability to delight in eating.

But food in the Bible is more than a commodity to be consumed. It is often sacred and symbolic, showing up both on tables and in temples… [it] plays a significant role in helping us taste and see God’s goodness in our lives… and something beautiful happens when we gather around the table.” (page 16-17).

I didn’t just want to eat at Jaleo because I knew it would taste good.

I also wanted to support the work of Chef Andrés.

His organization “World Central Kitchen” proclaims that food is a universal human right. He understands that food has the power to give dignity and life.

They are often the first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises and WCK has served over 70 million fresh meals to people impacted by disaster around the world… including being on the ground in Poland as refugees were fleeing Ukraine the day after Russia invaded Ukraine.

But this is not a dump of free food into a disaster area. As WCK notes – “food is the fastest way to rebuild our sense of community. We can put people back to work preparing it, and we can put lives back together by fighting hunger. Cooking and eating together is what makes us human.”[1]

Food has the power to transform our lives.

A piece of fruit reached for in the garden…

The sacrificial Passover lamb…

The manna from heaven…

The call for fishermen to lay down nets and become disciples…

The countless stories of people being invited, welcomed, fed…

The miracles of provision and healing and new life.

Our scripture for this morning is just one instance of how lives are transformed and the power of God is proclaimed as people gather around a table.

Two disciples have left Jerusalem after the crucifixion of Jesus.

They are despondent and grieving and aren’t quite sure what to do next.

But along the way, the resurrected Jesus appears and walks with them.

They hear him, they see him, but they don’t know it is him.

But when they arrive at their destination, they offer to him all they have – a place to stay for the night and a place at their table.

We read that he took a seat by their side at that table.

And he took the bread…

And broke it…

And they ate it…

And suddenly, their eyes were opened and their understanding was transformed and they recognized Jesus right there among them.

They finally grasped the power of the resurrection… the miracle of new life… and the promise of all of scripture.

And it happened during a meal at a table.

In another resurrection story, some other disciples decided to go fishing.

But all night long, distracted by their grief, they caught nothing.

From the shore, they heard a voice calling out for them to toss their nets on the other side and suddenly the nets were so full they couldn’t pull them in!

Feinberg spent some time on the Sea of Galilee and had the opportunity to catch what is known as the St. Peter’s fish… or an amnon – a type of tilapia.

Because it feeds on plankton, this kind of fish can only be caught with a net, rather than a line.

And, it’s the most delicious catch in the Sea of Galilee… and therefore also the most valuable.

She writes in her book that they had caught very few that day, until one of the fishermen saw them a little near the surface.

I always thought it was strange in the scripture of the disciples at the seashore on this resurrection morning that the scripture says one of them was naked, but as Feinberg describes it, once they saw these prized fish, they sprang into action and leaped out of the boat.

Those who didn’t have fishing waders stripped down to their skivvies.

They marched through the shallow marshy water, setting a barrier between the beach and the sea with the nets and driving the fish in to be caught.

After just two hours, Margaret and her guides had 150 pounds of fish (p. 36-37).

The disciples themselves experienced a miraculous catch… and in this powerful moment, they recognized it was Jesus calling out to them and rushed to come in for landing, dragging their own heavy laden nets behind them.

There, Jesus had breakfast ready.

Some fish on a fire and some bread.

But more than that.

I can imagine that before that moment, Peter carried in his heart turmoil over how he had turned his back on God.

He might even have started to believe that God had turned away from him.

That meal was also about the power of transformation, for Jesus sat down with Simon Peter and turned his guilt over denying him into a call to ministry.

“Feed my lambs.”

“Take care of my sheep.”

“Follow me.”

Margaret Feinberg writes that “if you search your everyday life for the presence of Christ, you’ll begin to see the extra provision, extra might, extra grace that he’s slipping you. The way he provides an unexpected compliment from a friend. Or a familiar face that you weren’t expecting in a crowded place. Or a breathtaking sunset. These displays of God’s power are good and beautiful, like the fish the disciples caught. But the greatest miracle remains the one who sent them.” (page 45)

I know that our lives our busy.

We might grab a granola bar and eat it in the car on the way to work or school.

We eat drive-thru for dinner between soccer games.

More of our meals are eaten in front of the television than around a table.

And yet, what better way to remember God’s power and provision than to take a moment to be thoughtful and grateful when we eat?

This week, I want to challenge us to stop and pray before every meal.

It doesn’t have to be a long, spoken prayer.

It can be a silent thought in your head.

Or maybe something that you share with your children around the table.

And I want to invite you to think about all of the ways that God’s power and provision have made that meal possible…

Think of the fields and the rain and the sun that were necessary to grow that food.

Remember the farmer and worker whose sacrifice of time made your meal possible.

Look for who is sharing that meal with you or who you might be able to invite to pull up a chair.

As Feinberg writes, “eating reminds us that we cannot exist alone; we are created dependent on others…” (Small Group Book, p.31)

And not just in order to get a cracker from a field to your table.

Some of our deepest hungers are not for a morsel of bread, but for someone to truly seek us and know us. To love us and forgive us and laugh at our stupid jokes. To listen and help us start down a path of healing. To remind us of who we are and to assure us that we have an important role to play in this world.

In the ordinary and everyday meals that we share, we experience the extraordinary and transcendent power of God.

The power to create and sustain life.

The power to bring people together.

The power to open our eyes and call us to new ministries.

The power to feed and share and sacrifice in love.

Friends, the psalmist invites us to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”

As we worship together, and study together, and eat together over the next month or so, I think we will discover not just a new way of exploring scripture… but that God will transform how we see the extraordinary gifts of power and love that are all around us.

[1] https://wck.org/story

Graves into Gardens

Posted on April 17, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 24:1-12

Earlier this week, I was preparing for worship and listening to some of the music selected for our time of worship today.

And, friends, I’m going to be honest, I’m struggling a bit right now.

I’ve got some family stuff that is heavy on my heart.

We’ve got some things to navigate as a church trying to increase our staffing and find our footing in the new normal of the world.

There is a big denominational conversation in limbo.

I have been participating in a church leadership cohort on the topic of how to navigate being overwhelmed and one of the things I realized is that if I were trying to work and care for just one of those situations, it would be a lot.

But when it feels like there are just so many pots on the stove, all needing attention lest they boil over… well, it is exhausting.

And you know what, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve overheard those fragments of conversation happening in the halls of the church, or grocery store, or work or school…

We can all read between the lines of those social media posts that try to be cheery.

We are navigating transition and grief in our families… divorce, loss, moving mom to the care center…

We are experiencing struggles with health and finances.

We watch the evening news and our hearts break.

We keep waiting for things to get back to “normal” because we haven’t wrapped our heads around the way things have changed for good.

After a while, it all starts to add up.

And we start to wonder where on earth God is in it all.

And so there I was, trying to figure out what good news to proclaim this Easter Sunday, when a lyric from one of the songs that we are singing at the Conspire Service just hit me like a ton of bricks and I started to weep.

“The God of the mountain

Is the God of the valley

There’s not a place

Your mercy and grace

Won’t find me again.”

In that valley, in that muck, in the struggle… that is where God is.

God isn’t just a God of the good times and the successes.

God is with us in the valley.

The valley of the shadow of death.

The valley of despair.

The rock bottom where it all feels like it has fallen apart.

That is exactly where grace and mercy find us.

It is where it found the disciples on Easter morning.

You see, this day began in hopelessness and grief.

It began with fear of the unknown.

It began with the gloom of death.

As we heard in the Gospel of Luke, Mary and Joanna, and Mary, and the other unnamed but faithful women who were with them went to the tomb.

They were bringing the spices and oils they had prepared to complete his burial ritual now that the Sabbath day was complete.

They showed up to repeat a familiar ritual practiced by Jewish women for centuries.

Everything they had known and believed had been pulled out from underneath them and there was nothing left to do but pray, mourn, and honor their teacher.

But through that valley of the shadow of death, grace found them.

When they arrived, the stone was rolled back from the tomb and the body of their Lord was gone.

I can imagine the shock and confusion that paralyzed them.

What does it mean?

What has happened?

What do we do now?

But then angels suddenly appeared among them: Why are you looking for the living among the dead?

They spoke once again the words Jesus had shared with them.

Promises of love that conquers death.

Words of hope for a life than cannot be defeated.

The truth that mourning would turn to dancing…

Shame into glory…

Graves would turn into gardens…

And in a moment of startling fear and overwhelming joy – a moment of holy awe – they remembered.

Think about how many times the disciples… men and women alike… heard Jesus share words about his death and resurrection.

But they couldn’t understand the promise because they never believed it would happen.

They simply could not wrap their minds around the idea of his death, much less the impossible miracle of resurrection.

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, many were paralyzed by their unbelief and others simply stood at the cross in stunned grief.

They couldn’t see past their own pain and fear and they forgot his promise!

But in one moment, all that Jesus said about life and death is suddenly made real to those women as they encountered that empty grave in the middle of a garden.

They rushed back to the disciples to share all they had experienced.

And they didn’t believe the women.

Couldn’t believe them.

It was nonsense, wishful thinking, confused thought.

You know what, the world around us, just like those disciples in the upper room who first heard from Mary and Joanna and Mary Magdelene, believes that the resurrection is nonsense.

It is wishful thinking. Scientifically unproven. Pie in the sky.

And I have to be honest, there are days that I have my own doubts.

I have an awful lot of questions, and maybe you do, too.

I can’t construct an argument for the resurrection of Jesus that makes sense to a rational mind.

I can’t point to evidence of its reality.

And when I’m down in the valley, stuck in the weeds, wallowing in grief, and holding the pain of the world in my heart, I often wonder where on earth it is.

But I can tell you, as I borrow the words of Debie Thomas, that it is “the foundation of my hope.”

“Without the empty tomb,” she goes on to write, “without Jesus’ historic, bodily return to life two thousand years ago, I simply can’t reconcile God’s love and justice with the horrors I see in the world around me. Death is too appalling a violation. Evil is too ferocious an enemy. Injustice is too cruel and endemic a reality. Humanity, though beautiful, is broken beyond description. I need the empty tomb. I need the promise of resurrection.”

There is so much in this world to feel hopeless and frustrated about, and honestly, I can’t get through it without God by my side.

I can’t prove the resurrection.

But I need it to be true.

I need to know that mourning will turn into dancing.

I need to hope that shame will turn into glory.

I need to trust that graves can become gardens.

Standing here, surrounded by lilies, I have come to discover that the God of the mountain is the God of the valley and that the shadows of fear and despair have been scattered by light and love.

The tomb is empty, the garden is in bloom, the Son has risen.

Grace and mercy are pouring out into the world and I find the freedom and the power to believe.

I have faith that the resurrection is really and truly our reality.

Faith is not just a pie in the sky wish.

It isn’t something pretty we sing to bring comfort.

Faith is a verb: Go. See. Do. Lift Up. Put Down. Heal. Cast out. Bring in. Give. Receive. Remember.

Faith is active.

Faith is out there in the world, sharing the healing love of God with others.

Faith is drying the tears of the grieving.

Faith is holding the hands of the sick.

Faith is that card of encouragement for the person whose life is falling apart.

Faith is planting bulbs as everything is dying, trusting they will bloom in the spring.

Faith is welcoming the stranger and throwing our arms open to embrace others.

Faith is sacrificing our time and our talents and our abundance so that our neighbors might be fed.

You see, the force of resurrection didn’t just bring Christ to life.

It transformed disciples into apostles.

It brought the church into being.

It formed us together into the body of Christ, alive in the world, hands and feet and hearts to carry on the mission and the ministry.

To keep planting the seeds of the kingdom.

To keep pouring out hope for a world in despair.

To keep fighting the weeds of injustice that threaten to take over.

We are here because those women went to the grave full of grief and sorrow and discovered a garden where hope and love and life was in full bloom.

And then they went from that place with faith and shared the good news with the world.

May the hope of the resurrection be the foundation of our faith and may it spill over into everything we say and do in this world. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer: Our Holy Father

Posted on March 6, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 11:1-10

This year as we journey through Lent, we are being led by prayer.

Well, one prayer in particular.

The prayer that Jesus taught us.

We teach it to our children.

We recite it each week in worship.

It is often a prayer that I will recite with families at the bedside of a dying loved one.

We know it by heart…

But has it sunk into our hearts?

I once heard a story about a church and every Sunday when the said the Lord’s Prayer, they turned around and faced the back of the sanctuary.

When a new pastor arrived, she was curious about this practice, but no one could remember why they did it that way.

That is until the church did some restoration work in the sanctuary.

As they stripped back layers of paint on the old walls, they discovered that at one time, the words of the Lord’s Prayer had been painted along that back wall.

In a time without printed bulletins, the church members had turned around to read the prayer from the wall.

Just as that congregation forgot why they said the Lord’s Prayer facing the back wall, sometimes we have forgotten the meaning behind the words that we speak.

We take the words for granted or rush through them without thinking.

Yet, contained within these beautiful verses is everything we need to know about our faith.

It reminds us of whose we are.

It tells us that we are not alone, but a community.

This prayer invites us to place our lives in God’s hands.

It asks for forgiveness and the strength to forgive others.

It calls us to acts of justice and compassion.

It is a prayer that can truly transform our lives… if we let it.

So, throughout this season of Lent, we are going to dive deep into this prayer and learn once again what it has to teach us.

Richard Foster once wrote:

“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.” (Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, p.3)

And that is because prayer is a relationship.

The Lord’s Prayer is recorded in the gospels of both Matthew and Luke.

In Matthew, it is included along with other teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.

But in Luke’s gospel, the disciples are seeking guidance.

As they seek to grow in their faithfulness to God, they ask Jesus how they should pray… and he teaches them.

But then Jesus expands upon this idea of prayer being a relationship.

When we pray, we are asking and seeking and requesting things from the one who created us.

Now, this idea that God as our parent is not new.

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets tell us that God thinks of Israel as a child… often a wayward child… but that God’s love is everlasting and unchanging, in spite of what the people might do.

Yet this prayer is not simply a metaphor.

God is not distant.

Rather at Christ’s own invitation, we join in calling God “Our Father.”

We are invited to approach God in the same way we might our own parent… knowing and trusting that we are loved and cared for and believing that God will respond out of that love.

There is a level of intimacy here, of deep relationship, of ordinary acts of care, that truly is like falling in love.

And at the same time, we are invited into a sort of paradox, for the name and presence of God is to be revered as extraordinary.

God is holy… and wholly other.

I am reminded of Exodus chapter 3, when Moses approaches the burning bush and hears a voice thunder around him… “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

Moses hides his face, afraid to look upon the divine presence.

In the midst of this exchange, God claims the people of Israel as his own.

God has heard their cries and can stand by no longer.

Like a parent who will rush to the rescue of a child who has fallen, God is acting to bring about deliverance for their suffering.

And yet, when Moses asks the name of this God…

When Moses asks, whom shall I say has sent me?

God replies – I am who I am.

A God who is distant, powerful, holy, undefineable…

A God who is close and intimate, full of love and compassion…

Our God is both of these things and more… all at the same time.

And thank God for that!

While it isn’t easy to wrap our heads around this paradox, the truth is that we need a God who is more than just an earthly parent.

The troubles and concerns of this world are far greater than any human could tackle.

The loss of life from tornados…

Deliverance from oppression…

Peacemaking in the midst of conflict – not just in Ukraine, but in Palestine, and Honduras, and Nigeria and in our country and in our families…

Healing and restoration from illness, disease, disaster, and death…

These are not simple requests and are far greater than asking for a loaf of bread.

We can only approach God in prayer with confidence because God is bigger than the problems we face.

But at the same time, a holy and powerful being that holds the life of the world in its hands can itself be a terrifying concept.

I am reminded of the eighteenth century Jonathan Edwards sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

Remember…Moses initially hid his face from God’s presence!

But Moses also came to understand God’s love.

During his time on the mountaintop in the presence of God, receiving instruction for the people, Exodus 34 tells us that the Lord proclaims again his name.

But then the Lord continues… The Lord, the Lord, is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

Coming to understand God as the one who is intimately concerned for my life, my welfare, my needs, allows me to let go of fear and rest in God’s presence.

We can trust that God truly does care about my needs and we are free to approach God in love expressing the yearning of our heart.

God is holy.

God is love and acts with parental love.

I am God’s child.

But there is one final piece of this first phrase that we cannot ignore.

While we do not capture it quite so clearly in Luke’s version of the prayer, it is part of the language we carry forward from Matthew’s gospel.

Jesus does not say “My Father.”

He does not ask us to think of ourselves as individual children.

We say “Our Father.”

Not once in this prayer do we say “I” or “me.”

Victor Hoagland recently shared a story about his close relationship with his eight-year-old granddaughter. She is the youngest of the bunch and they have had a chance to spend a lot of time together.

One evening, he and his wife invited all five of their grandchildren to come over for dinner and Hoagland noticed as they gathered that this little one seemed upset.

When he asked her what was wrong, she answered: “I thought I was the only one coming.”

Hoagland reassured his granddaughter of his great love for her… but also how much love he has for all of his grandchildren and that it was such a great thing they could all be together.

We often find ourselves in the shoes of that little girl.

We claim our relationship with this holy parent for ourselves, but we are not as quick to think about all of God’s other children.

And the truth is that prayer is not just about our relationship with God, but our relationship with one another.

We are called to consider that others are God’s children, too.

People we love, but also people that we can’t stand.

People we disagree with and people who are actively working to harm us.

People we have never met and those whose values and perspectives are vastly different than ours.

I have to admit that this concept hits me in a very different way this week.

Last night, my grandmother, my Babi, died from damage caused to her lungs by Covid.

I am navigating how to be present and offer love and care for family.

But it is hard and messy and complicated.

My family has been separated and split from one another by conflict that has gone unhealed for more than a decade.

And yet, we are all still family. We belong to one another.

But even more than that, we are all claimed by God as children.

Every time we say the words of this prayer, we are speaking into being the reality that we are connected to one another.

Our loved ones… our friends… yes… but even those who have caused us pain… even those we might sometimes think of as enemies… even those we struggle to understand or forgive.

We are all children of God.

And just as my own heart is full of concerns and fears that I bring before this Holy Parent, so too are others.

As the words of “This is my song” remind us:

“this is my song, O God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mind.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

But other hearts in other lands are beating

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”

Our. Holy. Parent.

This opening phrase of the prayer that Jesus taught us invites us to claim three truths:

God cares intimately about what happens in our lives and responds in love.

God is holy and powerful and has the capacity to act and transform.

And we are called not just to think of ourselves, but to recognize that we are connected in one family.

Over these forty days of Lent, we will continue to explore this prayer and learn more about what it teaches us.

But we are also invited not just to intellectually process these words, but to allow them to transform us.

And to that end, for this holy season, I want to invite you to claim a practice with me.

I want to invite you to pray this prayer with me not once per day, not twice, but three times every day.

I want to invite you to make it a part of your living and breathing as you go through your life.

I want to invite you to allow it to fall into your heart and settle in your being.

May it be so.

UMC 101: Doctrine and Discipline in Real Life

Posted on January 16, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 3:7-14; Book of Discipline (p. 55-56, 77-80, 105-146)

We continue today by the banks of the Jordan River with John the Baptist and a piece of scripture that we briefly touched during the Advent season.

He has been calling people to repentance, asking them to change their hearts and their lives, and suddenly there is a growing number of folks on the riverbank.

I love how the Message translation puts it: “Crowds of people came out for baptism because it was the popular thing to do.” (Luke 3:7-9)

John the Baptist went viral.

And yet… instead of celebrating all these folks who were ready to dive in, he explodes at them!

He calls them children of snakes and then has the audacity to ask them, “who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

That’s exactly the kind of welcome you’d want to hear when you step into a faith community for the first time, isn’t it?

“The axe is at the base of the tree,” John cries out, “and trees that aren’t producing fruit will be thrown into the fire.”

Nothing like some good old fire and brimstone preaching to wake us up on a Sunday morning.

I’m ready for John to bust out the Sinner’s Prayer and have everyone fall to their knees to repeat the words after him in an altar call.

But when the people start to ask what they should do, John the Baptist surprises us…

“If you have two coats, give one away.”

He tells them to do something that will make a difference for their neighbors.

It sounds like a good works response… rather than a faith response.

And that is because he is calling them to change not just their heart, but their lives.

Last week, we touched on the idea that for United Methodists, faith and good works are like two sides of the same coin. You can’t love God without loving your neighbor. And likewise, acts of love towards our neighbors are an outpouring of our love of God.

Or as our Book of Discipline puts it:

“Our struggles for human dignity and social reform have been a response to God’s demand for love, mercy, and justice in the light of the Kingdom. We proclaim no personal gospel that fails to express itself in relevant social concerns; we proclaim no social gospel that does not include the personal transformation of sinners.”
BOD, p. 55

This is that “practical divinity” that we talked about. It is the good news of Jesus Christ realized in the lives of Christian people.

Food for the hungry.

Clothing for the naked.

Health for the sick.

Freedom for the oppressed.

So let’s talk about that other John… John Wesley.

He looked around at faith and life in England in his day and like John the Baptist saw a similar disconnect. Religious leaders were ignoring the real problems of every day folks and every day folks had no room in their lives for religion.

So he got out of the pulpit and went out to where the people were… the coal mines, the streets.

He started to preach about changing our hearts and our lives and crowds of folks began to take notice and show up and want to know more.

Our Book of Discipline tells the story of how our Methodist United Societies got started:

“In the latter end of the year 1739 eight or ten persons came to Mr. Wesley, in London, who appeared to be deeply convinced of sin, and earnestly groaning for redemption. They desired… that he would spend some time with them in prayer, and advise them how to flee from the wrath to come… he appointed a day when they might all come together, which from thenceforward they did every week.”
Book of Discipline, p. 77

Each society, or larger gathering, was also made up for small groups, or classes of about 12 folks.

By the time Wesley died, there were 72,000 members of these United Societies across the British Isles.

And there was only one condition to be part of the society: you had to want to flee from the wrath to come and be saved from your sin. They called this “working out your salvation” and whenever someone was focused on these things, they expected there to be evidence of fruit.

Sounds a whole lot like what was happening on the bank of the Jordan River… doesn’t it?

But I also must mention a key thing that Wesley includes… something that is vitally important to what it means to be United Methodist.

Wesley never thought people could or should do this on their own.

He grouped people together into classes and larger societies so that there would be support and accountability as together we help one another within the Body of Christ to transform the world.

That support and accountability is also like two sides of the same coin.

John the Baptist sounded awfully harsh there on the banks of the Jordan River. And we think as United Methodists that we should never be people who rush to punishment – because that doesn’t demonstrate God’s mercy…

But at the same time, a church that lacks the courage to speak and act on behalf of our neighbors loses any claim to moral authority.

So they’d get together every week to pray, to encourage each other, and to ask about how faith and love were put into action in their lives.

If someone wasn’t living up to their commitments, they would give them time… even put them in a remedial group, if necessary. And sometimes, they had to have an honest conversation and ask that person to leave.

These societies had what we call General Rules… rules that we have talked a lot about over the last couple of years in our own pandemic response.

The members of the classes and societies were expected to show evidence of their desire for salvation by:

First – doing no harm and avoiding evil of every kind – especially that which was commonly practiced.

Wesley included examples of what that looked like in his day…

profaning the day of the Lord by buying or selling…

drunkenness…

buying or selling slaves…

taking your brother to court…

buying black market goods…

putting on gold or costly apparel…

and singing songs or reading books that don’t help you grow in your love of God.

But it wasn’t just about what we shouldn’t do.

The second rule of the Societies was to do good; by being merciful and doing as much good as you could as far as you possibly could to as many people as you could:

This rule lists examples like being diligent and frugal…

Living out the commands of Matthew 25 to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison…

Being patient…

Teaching and sharing the word of God with others…

And things like buying from and employing other Christians.

The third rule was to keep practicing those things that were vehicles of God’s grace and mercy and power in our own lives – what Wesley called the “ordinances of God.”

These included things like public worship, studying the Bible, prayer, fasting, and communion.

Just as John the Baptist had some practical, real life examples of what it look like to produce the fruit of salvation in the world, the General Rules of the United Societies show us what John Wesley thought it looked like to bear the evidence of salvation in his day.

And so, as a denomination, we have continued to wrestle with how to exercise our “responsibility for the moral and spiritual quality of society.” (p. 55).

Every time our General Conference meets, we update what we now call our Social Principles that help to guide us as we live out our faith on a daily basis, as well as Resolutions that provide detailed positions on current issues.

According to our Book of Resolutions, these positions:

“give us evidence that that Church means for God’s love to reach into situations faced each day, not just on Sunday mornings… The United Methodist Church believes God’s love for the word is an active and engaged love… we care enough about people’s lives to risk interpreting God’s love, to take a stand, to call each of us into a response, no matter how controversial or complex.”
Book of Resolutions, p. 22-23

The Social Principles and Book of Resolutions guide how we should engage the natural world, what it means to nurture human beings in community, our responsibilities towards one another in society, and how we engage in economic and political systems across the globe.

They cover topics from suicide to abortion, public education to investments, the rights of farm workers to nuclear testing and stem cell research. All with compassion, nuance, and care.

And… I think this is vitally important… we believe that we are constantly being reformed by God’s love and so these positions are not written in stone: “Faithfulness requires favoring what best demonstrates God’s love and being willing to change when new perspectives or data emerge.” (p. 24)

On the banks of the Jordan River, John the Baptist called those who were serious about repentance to bear fruit in practical ways: Give away your extra coat. Don’t overcollect taxes. Don’t falsely accuse others. Be content.

As United Methodists, we continue to hear that call as we strive to do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God.

UMC 101: Summon to Grace, Growth, and Love

Posted on January 9, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 3:15-18, 21-22, Book of Discipline pages 47-54

Every time we turn the pages from one calendar year to the next, it feels like a fresh start.

A new beginning.

A chance to revisit where we have been and where we are going.

A few years ago, we took time as a congregation during this season to look at the Bible with fresh eyes in our series, Bible 101.

And as so much of the future of the United Methodist Church is up in the air, this is a good chance to dive into who we say we are and what we say we are about as we figure out what is next for us as a people.

So… welcome to UMC 101!

Today, we start by the waters of the Jordan River with John the Baptist, calling people to repent and to change their hearts and lives.

This is such a great place to launch into our discussion of what it means to be United Methodist, because our forebearers in this tradition, like John, were not planning to create something entirely new.

John the Baptist understood himself as nothing more than a sign-post… pointing to the truths of his tradition, the promises of the prophets, and the movement of God all around him.

He was calling people back to their faith…

Calling them to reclaim what it meant to be the people of God and to bear fruit in the world…

And he was inviting them to look out for what God was stirring up in their midst… the Savior who had been promised.

In other words, John the Baptist wasn’t inventing a new religion.

In fact, the early Jesus followers weren’t trying to start a new religion either… they just wanted to answer God’s call to live their faith more deeply.

And our United Methodist denomination never set out to be a new tradition either.

As the Book of Discipline reminds us, the core of our faith is the same as other Christians (p.49-50):

We hold and affirm our belief in the triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – just as our baptismal liturgy invites us to profess.
We hold in common faith in the mystery of salvation… a precious gift… that redeems our brokenness, in and through Jesus Christ.
We believe that God’s redemptive love is realized in our lives by the movement of the Holy Spirit – both in our personal experiences and in the community – the church.
We see ourselves as part of Christ’s holy catholic church – catholic with a little ‘c’ meaning Christ’s universal church. The church is one in Christ Jesus – sharing the authority of scripture, creeds, liturgies, and ministries.
We recognize that the reign of God has already begun, and just as we proclaimed all throughout this Advent season… it is not completely here yet, and that the church itself is a sign of that kingdom – but it is also continually being reformed so that it might be more like what God intends for us.

When John the Baptist stood on the banks of the Jordan, he didn’t have a new teaching to offer. He wasn’t trying to get people to believe something new. He simply wanted them to wash themselves clean of their past, to change their hearts, and to really and truly live out their faith in their daily lives.

If we look back to what John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist tradition, was trying to do, it isn’t all that different.

As our Book of Discipline reminds us, the early Methodists “tasks were to summon people to experience the justifying and sanctifying grace of God and encourage people to grow in the knowledge and love of God through the personal and corporate disciplines of the Christian life.”

They heard a call to “reform the nation, particularly the Church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”

In other words… John Wesley and his early followers… like John the Baptist before them… were simply calling people to put faith and love into practice.

Over time, as we continued to focus on “practical divinity” – or the presence of God moving through our daily lives, the Wesleyan tradition began to take on it’s own unique emphases… or our own spin on those core Christian beliefs.

The first of these is that everything is grace. Grace is the act of creation, the revelation of Jesus Christ, and the restoration of all things… no matter how much we have failed. It is all undeserved and it is all an act of love.

In our United Methodist tradition, we talk about three different ways that grace is present in our lives.

There is prevenient grace… the grace that goes before us. Before we even know who God is, it is the spark of love present in our lives. It is one of the reasons that our tradition baptizes little babies… because God’s grace goes before us. Prevenient grace is the tug at our heart and the unconscious push in our lives to get us to the place where we are ready for God’s love to change us.

Then there is justifying grace… the grace that forgives and restores us. We sometimes talk about this as our conversion experience – whether it happens in a moment or over a lifetime – as our hearts and lives change by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is the moment that John the Baptist was pointing to in our scripture for today… acknowledging our sins, turning our lives around, and then through the power of the Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus Christ, actually being transformed. He knew that simply repenting of your sins wasn’t enough. You needed the Holy Spirit to sift out the fruit – the grain – from the husks.

As we often talk about with our confirmands, simply accepting God’s redeeming grace is not the end of our journey. So much of our United Methodist beliefs stem from asking the question – what now?

Or maybe a better way of thinking about it is – what do you do with that grain of wheat that is your life? How do you plant it so that it might grow and nourish this world?

So our tradition focuses also on sanctifying grace… the grace that continues to nurture and transform and perfect us so that each day we are more filled with the love of God and our neighbor than we were the day before.

One of the perpetual conversations amongst different Christian traditions has to do with faith and good works. Because the Wesleyan tradition emphasizes that what we do in this world matters, we sometimes get accused of focusing on works… of trying to earn our salvation.

And God’s grace does call us to respond… but faith is the only response essential for salvation. To accept God’s prevenient, and justifying, and sanctifying grace in our lives.

The thing is, when you let the Holy Spirit work in you… there will be fruit! People will be able to see the good works that God is doing through you.

Related to this, personal salvation always involves mission and service. Love of God is always linked with love of neighbor, a passion for justice and renewal in the world. We’ll talk more next week about some of the ways our own personal piety is linked with social holiness – like two sides of the same coin.

Finally, we can’t do any of this on our own. United Methodists don’t believe that all you need is Jesus – you also need the Body of Christ. For it is in community that we grow and are equipped for our service in the world. For Wesley, there is no religion but social religion. So the nurture and mission of the church brings us together as a connection. Even our congregations don’t operate on our own, but reach out together to witness and seek love, peace, and justice in this world.

When John the Baptist called for people to be baptized, he wanted them to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. (Luke 3:3)

But it wasn’t just about them as individuals getting right with God.

It was so that all humanity would see God’s salvation. (Luke 3:6, Isaiah 40:5)

“What should we do?” the people cried out.

“If you have two coats, give one away” he replied.

Our faith, our salvation, is not just about what we are saved from.

It is about what we are saved for.

We were saved to be disciples, and to make disciples of Jesus Christ, for the transformation of this world.

Friends, through the love and grace of God, the Holy Spirit is ready to descend onto your life…

Whether you are just getting started in the faith and are still unsure of what your next steps are…

Or whether you are finally ready to accept the gift of God’s love…

Or whether you have long ago given your life to God and are ready to keep growing in faith…

God’s grace is here.

You are God’s beloved.

And the Holy Spirit is ready to wash over you…

To fill you…

To empower you…

To transform you…

So that this world might see and know and experience the good news of God.

Do you hear that summon?

Do you hear that call to experience the grace of God? To grow in the knowledge and love of God?

If you have never been baptized, I’d love to have a conversation with you about what that next step might look like in your life. Fill out one of our cards – either from the pew or online – and let me know about that nudge in your life.

For the rest of us, this is an opportunity to remember.

To recommit.

To respond.

So that we might not only be redeemed and restored, but so that we might reform the nation.