Mark – Page 5 – Salvaged Faith

Double-Dog Dare

Posted on March 9, 2009Leave a comment

Sermon Text: Genesis 17, Romans 4:13-25, Mark 8:31-38

How many of you have ever accepted a dare in your life?

Growing up, one of the most dreaded games to play at a sleepover was “Truth or Dare.” My friends weren’t really crazy people, but I was always afraid to choose “dare.” I would take any embarrassing or difficult question over having to do something silly, or dangerous, or oftentimes stupid.

I’ll be honest. I’m not an extremely adventurous person. I’ll roll up my sleeves in an instant to help someone, but putting my life on the line is not something that comes naturally to me!

How many of you are adventurers? Raise your hands if you have ever been sky diving? Or bungee jumping? I have NEVER been interested in things like that and I’ve always had this kind of secret admiration for people who did. I remember at Christmas one year, we were looking at photos of a cruise my grandparents went on and we came to this picture of my grandma bungee jumping! And she was like 65 years old! I couldn’t believe it!

I did however let my in-laws talk me into white water rafting.

Last summer, we got away for a week and headed up to the Menominee River on the border of Wisconsin and Michigan. There are rapids there that are really nice and at certain parts of the year are even class five – which means no one is allowed to be on them.

In July, when we went, the rapids were about at a class 3 – which our guide informed us was dangerous enough to have fun.

I actually brought some of the pictures with me of the rafting. When we got to the rapids, because they are pretty short, we actually get the opportunity to go on it twice. The first time, our raft made it through – I’m up here in the front….

It was a lot of fun, even though I knew it was kind of risky and a little bit dangerous. But I never thought that one of us could actually fall out… that is, until the second raft came down.

We were in a spot where we couldn’t see this happening, although we heard about it.

Now call me crazy – but even after hearing about that guy fall out – I still got in the boat and went a second time! I’m not entirely sure that if I had seen these pictures that I would have – although I did know that the guy was perfectly safe.

This morning, I’m talking about dares and risky adventures, because that is exactly what we find in our scriptures for today. Throughout history – in many ways and to many people, God dares us to follow. And unlike the dares and the crazy adventures that we undertake in this world – dares that are sometimes dangerous and often stupid, there are things we do every day that put our lives on the line…. But you know what? The dare that God calls us to undertake is the only thing that can lead us into new life.

First, we have the dare given to Abraham. We can read about it in Genesis, although Paul reminds us of this great dare in our passage from Romans this morning.

Abraham was a very old man – ninety nine years old the scriptures tell us – when this great dare comes to him. God called out and said, “I am God! Walk before me and be blameless!”

Now, at 99 years old – some of us would find that command just to get up and walk to be pretty difficult! But God also dares Abraham to be blameless – to be without fault. That is a dare that I don’t think any of us today could legitimately say we have taken up and been successful with.

But there is more to this crazy dare… God says that for his part, God will make Abraham the father of many nations.

God dares Abraham AND Sarah, who is well past childbearing age, to trust him. To take the leap of faith and become the oldest couple ever to have children together.

And Paul tells us – that “Hoping against hope, Abraham believed what God told him. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his body, which was already as good as dead, or when we considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”

Now… my first response when I hear this passage from Romans is that Paul is a big fat liar! Because if we go back to the Genesis version of the story – you know – the original version that Paul would have known very well – it tells us that Abraham and Sarah DON’T fully trust God’s promise. They take the dare, but try to follow in their own way. Sarah doesn’t think that she can bear children, so she gives her servant Hagar to Abraham and gets them to conceive a child for her.

That doesn’t sound like being blameless, or completely trusting to me. But perhaps why Paul can say those things is because in hindsight – he knows that eventually Abraham and Sarah did trust completely. Eventually they took on the dare and did it God’s way. No matter how many bumps in the road they hit before they got to the final destination, they still got there. They still made it to the end of their own white water rapids. So Paul conveniently forgets the bumps in the road because in the end, it was their faith that brought them life.

Which leads me to the second dare in our scriptures today. In spite of Peter’s confusion and his inability to fully understand what the call of Jesus entails, Jesus dares him and dares us to follow him. “Deny yourself – take up your cross and follow me!” Jesus calls out to the crowd.

In many, many ways – I think we are like Abraham and Sarah here. We hear the call of Jesus, but we aren’t quite sure if we can trust in God’s promise. Or rather, maybe it’s not that we don’t trust in God’s part of the equation, but we don’t trust enough in ourselves. We try to spin the dare into something that is much easier to manage, we know what the end result is supposed to be, so in the spirit of that great Sinatra song, I try to do it my way.

The problem is, it just doesn’t work like that!

Twice in this passage from Mark, the word “must” is used. The Son of Man must undergo great suffering. And if you want to follow Christ you must deny yourself. The only way to really follow Jesus is to let go of our ways, the ways of the world, and to accept the way of God.

Jesus dares us to follow him. Jesus dares us to do what is necessary – even though it might not be the easiest thing in the world.

I got to thinking about that difference between what is easy and what is necessary two weeks ago. I was at home one night watching “The Daily Show” a daily news program on Comedy Central hosted by Jon Stewart. He had a whole segment on President Obama’s address to the congress and in particular one line from that speech. As he was talking about the challenges that lie ahead, Obama had said that “This is America. We don’t do what’s easy. We do what’s necessary.”

Here is where Stewart jumped in with his response. “Have you MET Americans? We’re the people who invented the Roomba, because the other automatic machine we invented to clean the floor made you do this…(movement) THIS was too much.”

Now, the entrepreneurial spirit in our country does encourage us to come up with better and easier ways of doing things. We want things to be simple and convenient and to fit into our busy schedules.

The problem is that we treat our faith the same way. We try to fit our relationship with God into a box of our own making. We try to find a few minutes here and there between club meetings and basketball practice and our jobs and getting dinner on the table to follow Christ.

But Jesus is calling out to us – if you want to follow me, you have to deny yourself, you have to take up your cross. That is the only way. I will not conform to the world you have built for yourself.

I dare you to trust me. I dare you to make the hard but necessary decision to let go of all of that stuff you think you need, to let go of those relationships that only drag you down, to let go of the things you do to get ahead, and just trust that my way is better and that my way is the only one that truly leads to life!

The piece of the dare that gets a bit lost in translation and through time is the bit about taking up our crosses. Today, we wear beautiful crosses around our necks, we put them in our churches and we have transformed the challenging dare of the cross into this rather romantic idea of the burdens we must bear. I have read countless books and heard countless people talk about the crosses in their lives being an illness, or a family member who is difficult, or a bad patch they are going through. And too many times, I have heard people think that they need to stay in an unhealthy or dangerous situation with someone like an abusive spouse because that is their cross to bear.

But if we go back to this text and the world of Jesus, this dare to take up the cross would best be translated today as: I dare you to put the hangman’s noose around your neck – or I dare you to sit in the electric chair. Jesus was talking about cross – but in his world, the cross didn’t have all of the symbolic meaning it carries today. It was an instrument of capital punishment for the criminals of the Roman Empire.

When Jesus dares us to take up our crosses, he is daring us to take on the consequences of what a life following him will entail. Our crosses are the things that happen to us as a direct result of our decision to follow Christ, as a result of the things we do in Jesus name.

I know that in the Adult Sunday School class, one of their lessons recently was on taking risks. We live out our faith very timidly in this world. We treat our faith as if it were a private thing that is just between us and God and maybe those few people in our lives that we choose to share it with. Instead of doing what is necessary – speaking and demonstrating our faith loudly and boldly in the streets, we do what is easy – we go to church on Sundays and read our daily devotions at home and hope that that is enough.

At the community forum on suicide and depression recently, someone stood up and talked about the faith of a girl she works with. She said that this teenage girl is ridiculed and made fun of by her peers because she goes to youth group. She said that this girl is being torn apart inside, and that’s because as a young person, belonging is everything. That is an example of a cross to bear – facing that ridicule is a direct result of following Christ.

In this town and this place as adults, we might not face persecution if we go to church. We probably won’t be arrested like Paul was for speaking our faith openly. We probably won’t be dragged in front of a firing squad like Christians are in some parts of this world for simply being a follower of Christ.

But that doesn’t mean that we can sit back and relax. We can stand with people like that young girl and help her to carry the cross that she bears. We can continue to follow Christ and his message to the public square and speak out on national and world issues that harm life, rather than restore it. The United Methodist Church has a whole book full of our stances on issues like the death penalty, war and torture, the environment – all stances that as a church we feel are faithful to how Jesus has called us to live with one another. Writing a letter to your Senator or Representative, attending a protest, boycotting certain goods, even getting arrested during an act of civil disobedience, like people did during the sit-in movement during the civil rights movement – all of these things are ways that Christ calls us to follow him, and there may be crosses that we have to bear as a result.

You might draw out the hatred of a colleague. You might be fired from your job. You might even be arrested. But we have to remember the dare. It is easy to stay on the paths we are on, to take the safe road, but if we want to truly save our lives, we MUST take up our crosses, we must accept the dare, we must dive in feet first to the life of Christ.

That first step is the scariest. It’s like coming to the edge of the drop on a white water trip. You can see how far you have to go, and you can see the danger that lies ahead. But once you go over the edge, once you are willing to let go – then the ride takes over. You dig in with your paddles and row with all of your might. You hear the calls and commands of your guide and you’re willing to go whatever direction they need you to go. And no matter how scary it gets, no matter what trouble is in your way, you know that the guide has been on these waters before, that the guide knows the way through, and that even if you stumble and make a mistake and fall out of the boat – the guide will get you back in.

That guide is Christ. And if we let ourselves take the dare, if we take that first step and let go of our ways – Christ will be there. He will lead us in his paths. He will help us carry the crosses we may have to bear. And he will make sure that we get through this rocky ride to the smooth water on the other side.

Just take the first step. Put yourself out there… I dare you!

Blessed

Posted on March 2, 2009Leave a comment

Texts: Genesis 9, Mark 1

This week, we enter the holy and sacred time of Lent. This time of Lent is really a time of blessing – a gift from God that pulls us out of our normal, everyday lives and thrusts us into God’s life.

The very idea of being blessed means being set apart and declared holy, sacred, and worthy. Now, our first scripture from today – the story of Noah and his family certainly fits this bill. Noah found favor with God, and his family was blessed through the calling to build an arc. Now, if you will remember, the story goes that the world was full of sin and wickedness, immorality and violence. And God was fed up with the whole thing.

So our Creator went to Noah and asked him to build a boat – a ship large enough to hold his family and one of every kind of animal. And when the boat was completed, the skies opened up and it began to rain.

God blessed and saved Noah and his family through the flood, but every other person on the earth – all of them sinners – were swept away in the waters. For forty days and forty nights, the rains fell and Noah and his wife and children were absolutely alone in the world.

And then one day, the waters began to recede. Eventually, the boat settled on dry ground and Noah and his family came out of the boat and the scriptures tell us that God looked around and realized what he had done.

We often forget when we come to this part of the story that the entire earth’s population had perished. We forget when we come to this part of the story that the animals and the plants and every living thing on earth that was NOT on Noah’s Arc were now dead. We forget of the devastating force of flood waters, until we go through them ourselves.

God looked around at all the destruction and God made a promise – right there and then. “Never again will I send a flood to destroy the earth and everything that lives on it. No, I’m going to put my rainbow in the clouds, so that whenever the storm clouds start to gather and you see that bow – I will remember the promise that I have made to you today.”

This part of the story – where God changes God’s mind is really hard for some people to understand. We don’t like the idea that God acts one way and then turns around and feels bad about it. We like to think of our God as unchanging and dependable!

But I want to tell you that I don’t think this is story is about God changing his mind at all. As I have studied this story in Genesis, I learned that many other cultures and religions in the world have had a flood story. American Indians, the Ancient Greeks, Sumerian and Babylonian traditions, among many others, tell of waters being sent by the gods to flood the earth. Many of these also have a hero who is warned of the coming waters and who preserves the heritage of the people.

So it’s not surprising that the Hebrew tradition, our tradition, has a flood story, too. What is surprising is that when it is all said and done – our scriptures tell us that God is merciful, that destruction is NOT how God is going to save the creation.

It’s almost as if our Hebrew ancestors took all of the familiar stories of the people around them about the flood and they retold it with a new ending. Our God, the God that we follow has made a covenant – a promise – with us. It’s almost as if they were saying that the God we follow never would have sent a flood in the first place.

And the only reason I say that is because from the very first chapter of Genesis to the very last chapter in Revelation, the message that is conveyed in the Bible is that God loves us and wants us to be redeemed.

This week, some of us gathered together for Ash Wednesday services and as we put the mark of the cross on our foreheads, we were admitting our sin, our mortality and our finite natures. We are all sinners. We are all made of the dust of the earth. And there is nothing that any of us can do to crawl up from the ground and make ourselves righteous.

If we had lived in the days of Noah, it would have been all of us who were destroyed by those flood waters. If we followed the gods of the Babylonians, or the Greeks, or the gods of this world who demand performance and success – we would all be worthy of nothing less than destruction.

But you know what? We don’t follow the gods of this world… we follow the God of the Universe.

And that great, amazing and powerful God looks down upon us, specks of dust though we are, sinners one and all, and God loves us. Scriptures tell us that our God reached down to the earth and took a lump of clay and formed us in his image. Our God breathed his very life into humanity. Our God is a merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Our God made a covenant with Noah that never again would all flesh be destroyed by the waters of a flood because Our God desires not the death of a sinner but a repentant heart.

Our God choses to restore creation not by wiping the slate clean, but by taking on human flesh and being born among us.

Yes we are all dust, we are all human and mortal and full of failings. But Christ came into our midst to show us a better way.

Our gospel for today tells us that the way of Christ begins with a repentant heart. Through the waters of baptism, the sins of our past are washed away and we are filled with the Holy Spirit that strengthens us for the future. Our lives of dust are filled with the blessing of new life. God speaks to each one of us – You are my child, and I love you.

And then, God refuses to let us return to our old lives. Immediately after Jesus comes up from the waters of his own baptism, Mark tells us that the Spirit drove him to the wilderness.

God doesn’t want us to go back to our old ways, but wants to teach us how to really live. And so God blesses us with times like these, times set apart.

When we remember the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, we read in Mark that he was not there alone. There may have been wild animals surrounding him, and yes there was temptation by the Satan, but Mark spends as much time telling us about the angels as he does anything else. Jesus went into the wilderness and angels waited on him.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I sure could use some angels in my life right now. I sure could use just a few hours where I really feel God’s presence and know that no matter what happens in the world that surrounds me that God loves me and that my hope rests in him.

This season of Lent – with all of the struggles in the world that we face, I want us to all experience God’s blessing. It is my prayer that during this one hour of the week in worship, you know that you can come here to this place and rest in the arms of God. It is my prayer that the Spirit of God will enter our sanctuary and that angels will wait upon us and refresh our souls.

And this morning, that is where the promise of the rainbow comes back into our lives. Even in the midst of the storm clouds that threaten to destroy everything we have built up, the rainbow shines as a promise that God is with us and will never let us go

Hear these words from Bruce Pewter:

Rejoice in the rainbow. It is the sign of God’s steadfast love which promises not destruction but hope and reconstruction. It is on the basis of God’s covenant love that we dare to confront evil; it enables us to laugh in the face of the evil one, taking initiative and daring to be pro-active.

Against all the evil you see in the world, against all the injustice and corruption you observe in our nation, against all the perverse evil you see raising its sneaky head within yourself, dare to paint a rainbow!

Paint a rainbow over your frustrating failings and wilful sins, and over your irksome doubts and ignorance.

Over your sins within family life, or the ugly compromises you may have had to make in the sphere of your daily work, set that rainbow.

Project a rainbow over the motley fellowship which is the church, with its flawed ministers, stumbling leaders and its sometimes passive congregations.

In your mind paint a rainbow wherever flawed and lost humanity struggles to find a way of its own mess.

The rainbow is a permanent sign of God’s faithful love. A love which not only creates, but constantly recreates and redeems.

This is our promise. For God so loved the world, God promised never again to destroy the world, but to redeem it. That’s the kind of love we see in the life of Christ. He took what was broken and made it whole. He found in the poor, riches and in the blind, sight. He saw God in the lives of sinners. Jesus lived in the light of the rainbow promise – and showed that new and abundant life is what heals us. He died on the cross, so that the love of God might transform even death itself.

In the light of those promises, may you find the courage and boldness to face the pain and evil of this world, and respond out of Christ’s love. May you paint rainbows and remind the world and yourselves of how blessed we are. Amen.

senseful worship

Posted on February 23, 2009Leave a comment

I am a strong believer in using all of our minds, bodies and souls in worship. And one of the primary ways that I try to encourage people to reach that place is by thinking of all of our five senses and the worship experience. What are the things we hear? What kinds of smells do the scriptures bring to mind? What does grace taste like? What does the gospel feel like? How can we use color and images to see God?

Now – all of that is much easier said than done. It takes so much work to craft worship experiences and to be honest, for the most part I stick to a basic liturgy and try to throw one of the senses we neglect in worship (taste, touch, smell) in every now and then.

I have been thinking a lot about wanting to pick this practice back up again for Lent – even if I focus on just one sense each week. The scriptures for Lent 1B include the promise of God to Noah in the rainbow, and two years ago, we used that scripture in our emerging worship service in Nashville to literally paint a rainbow among the congregation. We had six canvases set up around the worship space and people were invited to travel among them and write/paint images, words, colors that expressed their understanding of promise and covenant.

I would LOVE to do that with my congregation. It would incorporate touch, color, movement, engage our minds etc.

I’m having more troubles thinking of what to do with the next week and the Lent 2B scriptures. Our theme is “Challenge” and the focus is on taking the leap of faith to trust in God’s promises – using Romans 4:20-22 and Mark 8:34-35

Forgive

Posted on February 1, 2009Leave a comment

This is the third sermon in a series I am preaching on the Lord’s Prayer. And the first one that had enough of me in it to publish. I needed a way out of a preaching rut and finally got to the place where I could preach again:

Sermon Text: Luke 11:1-10, Mark 1:21-28

Recently, I came across an article about a church in Seattle that is trying to reclaim a more “masculine” Jesus. Their pastor, Mark Driscoll, argues that Jesus and the church have been feminized – that Jesus is seen as weak and soft – the type of guy who would hang out with cuddly sheep and babies, rather than the sort of man’s man who turned over the tables in the temple.

My first thought as I read that article was, why can’t Jesus be both? I have always thought that Jesus embodied the fullness of both men and women, male and female – the best of both worlds if you will. But I also got to thinking about the church and how good of a job it does in truly representing that Body of Christ in the world today.

I did some research. On any given Sunday, the church will be made up of about 40% men and 60% women. Each week, 25% of married churchgoing women come to church without their husbands. I count myself among that group. So do quite a few of you. So part of me wants to hear what Rev. Driscoll has to say – I want to know what exactly he thinks the church is missing.
In an interview he gave, he said something to the effect that the church is full of chicks and pastel colors and songs full of emotion and feelings… and that guys would rather be out hunting, or working on their trucks, or watching football. Pretty apropos for Super Bowl Sunday, I thought.

But perhaps the problem is a bit deeper than that. As I was working on this sermon, the movie “A Knight’s Tale” was on in the background and I caught a bit of dialogue that was like a light bulb coming on.

Count Adamar in the film is strong and powerful and his rival becomes a young peasant boy who is mascarading as a knight to compete in a jousting tournament. When the Count sees young Will show mercy to a competitor, the Count is disgusted. “he shows weakness,” The count exclaims. “That’s all mercy is.” Lightbulb!

Could it be that some men stay home not because of pastel carpet or children’s sermons or pretty music, but because churches are full of mercy and forgiveness?

Strength and power in our world are defined by justice and retribution. To forgive someone, to show them mercy, to let them off without punishment is weakness. And yet that is exactly what we talk about in the church. In fact, today, we celebrate the two sacraments of our tradition that revolve around forgiveness and new beginnings – baptism and communion.

We live in a dog eat dog world of war, prisons, and defense policies that involve getting the other guy before they can get us. Power is defined by how big our guns are, how much money we have, and who we have pushed out of the way to get to where we are. Not acts of forgiveness with simple things like water and bread.

The problem here is not that the church is weak and the world is strong. That violence is power and mercy is weakness. The problem is that we haven’t done a good enough job of really proclaiming the power of God.

That power shows up in our reading from Mark this morning… only a little bit in disguise. We read this passage and hear something about Jesus teaching others with authority only to have a possessed man interrupt. Jesus casts out the spirit, so we think this must be about healing.

But the word that we translate into authority can also simply mean power. Jesus’ very teaching is powerful. It is what he has to say that first amazes the crowds. His very speaking demonstrates that the power of God is present.

And only then does the unclean spirit show up.

Ofelia Ortega writes that “the forces of evil know of the healing power of Jesus’ word; they are not submissive or indifferent. Jesus’ powerful teaching not only is fresh to the ears of the faithful, but it also disrupts the undisturbed presence of evil. Evil discovers that it is running its course.” (Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, page 312)

All Jesus had to do was speak, and the evil powers of the world started shaking in their boots.

“Be silent.” Jesus commanded. “Come out.” He said firmly. And the spirit obeyed.

I don’t know what to tell all of you about demons and spirits. I have never personally experienced them, although I know people who have. What I can tell you is that I firmly believe that God has power over the evil in this world.. As Gary Charles puts it, “from the onset of his Gospel, Mark signals that no oppressive boundary will stand or withstand the [power] of Jesus…. No one (except the demons) understand that the boundary between heaven and earth has been pierced and the reign of God is “at hand” (Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, page 313)

The reign of God… the Kingdom of God is at hand. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer and we get to that part about “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth”… we are talking about God’s power to live within us. We are praying for God to help us tap into that amazing power that the people witnessed within the synagogue. We are praying not only to be cleansed of our own internal demons – but we are also praying for the power to love others who have been their own internal demons.

You heard one story of the power of forgiveness this morning – of the mother who found the power to reach out to the mother of the boy who killed her son. She admitted that it was God who gave her the strength to do so.

I want to tell you another story today. A story about a church here in Iowa that took seriously Jesus prayer and the command to forgive. This story is related in the book “Becoming Jesus’ Prayer.”

Nine years ago, Farmers Chapel, a United Methodist congregation, “was burned to the ground by an arsonist. In the weeks and months that followed, the congregation had to wrestle with how to forgive the person who destroyed their 107-year-old church…. [their pastor] wrote an open letter to the unknown arsonist and had it printed in the local newspaper…” (Becoming Jesus’ Prayer, page 37-38)

Part of the letter is as follows:

“Our worship time is 9:00AM every Sunday. I tell you this because I want you to know that you are invited. In fact, we even plan to reserve a seat just for you. Our faith has a lot to say about forgiveness. Every Sunday we ask God to forgive our sins but only as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. That would be you. So if you would join us for worship, we could practice this kind of forgiveness face to face. I say “practice” for a reason. I don’t expect us to get it right the first or even the second time. Of course we’ll continue to work to forgive you even if you decline our invitation to worship. Forgiveness is the cornerstone of the faith we have inherited. Some people think it is impossible. They may be right. I only know that we have to try. Our forgiveness of you is tied to God’s forgiveness of us. We can’t receive something we are not willing to give others. So you see, if we harbor hatred for you in our hearts, we harbor the smoldering ashes of your arson. If we cling to bitterness, we fan the embers of your violent act. If we fantasize about revenge, we rekindle a destructive flame that will consume us. Forgiveness may indeed be impossible, but for us it is not optional.” (as printed in Becoming Jesus’ Prayer)

That 107-year-old church that burned to the ground has been rebuilt and at the focal point of their worship space is a cross that has been built out of the charred timbers of their old building. Every single time that Body of Christ comes together, they are a living witness that “life comes out of death, that hope emerges from desolation.” (Becoming Jesus’ Prayer, page 39) There is no weakness there – only power.

Today as we gather around the waters of baptism, we become witnesses to the love of God that claims us before we even know how speak. And we are renewed by the Spirit of God, that flows among us and helps us to resist evil and injustice and oppression in the world. That is not weakness – that is power.

And every Sunday that we come together for a meal of simple bread and juice, we are witnesses that all are welcome at the table of our Lord. We partake of that meal not out of simple ritual, but because there is real transformative power. The bread and the cup transforms us into the body of Christ poured out for the redemption of the world. The redemption of the world is not the stuff of sissys or pansys or the weak – it is for the bold, those who are willing to take the risk of stepping out of our comfort zones and truly carrying grace and forgiveness outside of these walls and onto the streets of our town.

When we pray Jesus’ prayer – when we truly pray it – we are asking… no we are begging for our lives to be changed. We are asking for this church to be transformed and for it to be a place of transformation.

Instead of being a church of pastel carpet, pretty music, and potlucks… the call to forgiveness challenges us to be a church where unwed mothers and drug addicts and yes, even guys who would rather watch football than listen to a sermon, find grace. Find forgiveness. Find God.

When we become that kind of church – then we will be able to stand up to the powers of this world and say to them that their way does not work. We will speak loudly and boldly that mercy does have power, that forgiveness is God’s way. That the Reign of God is at hand and that they too are invited to belong.

Amen and Amen.

s “I” n

Posted on January 22, 2009Leave a comment

Another Wednesday morning conversation with local pastors on the lectionary. I really enjoy this time to meet with my colleagues and talk about how to translate the gospel into plain language and a word that our congregation can make a part of their lives. The scriptures are tricky. They are written in ancient languages, in ancient contexts, and they use ideas and concepts that really just don’t translate to our world today.

This morning in particular, we talked about the first healing in the gospel of Mark. I hadn’t thought about this before, but there isn’t a whole lot of demonic activity in the Old Testament. And there isn’t a whole lot of demonic activity after Jesus either. At least not in the same sense that we see in these scriptures. As I talked with a friend about it today, we talked about how the “powers” might work in our world today.

In all honesty he said, if evil works through manipulation – then in people who are superstitious and believe in spirits – then working through evil spirits and demons makes sense. But in our modern scientific culture, we don’t buy the whole “spirits” thing. What if the devil is simply working through other means – through means by which we can be manipulated – reason, science, false theology, etc.

I hadn’t ever thought of that before – and it really made sense. I think that throughout history God reaches out to us in different ways – so why not the evil powers of the world as well?

After that, i headed to the church for our weekly bible study. This group basically reads through a book or section of the bible and we try to understand it, but mostly, it is to get a feel for the whole story. Right now we are in Numbers, and I found myself stopping the group after every paragraph to explain a few important pieces. We were reading in particular the section where it talks about what a man should do if he is jealous and suspects his wife of cheating. There is all of this talk of bitter water and the priest and fallen thighs and it made no sense. So I translated. “If a guy is jealous, he takes his wife to the priest, who then administers this bitter water solution… if she is pregnant (presumably by another man) it will cause a miscarriage. If she is not pregnant, either she has not been cheating and is cleared, or doesn’t get caught… but it’s likely that she won’t do it again. All guys are in the clear and won’t get in trouble for their actions.”

Comments ranged from “that’s not fair” to “why would they do that?” I explained that one reason is that women were viewed much differently – as property, as the belonging of the husband in this time. But also, that the law actually provided a way for a woman to prove her innocence – so in that sense, it was protective.

We also talked about the vow of the Nazarite. And I noticed in particular a different understanding of what sin might be within these passages. The Nazarite is not allowed to touch a corpse, but if someone dies right next to that person, and so they are unwillfully put in contact with the corpse, they have still sinned. There is a process for cleansing and setting things right in relationship to God and their vows.

We think about sin and law as an act that ‘I’ have done that breaks a law. It carries a sense of guilt and punishment. But when we think about law as order, as a process, as a way of being – then sin is simply when that order gets out of balance. What is required is not punishment, but restoration.

I have found that my congregation really tends to think of the law as this harsh thing that condemns and convicts – the law needs to be laid down – God is always telling us how we are supposed to act and we are faithful if we follow all those laws to a “T”. I’m really trying to get them to have a more graceful understanding of the law. God’s Word should rule our lives, and God’s grace is what saves us and the law is still a good thing that helps us to live more in line with God’s will. But it is also in many places used to describe a way of being that is not in line with our culture, and we have to use God’s grace to interpret the laws we read in Numbers.

Whose Baptism

Posted on January 11, 2009Leave a comment

Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11

This morning I want to share with you a modern parable about a group of men who drove to Des Moines in order to see a crazy traveling preacher that had made her way to Iowa.

The gal’s name was Jane B. and she dressed in all black and leather with a blue Mohawk where a normal person’s hair would be. In part, these small town guys from Marengo just wanted to see the spectacle. But when they got there, when they stood on the banks of the Des Moines River and heard her preach – they were moved.

That traveling preacher, Jane B., was telling them that dipping down in that icy cold water could wash away their sins. It would make them clean. Repent! Jane B. said. Turn away from your past mistakes. Become clean again and live as a new person!

Well, those small town guys from Marengo didn’t talk about their problems with other people – being self-reliant types. But each of them had something that tugged at their conscious, some action or behavior that they needed to be washed away. And so they presented themselves to Jane B., one by one, and were washed clean. That’s what baptism is after all – a washing clean of your spirits.

As they continued to listen to Jane B. for the rest of the day, they also heard something that warmed them from the inside out. Someone else was coming – someone who had a message even more powerful that that of Jane B. She was only the messenger, pointing the way for the Savior of their lives.

That group of men headed back home and knew their lives would be different. They promised to meet every week at the local coffee shop to keep one another on track and help each other look out for this Savior who was coming.

Things went okay for a few years. They had become their own private little group, and while they sometimes talked about their experience, most of the time, they just kept it to themselves. They weren’t sure that other people would understand. They wanted to make another journey back to Des Moines, to see if anything had happened, but thought for sure they would have heard by now if the Savior had come.

One morning, a young man walked into the coffee shop, right over to where the group of men were sitting. He ordered a cup of coffee and then sat down, right at the table with the other guys and started a conversation.

“Good morning!” he said. “Do you guys come here often?”

A grunt of affirmation was his response.

“You guys here just to enjoy the coffee? Or are you getting together for some other reason?”

One of the men looked up. “We made some promises a few years ago. To change our lives. So we get together here every morning to help one another out.”

The stranger seemed very intrigued by this. “Oh yeah?” he said, “What brought on the change in your lives?”

Another one of the men replied, “A trip out to Des Moines, to hear that crazy preacher Jane B.”

The young man could hardly contain himself. “You guys are believers?! That’s terrific! I’m a preacher myself. The name is Paul and I’m going from community to community trying to encourage people to follow the Way. You don’t know how excited I am to already find some of you here! Now tell me, Did ya’ll receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?”

The group of men stared back at the stranger. “Holy Spirit?” One of them replied. “Not quite sure I’ve ever heard of the Holy Spirit before. Maybe we’re talking about different things.”

Paul responded, “I thought you said that you went out to see Jane B.? Whose baptism did you receive?”

“Whose baptism?” was the response. “We just went down there and heard Jane preach and all of us were so moved that we got washed clean there in the water. So I guess, Jane’s baptism, I guess. They we all headed back home. Is there something we missing?”

A large smile spread across Paul’s face. “Oh my friends,” he replied. “How much you have missed! Jane B. baptized all who came to her, young and old, and she preached repentance and washed away sins. But she also promised that someone was coming after her – the Savior – the one whom we should all believe in! I’m here to tell you today that that Savior came… and his name was Jesus. Jane’s baptism is merely the beginning… there is so much more for you to hear!”

Paul stayed with them a few more hours and shared with them about how Jane B. had been preaching one day out in the river when something amazing happened. A seemingly ordinary young man walked down to the river and asked to be baptized. Jane B. dunked his body under the water like the rest, but as he came back up, the very heavens seemed to break open and a bright light came down out of the clouds and settled upon the man. And then, deep within Jane B’s spirit she heard the words – almost as if they had been spoken from above… “This is my Son. This is my Beloved. With him, I am well pleased.”

Ever since that day, Jane’s ministry diminished and the ministry of that man, Jesus, began. Paul shared with them about how he fed the hungry, and healed the sick, how he preached a message of love and forgiveness. And then he told the men gathered around the table about how Jesus had stepped on the toes of power and was executed.

Paul shared that after his death, the followers of Jesus’ Way claimed that he was still around – that he had been raised from the dead – but Paul didn’t believe it himself until Jesus appeared to him, himself. Paul confessed that he had once tried to round up and arrest followers of the Way, but that meeting the risen Christ face to face, changed everything in his life. Paul told them about the power and the love and the grace that comes when the risen Christ lives within you – when the Holy Spirit dwells in your heart and guides your every action. Paul told them what true transformation and life can look like.

The men looked down into their coffee cups and then gradually looked up into each others eyes. First one, then another, then all four of them stood up and looked directly at Paul.

“We don’t know all the details yet, we don’t quite understand how it works. But we want to be a part of this way that you are talking about. We want to experience what you have shared about God and about that kind of relationship. How do we do that?”

“Well, do you have any water?” was the reply.

A few glasses of water were brought to the table and one by one, Paul baptized the men in the name of the Father, our creator, of the Son, our redeemer, and of the Holy Spirit, our sustainer. And the immense power of the Holy Spirit filled these men, a new sense of life that came with the realization that God didn’t just forgiven them of their sins, but that God loved them. That God was for them and that God wanted them to share this new life with others. They found the strength to share their stories with others that they met – to help them to come along on the journey and to discover what life in Christ was truly all about.

Douglas Ottati writes, “The gift of the Spirit in baptism sweeps people up into the dynamic of the Spirit and its expansive Way. It drives believers to participate in the church’s expansive mission. It empowers them to witness in word and in deed to a universally inclusive reality. And so by the Spirit they are empowered to witness to a truth that many in today’s terrorized and war-torn,” and I might add, economically troubled, “world may need to hear.”

Like the men in the coffee shop, our modern day believers at Ephesus from the book of Acts, I have to admit that for a long time in my own life, I didn’t know just how much I was missing.

Growing up, my family was very nominally Christian. We always went to church on Christmas Eve – but usually at my grandparent’s church in Cherokee, Iowa. Sometimes, we would go on Easter Sunday. And in our minds – that was what qualified us as Christians.

In high school, as I have already shared with you, I became more active in the church, more regular in attendance, was baptized and confirmed in the church, and got to thinking, alright – this is what makes me a Christian.

In many ways, I didn’t know that was what God was doing in me at my baptism. I thought it was about forgiveness of sins and about “getting in” to the Christian community. At the time, I went through the motions, but I never really opened myself up to what was happening. I wasn’t quite ready to trust God with my life… I thought I had… but I hadn’t.

I was missing the fact that God was already at work within me, preparing me, leading me, guiding me, getting me ready to follow. I was missing the fact that being a Christian wasn’t about rules I had to follow or conditions I had to meet, but about letting God in Christ through the Holy Spirit into my life. That it meant I became a different person not because I had to, but because the Spirit of God was transforming me.

And I think that there are a lot of people in our world today – and maybe even in the church this morning – who are in the same place. We live without the blessings of the fullness of baptism because we have underestimated “the power bestowed on us in our baptism” (Hooke) – not realizing what the Holy Spirit is all about.

The Holy Spirit is the weird, out there part of the Trinity of God that we just can’t quite put our fingers on. Especially when we are told that the Spirit should be giving us gifts of tongues and prophecy. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never spoken in tongues before.

Ruthanna Hooke assures us that while , “we tend to think that prophecy has to do with foretelling future events… in Luke’s Gospel and in Acts, to prophesy is to speak about the present; it is to speak in God’s name on behalf of God’s work in the world.” It’s telling the truth about what God is doing, and with the Holy Spirit behind you, that truth has the power to change the world. When we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, we are given the “power to proclaim the gospel with boldness,” in ways that everyone can understand.

That is why Jesus’ Baptism is so different from the one received by John. In the words of William Loader “To be baptized with Jesus’ baptism… meant an act not only of receiving divine grace… but also joining with Jesus in his reaching out and like Jesus, being equipped and inspired by the Spirit to do so.”

While our baptisms may be something that we do only once, the work of the Holy Spirit never stops within us. It calls us out of our selves to discover what life in Christ and life alongside Christ is truly all about .And in doing so, we are called to walk with Christ to the sad and the lonely, the hurting, those who are struggling and those who see only darkness. We are called to live out of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, whose name is high over all names, and whose baptism we claim as our own.

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.

Wake Up!

Posted on November 30, 2008Leave a comment

This news story was posted yesterday on Yahoo News –

“Sebastian D’Souza hears the gunfire at (shah-trapati shiv-a-ji)) Terminus from his office across the street at the Mumbai Mirror tabloid.

He follows the sound through the sprawling station, slipping unseen through parked trains. When he first catches sight of the young men, he doesn’t realize they are the gunmen. They look so innocent. Then he sees them shooting.

“They were firing from their hips. Very professional. Very cool,” says D’Souza, the newspaper’s photo editor. For more than 45 minutes he follows as they move from platform to platform shooting and throwing grenades. Often, D’Souza isn’t even 30 feet away. The few police at the station are either dead, in hiding or had long fled.

There are billboards everywhere, signs of India’s economic boom. At one point, he photographs them standing beneath a tea company sign. They appear to be having a calm conversation. “WAKE UP!” the billboard reads.”

“Wake up!” the billboard reads.

The season of Advent is a time of paradox. While on one hand we are preparing for the warm and beautiful scenes surrounding the birth of the Christ child, we are also preparing ourselves for the second coming of Christ. We find ourselves surrounded by this rich color purple, both because it is a symbol of the royalty of our Lord, but also the color for repentance and confession.

It is hard for a pastor to live in that paradox. It is hard to not give in to the cultural emphasis on Christmas – what with decorations and music being found in the stores before Halloween. As I chatted with other colleagues in this past week, we all struggled to take seriously the desperation and the seriousness that the scriptures from this morning call for. It’s almost Christmas after all, and wouldn’t a sermon on the apocalypse be a little too heavy?

We don’t want to talk about the darkness and evil in the world because this is supposed to be a season of joy and light, peace on earth and good will toward all.

“Wake up!” the billboard reads.

Some days the darkness sneaks up on you. Some weeks it is hard to ignore. Most of my pastor friends were up long into the night re-writing their sermons. We simply cannot let the evil of this world go unnoticed this Sunday morning.

There are so many things that are heavy on our hearts this week. The loss of life in Mumbai. The trampling of a woman at a Wal-Mart on this Black Friday. Friends and family that have been laid off or fired. Tomorrow is World AIDS Day and we remember that there are now 33 million people living with HIV worldwide.

What does any of this have to do with Advent? We have to think back to the paradox of the season. You see, we celebrate Advent because we need to remember that God came down to earth as a vulnerable baby. We recreate nativity scenes and put stars on our trees to recall the shining light that led the world to the Christ child. We recite the promises of the prophets and remember that our God is faithful.

But we also celebrate Advent because we must remember that there are still promises left to be fulfilled. There is still darkness and evil in our world. There are still people crying out for healing and salvation. God’s work has begun among us, but it is not finished yet.

“Wake up!” the billboard reads.

A friend wrote yesterday, “can anyone explain to me how any sale can be so good to not only line up at 5 in the morning but then to trample, to death, a worker at the store. And then complain when the store announces it is closing in light of the incident!

That new world, really, is it coming soon? Because some days I really start to lose hope in this one.”

Hope is what this first Sunday of Advent is all about – and yet it is hard to be hopeful.

We are desperate for the coming of the new heavens and the new earth. We are at the end of our ropes. We are waiting O God! When, are you going to act?

That desperation. That bold trust that God will come. Those are the things that this season is all about. That is why we start Advent with an apocalyptic vision:

From our gospel reading this morning we hear, “in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven… Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory…. When you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates… beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come.

“Wake up!” the billboard reads.

Apocalyptic writings can be frightening to hear. They urge us that the time is coming, and coming soon, when God will set all things right. And they often do so with visions of disaster and tragedy, death and destruction.

Most days, we would hear those visions of apocalypse and have very little to connect us to the reality that birthed these types of prophecies. We don’t understand what could possibly be so hopeful about these terrifying visions.

But what we have to understand is that apocalyptic scriptures are not born out of times of safety and security, peace and well-being, but they are born out of times of desperation. They are written only in times of suffering and persecution. They are born out of a yearning for God to intervene.

As his people were being taken away to exile in Babylon, we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah this morning “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!… to make your name known to your adversaries!”

In other words – we are struggling down here, O God! Come and set things right!

“Wake up!” the billboard reads.

Just who is it that should keep awake? Who is falling asleep? Who isn’t paying attention? In some ways, I feel like Isaiah is calling out to God to wake up. Wake up! Look at what is happening! Why aren’t you doing something?!

But perhaps Isaiah is speaking to us as well. Maybe Isaiah thinks that we are the ones who need the wake up call. Who need something as dramatic as the heavens tearing open in order to get our heads right.

Maybe the call is not to wake up to the reality of evil and darkness around us – but to wake up to the promise and the hope of our God. To stop letting the evil take us over, to stop letting it control our lives, and instead to wake up to the reality of the in-breaking Kingdom of God.

You see, Isaiah has some harsh words for his brothers and sisters, who seem to have succumbed to the darkness. He wants them to look around for themselves and to see that God has not left them.

“We are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” God isn’t quite finished with us yet. God hasn’t finished shaping our world. God has not abandoned us.

“Wake up!” the billboard reads.

In these seemingly dark days – with disaster and tragedy, difficulty and despair all around us, it is hard to see the signs of God’s presence. We are eagerly waiting for something dramatic to shake the earth to its core – to set things right once and for all. We are waiting for the grand finale – for the completion of God’s work.

And Advent is that time of year when we get slapped upside the head with challenging images of the heavens shaking and the earth trembling and voices crying out in the wilderness. Advent really isn’t a time for the soft and cuddly, but a reminder that the every present Kingdom of God is about to fully break into our midst – whether we are ready for it or not.

But perhaps part of our wake up call also needs to be prepared not for catastrophic billboards from on high, for cosmic signs and wonders, but to simply wake up and notice where God is already active in our midst.

Yes, Christ promises to return, and in the Advent season we eagerly await the return described in Mark. 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 holy meal of simple wine and bread.

“Wake up!” the billboard reads.

Wake up and look around you. Look with eyes wide open for the signs of the Kingdom of God.

Look for where hungry people are being fed by food banks all across the country.
Look for where the oppressed are set free through prison rehabilitation programs or through AlAnon.
Look for where the sick are healed, like our loved one Mike Schott.

If you look hard enough – you will see that God is still working. God is still active. God remembers the promises that were made. And know, that our hope rests in that God. That he will see us through.

Even now as we wait – as we look around – as we take it all in… we dare to hope.

Amen. And Amen.