Matthew – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

Deeper Water

Posted on March 8, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Matthew 18:18-20, Luke 5:1-10

I’ll often come across a quote or a few paragraphs in a devotional that I’ll save for later, thinking – Ahh! This will make a good sermon illustration!

Today, as we think a little bit about diving into deeper water in our prayer lives, I remembered a story told by the seventeenth century French mystic Jeanne Guyon in her book, “Experiencing the Depths of Christ.”

But before I get to her writing, a little about Madame Guyon herself.

She grew up very religious, spending much of her childhood in a convent until she was forced into an arranged marriage at the age of 15.

By the age of 28, Madame Guyon was a wealthy widow with three surviving children.

But the piety of her youth was what drove her and she continued to have mystical experiences of God. She felt called to share these teachings and eventually left her children into their grandmother’s care and left behind most of her personal possessions to do so.

At one point, Guyon was imprisoned for her teachings on prayer, which focused on constant prayer and inward stillness which brings us into the presence of God. Her writings were considered heresy at the time because they prioritized stillness over vocal prayer and pious action.

So imagine this woman, who has not had an easy life. But through it all, she believed God was with her in the midst of her trials and suffering. Madam Guyon wanted others to experience the depths of a relationship with God that she herself had found.

She tells the story of a traveler who has embarked on a long journey… a quest of sorts. But when the man comes to the first inn along the way, he stops there and remains there forever.

Why?

“He has been told that many travelers have come this way and have stayed at this very inn; even the master of the house once dwelt here… Oh soul! All that is wished for you is that you press toward the end… Only remember this: Do not stop at the first stage.” (Guyon, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ)

Do not stop at the first stage.

I wonder how many of us have stopped at the first stage of our prayer lives.

We recite the Lord’s prayer.

We have a few prayers we turn to before meals.

We might even have a daily devotional we pick up a few times a week that includes a prayer at the end of every reading.

But for many of us, we pray in much the same ways we did as children.

We learned some of the basics of prayer and then stopped at that stage along the way.

We forgot about our destination, what we were striving for in the first place: a life spent in the presence of God and a faith connected with the power of God.

While we spend a lot of time thinking about the prayer that Jesus taught us, we forget what else Jesus taught us about prayer.

Ask and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find.

Knock and the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8 and Luke 11:9)

If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains… nothing will be impossible (Mt 17:20)

If we ask for anything in agreement with God’s will, God listens to us… we know that we have received what we asked from God. (1 John 14-15)

And from our gospel reading today:

What your bind or loosen on earth will be bound or loosened in heaven.

When just two of us get together and pray about something, God goes into action in response. (Matthew 18:18-19)

If we pray… stuff will happen!

Not little stuff… BIG. GIGANTIC. POWERFUL. MOUNTAIN SIZED stuff!

That’s what scripture tells us.

That’s what Jesus keeps reminding us.

Prayer is powerful.

So why is it such an after thought?

Even in the church, this institution dedicated to the teachings of Jesus, prayer seems to be icing on the cake, rather than the main course.

Think about our typical response to things.

When we see a problem or we have a goal, we create a team!

We have meetings and we plan and organize and we get approval.

And then we work.

We work our tails off trying to make something happen.

And at the end of the day we find ourselves so busy and exhausted and barely one step farther along the way.

Maybe, MAYBE, we had a devotion and a prayer at some step along that journey.

But not always. And not often. And not primarily.

Martha Grace Reese reminds us that churches are not declining or struggling because we are lazy.

We work really hard.

Maybe the problem is that we aren’t praying as much as we work.

In Luke’s gospel, Simon and James and John found themselves in this very situation.

They were hard workers.

They had been up all night and put in the hours.

And yet, they had nothing to show for it.

Until they listened to Jesus’ invitation to go a little deeper.

To row out a little farther.

To push beyond what they had always done.

Was it simply that there were more fish out deeper in the water?

Surely, that can’t be it… for they knew these waters like the back of their hand.

Was it that they just put in more hours of work?

A whole nights worth of effort didn’t accomplish what miraculously came in through one toss.

No, what changed is that they had spent some time with Jesus.

And they listened to what Jesus asked of them.

In “Unbinding the Heart,” Reese shares the story of the Benton Street Christian Church and their evangelism team.

As they got started in their work, Reese asked them to not make any decisions for three months to but simply spend their time in prayer.

This was incredibly difficult for this church full of do-ers and they got frustrated that the only thing they could report was that they were praying… but they did it.

They got together and prayed.

They prayed between meetings.

They prayed every day.

They got teased a little… but then they started getting prayer requests.

And by the time their three months of prayer was done, they had vision and energy and direction and one month later had fifty people involved in the ministry.

As one of the volunteers later said, “It was incredibly difficult for these four ‘can-do’ women to wait in prayer… a year and a half later, all four of us would say our prayer lives have been permanently impacted by this experiment… the entire church is still being impacted by this willingness to risk praying first.” (p30)

Isn’t that a funny phrase…. To risk praying first?

What risk is there in praying first?

What risk is there in stopping to ask God to be present and to guide our work?

I’ll tell you what the risk is…

Something might happen.

Something might change.

And it just might be us.

Richard Foster once wrote, “prayer is the central avenue God uses to change us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives.”

Or to put it another way, if we are content with the status quo, we are probably not people who turn to prayer a lot in our lives.

The opposite is also true.

If we believe God is active in the world…

If we see that something needs to change…

If we want to transform our very way of being in the world…

Then prayer has to be part of the process.

It is key to the journey.

It isn’t just one stop along the way…. It is the very road beneath our feet.

Two weeks ago, our church leadership team thought together about the work we have before us this year and the role and responsibilities each of us will play along the way.

One of the things that we focused on was our vision statement.

Can we read that aloud together?

Through personal engagement in and partnership with our community, we will live a life of love, service, and prayer, so that all who hunger might be fed by God’s grace.

We’ve been working hard on making this happen.

We try to create opportunities for people to personally engage and reach out to our partners like CFUM and Women at the Well and Simpson Youth Academy.

We focus on physical hunger through our food pantry and meal programs.

We reach out to meet that hunger for connection and relationship.

But do you know what we haven’t done.

We haven’t invited all of you to pray about this vision.

We haven’t stopped to ask God to help us accomplish this work.

As much as we talk about love, service, and prayer… as much as we even practice intercessory prayer for one another’s joys and concerns… we have not prayed as a community for our work together as a church.

It’s almost as if we took all of the power of God to bring fruit and change and life to our congregation and we locked it up in a box.

Today… let’s set the power of prayer free.

Let’s let the good news of Christ loose on the world.

Let’s turn this work over to Jesus.

Just as Christ urged Peter, James and John out into deeper waters, this next week, each day you’ll get an email inviting you to pray for Immanuel.

Not just for our people.

But for the vision God has given us.

For the work before us.

Let’s not stop at the first stage.

Let’s not be content resting before our journey is complete.

But together, let us keep pressing onward, deeper, out into that place where the presence and power of God can truly change us and this world.

May it be so. Amen.

Renew Our Whereabouts

Posted on January 13, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17

This weekend, I’ve been gathered along with our confirmation students and mentors and teachers for a retreat. Our focus has been what makes us distinctly United Methodist. We’ve talked about our church structure, the way of discipleship, how we discover wo God is, and what we believe about grace.

Along the way, I keep thinking about how our time together was kind of a boot camp, a crash course in the foundations of who we are.

We’ve been talking about our shared theology as Christians and our place in the history of the church, but this was a chance to really step into a tradition.

To learn about it.
As questions.
Get ready to claim it as their own.

Earlier in the week, I read a lovely reflection by Debie Thomas. Her weekly essays at Journey with Jesus help pastors and laity alike reflect on the what the lectionary texts mean for us today.

This week, she wrote of her own experience being baptized and how it felt like such a personal commitment. She was choosing Jesus. It was all about her and her faith in that moment. As a young girl, she believed it was all about what she was doing, her obedience, her choice.

But when she thinks back on the story we just shared with you of Jesus going to the River Jordan to be baptized by John, she didn’t see it as a personal stepping out.

Instead, she saw it as stepping in.

“A stepping into a history, a lineage, a geography, an identity. In receiving baptism, Jesus doesn’t set himself apart from us; he aligns himself with us.”

For a normal person, that wouldn’t be a big deal…
To identify with others…
To join in what they were doing…

But this was Jesus!
He didn’t need us.
He didn’t need to repent and be forgiven.
He didn’t need to humble himself that way in those dirty waters of the river.

But he did.

Debie Thomas reminds us that the very first public act of Jesus was to step into our lives.
He submitted to John the Baptist… because he gives away his power.
He entered the Jordan River, that sacred place filled with so much history.

“Jesus stepped into the whole Story of God’s work on earth, and allowed that story to resonate, deepen, and find completion.”

Although it was only last week we were thinking about the babe in the manger and the wise ones who visited, this was really the first public act of Jesus.

For many at the time, this moment was the beginning of their encounter with Christ.
It was the first moment that they recognized what God was doing in their midst.
And when the Servant of God, the Beloved One, appeared before them, it wasn’t a spectacle.
It wasn’t to take over.
It wasn’t to transform everything in an moment.

It was an invitation.
An invitation for us to step in as well.
An invitation for us to surrender.
A invitation for us to enter that tradition, that history, that community of faith that has gone before us.

As Debie Thomas writes,

“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 remember the day my youngest brother Darren was baptized.
He and my mom had transferred to a new church and they had missed a window for confirmation, so when it came around again, he signed up.

Unfortunately for Darren, this new church held confirmation during the seventh grade year, and he was a junior in high school.
He was about a foot and a half taller than the rest of his classmates, but Darren went through the entire class with them and was confirmed that spring.

I got to be there the day my little brother was confirmed and baptized and it was such a special moment.
All throughout the class, while he had been slightly out of place, those young kids looked up to him and they grew to be great friends.
As Darren knelt to be baptized, the pastor invited friends and family to come up and lay their hands on him.
Every single one of the kids in that confirmation class came forward and stood around us and reached out their hands to affirm and bless him.
It was quite powerful.

Darren’s baptism reminded me that whether we are young or old, whether we remember it happening to us or not, our baptisms are not private or personal events.

We are baptized in the midst of the church because those who surround us are also making commitments and vows:
the church affirms its own faith
the church pledges to act as spiritual mentors for those being baptized
the church vows their ongoing support.

In our United Methodist resources on baptism it claims that the covenant of baptism “connects God, the community of faith, and the person being baptized; all three are essential to the fulfillment of the baptismal covenant.”

Every baptism is a chance for the whole congregation to reaffirm our faith and to progress farther on the journey with Christ.

We are all stepping into live together.
“United, interdependent, connected, one.”
We are remembering that each of us, every single one, is deeply loved.

And whenever we remember our baptisms,
We have a chance to refocus on Jesus.
We have a chance to renew our whereabouts.
We have a chance to re-engage our spirits.

As we heard from the book of Isaiah this morning:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations… I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness… I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations”

And this calling, this ministry is sealed when the Spirit of the Lord descends upon him in the waters of the River Jordan.

We are remind of the spirit of God hovering over the waters in creation and God speaking, “Let there be light.”

God shows up and new life is among us.
The new creation.
New things that God declares.
A new journey for us to take.

And through our baptism, Isaiah’s servant of God… Matthew’s beloved… invites us to follow.
The light of Christ becomes part of us.
His mission becomes our own.
His journey becomes our path.

I’m reminded of a poem from Wendell Berry called the Gift of Gravity.

For those of you who don’t know Berry, he is a writer and a farmer from Kentucky who often writes about the ordinary and mundane ways that God shows up in our lives. Hear these words about the river, about the light, about the cycle of giving and taking.

All that passes descends,
and ascends again unseen
into the light: the river
coming down from sky
to hills, from hills to sea,
and carving as it moves,
to rise invisible,
gathered to light, to return
again… “The river’s injury
is its shape.” I’ve learned no more.
We are what we are given
and what is taken away;
blessed be the name
of the giver and taker.
For everything that comes
is a gift, the meaning always
carried out of sight
to renew our whereabouts,
always a starting place.
And every gift is perfect
in its beginning, for it
is “from above, and cometh down
from the Father of lights.”
Gravity is grace.

The rain and snow that falls upon us comes from God.
It washes us clean.
It surrounds us and refreshes the ground upon which we walk…
But the light comes down from God as well.
It melts the snow and ice and warms the earth and the moisture evaporates.

It is a cycle necessary for life.
“for everything that comes/ is a gift, the meaning always/ carried out of sight/ to renew our whereabouts,/ always a starting place.”

To renew our whereabouts… always a starting place.

Like rain and light, grace is poured down upon us from God.

Whether you first stepped into the faith through baptism 1 year ago or 90 years ago, grace always gives us a fresh start.

As Berry writes, it comes down upon us to renew our whereabouts… it is always a starting place.

These waters are new life for us now.
They are the chance to re-enter the journey.
To recommit to these people.
To re-energize your spirit.
To refocus on Jesus.

After all, as Debie Thomas reminds us,

“He’s the one who opens the barrier, and shows us the God we long for. He’s the one who stands in line with us at the water’s edge, willing to immerse himself in shame, scandal, repentance, and pain — all so that we might hear the only Voice that will tell us who we are and whose we are in this sacred season. Listen. We are God’s chosen. God’s children. God’s own. Even in the deepest, darkest water, we are the Beloved.”

This is the promise of God… Amen.

Renew the Journey

Posted on January 5, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12

Gracious God… May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts and minds be acceptable to you O Lord, our Light and our Salvation… Amen.

We find ourselves in a transitional time.
It is a transition between the season of Christmas and the ordinary time before Lent.
It is a transition between one year and the next.
The past and the present and the future all collide.
Who were we? Who will we become?
What are we willing to do to make it happen?

When astronomers from the East saw a great light in the sky, they knew the world was about to turn. They could feel in their bones that this moment, this transition, was going to change everything.
Everything they read and studied, everything revealed to them told them, deep within their bones that this light would lead them to the child born King of the Jews.
This child would lead Israel and conquer nations.
And they didn’t want to let this moment pass them by.
They wanted to be there.
They wanted to see for themselves.
This king was so important, he changed their lives, too.

I used to think of the wise men as professional star followers.
I always assumed that they knew exactly what they were doing.
But no matter how much preparation they had…
no matter how skilled they were at navigating the skies…
there are just too many unknowns.

They didn’t know what the trip would entail: how long would it take and how many provisions they should pack. Were they concerned about running out of food or water?
Afterall, there were no Casey’s or Kum & Go’s along the way.
They couldn’t guarantee safe places to rest or a friendly greeting when they finally arrived.
They believed they were looking for a king, but they didn’t know what this king looked like! They didn’t know when or if they would ever return home.

That kind of journey takes faith and trust and humility.
But maybe… it also takes a little bit of desperation.

So, there is a song by Styx that has be in my mind all week when I think all of those unknowns of the journey.

In the song we hear the words:
Every night I say a prayer in the hope that there’s a heaven
And every day I’m more confused as the saints turn into sinners…
I wake up each morning and turn on the news to find we’ve so far to go
And I keep on hoping for a sign, so afraid I just won’t know.
Show me the way, show me the way
Take me tonight to the river
And wash my illusions away
Show me the way

You know, I hear in these words someone who has been so disillusioned and frustrated by the world that they are desperate to find a new way.
Think about those wise men…
What would motivate them to seek out this King unless they were aching for something new to appear in the world?
These wise men had their eyes wide open, frantically searching for a sign, for something to lead them.

And it appeared before them.

I wrote this week in the message about seeking a clarity of vision…
I’m wondering how many of us… myself included… are more like the chief priests and scribes in King Herod’s court than those astrologers from the east.
You see, the religious professionals knew what they were looking for.
They had all of the predictions and prophecies.
When the wise ones appeared, they could easily point out exactly where it says in the scrolls of Micah and Samuel that this king would be born in Bethlehem.
But they couldn’t see.
They weren’t even looking.
They were going about their lives, blinded to the miracle that was taking place only six miles away from them.
A star, led people from halfway across the world, and they couldn’t see it.
Maybe, because they thought they could do it on their own.
Maybe, they got comfortable in their fuzzy awareness.
Maybe, they weren’t desperate enough to ask for God to show them a new way.

As this year turns, as this season turns, are you aching for something new?
Are you looking and trying to see and understand what might come next?
The year turned and all of our prayers for peace on earth feel like they have already been shattered by rumors of war. What is our path out of this mess?

There are questions that linger about the future of our denomination and so many, no matter their perspective are aching for a new possibility… could this new announcement this week be the sign we’ve been waiting for? That something different is on the horizon?

The continent of Australia is literally on fire, and for those who have been speaking out about the climate crisis wonder if maybe this, finally this, could be a turning point, a moment of desperation where we might collectively seek a different way of being in the world.

But aside from all of those global concerns, what about your own family. Your own faith journey.
I have places where I am ready to grow and deepen my relationship with our Creator and my spouse and my loved ones, places I’ve neglected and forgotten about in the busyness of life.
Places that I thought were doing okay… but that I’m now recognizing are a bit fuzzy and unclear.
I hear that happens as you get older.
Things get a bit more fuzzy and unclear and you need a little help.
We all do.
Honestly, no matter how old or young we are…
no matter how much we have studied scripture…
no matter how frequently we talk to God in prayer…
we all need help seeing God’s plans for our lives sometimes.
We all need help recognizing where God is in the midst of it all.

But as soon as we admit it…
As soon as we start looking…
As soon as that desperation creeps in…
When we fall on our knees in humility…
It appears.
An opportunity to put our faith in the one who can see.
That invitation to trust and let God lead us.
And the reminder that we aren’t on this journey alone.

I love that this tale of the wise ones in Matthew’s gospel isn’t the story of one person.
It’s about a group of people who put their lives in God’s hands.
And that’s what church is all about, isn’t it?
We need each other for support and for guidance.
We need one another to help interpret the signs and experiences that we have.
Each one of us brings to the scripture a fresh perspective.
We each have different gifts that complement one another.
Some of you may be teachers, others healers, some may be full of hospitality and others have the ability to lead.
It will take all of our skills together on this journey, along with the grace of God.
We are the body of Christ, in this place and in this time.
And none of us can do this alone.
We must ask for help, we must look to one another for guidance, and we must be willing to admit we don’t have all of the answers.
And as this new year turns, if we want to discover something new, then we need to be a little bit vulnerable and open to however and wherever the Spirit may move.

In many ways, that is what Epiphany is all about.
Epiphany is the revelation of God to the world.
And it didn’t happen just once with some magi from a foreign place….
No, God was continually revealing Godself throughout the life, death and resurrection of Christ…
and Jesus is still being revealed to us today through the Holy Spirit.
But sometimes we need to renew our journey with God, we need to ask for help, so that once again we can focus in on Jesus.

So over the next few weeks, our journey will take us along the paths of many people in the scriptures who have experienced “little epiphanies” – people who saw a glimpse of the fullness of God.
We will walk with John the Baptist in the River Jordan.
We will follow the disciples as they heard a call and experienced his teaching and miracles, and we will end up on the mountain where Jesus stood transfigured before Peter, James and John.
As we make this journey, I hope and pray that we will see Christ clearly.
I hope and pray that through him, God might again show us a way.
I hope we will see how our own lives need to be transformed because of what we have learned.

The magi saw a star in the sky that they believed would change the world.
And they got up and did something as a result.
They honored the Christ Child not just through their gifts.
But they took risks.
They made sacrifices.
They left behind what they thought they knew because they knew something so much better was in front of them.
That’s what I hope for you and for me and for all of us in this season.
I pray that we might be able to see with new eyes and new clarity just what God has in store.

The poet W.H. Auden wrote “to discover how to be human now / is the reason we follow this star.”

That is the journey that is before us.
To discover how to be human now.
To discover how to follow Christ now.
To discover what it means to be God’s people now.

It’s a journey that will take some faith.
And some trust.
And maybe just enough desperation that we can actually, really, truly surrender.

There is a prayer from our tradition that has often been used in this turning of the year to recommit ourselves, to reclaim God’s covenant, to renew our own journey of faith.
We have a modern paraphrase of Wesley’s Covenant Prayer and as we turn into this new year, I invite you to join with me in praying it together…

Grounded in our Neighborhoods

Posted on November 17, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Matthew 22: 34-40

Next week is the premiere of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” the new movie about Mr. Rogers. I grew up with Mr. Rogers welcoming me home in the afternoon from school. We entered the land of make-believe and I heard him speaking to me and my child-like worries and curiosity. But I also saw Mr. Rogers walk around and interact with his neighbors.
Growing up on a farm in the country, I never felt like I was part of a neighborhood. At least not in the way I saw it on television. After all, there was only one house within half a mile of our own.
But we did know our neighbors. We would help one another mend fences or bring in crops. The neighbor kids and I rode the bus together. We’d do the farmer wave as we passed by … and sometimes even stop the cars in the middle of the gravel road to catch up on gossip.
Throughout this month, we are exploring what it means to be grounded in God through the relationships of our lives.
We looked at the ancestors who have grounded us in a sense of persistence, strength, and identity.
David helped us think last week about our homes and families and the sense of belonging and love we find there.
And today, we are turning back to Diana Butler Bass and her book, Grounded, and thinking about how God shows up in our neighbors.
When we think about neighborhoods today, fewer people feel like they belong in the same kind of way. Even if we live closer in proximity, we feel more and more isolated. As Butler Bass writes:
“Although we live near to one another in neighborhoods, we do not feel that we necessarily belong to one another, that we have neighborly relations with either place or people. We might live in a particular location, but it is hard to sense that our lives are with others. In a way, a neighborhood is simply the space where people reside near others; the challenge of re-creating vibrant, healthy neighborhoods is building connections between people and, in the process, turning isolated individuals into neighbors. Thus the meaning of “neighborhood” is intimately caught up with an important question, one fraught with spiritual and ethical implications: who is my neighbor? “ (p. 204).

I actually have a question for you.
Who is your neighbor?
Literally.
Do you know their names?
Do you know their stories?
Each of you, when you came in today, was handed a map. And we are going to come back to that, but I want to invite you to turn it around and grab a pencil or pen or crayon… whatever is handy.
Draw a box to represent your home… whether it is an apartment or house or condo.
Now, draw a box to represent the neighbors to your left and right.
Draw a box to represent those who are across the hall or across the street.
Draw a box or two to represent any who might live behind you.

Here is my drawing.
Now… who lives in those homes?
Who are your neighbors?
Take a minute and write down as many names as you can

I must admit, I began working on this exercise and felt a bit of shame that I didn’t know all of the answers.
I could think of at least one person on those homes, but not the whole family. I couldn’t remember Cheryl’s wife’s name. Or Chad’s. Or Mitch or Rusty’s.
And to be honest, Mitch and his family moved out a couple of months ago and I still haven’t met the new couple that moved in.
I have no clue what the names are of the people who live behind us.
And if I don’t know their names, how could I possibly know their stories?
How could I possibly begin to pray for them, much less love them as Jesus commands me?

There is a strange phenomenon that has impacted our neighborhoods architecturally. Our homes used to have front porches on them and parking was on the street. Now, neighborhoods like mine have large two car garages. We open the door, drive our cars in, and never really have to get out and interact with our neighbors.
Apartments or condos can function the same way.
We don’t take the time to get to know, or spend time with, or open our lives to the people around us.

There is that old adage that good fences make good neighbors, but the truth is, maybe good tables make good neighbors.
Hospitality and open doors make good neighbors.
In a world of increased tribalism, where we live in echo chambers and online digital communities of people who are just like us, maybe we need to go back to our scriptures and explore how ancient tribal societies interacted with one another.
Over and over again in scripture, we hear the call the be neighborly.
To be hospitable.
To open our homes and our tables to others.
To reach out the immigrant, the widow, the orphan.
To provide help to those who are in need.

Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest and theologian noted that our society tends to look at the stranger with suspicion, expecting others to do us harm.
Instead, he talked about how our world needed to convert hostility into hospitality and turn the enemy into our guest.
Then, “guest and host can reveal their most precious gifts and bring new life to others… [hospitality] as a fundamental attitude toward our fellow human being.” (p. 220)

This is the spirit that Jeremiah invited the people of Israel to embody in Babylon.
Their nation had crumbled. Their temple was destroyed. Their identity was gone.
And their enemy had carted his people off to a strange and foreign land.
How would they live in this new place?
What would they do?
Jeremiah has incredible advice for those who are finding themselves living in the worst moment of their life…
Dive deep into your new neighborhoods and keep living.
As he wrote to these exiles who had been dragged from their homeland to a faraway place, instead of this being a letter full of lament or sorrow or anger, it is a word of life.
In this strange land, in this place of exile and hopelessness…
Build houses.
Plant gardens.
Fall in love.
Have babies.
Make yourself at home.
Don’t let this time of chaos and turmoil keep you from thriving.
Jeremiah’s advice focuses in many ways on what individuals can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but he closes this passage with one additional piece of advice.
Work for the well-being of whatever new place we find ourselves in.
He was asking the exiles to focus not just on their own well-being… but that of their oppressor, Babylon, as well.
Because their future depended upon its welfare.
He was asking them to be good neighbors.
He was asking for them to invest their time and energy into making that place the best it could be.
Not just for themselves… but for all who share this place with you and whomever might come after you.
Keep on living.
And keep on creating space for life and life abundant to happen for others.

I want to invite you to pull out that map again.
Because this is a map of our neighborhood.
This is where this congregation has been planted.
We might not all physically live here anymore, but our future depends upon its welfare.
And we are called, as a church, to invest our time and energy into making this corner of the world, our corner of the world, the best that it can be.

And so I have a challenge for you this week.
I want you to pray for this neighborhood.
I want you to pray for the people here.
I want you to pray for the businesses that share this space with us.
I want you to pray that God’s will might be done in this place
And I want you to ask God how we can better invest our lives in these people and this place.

There are a couple of ways you could do this.
After church today or later this week you could physically walk around in this neighborhood and pray for the people and places you pass.
Or, you could take this map and sit in a quiet place and run your finger slowly along the roads.
Imagine in your mind the houses and the people and pray for them as you journey along.
Choose a different route each time you sit and pray.

You can do the same thing with the neighborhood you live in.
What would it be like if you not only got to know them… their names and what they worry about and what makes their heart sing… but also if you prayed for them.
What if you prayed for your neighbors every day?

So many of us have superficial relationships with these folks.
We are afraid to talk about the things that matter to us, thinking we might offend or put them off. But what if saw our neighbors as beloved children of God who might be yearning for the same kind of spiritual connection that we are?
How might we have different kinds of conversations?
How might we share God with them in new ways?

Grounded with our Ancestors

Posted on November 3, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Matthew 1:1-17

The very name of our church, Immanuel, means “God-with-us.”
God is with us.
Right here in this very time and place.
Living, moving, breathing.

In times past, we relegated God to the heavens while we mundane humans continued our life here below.
And then we cried out in times of tragedy… “God, where are you?!”

In other times, the suffering in our midst was so stark that we thought surely God was dead… or even worse, didn’t care.

But that is not who God claims to be.
God takes on flesh and makes a home among us.
And his name is Immanuel.
God is here.

Diana Butler Bass is a respected Christian academic whose books offer hope and meaning to many. In particular, she is helping us all to navigate what it means to live as people of faith in a world that increasingly doesn’t care about what Christianity has to offer the world.
In her book, Grounded, she wrestles with what it means to really understand that God is with us. She describes it as “a social and political question with sweeping consequences for the future.” If we really focus on rediscovering and relocating and reacquainting ourselves with God, Immanuel, with us right here… it will reground our lives.
It will center us.
Give us purpose.
Remind us of who we are.
And…
It will call us to a new way of being in this world.
As Butler Bass writes,
“God is.. that which grounds us. We experience this when we understand that soil is holy, water gives life, the sky opens the imagination, our roots matter, home is a divine place, and our lives are linked with our neighbors’ and those around the globe. This world, not heaven, is the sacred stage of our times.” (p 26)

We are turning the corner on the Christian year and preparing for Christ to be born among us once again.
So I wanted to invite us to look at some of those relationships throughout the month of November that Butler Bass claims ground us in the life of God. Our roots – or our history and ancestors…. Our home lives… our neighborhoods… and this common, kingdom life to which we all belong.
How should we look upon those relationships if God is truly present in the midst of them?
How might our relationship with one another change?

Today, we celebrate the saints who have completed the race and now rest in the presence of God.
We remember their lives.
We cherish their memories.
Each one planted seeds of faith and hope and love in us and have shaped us.
I asked you to share with me some of your own stories of these saints in your individual lives.

One of you told me about Gramma Gert – or GG – the nucleus of your family. She never drove, but either walked or got a ride to church every Sunday. If you had anything to pray for… you took it to GG… because you knew it would get plenty of Godly time and attention.

Someone else fondly remembered their third grade Sunday School teacher, Mr. Going who taught them the Lord’s Prayer. Rather than simply memorizing it, they took it line by line and rewrote it in words that were easier for a child to understand. Mr. Going made faith real.

Another of you shared with me the story of your great grandmother who came to Iowa from Norway in 1862 at the age of six. She dictated her own life story and left these words at the end… Love one another, Jesus has said, “If you don’t love one another you don’t love me”… and she addressed her children and their future families saying, “I have prayed for you all, I put you all in the Lord’s hands… God bless you all, may we me up yonder where there is no parting anymore.”

Whether it was a parent, or teacher, a neighbor or great-grandparent, these people of faith left a mark on your life.

One of the things I have been challenged by in Butler Bass’s book, however, is to remember that our roots are far deeper than our memory.
We are shaped and influenced by generations that have come and gone… and yet we seem to have forgotten their stories.

I actually thought I was doing pretty good by this account.
My mom and I have done a bit of genealogy work on our families. We have spent hours researching names through the Mormon genealogy center. We’ve created family trees that go back not just hundreds, but thousands of years. In fact, one line that we traced goes back all the way to the year 6!
Together with great-aunts and cousins, we have trampled through cemeteries in south central Iowa to find tombstones of relatives long dead and gone.
We’ve even gathered iris bulbs from one of those long forgotten places and brought them home to bring a piece of the family back with us.

But Butler Bass notes that we save things and we gather information, but we don’t often collect what those details mean to our lives. “We have more information about the past,” she writes, “but less actual connection to it than those in previous ages.”
The truth is, I don’t know the stories of most of those names I have collected together in my family history. I can tell you where they lived and died and where they are buried… but what did they experience in this life? What brought them joy? What struggles did they over come? Their stories are largely forgotten because we stopped handing them down.
And even on days like today, when we celebrate communion with the saints of God, with those who have gone before us, when we invoke their presence and their memory… do we have any sense of whom we are eating with today?

Our text for this morning is in essence a family tree. It is a genealogy of Jesus Christ shared with us by the apostle Matthew in his gospel.
And truth be told, often we glance at those names and the same sense of dryness and lack of life and history overcomes us.
We gloss over their names as a boring list of people we don’t know.
But they are our spiritual ancestors.
And who they were matters.
And who was included in those histories matters.
One of the things that you might notice if you compare the genealogy of Matthew and Luke is that Matthew actually includes the names of some women!
We find the story of Tamar… who was left widowed and childless in an age in which that was a death sentence. This family tree continues only because she tricked her father-in-law, Judah, into getting her pregnant by dressing up as a prostitute.
Rahab was an actual prostitute who was part of the battle of Jericho… Joshua sent spies into the city to scout it out and Rahab is the one who sheltered them. As a result, her family was rescued and she married into one of the important families of Israel.
Her son, Boaz, married an foreign immigrant, Ruth, who tricked him into the relationship by getting him drunk one night.
We are reminded in this genealogy that Solomon’s mother was Bathsheba. His family story is one of adultery and murder as Bathsheba was taken advantage of by David.

These are stories of scandal, but also intense strength, compassion, resolve, and determination. These women and the lives they led are our spiritual ancestry!
I wonder if Matthew perhaps included these women in his ancestry of Jesus as one way of grounding the story of Mary and Joseph and rumors and scandal circulating around his birth. But also, it was a testimony to the faithful ancestors that gave someone like Mary the courage to keep trusting God would be with her in the midst of the journey.

How does knowing these stories ground our sense of purpose, identity, and ability to navigate the trials and tribulations of our lives? Might we call upon these ancestors and their faith in God to help us persevere in our own journey?

Another thing you’ll notice if you look at the family tree included in Matthew as opposed to the one in Luke, you’ll actually find two very different stories of where Jesus comes from and what his life means, claiming political and spiritual authority from different sources!
Matthew grounds the life of Jesus in the history of the Jewish people. As verse 1 proudly states: A record of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. He is the heir of the Kingdom of David and of the covenant of Abraham. He is the King of the Jews.
Luke’s version ignores most of kings and focuses on ordinary, everyday folks who don’t appear in grand stories of scripture. And his version goes all the way back, not just to Abraham, but to Adam… emphasizing the whole family of earth.
There was actually a joke I heard frequently growing up that all the Czechs on the south side of the Cedar River were related to one another. Not originally, of course, but because “bohemies” couldn’t swim, we all ended up marrying one another.
I saw this in my own lifetime… My Babi (grandma) was a Benesh and my Deda (grandpa) was a Ziskovsky.
Just two generations later, a second cousin from the Ziskovsky side married a fourth cousin from the Benesh side…
That’s in essence Luke’s point… Instead of emphasizing one thread of one famous family, he brings home the point that we’re all eventually related to everyone else. His is a family tree that is a lot like the image on the front of your bulletin… with a single origin for us all.
What does it mean for our relationships with one another, if we recognized our common ancestory and inheritance as children of God? If we remembered that our stories all start in the same place, grounded in the same history, created by the same God?

Today, we feast with our ancestors.
We remember the lives they lived.
We remember the faith they handed down.
And their lives help us to become even more grounded in our relationship with the one who not only created us, but who is right here with us.
A God who was, and is, and is to come.
Immanuel…
God with us.

Imagine the Abundance

Posted on October 27, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Ephesians 3:14-21, Matthew 14:3-21

Friends… do you know how much potential you have?
I’m not talking about the potential for worldly success… although you have that.
I’m not talking about the potential for raising funds as a church… although I know its there.
I’m talking about your potential in Jesus Christ.
I’m talking about the untapped depths and lengths and height and breath of Christ’s love in your life.

Oh friends…
I’m going to take a few minutes to be honest this morning.
Honest about the discouragement and frustration and heartburn that some of us as your leaders here at the church have been feeling.
Our worship attendance has been down, but so has participation on Wednesday nights.
I had one gentleman stop me the other day in the hallway and say, “Pastor, I think you are doing a great job… but where is everyone?”
And it is hard not to take it personally.
And I know that our families and our members are busy.
You are engaged in your community and sports.
You are working more hours than you want.
You are traveling to visit family out of town.
You want a morning to sleep in.
It’s hard to get your tired bones moving as fast you could before.
I get it.
I’m right there with you.

But, if you are anything like me, when you take a moment to catch your breath in the midst of the rushing too and fro, do you ever wonder if there is something else you are missing?
Do you stop and notice that perhaps there is something… some power… some spirit that is lacking in your heart?
Do you ever feel like you are going through the motions instead of tapping into the incredible love and power and promise of Jesus?

For many, and this isn’t only Immanuel… this is the state of the church in the U.S…. church has become just another item on a long list of activities and social commitments. As your schedules ebb and flow, it might be something that falls off the calendar for a season.
And as at least one person recently shared with me, when they stopped coming, nothing much in their life really changed.

In my head, I thought – surely that can’t be the case.
But in my heart, I started to fear that maybe this was true.

Does church actually make a difference in your life?

If it is simply a collection of activities and social commitments – maybe not.
You can join other clubs.
You can busy yourself with other volunteering opportunities.
If you aren’t happy about a decision either locally or in the denomination, you can step away to find a place that is a better fit.

But to be honest, that’s not how most of you describe Immanuel.

At the start of this series on the Feeding of the 5000, I asked what drew you here.
What was it that compelled you to join the crowds of people here on 49th Street?
And you talked about the people.
You talked about the relationships.
You talked about family.
And something we are all learning in the midst of our incredibly busy lives is that you have to make time for family.
You have to guard your time with your family.
You have to set it as a priority, or something else will come in and decide it is more important.

Starting in Lent, eight of us began gathering at 6:30 in the morning at Java Joes for a Covenant Discipleship Group.
It was dark and none of us wanted to be up that early, but we decided to make time and carve out this little window, because it was important.
We were initially only going to meet for eight weeks, but those relationships became so important that we have continued to meet once a month at 6:30 am, just to maintain them.

Our Wednesday Night Ladies give their time every single week to be here and to prepare meals for our Immanuel family.
It is not just a service opportunity, it is a community, a small group. They watch out for one another and check-in when one is struggling.

The same could be said for the Monday night group at Java Joes.
Or Wednesday afternoon Bible study.
Or Re:Ignite.
Or Chancel Choir.
Or the Sunday morning Women’s group.
Or Praise Ringers.
Or the list goes on…

When you set aside time for your family and make it a priority every single week, you solidify relationships that will sustain you for the long haul, through thick and thin, good times and bad.
You learn how to be present in the midst of disagreement and work through it.
You discover what it means to be served, but also to serve.
You get to know someone’s beautiful quirks and annoying habits and what it means to love them anyways.
THAT’s what it means to be family… and it is why so many of you show up here week after week.
And let me tell you… if you haven’t connected with one of these opportunities, you actually are missing something that will change your life and I or any other staff member would love to have a conversation with you about how to get involved.

But I would be lying if I said that after that first Sunday of this series I went home encouraged and energized.
I didn’t.
I actually felt a little bit frustrated.
Because I think that church is about far more than family.
What it means to be church is not just about the relationships that we have with one another – as beautiful and holy as they are.

Being church is about being caretakers of an incredible message that this world is hungry to hear and experience.
That is why thousands of people left their work and picked up their families and traveled to the countryside to catch a glimpse of Jesus.
There was something about his message and his actions that tapped into this yearning in their souls. A hunger to be healed, to be known, to be empowered.

I think about those first disciples.
They were kind of like a small group in the church.
They spent a lot of time together and traveled and ate.
They became like a little family and they cared for one another.
They provided for one another.

But in this miraculous event, Jesus invited them to not just look to their own needs, but to look outward at the crowds all around them.
It was an invitation to not just be a part of Jesus’ church, but to BE the church. To themselves be the hands and feet of God in the world.

And so he took their meager gifts and transformed them and the result was this amazing abundance of food and relationship and ministry.
I’m not just talking about their five loaves and two fish on that day in the countryside.
I’m talking about their very lives.
He transformed them from a faithful little family group into a world-changing movement that has turned everything upside down.
He directed their eyes and their hearts outward.
Jesus put his Spirit within them and strengthened them for the work ahead.
And they traveled the world with this message.
They faced controversy and conflict.
Some were killed for the good news they proclaimed.
But even persecutors like Saul were transformed by the power of Christ and became leaders in sharing the gospel.
It couldn’t be stopped!
It couldn’t be tamed!
Everywhere they went, people were hungry to hear and experience it…
and people were afraid and challenged because they really did challenge the powers of this world that are hellbent on sin and death.

We are here today, this morning, because the power of God poured out upon those disciples and their gifts. It filled them up and it spilled over to everyone they encountered.
We are like those twelve baskets of leftovers gathered on that holy, miraculous, evening… the outpouring of God’s abundant spirit of love that has no end and cannot be stopped.

And thank God for that… because that good news is still desperately needed!
I asked you in worship two weeks ago to lift up what kind of ministry you would do if you had incredible resources at your finger tips.
You lifted up the need for daycare and rent relief, homeless youth and a clothing closet, hungry children and adult language classes for immigrants and refugees.
You named the potential for ministry with troubled teens and mental health needs, for warm coats and temporary housing, scholarships and pay it forward opportunities.
You see the needs of veterans and teachers, families at the Ronald McDonald house, single parents who struggle, and the potential for a garden. You named the opportunity to buy back guns or create a soup kitchen or help the underemployed.

Oh friends… imagine our church doing all of that?
Can you imagine the difference we would make in the lives of our neighbors?
Can you picture how the love of Jesus would become real to so many people?

But also… I imagine just thinking about it you will first become incredibly tired, because we can’t do all of those things – at least not all at once.

But I also think about what might happen if we don’t.
If we didn’t even try.
If we keep thinking of ourselves just as a family… simply as a social club… merely as a place to stop by a few times a month and make ourselves feel better…

Peace Lutheran Church in a suburb of the Twin Cities was about to close.
The congregation experienced conflict. And then greying… which literally means the hair in the congregation was getting whiter. Young people weren’t showing up. The decline of U.S. Christianity was partly to blame, but so was the internal focus of the church members.
They only had twenty folks left in worship and when their new pastor arrived they had 18 months worth of funding before they would be done.
So Pastor Greenlund asked if they wanted to go out with a whimper… or with a bang.
They said if we are going to die, lets die well.
So they sent fliers to their entire neighborhood saying that they would fix anything in homes – free of charge – no expectations or qualifications.
They fixed roofs and furnaces, made kitchens accessible, cleaned homes for shut ins, rewired houses.
And you know what… people noticed.
They thought the church might have died already, but neighbors began to believe and trust that the little church on the corner actually, really cared.

This church was on the verge of giving up… but they tapped into something beyond themselves.
They let go of what they wanted and started to ask what God wanted.
They let themselves and their gifts be transformed.
People from the community are throwing in their own money to keep the amazing work of this little church going.
Their membership has quadrupled.
Abundant miracles are taking place all around them. (Read more here!)

When I think about you… this congregation… this family… I see incredible potential.
Not because of anything that you already possess, but because I know and trust in the God who has called us together.
Right here in this time and in this place.
God didn’t do that by accident.
And the prayer that Paul got on his knees to pray for the Ephesians, I am praying now… daily… for you:

I ask God to strengthen you by the Spirit.
Not with a brute strength, but a glorious inner strength.
I pray that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in.
And I ask Christ that with both feet firmly planted on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love.
Friends, I pray that you would reach out and experience the breadth!
Test its length!
Plumb the depths!
Rise to the heights!
Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
God can do anything… far more than we could ever ask or imagine, by working within us… deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in Christ.
Glory to God in the church.
Amen.

Imagine the Possiblities

Posted on October 13, 2019Leave a comment

Text | Isaiah 55:6-11; Matthew 14:13-21
Focus Verse | Matthew 14:15-17

A few of you have been around recently as some neighbors have stopped in looking for some financial assistance.
I’ve watched as you have greeted them with kindness and respect and helped them find their way to my office.
I often sit down and visit with these new friends about what is happening in their life and how the church might be able to make an impact on their struggles.

But I have to be honest with you.
When I really listen to their stories, what I feel is overwhelmed.
Because we don’t have the kind of resources in our account to actually make a difference.
Every month I turn away folks who stop in or call and who need $250 for a utility bill…
or $700 to help make rent…
or $45 to fill up their gas tank…
Or rather, I could help one or two people one time, but certainly not the next, or the one after that.

And I started to recognize over a couple of years of providing this emergency assistance on behalf of the church is that many of our neighbors are chronically in need of help.
They have full time work, but they can’t make ends meet because their wages are too low to provide a living for themselves and their families.
Or, an illness or injury have taken them off of the job and they don’t have a backup plan in place.

The other day, a young man came in and needed some help to make rent. He had lost his job due to downsizing and had no savings built up. When he couldn’t immediately find a new opportunity, he got behind on rent.
The day he came in to see me, he had begun a new job, but had not yet received a paycheck. And that day, he had eviction proceedings and had to bring a check for two months’ worth of rent or he would be out.
I personally, and we as a church, don’t have the resources to provide two months of rent for a neighbor in need. I sat there and all I could think of was our own limitation.

Over 100,000 children in Iowa are food insecure – which means they do not have access to three meals a day.
Just under 3,000 people are homeless in our state.
37,000 of our neighbors in Iowa struggle with serious mental illness daily.
Real needs.
Real problems.
Real ministry opportunities.
And we can’t feed all of those kids.
We can’t build houses for all of those homeless neighbors.
We can’t completely turn upside down our mental health infrastructure.
We can only see our own limitations.

In the gospel of Matthew, the disciples are faced with a similar dilemma.
These multitudes that we talked about last week had flocked to the countryside to listen to Jesus… but now it was getting late.
We actually don’t know how many people were there – if you pay close attention to the story, it mentions that 5,000 men were eventually fed… 5,000 – not counting the women and the children.
Let’s pretend for just a moment that there was just one woman or child for every man who was counted… that’s 15,000 people who are hungry, tired, and out there in the middle of the wilderness.
To put that into perspective – the seating capacity for Drake’s Stadium is 14,557.
A stadium full of people are in need.
Right now.
And so the disciples kind of pull Jesus aside and whisper to him.
“Hey friend, you know, we probably can’t keep all of these people here. They are going to need to sleep, they need food, they need shelter and water. Wrap it up so that we can send them on their way.”

You see, they had already looked in their bags and they saw their own limitation.
They couldn’t take care of all of those people.
So send them off.
Bless them, say a prayer, and just hope that they’d find some sustenance somewhere else.

It’s the feeling I have often when I sit and visit with someone who is in some financial need.
I really don’t have what it will take to help you, but I can listen. I can say a prayer and give you this list of resources and hopefully someone out there can make a difference.
Surely, Jesus understand that.

Except…
Well, except Jesus has a totally different plan in mind.
“We don’t need to send them away. You take care of them. You give them something to eat!”

And those disciples, well, they look back in their bags.
“Umm… Jesus. There are twelve of us, and we barely brought enough dinner for ourselves. We’ve got five loaves and two fish. That’s it.”

The disciples saw only their limitation.
They’d already made plans.
They had budgeted and prepared and were doing their best to live and minister within those resources.
They had no capacity to imagine that this unexpected ministry opportunity would arrive on their doorstep.
And when it did, they immediately decided it was impossible.
We can’t do that.
We don’t have the resources.
We don’t have the staff.
We don’t have the bread. Literally.

But as the prophet Isaiah reminds us… God is not bound by our limitations.
God’s plans aren’t our plans.
God’s ways aren’t our ways.
And as Paul writes to the people of Ephesus… God can do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.

I think in this moment in the story, Jesus is inviting the disciples…
Jesus is inviting us…
To imagine.
Imagine if we could feed all of those people.
Imagine if we could house all of our neighbors.
Imagine if we could bring mental wellness to our friends and family.
Imagine if we could stretch beyond our own capacity and limitations and tap into the gifts and resources of the divine.

Last week, when I asked you to think about what kept drawing you back here… what kept you coming back to Immanuel… one of the most frequent answers I heard was that this is home. This is family.
Imagine if we could be a place where people who have no home, have no family, have no support found that, too.

For sure, it’s not in our budget.
It’s not in what we have planned and prepared for ministry.
This plan is far bigger than anything we have the capacity to do right now.
We’ve only got five loaves and two fish.

But we have a ministry opportunity with thousands of people on our doorstep.
So imagine with me…
Dream with me…
What would we do if we weren’t limited by our own resources?

Or to put it another way…
If you were gifted $150,000 to respond to a need, any need that is right in front of us here in Des Moines… what would you do?
Take a minute and dream.
Take a minute and imagine.
If God was starting a miracle right here in Des Moines with our meager fish and loaves… what would God want us to do?
Use the paper in the insert and write down your impossible dream and your wildest imagining… and then in a few minutes I want you to give them up to God with your offering.

Sing! Play! Summer! – My Lighthouse

Posted on August 18, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Matthew 14:22-33

For the last couple of weeks it has been so incredibly dry around here. It was such a blessing this morning to wake up around 5am with the sounds of thunder gentle rolling and raindrops hitting the earth.
You know… it was in a dark hour like that – during the fourth watch or sometime between three and six in the morning – that a storm is brewing out on the lake with a boatful of disciples hanging on for dear life.

The truth of the matter is, we are all a little bit like those disciples.
We are all here because at some point in our lives we responded to the call of Jesus and showed up.
And we got into the boat, knowing who was guiding the journey.
But we don’t always know where we are going.
In this particular instance, we are heading off to get ready for some new ministry adventure, but the truth is, there is all sorts of stuff going on outside of the boat… Jesus is no where to be seen… we think we might capsize or crash… we feel like we are barely keeping our heads above the water…

You might think I’m talking about some symbolic and imaginary boat.
You picture yourselves floating down the Raccoon River on a kayak or on a little john boat on Saylorville Lake.
But friends, I’m not talking about something imaginary!
We have all – literally – stepped into a boat this morning!

I’ve shared this fun little fact about churches with you before a few years ago, but a refresher is always good.
This part of the sanctuary where I am standing is called the “chancel”. In much older churches, there would have been a screen used to separate this altar area from the rest of the congregation. It created a separation between the people and the sacraments. Because our church is far more egalitarian, the communion railing is the closest thing we have to such a dividing line today.
This part of the sanctuary is the “nave.” The word comes from the Latin navis, which means boat or ship. While that is the technical name for this space in all churches, no matter what architectural style they might have, our church building utilizes a very special design.
Imagine you were building a large wooden boat… you’ve got the frame of it and the beams to hold it together…. Now flip it upside down and you will have something like our vaulted roof today!
So, yes, we are all hanging out here, in the boat we call church, hanging on for dear life, trying to figure out what comes next in the midst of a storm.

You know… sometimes I think that this passage of scripture is just about the storms of that moment, but the reality is, there has been pressure building on the disciples for some time.

If we go back twenty or thirty verses, there have been some trying times for the disciples lately:

Back in 13:54 – Jesus heads to his hometown and tries to do some ministry, but they reject his teaching. They don’t want to hear from this guy that they watched grow up among them. They start naming off his sisters and brothers and parents… who does this guy think he is?
Hmm… the people we know and love are less and less interested in what the church is doing. They’ve stopped coming or are more hostile towards religion. They are quick to point out the faults, rather than listen to what we’ve really been up to.
Sound familiar?

Then, as chapter 14 starts, we get the story of how John the Baptist – the very same one who kicked things off for Jesus and baptized him and started calling people to repentance. Well, he got arrested by King Herod and beheaded, and word had just reached Jesus and the disciples. John found himself in this position because he challenged the political establishment and the way they kept breaking the rules. He raised his prophetic voice and was killed for it.
Can you imagine the impact such news might have had upon this rag tag bunch of disciples?
Were they looking around, wondering if they would be next?
Our political climate here in the U.S. is very different from that of the disciples, because swirling all around us are people who are speaking out and challenging the political structure… from both ends of the theological spectrum.
But there is also a spirit of animosity and silencing that has a chilling effect. It feels like we have never been more divided and while we might not fear for our lives if we say something, we do fear rejection.
I also remember that King Herod was not just a political figure, but a religious one as well. He was appointed as a governor by the Romans over his own Jewish people. So this is also a faith conversation within the family.
And I can’t help but draw parallels between conflicts we are experiencing today in the United Methodist Church. In some places, the move towards inclusion is being challenged by more theologically conservative folks. In other places, including right here in Iowa, LGBTQ folks are being brought up on complaints and put on trial for challenging and breaking rules they believe are unjust.
Whether in Jesus’ time or today, when the air is charged like that, it makes it hard to figure out what to do or say next.

Well, you know what Jesus does as this tension and pressure is mounting?
He says: Goodness gracious friends – I need a break! And he tries to step away and center himself for a bit.
But who shows up there in that quiet, deserted place, but large crowds of people who are hungry to hear and see and touch and experience God’s grace.
So Jesus invites everyone to sit down and takes a meager offering of fish and loaves and turns them into a feast for thousands.
The disciples didn’t think it was possible. They couldn’t see the potential miracle all around them. But Jesus did… and he brought it into existence.

And we, as a church, experience that, too, don’t we?
In the wake of General Conference, we’ve all tried to take a collective breath and wait and see and pray for what comes next… but the reality is there is still work to do.
There are still hungry people around us and folks in the hospital and the precarious nature of life and death continues. We aren’t always sure what to do about it.
But then the Holy Spirit shows up and puts us to work.
Last week, we raised around $2100 and collected 490 items for the DMARC Food Pantry and we met some really great neighbors at the Benefit Concert.
You’ve been showing up for one another in the hospital through surgeries and illness.
We’ve come together as a community for funerals and shared loved and hospitality with people that we might not have known very well before we sat down to share stories and break bread.
Thank you, to so many of you, who have rolled up your sleeves, and shown up and gone the extra mile.
Ministries of healing and compassion and love had been growing all around us this summer by God’s grace, but it is also hard and exhausting work.

Then… and only then… does Matthew’s gospel put us on the boat.
Jesus sends the disciples on ahead to the other side of the lake and so they climb aboard.
But you know what? They don’t really know what’s waiting for them over there.
I think that the disciples, really wanted Jesus to come with them and so they tried as hard as they could to stay near the shore and wait for Jesus.
In the midst of all of the mounting pressure and tension and conflict… they don’t want to do this alone.
They don’t want to take a step in the wrong direction or land in the wrong spot.
They doubt themselves. They don’t want to fail.
And that’s when the storm hits.
And out there on those stormy waters, in that unfamiliar territory, they get overwhelmed by the chaos of it all.
They are so terrified and shaken that when Jesus walks out to them on the water and shows up in their midst, they don’t even recognize him.
Because why would Jesus be out there?
Out in those scary and unfamiliar waters?
They felt lost, confused, disoriented…
And Jesus shows up, because that is precisely when they… when we… need him the most.
In our Conspire service, we’ve been doing a number of songs by the band, Rend Collective. They are a group from Northern Ireland whose upbeat music grabs hold and lifts you out of your seat and a lot of their work, unlike a lot of other contemporary artists, is focused on creating space for people to sing together.
Our favorite song for this week is “My Lighthouse,” and they wrote this song thinking about the experience of those disciples out there on the troubled seas.
Gareth Gilkeson said, “we sing about the failures and doubting, and knowing that God doesn’t walk out on us.”
God doesn’t walk out on us.
Let me say that again… God doesn’t walk out on us.
Instead, Jesus walks right up to you.
He walks through the waves and the wind and gets in the boat with us.
The very light of the world draws close, leading us through our troubles, showing us how to love and take the next step, reminding us that we are not alone.

Yes, maybe things feel like they are building up and there is uncertainty and we don’t exactly know what tomorrow is going to bring. We might take some changes, like Peter stepping out of the boat, and we might fall flat on our face. We might struggle and doubt and feel like giving up, but here is what that song reminds us:
God isn’t going to let us go.
And just like Jesus reaches out and grabs Peter’s hand and pulls him back in, Jesus is reaching out for us.
When we hold on to that light…
When we hold on to that love…
When we hold on to those promises…
Christ will help us make it back to the shore.

We can have questions and doubts.
We might wrestle with what we are supposed to do next.
We might try something and fail.
We might be at a complete loss for words.
But friends, don’t let the storm completely overwhelm you.
Because there is a light already shining in the darkness ready to guide us to where we need to be.
We might not see it yet and we definitely might not be able to glimpse the shore… but its there. And if we keep turning to Jesus, he’ll lead us there.
Thanks be to God. Amen.