All Things Renewed

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Text: Revelation 21:1-6, 21:22-22:5

Many of you know that I love to garden.

Digging in the dirt is a spiritual practice for me.

Pulling weeds is cathartic.

There is nothing better than an afternoon spent tending and nurturing life in my yard.

And enjoying the fruits of that labor – whether the beauty of a flower or the taste of a fresh tomato – is nothing short of holy.

This year, my garden is being renovated.

Well, the entire back yard is being renovated.

Our retaining wall had started to buckle outwards and our deck was beginning to rot.  Both needed to be replaced.

And so we found some experts to help us out and they have brought in big machines to tear everything out and recontour the land and prepare for what is to come.

Only, this has been a very weird and wet spring. 

It was too muddy to work for weeks. 

The new deck was completed in between storms and we are almost, finally, just about ready for the new retaining wall to go in. 

Perennials were moved around in order to prepare for all of this work and most of them have found a temporary home in what had been my vegetable garden.

So right now, that space holds irises, black eyed susans, salvia, strawberries, herbs, and one gigantic pile of dirt. 

I have spent much of this spring itching to get busy and get dirty and get to growing.

And I must admit, there are times that I feel a bit impatient waiting for it all to get done.

I can imagine… sort of… what it will look like when it is all finished… but we aren’t there yet.

 Throughout our study of the Book of Revelation, we have kept before us a couple of truths:

  1. Jesus is coming and will sit on the throne… and the powers of this world will not.
  2. Only Jesus is worthy to transform the world as we know it into the world as God intends for it to be. And he does so not through violence, but through love. 
  3. Our job is to allow God to make us into a kingdom.  The role of the church is to be a community of diversity, equality, and praise.  We serve the Lord and witness to his glory. 

John of Patmos looked around him and saw all sorts of problems.

Christians were being persecuted by Rome.

Churches were giving in to the lure of empire and siding with economic and national powers.

Or, they lost the energy and fire of their faith and grew lazy and comfortable in the world around them.

They didn’t see or respond to the needs of their neighbors.

They forgot to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those who were grieving, oppressed, or lonely. 

In some ways, they were like my retaining wall and deck… starting to fall apart, sagging, rotting. 

And the vision that John of Patmos received is that the world as he knew it…

The world as we know it…

Needs to be renewed. 

Renovated.

Made new.

I must admit that in the past I thought of this process in the Book of Revelation as wiping the slate of everything that was and starting from scratch… just like God created everything in the beginning from nothing.

I had a picture of everything being totally destroyed.

But the Greek word kainos is also used to talk about transformation, renewal, and renovation.

Eugene Boring writes in his commentary: “This world, God’s good creation, is not replaced but redeemed.”

The substance is the same, but it has been freshened up and it is better than it was when it started. 

In other words, I’m still going to have a deck.

I’m still going to have a retaining wall.

I’m still going to have a garden.

But it is going to be way more amazing than it was before.   

Today in our scripture reading, John of Patmos is given the blueprints, the architect’s rendering, a picture of what it will look like when all of the renovations are complete. 

We aren’t there yet, and we have to use our imaginations, but we are at least given an idea of the process and are reminded what the key features have always been and always will be.  

First: God dwells with us. 

He is our God and we are his people. 

And we have to remember that this isn’t anything new.

It is how God has intended it from the beginning when the Lord walked in the garden with Adam and Eve…

and led the people through the wilderness.

God became flesh and lived among us, the gospel of John tells us. 

The Holy Spirit is poured out upon us and lives within us.

And in this newly renovated creation, God moves into the neighborhood and is intimately connected to our lives. 

There are times we might forget this or turn our backs on God to embrace the powers of this world… but God has never left our side.

In this new creation, this truth will be so apparent that the glory of God will shine over every part of our lives. 

We will not be able to hide from God’s light, but it will always be seen, always accessible.

In the world as we know it, there are places where things might stand between us and God, casting shadows. 

There are times of night that feel like separation, but all of that will come to an end, and the radiance of God will known by all. 

Not just morning by morning, but every day and night in every time and place.

God reminds us that these words are “trustworthy and true,” because God has always been faithfully present in our lives. 

Second: There will be an end to sorrow, pain, and death. 

We are shown a crystal clear river and a Tree of Life planted on each side, bearing twelve kinds of fruit and whose leaves will heal the world.

This image takes us back to the garden.

In the beginning, God gave humanity everything we needed to have abundant life.

But our sin, our turning away from God, our striving after what we thought we wanted, had consequences.

The pain of childbirth.

The violence of brother against brother.

The sweat and labor needed to produce basic necessities.

Death itself.

Magrey DeVega describes the promise we find in these chapters in this way:  “God will not stop transforming the pain, heartache, and dark places of our lives until the moment with the transformation reaches ultimate completion in glory… All that humanity has lost in its downward spiral of sin is reclaimed and transformed by the power of God’s grace and power.”[1]

The curse, the consequence, is brought to completion.

God intends, as God has always intended, for there to be abundant life and health and joy. 

Third: it is all happening right here and right now.  

There is another theme that has been pretty consistent throughout the Book of Revelation that is important to remember. 

On one hand, all the nations gather within this holy city, a multitude that cannot be numbered.

The gates of the city are always open.

But there is also a sense of exclusion.

There are some things that just don’t belong in the new heavens and new earth.

The message here is not one of eternal condemnation by a fierce and angry God.

After all, the Lamb of God has died for his enemies, defeated the spiritual forces of wickedness, broke the chains that held us captive to sin and death.

We now have a choice.

Just as John of Patmos wrote to the seven churches, we can choose the powers of this world or we can choose to live as servants of God. 

If we choose to worship this world – its power, its practices, its glory – then we have separated ourselves.

Or as Christopher Rowland writes: “Rejecting the lure of the beast and Babylon is the criterion for inclusion in the new age.   Sharing the diving reign is a key feature of the eschatological future.  This is something already glimpsed by those who share the life of Jesus and are a kingdom of priests.”[2]

We choose to follow the Lamb.

We can reject the powers of this world.

We not only pray the words Jesus taught us: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” but we act upon our prayers.

Theologian C. Wess Daniels reminds us that “revolution and redemption do not happen someplace else, they take place right here with the material of the world we live in.”[3]

In other words… the world as we know it is not going to go away. 

It will not all be destroyed.

And we don’t get a golden parachute to escape out of here… beamed up to some heaven light years away. 

God is in the business of redemption and restoration and revolution!

The first will be last and the last will be first.

Nations and kings will be toppled.

The lowly will be lifted up.

And these promises are about the real people and situations that we are experiencing in our lives today. 

This passage of scripture doesn’t say that God has made everything new, as if it is done and over with.

It doesn’t say that God will make everything new, at some point in the future.

God is making all things new.

It is happening all around us.

And as servants of God and followers of the Lamb, our work is to embody God’s presence among our neighbors.

It is to share God’s love and mercy with all we encounter.

Our job is not to hunker down, turning inward, but to reach out as disciples of Christ and work for the transformation of this world. 

You know, my back yard right now is a mess.

It is a work in progress and not yet complete, but it is being transformed and even in the midst of the chaos there is work of tending and weeding and watering to be done.

This world is a mess.

There are nearly ten million people who have been displaced by the war in Ukraine.

We have lost one million neighbors to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Families in Buffalo and Milwaukee and Laguna Hills are grieving and entire communities are filled with fear because of the hatred and violence that stems from white supremacy. 

The world as we know it is broken and bleeding. 

But God is with us.

And God is at work transforming the pain and sorrow.

And God is calling us to be servants of that new creation right here and right now.

It is the work that we share through UMCOR – together we have allocated millions of dollars through grants to United Methodists in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania to welcome and care for refugees. 

United Methodist camps in Estonia and the Czech Republic are being transformed to care for those who have fled the war. 

Our Love Beyond Borders initiative has helped to supply 4.1 billion COVID-19 vaccines across the globe in 2022 through UNICEF and other Covid-19 responses have helped 300 partners in 57 countries provide equipment, education, and basic needs assistance to vulnerable communities. 

Work within our denomination and conference, and even small group discussions in our church around anti-racism is equipping us to respond to hate, to take responsibility for our complicity, and to work towards a future in which all of our siblings can live without fear. 

God knows we aren’t there yet.

But we know where we are going.

And with our eyes fixed upon the Lamb, each day we are taking one step towards that reality.

We are living more and more each day in the light and love of God.

And we do it with God at our side. 


[1] A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series Vol. 2, p. 202-203.

[2] Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, p. 489.

[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-revelation-211-6-5

Real Church is Messy

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Acts 5:1-11, 6:1-7

This summer, as we study together through the book of Acts, I wish that we could talk about every single verse… but we simply don’t have time.

So I hope that you are checking out our daily video devotion – which can be found on our facebook page OR on our church website. 

In fact, we made it even easier to find on our website… just go to iumc.org and scroll to the bottom and you’ll find the latest three posted right there!

Today, we are skipping over chapter three and four and diving into more of what it meant for these first faithful folks to live with one another.

Two weeks ago, our Director of Youth Ministry stood here and shared this beautiful, rosy picture of a church community that seemed perfect. 

They devoted themselves to prayer and teaching and fellowship and sold everything they had and make sure everyone’s needs were met. 

And, if you are anything like me, we hold our own imperfect, human community up to that standard and get a bit discouraged. 

But never fear… things were not as perfect as they seemed.

This community was messy.

After all, it was full of humans, too.

Real humans with real problems. 

People who are dishonest.

Others who are ignored.

There is jealousy, and complaining, and growing pains.

It is church, after all. 

So let’s dive into the dirt and the muck as problems of the church appear in chapters 5 and 6.

First, we’ve got a problem that results from dishonesty and disrespect.

In our short video clip from The Bible Project, we are reminded once again of the temple. 

God’s presence once led the people through the wilderness.

Then it was understood to dwell in the temple in Jerusalem… a building… and people would travel to Jerusalem to encounter God’s holiness.

But the story of Pentecost is how God’s presence now fills individuals through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Body of Christ is the temple.

I am the temple of God.

YOU are the temple of God.

And so we have these lovely, good, and holy things happening that would you would expect in God’s presence… teaching and fellowship and reaching out to the needy. 

But when we say that something is holy, we also have to acknowledge the danger.

We stand in God’s presence with fear, with awe, with trembling…

There is a line I love in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by CS Lewis which captures this idea perfectly. 

The lion, Aslan, is a Christ figure in the narrative and one of the children is apprehensive…

“Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”…
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver… “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.  He’s the King; I tell you.”

God isn’t safe. 

But God is good. 

And God calls us to a better way of living. 

We don’t have to be perfect.

But we do need to bring our full selves into this community.

We can’t simply dip our toes into the water and pretend. 

In fact, the story of Ananias and Sapphira is not about how this couple should have sold all they had and given it to the community.

It was about the fact that they lied.

They could have chosen NOT to sell their property. 

Or they could have sold the property and chosen to be up front about keeping some of the funds.

But they wanted all of the benefits and glory without actually doing the work. 

As Peter says, they lied to the community and they lied to the Holy Spirit.

They disrespected the presence of God that was dwelling in their midst and are struck dead.

I started thinking about that scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis think that they can open the Ark of the Covenant and take the power of God for themselves…

Dr. Jones and Marian know that God’s power is holy… They shut their eyes and refuse to look.

But the Nazis have no respect for God… only what God can do for them… and when they reach in to take it with fury and fire, God’s presence overwhelms them and their faces melt off. 

Just like the priests in Leviticus who disrespected God in the temple. 

You can’t use the presence of God for your own selfish purposes and you shouldn’t reach beyond your own limitations. 

When I think about how we might apply this lesson to our relationships with one another today, I think about that idea of respecting the presence of God that dwells within each of us.

We need to respect one another enough to be honest.

If you aren’t able to say yes, then you should have the freedom and ability to say no.

We don’t have to pretend, but can simply bring ourselves and our gifts into this community without apologizing.

Whether they are gifts of finances, or time, or abilities and talents that you might offer.

You don’t have to sell everything you have to be included, or sign up to serve on every committee. 

In fact, as we heard in one of our daily devotions earlier this week, you don’t even have to have a penny to your name.

Honor what you have. 

Offer what you can.

God’s Spirit dwells within you and your gifts, however big or small, matter.

A flip side to this is that each one of us is called to honor and respect the gifts of others.

Sometimes we find ourselves in that ugly, jealous, comparative mode.

We think that someone is offering too little… and then rub it in or make them feel guilty. 

Or we get overwhelmed by what someone else can do and become ashamed about our own value.

God’s presence is working through every person. 

Be grateful and honor the faithfulness of each person you encounter in this community.

Our job is not to compare what other people can do… but to celebrate what every person offers. 

The second real community problem that this early church struggles with has to do with some growing pains and, to be honest, some discriminatory behavior. 

As the community kept growing, suddenly they began to notice there were differences among them. 

It was all nice and good and warm and fuzzy to be able to hear in new languages on that day of Pentecost… but it’s a whole other kind of conversation to figure out how all of these different groups are actually going to live together. 

And some people began to raise real and honest questions about equity in their midst. 

While it might not have been intentioned, the widows who came from a more Greek, or Hellenistic cultural background, were being neglected compared to those who identified more with the Hebrew culture. 

Someone stood up, and basically said, “Greek widows matter, too.”

If we are going to be a community that takes care of the needs of everyone, then we need to do what we say.

And when we aren’t living up to that value, if we are overlooking someone, then we need to address it. 


What I love about this story is that there is an obvious flaw and problem in the community.

But the leadership listens and calls together the people to solve the problem. 

And then they think outside the box.

They don’t just add a task to the job description of those who were already leading, but come up with a new and creative solution that actually allows more people to serve and engage in the work.

The church lifts up new leaders who can help make sure that each person is cared for in the way they deserve. 

And these new deacons, servants, are blessed… commissioned… into this ministry of waiting tables. 

Friends, we will encounter problems in our church and in our larger community.

There are times when we will be come aware that someone or a group of folks has not been treated fairly.

In fact, I’ve had this on my mind as we think about how this coming Saturday, our nation celebrates Juneteenth. 

You know, I’ve never really thought about Juneteenth as a national holiday. 

I’m going to be totally honest, I didn’t know what it was and maybe you don’t either.

Juneteenth is the day we commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States.

This date comes two and a half YEARS after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation… but remember, this was not a time of 24/7 cable news. 

It wasn’t until General Lee finally surrendered in April of 1865 and Union troops landed in Texas on June 19th that the war ended and the word reached these communities that all slaves were free.    

Now, every single American should claim this day as our own.

We didn’t always get it right, just as the early Christian community didn’t always get it right.

But we can do something about the harm.

We can listen to the pain and we can work for a better future. 

And we can celebrate the steps we have taken, the leaders we have raised up, and claim the task that is still before us. 

The early church was not perfect. 

Because it was filled with imperfect people who were learning and growing and still discovering what it meant to follow Jesus.

And friends, we aren’t perfect either.

We are going to get it wrong. 

We are going to make mistakes.

We are going to have days when we focus on ourselves and what we want and forget about others. 

But the word I find in these chapters of Acts is this:

We are the Body of Christ, the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, and how we treat one another matters. 

So we should hold one another accountable. 

We should honor the presence of God that lives within us.

And we should keep working to do better every day. 

May it be so. 

The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Us!

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Text:  Luke 4:18-19, Acts 1:8, 2:1-4, 38-39

One of the things that we have re-discovered and remembered this year is that church is not a building. 

We have a building, sure.

But the church is the people.

You and me.

The body of Christ. 

In the same way, the presence of God is not confined to this physical structure.

And, we don’t have to travel to the Holy Land to be in the presence of God.

It is right here.

Among us. 

Wherever two or three are gathered, there I am… Jesus said. (Matthew 18)

Well, that is exactly what happened on that Pentecost morning.

The disciples were gathered together, worshipping, praying, waiting for whatever was supposed to happen next.

Waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit. 

And then there was a sound…

Like the howling of a fierce wind…

The entire room was filled with an overwhelming presence…

Tongues of fire danced over their heads…

The Spirit of the Lord was upon them. 

The presence of God was right there, in their midst.

When the Spirit of the Lord first appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he heard the call to go back to Egypt and liberate the oppressed. 

That power and presence of God released the slaves and set them free for the promised land. 

Through a pillar of fire and smoke, the Spirit of the Lord was with the people as they journeyed.

God provided food for their hunger and water for their thirst.

God led them and healed them. 

God dwelt among them.

On the mountaintop, the power and presence of God was seen for miles around in wind and fire and Moses journeyed back down forever changed. 

He brought with him commandments that would allow them to live according to God’s will.

Laws to help them love God and to love their neighbor.

God wanted this people to bear God’s image to the world. 

Yet, as time went on, and the people became settled and rubbed shoulders with folks from lots of different places and cultures, it became harder and harder to stay connected to God’s presence and power.

While the spirit of God continued to call prophets and leaders to keep reminding the people, it was easy to forget about a God who dwelt somewhere else. 

So God decided to dwell among the people again. 

The Word became flesh. 

Jesus entered our lives.

And the Spirit of the Lord was upon him.

As Luke tells us, the Spirit of the Lord sent him forth to preach good news to the poor and heal the sick and to set people free. 

People experienced the presence of God through his touch and his words. 

And then Jesus promised this same power would be given to the people. 

That the Spirit of God would come upon them. 

That the presence and power of God would dwell in them.

And they, too, would be sent forth to preach, and to heal, and to change the world. 

God would turn the world upside down starting in Jerusalem… heading out to Samaria… and to the ends of the earth. 

This was not a promise just for the disciples.

Not just for the Jewish people.

God’s Spirit was pouring out on all people.

On that day of Pentecost, tongues of fire danced over their heads.

God’s presence filled their hearts. 

And people from every corner of the world experienced it.

They heard God speaking to them.

They felt God’s presence among them.

And they allowed the gift of the Spirit to fill their lives. 

Three thousand people were added to their community.

It is good to be in this space together with folks once again. 

But I have to be honest… It is not the space that makes this time of worship holy.

The psalmist may have cried out “How lovely is your dwelling place” and at the time they were talking about the temple.

But the miracle of Pentecost is that the spirit of God dwells in you. 

The very presence of God that set that shrub in the wilderness on fire…

And that led the people of Israel through…

That dwelt in the temple…

That filled the life of Jesus Christ…

The Spirit of God filled those first disciples… and then three thousand…

Through them, the presence and power of God moved from Jerusalem…

To Samaria…

To Rome…

And across the oceans…

And right now God’s spirit is upon you.

God’s power dwells in you.

Oh, and how lovely are your faces. 

God’s presence is right here in this very room because you are here. 

God is with you at home… on your couch… sitting around the kitchen table.

Because the gift of the Holy Spirit is yours. 

Right here in the greater Des Moines area, God is with us. 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us right here in this city…

One of the unexpected miracles of Pentecost was the way that this presence of God brought people together.

In the time of exile, Jewish faithful were scattered the winds.

They made their homes in far away places and learned new cultures and languages.

But when able they made the pilgrimage back to Jerusalem to be in the presence of God.

Over these last fourteen months, we have felt a bit scattered to the winds.

We have felt like we were in exile.

Exiled from one another and familiar places.

But that exile is not just a result of quarantines and distancing.

This past year we have experienced political discord and division in our responses to racism and vaccinations and masks.

Although the official language we might speak is the same, the words we use have meanings that separate us. 

And so even when we gather in the same space, we are not unlike those pilgrims to Jerusalem who can’t understand one another. 

When I read through these verses in Acts once again, I am reminded that this division and discord is not what God intends for us.

As Jana Childers writes in their commentary on this passage, “The human community… begins to be mended.  As the Spirit arrives… instead of widening confusion, there is dawning comprehension, incipient reunion.  What was divided is mended… The Spirit-baptized are drawn together, this time in the Spirit’s power, for the purposes of extending the realm of God.”  [1]

We are drawn together in the Spirit’s power to extend the realm of God. 

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue at the beginning of his ministry, he read from the scroll of Isaiah. 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he said,

God has chosen me to preach good news to the poor.

To offer forgiveness and pardon to prisoners.

To be an agent of healing and ease the load of the burdened.

And when he finished reading he sat down and told the people, “Scripture came true just now in this place.”  

Right there in Nazareth, the realm of God, the Kingdom of God, was at hand. 

The as the disciples claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit and began to preach and teach and heal in Jesus’ name… the realm of God became a reality on the streets of Jerusalem.

People who had been divided began to hear and understand.

It didn’t matter their background or their language or their culture… the presence and power of God rested upon them as the Holy Spirit danced in their midst.

And over the course of this summer, we are going to explore just what it meant for those first disciples to be led by the Holy Spirit and how the realm of God expanded.

We’ll learn about what it means to be a community centered in God.

How to speak God’s truth in the face of opposition.

Along the way, we’ll meet sorcerers and centurions and kings. 

We’ll experience earthquakes and shipwrecks, tragedy and miracles. 

In the footsteps of Peter and Paul, Barnabas and Silas, Lydia and Tabitha, we will witness how the Spirit of God becomes known to the people of Antioch and Damascus, Lystra and Philippi.

And we will discover how we are “part of the widening circle begun in Acts – part of the growing momentum, building ripple by ripple…”[2] until the realm of God stretches to every corner of this world. 

As United Methodists, we see ourselves as part of that widening circle.  In our Book of Discipline, we claim that:

“Guided by the Holy Spirit, United Methodist churches throughout the world are called afresh into a covenant of mutual commitment based on shared mission, equity, and hospitality… we commit ourselves to crossing boundaries of language, culture, and social or economic status.  We commit ourselves to be in ministry with all people, as we, in faithfulness to the gospel, seek to grow in mutual love and trust.  We participate in God’s mission as partners in ministry, recognizing that our God-given gifts, experiences, and resources are of equal value… creating a new sense of community and joyously living out our worldwide connection in our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” [3]

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us right here in Des Moines.

We might have a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds and gifts, but there is one Spirit.

And right here in this city, God is calling us afresh to focus on our mission… to cherish what each person uniquely brings… and to reach out in love welcoming all.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us to bring good news and offer forgiveness and heal what is broken and divided.

May the winds of the spirit blow…

Amen. 


[1] Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, page 19.

[2] Ibid.

[3] 2016 Book of Discipline, ¶125, p. 95-96

Aloha!

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Text: Isaiah 43:1-2, 18-19; Psalm 139:7-10

Friends, I’m so excited to travel with all of you, virtually, to Hawaii this morning.
As many of you know, these islands hold a special place in my heart because my family has been blessed with the opportunity to visit and spend time not only enjoying the sunshine… but also spending time with one another.
I was in first grade during my first trip to Oahu and have some incredible memories of playing cribbage, boogie boarding, luaus, building sandcastles, and dancing with my grandpa at the Chinese restaurant down the street…

It was always a long trek to get there, but it was always worth it and we never considered going anywhere else, because Hawaii is paradise… right?
It is always 78 degrees, the sun shines every day, and after every rainfall there is a rainbow.
You can hike in the mountains or lay on the beaches.
You can trek through rain forests and eat seafood until your belly is full.
It is full of abundant vegetation and life and culture.
Maybe not unlike the garden…

You know the one I’m talking about.
The paradise we find in the second chapter of Genesis, full of trees with edible fruit and flowing waters, and creatures of all kinds.
The paradise we got kicked out of.
Adam and Eve taste of the fruit from the forbidden tree and suddenly become aware of their nakedness and their shame.
And in the midst of that beautiful paradise, with everything they could ever need or want at their fingertips, they hide.
They hide from one another, by putting on clothing.
And, they hide from God…

Well, at least they try.
There in that place, where the Lord God walked in their very midst, they hoped the trees might conceal their bodies, their actions, their guilt.
But it couldn’t.
God was there.
And God knew them.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence? the psalmist asks.
If we run to the highest heavens and find ourselves in paradise, God is there.
If we escape to sheol, the depths of death, hell itself, God is there, too.

The God who formed us, shaped us, molded us, breathed life into us…
Well, as we talked about last week, that God is faithful.
That God is constant.
That God doesn’t leave our side.

When we are overwhelmed by the ocean depths, God is with us and keeps us from drowning.
When the fires of this world threaten, God is with us and we will not be destroyed.

You know, on the surface level of Isaiah’s words here, it sounds like nothing can touch us.
We could literally walk through fire and not be burned, because God is on our side.
But I have to admit, I don’t think that is what God intends here.
On the Big Island of Hawaii there are plenty of places where the lava has flowed over the roads and anyone or anything caught in its path has been destroyed.
This isn’t a promise of divine protection or an invitation to test God.
Bad things happen.
People we know and love have been impacted by flooding and wildfires and some have lost their lives to drowning and severe burns.
Illness and disease and economic downturns come our way, too.
It doesn’t mean God has abandoned us.

In fact, if we look at the overall message of Isaiah 43, what we actually see is a promise that no matter what kinds of consequences or tragedies or punishments or terrors befall us, God is with us and God can redeem it all.
From the Message translation:
“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you… when you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end – because I am God, your personal God…. I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.”
God loves us so much and promises to make a way through the destruction.
Even the destructive tendencies of our own sin and rebellion.
God will make a way for life, new life, abundant life to spring forth.
We get a glimpse of this
And if we ever start to doubt that… maybe Hawaii is precisely what we need.
Every inch of this paradise is possible only because fiery destruction has come before it.
As Lyons and Barkhauer describe it:

Here, along the Pacific coast, you can see earth just a few years young, or, when lava flows freely from Kilauea, only hours old. As molten ground meets the shore and slowly cools, you can watch the ‘Big Island’ grow. Creating new earth is a smelly and surprisingly loud process with all manner of hissing, popping, and low rumbling of bass shaking the earth, assaulting the nose with the smell of sulfer and hot metals… steam screaming to the surface is a toxic cocktail of noxious gases to be avoided for your own safety…
yet, in the midst of a lava field, a single green plant takes hold and defiantly clings to life. Look above the crater’s rim and see the verdant vegetation of the tropics. This brutal, inhospitable landscape is the prelude to paradise.

One of my favorite things to do on the island of Oahu is to hike up the outer rim of the long inactive Koko Head volcano.
The hike is possible because of an old lookout at the top which was used by the military in the early 20th century. Each step up the old supply line takes you closer to an incredible view.
At the top, you can look out and see Diamond Head, the remains of the crater that now forms Hanauma Bay, and into the lush green preserve and arboretum inside Koko Head itself.

And yet none of this lush paradise is possible without the volcanic eruption that came before.
There was a time when this vibrant landscape was nothing but a monochromatic hellscape.

From the flaming crucible of the earth’s core, life has formed and taken hold… the distance between heaven and hell may not be as great as we suppose. And here, the cycle of life begins in death where the power to create overcomes the power to destroy.

So what do we learn from this paradox?
There are times in our own lives when we will stand in barren, inhospitable, and difficult places.
We will experience loss and grief.
Illnesses and disease will come our way.
Relationships falter.
The economy is out of our control.
Systemic injustices like sexism and racism and homophobia and lack of access for people with disabilities are real.
Heck, this entire year has been described by some as a dumpster fire.
One thing after another, piling up on top of each other.

But here is the thing.
Adam and Eve couldn’t hide from God in paradise.
God was there.
Right by their side.
And God is right here with us in the midst of this, too.

But more than that…
God is calling us to pay attention.
“Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.”

We are people of resurrection!
We are people who believe that the worst thing is never the last thing.
We are people who believe that the forces of life are stronger than the forces of death.
And there are signs of life and abundance springing forth from this mess.

Just this week, I read about how nearly half a million people have quit smoking in England as a direct result of the pandemic.
Doctors in Ireland and Denmark began to notice that premature births in their countries were falling dramatically… 75% decline in Ireland and 90% fewer preterm births in Denmark!
In both of these instances, more research is being done to learn more about the causal relationships and how what we are learning through this time could be used to save lives and improve our overall public health in the future.

We cannot flee from God and God has not abandoned us.
All around, the seeds of new life are blowing in and taking root.
We simply need to pay attention.

An Altogether Joy

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Text: Psalm 30:2-3, 5; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

One of tasks of preaching is to take a part a text, study it, let the Holy Spirit do her work, and then share the good news back with all of you in bite-sized, easy to digest nuggets of helpful information.
So imagine my dismay when I dive into our chapter from Almost Christmas for this week and I read:
“Joy cannot be manufactured, sought, or studied.” (p. 86)

Well, shoot.

I can’t break it down into three simple steps.
There is no top ten list for an Altogether Joy-filled Christmas.
You cannot create it through a project from Pinterest.

Sure… there is plenty of almost joy this time of year that does come from our blood, sweat, and tears.
A few years ago, my niece wanted nothing more than an American Girl doll. A friend of mine had one from childhood that she was now parting with as an adult and so I was able to purchase Samantha with a number of books and outfits for a fantastic price.
When my niece opened that box on Christmas Day – she was so happy that she literally burst into tears. Her squeals of joy and excitement simply could not be contained. It was overwhelming and ridiculous and everything we hoped for.
I would have paid a thousand dollars to create that kind of experience for her or my other nieces and nephews all over again.

But that joy is fleeting.
It is a burst of energy that fizzles out nearly as soon as the wrapping paper is tossed in the trash can.
I think about the feeling I have sitting by my Christmas Tree at home each night, with those gentle lights twinkling.
I feel truly happy to just be in that space.
But in a couple of weeks, we’ll pack it all back up and there will feel like there is something missing where that bright spot of joy used to be.
Maybe that’s because it was only an almost joy… when it fades we feel emptier than we did when we began.

An altogether joy is a joy that lasts… a joy that sustains us even through difficult times.
And that kind of joy cannot be manufactured, sought or studied.
Altogether Joy is a gift.
Joy is a gift of God’s grace.
It is a gift of God’s mercy.
It is the very gift of God’s presence with us.
Immanuel.
Matt Rawle writes in this final chapter of Almost Christmas, that “receiving joy often means we have to get out of the way and allow the Holy Spirit to move.” (p.93)

How do we do that?
How do we create space for God’s grace to move in our lives… even in the tough times?
I think we find guidance in the words of Paul to the Thessalonians.

Acts 17 tells us that Paul and Silas first came to Thessalonica and proclaimed Christ, but not all were open to his message.
Some of the leaders became jealous and stirred up a mob which led to a riot.
Many were arrested and Paul had to flee for his life from the city.

So when he writes back to the Thessalonian believers, he knows that hanging on to their faith in the midst of hostility has not been easy.
He knows that many have suffered because they received the gift of Christ in their lives.
He knows that in the face of such persecution, it would have been easy to abandon the message…
And yet they have continued on!

Perhaps that is because they had received the gift of God’s joy.
They knew God’s mercy.
They knew God’s grace.
They knew God’s presence.
And it sustained them even when they found themselves in the darkest places and in the toughest moments.

Paul’s words at the end of this letter are an encouragement to keep going.
They are a reminder to keep creating space for the gift of God to take root in their lives.
In the midst of such trying times, it would be easy to be on edge, snapping at one another for the slightest thing.
It would be easy to get discouraged by setbacks.
It would be easy to listen to the voices of those who are turning back and turning away.

Instead, Paul asks them to each do their part.
Encourage those who are straggling behind.
Reach out of those who are exhausted by the fight and pull them back on their feet.
Be patient with one another and aware of when you are pushing each other’s buttons.
Look for the best in each other.
Pray.
Pray, pray, pray.
Pray always and everywhere.
Thank God for what is before us… the good and the bad.
Rejoice always.

If joy is a gift… then I think that means that we need to create space to focus on God’s mercy.
We need to focus on God’s grace.
In the best and worst moments we need to focus on God’s presence.
As Matt Rawle reminds us, “For Wesley, salvation and joy go hand in hand. There is no joy for those who feel there is no forgiveness. There is no joy for those who have no assurance of salvation. Without joy there is little for which to give thanks. Joy comes from knowing that God is near and salvation is offered to all.” (p. 90)

God is near and salvation is offered to all.
God’s gift of grace and mercy and love is not just for us.
It is for those who are falling behind.
It is for those who are discouraged.
It is for those we have forgotten.
It is even for those who are persecuting us.
And if we can find room in our heart to remember that, we might just glimpse what an altogether joy looks like.

Our Wesleyan hymn for this morning is one of my favorites… Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
Charles Wesley’s words remind us that the newborn King has arrived not just for me.
Not just for you.
But with mercy and peace he has come to reconcile God and all sinners.
God has made a home in all places and among all peoples.
The gift of God’s presence is for all.
All nations are filled with joy in light of this gift.
All people, not just the ones who think like us.
Everyone is invited to proclaim the good news of this precious gift.

Maybe that is why, in his sermon, “The Character of a Methodist,” Wesley goes to great lengths to remind us that Methodists are not people of one opinion.
We are not people who discriminate.
We don’t boil our faith down to one issue or cause.
Because if we did, we would soon believe that we have the truth… the answer… the gift… and those who disagreed with us do not.

No, a Methodist is one who has received the love and presence of Christ.
A Methodist is one who extends the same grace to others that we ourselves have received.
A Methodist is one who never speaks evil of a neighbor, but seeks always and everywhere to share the gifts of salvation we have ourselves received.

What does this look like?
I stumbled across the story this week of a guy named Stan. Stan goes to church in Denver and his church was working to support a family who had come on hard times. Medical bills had overwhelmed them and there was nothing left for Christmas. So, among the various things the church was going to do to support them, Stan volunteered to go pick up a Christmas tree.
Stan put his son Jay in the truck and they headed up into the mountains to cut one down. But the truck slid off the icy road and crashed into a boulder. His boy was covered in glass from the windshield and both were shaken by the trauma.
As cars sped by, no one stopped…
In the midst of trying to create joy for others, they found trouble themselves.
But then a car pulled up and a couple got out. The woman began to comfort the boy and put him in their vehicle while the man helped Stan move his truck farther off the road. Then the drove Stan and Jay home. In their shock and dismay, they never got the couple’s names.
Frustrated that he had failed in his task and his truck was wrecked and eager to do something to help out this family, Stan took on the task of delivering the other items to their house. He walked up to the door, rang the bell and waited.
When the door opened, there stood the couple that had helped Stan and Jay in their own moment of need. (Story adapted from one by Steve Goodier – http://stevegoodier.blogspot.com/2008/12/surprised-by-joy.html)

That’s what an altogether joy looks like.
It goes the extra mile to help out a stranger.
It shows up when no one else will.
It is grace and mercy and presence.
It is God with flesh on.
And we discover it when we allow ourselves to accept the gifts of God in our lives.
But we also find it when we turn around and share it with others.

May it be so…

Mystery: Restored!

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Text: Job 42:1-6, 10-17

This morning, I want to tell you a story about little Henry.
Henry walked to school every morning with his grandpa. And along their way, Grandpa would stop at the neighborhood store for a newspaper and a cup of coffee.
At the register, there were bins full of candies and gum and chocolates and every single morning, Henry would ask Grandpa if he could have some.
Every single morning, the answer was no.
Well, after several weeks of watching this, the cashier started to have a soft spot in her heart for the little boy. So one morning, as Grandpa and Henry came up to the register, the cashier said, “Good morning, Henry! How about this morning you reach in and get some of that candy you want… on me!”
Oh, he was SO excited! He reached out his hand to get some candy and then quickly pulled it back.
Instead, he grabbed Grandpa’s hand and shoved it into the bin with all of the sweets.
Grandpa was a bit stunned, and pulled back a whole fist full of candy.

As they kept walking to school, Grandpa was a bit puzzled. “Henry,” he asked, “Every single morning you ask me for candy… this is exactly what you have always wanted… why didn’t you pick out the candy yourself?”
Henry looked back at Grandpa with a grin on his face. “It is, Grandpa… but your hands are so much bigger than mine! My little hand was too small to get everything I wanted!”

There is a sense of Henry’s wisdom in our story of Job.
You and I, we are so small.
Compared with the stars and the oceans and the mountains and the vast diversity of creation, we are tiny specks of dust.
We might want to reach out and grab knowledge and answers and truth and faith… but our little hands are too small to get everything we want.
God’s hands are much bigger.
God’s wisdom is far greater.
God’s power is beyond our comprehension.

Last week, our youth took us through some of the mystery of God’s power and might.
We were reminded through song of just how powerful God is and how through the grace and the love of God, we can walk through the valley of the shadow of death and not be afraid.
When oceans rise, we can rest in God’s embrace.
In our troubled seas, God is our peace and God’s love will lead us through.
When we can’t feel a thing and are falling short, God says that we are loved and that we are held.

These messages of power are so important to the story of Job that we have been following these last few weeks.
At the beginning of November, we began to explore this little morality play in which a perfect, upright man, Job, is tested by God.
The Accuser has this question… will Job continue to be perfect and upright and faithful if things start to go badly for him? Or is he simply a fair-weather friend?
God allows this little experiment to proceed and Job’s flocks and livelihood and children are taken away from him. Even his own bodily health is impacted and he is covered in sores and finds himself in pain all day and night.
But still he refuses to turn his back on God.

The second part of our story involved Job’s friends.
They are convinced that Job must have done something wrong in order to have all of this punishment brought upon him.
They, like Job, firmly believed that good things happen to good people and that bad people get what they deserve. They see God as being the arbiter of retributive justice – where punishment and blessing is given out based upon someone’s faithfulness and goodness.
But for every one of their speeches, Job has one of his own.
He has done nothing wrong. He is innocent. If only he could have his day in court and stand before God, he could make his case and God would have to relent.
Job still believes at this point that God gives people what they deserve… and if he is being punished it is undeserved… and therefore… God is wrong.
Job is actually putting God on trial.

And as Isabel and Olivia reminded us in their message last week… God might be annoyed and a little upset at Job’s whining… maybe even perturbed at Job’s accusations… but the message God speaks out of the chaos and directly to Job’s heart is this: I created this whole world. I made everything in it. I understand how it works and am the very power that sustains it all. And… I love you. I’ve got your back.

For three chapters, God goes on and on and on about “the incomprehensible magnificence and immeasurable power of divine majesty.”
Were you there when I laid the earth’s foundations?
Have death’s gates been revealed to you?
Where’s the road to the place where light dwells?
Can you guide the stars at their proper times?
Do you know when mountain goats give birth?
Did you give strength to the horse?
Is it due to your understanding that the hawk flies?
Can you control the great beasts of the earth like the behemoth and the leviathan?

Job is stunned into silence.
He thought he had God all figured out… that God’s justice was some kind of divine math in which your goodness earned you points and blessings.
It actually reminds me of the television show, The Good Place, a comedy that explores ethics and morality and what we owe each other. The foundation of the afterlife in this universe is that for every good thing you do with selfless intent, you rack up points that allow you to enter “the good place” a place of eternal satisfaction.
But when you cuss, or stiff a waitress, or murder someone, points are deducted and without enough points, you end up in “the bad place.”

Job is living his life in a certain way, following all of the rules, making sacrifices for not only his potential sins but also those of his children, because he thinks that is what faith is about. Trying to earn God’s favor and blessing.

What he didn’t realize is that he already had it.
We all do.
The God who set the stars in motion and who knows about the birth of every mountain goat and how to direct the flight of a hawk also knows you and me intimately.
God knows every hair on our head.
God knows the divine plans in store for each of us.
And God’s justice is not a math equation.
Rather, it is a complicated, holy, grace-filled effort to take every broken, hurting, sinful thing in this world and to redeem and transform it back towards its holy purpose.
Job had only heard about God before… but now Job has seen God.
And God is far bigger, greater, more awesome than he ever imagined and his tiny way of grasping and understanding the world has been torn apart.

I think, if anything, this morality tale we find in the book of Job was an effort by early Jewish theologians to take apart what they believed was a very limited way of seeing God in the world.
So many people think that God is an impersonal judge who tallies right and wrong and who sits on the divine bench handing out punishments and rewards. And with such a calculated understanding of the divine, we can make no sense of that ancient question of why bad things happen to good people or why there is suffering in the lives of innocent people.
But our scriptures of our faith have a vastly different message for us about who God is and how deeply God cares for us.
Our God got down in the dirt and formed the first humans and breathed into them the breath of life.
Our God took imperfect people like Abraham and Noah and Jacob and through them, in spite of them, because of them, set in motion the divine plans for all the people of the world to be blessed.
Our God heard the cries of the people when they were caught in slavery in the land of Egypt and raised up a leader to bring them home.

In the end, what we find in the Book of Job are not easy answers to the question of why there is suffering. In fact, Job gets no answer or explanation for why so much was taken from him.
Instead, Job discovers that we are allowed to cry out when we suffer.
We should protest against injustice.
And we should open our lives and our hearts up to discover the ways that God is far powerful and more holy than we could ever imagine.
Before, Job had only heard about God.
But in the midst of his suffering and his yearning for truth, he encountered the very presence of God.
God reached out to him and in the process, Job found himself having a real, deepened, humble relationship with the Lord.
In our lives, we will face difficulties.
We will encounter diagnosis and questions that we cannot comprehend.
We will find ourselves asking why such awful things are happening in the world.
In these last few weeks, I have heard this very community raising up cries of concern for the death of loved ones, illness, wildfires, mass shootings, war, hunger, and homelessness.
None of these situations are deserved.
Innocent lives are impacted or harmed or taken far too soon.
We want answers and solutions.
And I think what we discover in the Book of Job is that there is no quick fix for the problems of this world. We can’t explain away why these things happen in a few words.
What we find instead is the presence of a God who is with us in the midst of it.
A God who hears every cry.
A God who seeks, in the words of Sharon Lynn Putt, “not to condemn and punish but to reconcile, to redeem, and to restore all of us to each other and to God.”

In the verses that we skipped in our reading for today, God reaches out to Job and invites him to offer up prayers and offerings for those three friends who had such a limited understanding of what was happening in Job’s life.
You see, even in the midst of restoring Job’s possessions, God is also working to redeem those relationships between Job and his friends.
And God is working to help transform and expand their understanding of how this world hangs together, too.

Our task, as we live out the truths of the Book of Job, is to listen to the suffering of others. To listen to our own pain. To not hide it, but hold it up into the light where God can show us that we are loved when we can’t feel a thing. We are strong when we think we are weak. We are held when we think we are falling short. We belong to God even when we think we don’t belong.
In that moment, we, like Job, can relent. We can surrender. We can lay our whole lives at the feet of God… knowing, trusting, believing… that no matter what happens, we are held in the hands of God.
Like Henry, our little hands aren’t big enough to fully grasp and understand the ways of this world. But God’s are.
Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

A Way Forward? Fixed And Free

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The United Methodist Church is at a crossroads.

On the one hand, we do incredible work together because of our connection across the globe.  Missionaries go from everywhere to everywhere.  We are present amid disaster and crisis providing relief.  New faith communities have been formed in West Des Moines, Camaroon, and Russia. And these things happen because we pool our resources to do the most good.

On the other hand, we are a diverse, expansive, global denomination working in many different contexts from many different backgrounds.  Within that diversity is blessing and also conflict – including conflict about the role of LGBTQ+ persons in the life of the church – particularly whether they can be married in the church or ordained/consecrated by the church.

Next week, we’ll turn our attention to scripture and dive deeper into how they relate to what it means to be Lesbian, Gay, or Queer today.

But for today, we wanted to start with the big picture of how we got to this place as a denomination.   Behind any particular verse is the tension between flexibility and permanence.

What is written in stone?

What is subject to change in time and context?

How do we know the difference?

In February, our denomination will hold a special session of General Conference and how we answer these questions will determine our identity for the future.

 

How did we get here?

As people of faith, we are heirs of both the tabernacle and the temple.

That is the premise that the pastors of Lovers Lane United Methodist Church shared with their congregation when they addressed our current dilemma at the beginning of this year.  (https://soundcloud.com/llumc/sets/fixed-and-free)

As we heard in our scriptures for the day (Exodus 25:1-9 and 1 Kings 6:11-13), as the context and the people of the Bible changed, God had different ways that the people could come to know and worship God.

 

In the midst of the wilderness, the people had no home.  They were always on the move, never setting down roots, everything was always changing and uncertain.

And so God sends them instructions to build a tent – a tabernacle – a movable place of worship that would go with them wherever they were.

Every person within the community was called upon to contribute something – richly colored yarns, gold, silver, wood, leather, precious stones – all of them used to create a moveable place for God to dwell among them on the journey.  Wherever they traveled – God was with them.   (Exodus 25:1-9)

 

Generations later, the people stopped moving.  They had established themselves in the land and they wanted permanence.  They wanted a king like the nations around them. And they wanted to build God a temple.

King David himself looked around at the palace he was living in while the Ark of the Covenant was still residing within the tabernacle.  But it wasn’t until his son, Solomon, was established on the throne, that the temple in Jerusalem was constructed.

This temple, this permanent dwelling place for God, was important for the people in the time of the Kingdoms.  No longer did the people all travel together with God in their midst.  Now they were settled in far off places.  The temple represented something stable and unchanging, the home base to which they could return.  God now dwelt somewhere a part from the vast majority of the people – but if you followed the rules and went to the temple, you could be with God.  (1 Kings 6:11-13)

 

That tension between what is fixed and free, an institution and a movement, is at the core of our struggle and our identity.

Are we focused on the God of the tabernacle – who hears the cries of the oppressed and marginalized and who makes a home among the people wherever they might be?

Or are we focused on the God of the temple – who has made a covenant and established laws and who calls us to repent and return home so we might experience life abundant?

It is both… a tension we must hold… but sometimes it becomes a tug of war that threatens to tear apart the church.

Even when we focus on the Word – both the one who walked among us and the living word we discover in this text – we see this tension.

As the gospel of John reminds us, “In the beginning was the Word…  the Word became flesh and made his home among us.”  (John 1: 1, 14) The roots of this passage are that the Word tabernacled among us.

But Jesus also said that upon the rock of Peter, he would build his church.  Solid, foundational, able to withstand time and changing winds. (Matthew 16:18)

Too often, what we find reflected within the words of scripture are our own predispositions towards temple or tabernacle.

And, we must be aware that there is also a shadow side to either of these inclinations.  If we lean too heavily upon viewing God through the lens of the tabernacle, we might be tempted to believe that wherever we are, whatever we believe, must be okay because God is right there with us.    On the other hand, if we lean too heavily upon viewing God through the lens of the temple, we might be tempted to believe that faith means being rigid, legalistic, unmoveable.   The tabernacle needs to be balanced with accountability.  The temple needs to be balanced with grace.

 

There is an awful lot of history between the time of Christ and our denominational roots in the 18th century.  The church spread and conquered and fractured and reformed.  The bible itself was put in the hands of everyday people.  The Holy Spirit moved, and institutions grew.

One of our beginning points lies with John Wesley, a priest in the Church of England.  The institutional church around him was very removed from the people of the day.  And so, he felt a call to leave the cathedral and John Wesley went out into the fields, where the people were.

He preached in homes, and from the top of tombstones in the graveyard, and his brother, Charles, took old drinking songs and turned them into hymns.  They gathered people into small groups for accountability and care and formation, but always encouraged them to remain connected to the established church.

Now, something that is important here is that Wesley never wanted to start a new church – he simply wanted to reform his church and help the people reconnect and experience the power of God in their lives.  From England to Scotland to the American colonies – wherever the church was, small groups of Methodists were growing.

 

If you ever have trouble placing our history as a church, remember this – the Methodist movement grew up alongside the American Revolution.  And when England lost and the Church of England left the colonies – all of those in the Methodist movement were left without churches and leadership.  And so reluctantly, John Wesley ordained Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury as superintendents or bishops and sent them to lead the people called Methodist in the new country.

And because we were established around the same time as this nation, our governance matches the governance of the United States.   Our church is a democratic based structure with three branches – a Judicial Branch, an Executive Branch, and a Legislative Branch.

 

When the people wandered in the wilderness, God dwelt among them in a tent that was free to move.

When the people were established in a kingdom, God dwelt among them from an established temple in the capitol.

And when the people were forming a new nation, our church came to look like the new democracy with a book of laws and rules at the center of who we are.

 

I know we’d like to think that book is the bible, and… well, it is… but there is another book that holds us together as a denomination: The Book of Discipline.

In many ways, this has been our attempt to hold the tension between the fixed and the free, the movement and the institution.

This book provides stability in the sense that it is our reference point and foundational document of our identity.  It contains the Articles of Religion that have been handed down through generations and a constitution describing who we are and how we function, and which is very difficult to change.

But it also provides flexibility in the sense that everything else within this book can be changed every four years by a simple majority of delegates to the General Conference.

 

Like the United States Government, we have a judicial branch – a Judicial Council of 9 persons who are elected to rule on matters of disagreement.  We also have an executive branch, our Bishops, who are tasked with upholding the Discipline and caring for the ministry of the church.

Lastly, the General Conference is our legislative body. It is our version of Congress, only our gathering time is much shorter – for a couple of weeks every four years.  It is where we gather to discern God’s will for the future of our church in the world.  It is the place from which we boldly proclaim where God is and sometimes we have gotten it wrong and sometimes we have gotten it right.

 

37814071_10155608720195866_3274315691594874880_nIf you look at the history of our church, it has not been one continuous solid history.

If you trace the line from the Church of England, the lighter brown set of roots, (and the side of our history that I know better), we can see that our lack of welcome and inclusion for African American siblings led to the formation of not one, but three new denominations.

Conflict over slavery and the authority of the bishops split the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 – years before the Civil War.

Sometimes splits were the result of contextual differences.  Sometimes because there was greater freedom needed that the more established church couldn’t hold within itself.

But the church has also merged and reconnected and joined with others for missional reasons.  In 1939, previous splintering was repaired as we became the Methodist Church.

And in 1968, we merged and formed a union with the Evangelical United Brethren Church.

One of our own – Rev. Harold Varce was a pastor in the EUB at that time and he was there at the founding of the United Methodist Church.  In fact, thanks to Harold, that “United” from the EUB tradition made its way into our name.

 

What would be the witness of this new denomination?

How would we hold in tension the call to find God at the margins with the oppressed and to boldly proclaim the established truth of God?

One of the first things that we undertook was to write our Social Principles.  While not church law, they are “the prayerful and thoughtful effort on part of the General Conference to speak to the human issues in the contemporary world from a sound biblical and theological foundation as historically demonstrated in United Methodist traditions.” (Preface)

And so in 1972 – with the denomination only four years old, much of the attention was focused on our section regarding human sexuality.  It was a time of great experimentation and misconduct in society at large and this was our first opportunity as a church to speak.

In the midst of our larger statement was a phrase “persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth.”  An amendment was made and approved which said, “We do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider it incompatible with Christian teaching.”

In many ways – right there in the midst of that statement which says two very different things – is that tension between tabernacle and temple.  God’s presence dwells in the life of LGBTQ+ persons – they are of sacred worth… and the practice of their orientation is sinful to God and requires repentance.

Since 1972 – we have experienced a back and forth, push and pull, tug of war over whether we will fully embrace and include gays and lesbians in the life of the church or if we will stand firmly against the tides of culture upon the traditions of our established church.

That tension has reached such a point in the life of our denomination that it has overtaken much of our witness and work.

And so we reached a point in 2016 where we could not move forward without discerning a new way forward.  Over these past two years folks have gathered to pray, discern, converse, pour over scriptures, wrestle, and finally we are at a point where their recommendations of various possibilities will come to a special General Conference, focused solely on this topic in February.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll back up and look at the scriptures behind our conversation.  We’ll look at the landscape of our current dilemma.  And in the final week, we’ll explore together the implications of the various proposals.

 

Here is what I want us to remember today.

When we were in the wilderness AND when established as a powerful nation – God dwelt among us.

When the temple was in ruins AND when the church was being persecuted – God was with us.

God has been leading, calling, pushing, prodding, rebuilding, connecting, pruning, and forming God’s people from the very beginning.

Not once has God left our side… although sometimes we have turned our backs upon God.

 

In some ways, I think God gives us what we need as far as a structure for whatever moment we might find ourselves in history.  Anything that will help us grasp onto the very simple fact that God love us and calls us to be God’s people.

Through the ups and downs of churches that have split and reconnected and reimagined their existence, what is constant is the Lord and Savior of us all.

So whatever comes, whatever changes, whatever new possibilities lie before us, I pray that we would trust that God is present in the midst of it all.

Amen.

 

God Moves In

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“Before the creation of the world,” Ephesians tells us, God had a plan.

Before you made plans to join us here in worship at Immanuel.
Before the star in the sky led the Magi to Bethlehem.
Before the prophets first heard the voice of God.
Before the moon and the stars were set in the sky.
Before everything!
While “the earth was without shape or form” as the first words of the Bible tell us…
And while “the Word was with God and the Word was God” as John proclaims…
There. Was. A. Plan.

What kind of a plan was this?
If we look to the root of the word used here in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, oikonomia, we find that it describes the administration of a household or an estate.
It’s the same word we find at the root of ecology and economy.
It describes how something is held together… the rules that govern how it functions, what sustains it, how it thrives.
So Paul is telling us that from the very beginning, God had a plan for how all of creation, God’s household, was going to work.
God wanted to bring everything – from the highest heights of heaven to the deepest crevices of the earth – together and to make a home among us.
And God’s plan was made known to us in Jesus Christ.
Immanuel.
God-with-us.

In these weeks leading up to Christmas here at Immanuel, we have been exploring God’s love for all of creation.
When we open up our bibles to the very first chapters, we discover this plan of God’s was already set in motion.
For six days, God was building, creating, and giving life to all things in the heavens and on earth.
And God looked around and saw that it was all very good.
And then God rested.

Now, I have to admit to you. Typically, when I think about God resting, I imagine that God goes back to wherever God has come from… leaving earth to go and take a day off.
After all, that is how we treat Sabbath, isn’t it?
The day we get away from everything?
Turn off the work email… veg out in front of the television and watch Netflix… get away from everyone and go fishing or golfing?

But, what if we have it all wrong?
What if the Sabbath is part of God’s plan?
What if in that moment of rest, God is with us?

The theologian Jurgen Moltmann describes Sabbath as a time when God “begins to ‘experience’ the beings he has created… He adopts the community of creation… He allows them to exist in his presence. And he is present in their existence.” (God In Creation, page 279)
God-with-us. Immanuel.
God creates us and on the Sabbath day of rest and presence, heaven and earth are one.
That’s why we are called to honor the Sabbath and make it holy.
Because whenever we truly stop to rest and worship and simply be in God’s presence, we are participating in that amazing plan set in motion before the stars were put in the sky.
We remember that God has already moved into the neighborhood.

If we are honest with ourselves, however, we know that is not how we usually keep the Sabbath.
In fact, throughout human history, the people of God have often forgotten the presence of God in their midst.
We turn our backs on God.
We seek our own will.
We make mistakes and fail in our humble striving.
But God is not content to be driven out of our lives.
God refuses to be turned away.
God has a plan, remember, and so God acts over, and over again, in ways that bring heaven and earth together.
After all, as John’s gospel tells us, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.” (John 1:5)
And so God heard the cries of the oppressed and rescued them and brought them into the land of milk and honey.
And so God called the people of faith over and over again through the words and actions of the prophets.
And then God acts by coming in really close… diving in deep to all of the mess and the struggle, the pain and sorrow of our human worldly lives.
As we moved away from God, God moves towards us.
The Word became flesh.
Immanuel.
God-with-us.

And it happened in a particular life, in a particular time, in a particular place.

Now… I don’t want to ruin the Christmas story for you… but I’ve come to realize that we’ve been telling it wrong.
And I think when we hear this story again, put back into its context and place, in many ways the story of Christmas becomes all the sweeter and more meaningful.

You see, as we read in Luke’s gospel, Jesus was born in the city of Bethlehem to parents who really weren’t anyone important. And Mary “wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom.”
When you look back to the original koine Greek, it says katalyma. This was a place where travelers spent a night… and while it could have referred to an inn, it was used to describe “the sleeping area in a single-room Palestinian peasant home” or a guest space in such a house.
The homes in Bethlehem would have had one large living space and if they were lucky, they might have had a smaller private room set aside for guests.
There would have been an area by the entrance where animals were brought in at night to keep them safe and warm.
And that large multi-purpose room would have not only had places to sit and eat and cook… but also mangers, built out of wood or hollowed out of the ground, where straw for those animals were kept.

The scene reminds me a lot of Christmas celebrations among either sets of my grandparents. You see, my dad was one of five kids and my mom was one of seven kids and the holidays were always a big deal. Everyone would come back home and the grown-ups would get the bedrooms that they slept in as children, but the grandkids would all pile together in the living room with sleeping bags and pillows. If you had to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you had to take care not to step on one of your relatives!

If we peered back into Bethlehem on that night long ago, instead of a cold and lonely couple huddled in a shed, we probably would have discovered Mary and Jospeh surrounded by family… in fact, maybe a bit too crowded by family – remember, Luke says there wasn’t room in the guest room. Everyone had come to town to be registered in the census so aunties and uncles and cousins galore would have been packed into the room together.
And right there in the midst of it all – in a normal home, in an everyday life, in the midst of community and the animals, Christ was born.
God moved into the neighborhood.
Immanuel.
God-with-us.

I think the most powerful statement of the incarnation is the reminder that right here… on this earth, among all of creation, surrounded by our community, is where we are redeemed.
God’s plan is not that this earth will waste away and we will be whisked away to some far off heaven.
No… in Jesus Christ all things in heaven and on earth will be brought together.
Right here is where salvations shows up.

As we have been leading up to this day, this time of worship, when we remember the birth of Christ, we have also been looking ahead to a moment that is yet to come.
For, we are still waiting.
This morning, I prayed for two colleagues who lost their mothers yesterday.
This world is still filled with disease and struggle and this might be the last Christmas we celebrate with certain loved ones.
We even remember that places like Bethlehem are today places of conflict and strife.
God’s plan isn’t complete yet.

So as people of faith, we are also looking ahead to that day of new creation when the kingdom of God is made known.
John tells us that the light shines in the darkness and has not been overcome by it… and when we keep reading to the Revelation, we find hope in the words that “death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying or pain anymore… There will no longer be any curse… Night will be no more. They won’t need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine on them.” (21:4, 22:3,5)
At the climax of all times, when the plan is fully complete, the heavens and earth will be brought together and God will make a home among us.

The Letter to the Ephesians may seem like a strange text to share together on Christmas Eve, but for me it is a reminder that the promises we hope for can already be experienced right now. Paul’s words here remind us that while the plan isn’t quite yet complete… it has already become a reality within the church.
You see, from the moment the heavens opened and the angels began to proclaim the birth of our Messiah, we have been invited to participate and respond to the kingdom of Glory.
Shepherds left their flocks to search out the baby in the manger.
Magi traveled great distances to greet the newborn King.
Fishermen would leave their boats to follow the Messiah.
Rich men like Zacchaeus gave away their wealth.
Scholars like Paul set aside everything they thought they knew about God to discover the message all over again and then carried it across the world.
The ripples from the birth of that one moment built the church, the Body of Christ alive in this world today.
Friends, you and I are that body of Christ right here and right now.
And as Ephesians 2 tells us, “we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.”
We have been adopted into God’s household, filled up with the Spirit of God, and called to imitate Christ wherever we go.
So fall on your knees in this time of worship.
Remember that God set the stars in the sky and the ground beneath our feet.
Imagine the birth of that child in Bethlehem.
And ask how God is inviting you today to love one another and to bring peace and joy to all who struggle.
Because it is through you… and you… and you… that the presence of God can be known in this neighborhood today, and tomorrow, and the day after that.
YOU are also God’s plan for this world.