Psalm 98 – Salvaged Faith

Rejoice With Me!

Posted on October 25, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Psalm 98: 7-9, Luke 15:3-6, 8-9, 11-13, 20, 24, 28, 31

Every year, our congregation has a charge conference. It is our annual meeting to elect leadership, set goals for the future, care for those called into ministry, and more.
And it’s happening in just one week!
Next Sunday, November 1, we will have our charge conference online at 2:00pm. There will be a link on our website to join in, so be sure to check out the details and join us!

As we have been preparing for this meeting, I met with our Administrative Council Leadership and I asked them a question:
Do we have a future?
Now, that might seem to be kind of a stark and sobering question, but to be honest, there are churches out there that simply aren’t going to make it.
David Kinnaman with the Barna Group says that their research shows one in five churches are not likely to make it through this pandemic.
There are disruptions related to giving, the numbers who are able to gather, but also a lack of adaptation to the realities that are around us. I know of at least one congregation that simply has done nothing together as the church since mid-March. They have no online presence. They aren’t meeting outside. They are simply doing nothing.
So, do we believe we have a future?
Is Immanuel United Methodist Church going to make it?
When I asked that question in our Zoom Council meeting, someone immediately responded:
100% YES!
In fact, the energy level of our meeting rose as people got excited thinking about that future.
We talked about how we are providing connection and spiritual growth and it is something that people need now more than ever.
We talked about how new people have joined us online and during our evening vespers services and at our Zoo Day and how we are actually expanding our reach.
We were energized by the idea that what we are learning how to do together now is actually strengthening us for the ministry that God has planned for us.

You know, for months we have been focused on the moment….
This next week….
What we can do right now….
Analyzing the data so we can make the healthiest choices to do no harm….
We have changed on the fly….
We have created what is necessary to keep going…
And all along the way we have been trying to pay attention to who we are leaving out and missing and how we can do better.

When we were able to step back and step out of the fray of what is happening right now and look to the future, we were surprised by the sense of clarity and focus we had.
Because more than anything, this whole pandemic has helped us to home in on what is really essential and what is really important.
You see, there is a lot that we could do as a church, but there are really only a few things that we need to do:
• Keep our eyes on God who made us.
• Help people to know that they are not alone and that they are loved.
• Learn and share the good news of Jesus.
• Live out our faith by doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly.
We realized as we talked that not only are we doing those things, but we are actually doing them pretty well.
And we began to shift our mindset to realize that this is a season that we could see growth!
Not just growth in our numbers of people, but also growth in our love and knowledge of God.
Growth in our ability to respond to issues of injustice.
Growth in the ways we reach out to people that have been left out or disconnected.

And for the first time in a long time, it seemed like we really and truly had something to celebrate and be excited about!

We’ve been reading through Psalm 98 these past couple of weeks and today the end of the Psalm reminds us why we are rejoicing with all of creation.
It is because God is establishing justice on the earth.
So much feels troubled and broken, but the God who created it all is setting things right.
God sees the problems of this world and shows us a better way.
God calls us and equips us to be generous and loving and merciful and kind and honest so that all people… all the world… might be set right again.
I think part of the reason we have cause to celebrate is that what we see all around is that we actually have been following Jesus during this time.
We’re reaching out to the lonely and sharing our abundance with others and speaking the truth about the problems of this world and trying our best to respond with love and kindness.
We see evidence of how God is working through us to establish God’s will, God’s justice, right here and right now.
And the whole world rejoices along with God!

I was thinking about this idea of God’s justice and celebration and rejoicing when I read the parables of the lost in Luke chapter 15.
So often, we talk about them as if the lost coin, or the lost sheep, or the lost son were at fault in the situation. They rolled off or wandered away and when they repent or return home or are found, the rejoicing commences.
But New Testament scholar, A-J Levine invites us to flip the parable.
What if these instead stories were titled “The Shepherd Who Lost His Sheep” or “The Woman Who Lost Her Coin”? “The Father who Lost A Son”?
What if they are actually about the one doing the losing?
We might start to ask questions about whether or not we are paying attention to the people around us in our care.
Do we count who is present?
Do we notice who or what we have lost?
Will we make an effort to reach out and find them?

You know, this really came home to me when I thought in particular about that last parable of the father with two sons.
We always think about the first child who runs away and the great rejoicing and party when he is found.
But the second son is lost as well, right?
He is missing from the party.
The father in this story notices.
He runs out of the house and into the fields and meets him there.
The father begs for him to come in.
And the father reassures him: I love you. You belong to me and I belong to you.

That is what God does.
God knows who you are.
God sees who is missing and what isn’t working.
God’s heart breaks at the injustice and the disconnection and the harm we do.
And there is no length that God will not go…
No mountain God won’t climb…
No wall God won’t kick down…
Nothing that will keep God from establishing justice, wholeness, shalom, from making sure that God’s intentions are fully lived out on this earth.
Nothing can separate us, right?

And when even just one of us turns our hearts back to God…
or lets ourselves be found…
or experiences healing…
or is lifted out of our troubles…
or finds food and shelter or warmth…
oh… how the world rejoices…
How the rivers clap their hands…
How the sea roars…
How the mountains and hills sing together for joy…
What a day of rejoicing…

This church has a future.
And we have a future because we continue to keep our eyes on the God who made us through worship and devotion and prayer.
We have a future because we are paying attention to one another and we count and notice who is part of our community and are doing our best to reach out to help people know they are not alone and that they are loved.
We have a future because we keep the good news of Jesus at the center and we are learning and growing and putting that faith into action every day.
We have a future because we notice who and what is missing and we try to respond with food in our pantry and warm clothes for Joppa and by showing up at rallies in support of our neighbors… so that God’s justice, God’s intentions, God’s will might be done on earth.

Friends, there is a reason that our Ad Council got excited on that Zoom call.
It’s because when you see signs of the Kingdom of God, you have to rejoice.
When the lost are found, and the hungry are fed, and the sinners repent, and the lonely are surrounded with love… the whole world breaks out in song.

I’m so grateful for all of you.
I’m so proud of who you have been as the church in the midst of this difficult time.
And oh, how I can’t wait for that day when we can all get together… for real… with hugs and food and smiles and songs to celebrate in a fully embodied way all of the joy that is just welling up in my heart.
What a day of rejoicing that will be.

Symphony of Creation

Posted on October 18, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Psalm 98:4-6, Genesis 1-2, selected verses

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
Break forth into joyous song and sing praises.

Can you hear the earth, the planet, the creation beneath and around us is bursting forth in song?
Do you hear the praise in the rustle of the wind in the trees?
Or the song of the birds?
Or the stirring of the crickets?

Many of us have spent more hours outdoors this year, walking on trails, taking bike rides, simply sitting on the porch.
When gathering indoors is risky, there is blessing in being able to take in a deep breath of fresh air and enjoying the world God has made.
It has been a great opportunity to take in the whole symphony of creation.
The interplay of sunlight and leaves.
The harmony of wind and wings.
The rhythm of footsteps.

I have read through the creation story in Genesis 1 numerous times, but it wasn’t until this past week that I was able to look upon it with fresh eyes.
I took a moment to focus just on the words of God in this text.
The commands.
The directions.
And I began to imagine God as a conductor, standing before an orchestra.

It was all a soup of nothingness, chaos, whirling, disconnected… like the sound of instruments as they each do their own thing, not paying attention to anyone else, but just on their own sound. No cohesion. No sense. No form.

But then the conductor raises their arms and begins to coax out unique voices and melodies…
Light!
Sky! Separate the water!
Land, appear!
Earth, green up!
Lights, come out!
Ocean, swarm!
Birds, fly!
Earth, generate life!

You see, God does not write solo compositions. God’s symphonies are complex and intricate. Each instrument playing its part, working together, creating harmonies.
Lyre and trumpets and horns…
Sunshine and cattle and fish…
They all have a part to play in the song of praise and goodness that God has designed.

And just when it appears to be finished, God adds one more part…
Humanity…
Us…
You and me…
Made in God’s image…
Reflecting God’s nature…
And God invites us to conduct as well…

I played the flute in marching band in high school.
Not only did we learn the instrumental parts, but we also had to learn our placements.
We had to learn to march and play at the same time.
We had to learn how to weave in and out of one another.
And although we couldn’t always see it, our patterns and movement created incredible forms and sound on the field.
But here is the thing.
Because of the direction we were moving, or our distance on the field, we couldn’t always see the conductor – the drum major – on the central platform.
And so we relied upon the other drum majors who were positioned a bit closer to us.
Their job was to keep their eyes on the central conductor and to keep in time with them.
Only then could all of us work together.
You and I…
All of humanity…
We are like those other drum majors.
Conductors with our eyes upon God, helping to shape the song of the universe.
Here is the thing I have learned about this song… this dance…
It doesn’t stay the same.
It moves.
It grows.
It changes.
Sometimes it soars triumphantly.
And sometimes it is a quiet whisper in the night.
As the world shifts and our situations change, the melody adapts as well.
You see, we are not called to inhabit only a singular tune.
We are called, to sing together.

Last week, I shared about how the Jewish faith found ways to continue singing, even though the melody had changed.
Sanctuary moved from the temple to the home.
The religious authority moved from the priest to the parent.
Prayer became less about sacrifice and more about an experience of God.
All around us, the melody has been changing and shifting and moving…
But friends, we are still singing.
And we are still singing together.

We transformed our week long Vacation Bible School into VBS-in-a-box and sent home packets of materials so that children of all ages could join us and learn what it means to be strong in the Lord.

We gathered to ring bells in a solemn memory of the lives that have been lost to Covid-19 – creating space for grieving and hope.
Whether you knew how to ring or not, all ages came together to help our neighborhood remember the lives of the people who have died.

Our Confirmation class adapted to a virtual format and continued to gather and learn together. They stood before the church in June to profess their faith and these amazing young people continue to offer their gifts through scripture and music and volunteering.
Bible studies and small groups have made a similar transition and we have lots of folks who are gathering to learn and pray and laugh together every single week.

We moved worship online and on the phone and recently outside. And in the process, we have found that there are people that we were not really able to connect with in the way we had done worship previously. Some of our homebound folks have felt incredibly disconnected, but now they are receiving a full order of worship and sermon each week in the mail. We have new people joining us online, and others connecting that have long been disconnected or moved away from our community. Each week, we have roughly 35 households connecting on Zoom, 40 on facebook, and 60 being reached through mail!

And, we’ve been able to take this opportunity to revitalize our organ so that when it is safe for us to gather together again, it is refreshed and restored and even better than it was before.
Your generosity continues to allow us to make decisions that are investing in the future of our church for years to come.

Diedrich Bonhoeffer once wrote: “It is not you that sings, it is the church that is singing, and you, as a member… may share in its song. Thus all singing together that is right must serve to widen our spiritual horizon, make us see our little company as a member of the great Christian church on earth, and help us willingly and gladly to join our singing, be it feeble or good, to the song of the church”
Over this past year, we have widened our spiritual horizons.
We have learned a lot about what it means to be the church.
And what we have discovered is that it is less about a physical space or a building.
It is about the community.
It is about relationships.
It is about keeping our eyes fixed on God even though the way before us has been uncertain.
It has been about leaning into the songs and the scriptures that provide us comfort and remind us we are not alone.
It has been about hearing the call to live out our faith beyond an hour on Sunday morning… but out in the streets and at the food bank.
We have remembered our call to look out for our neighbors and to do no harm.
We have challenged one another to see the beautiful diversity of our world.
Has it been comfortable? Or easy? No.

But have we been faithful?
Have we done our best?
Have we kept our eyes on the conductor, the author of creation, the Lord of our lives?
That, I think we have done.
We have stretched and sometimes failed and tried again and kept working at the task that is before us.
The task that has always been before us.
To join our voices together in the song of creation.
To praise God and make a joyful noise.
Amen.

Singing in the Valley

Posted on October 11, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Psalm 23 and Psalm 98:1-3

In May of this year, my family gathered in northwest Iowa to bury my grandpa.
I stood in front of those loved ones and recited those familiar words of the twenty-third Psalm.
The Lord is my shepherd…
You know, we imagined that this was a temporary act of closure… a private graveside service that would give way to a much larger celebration of his life once the danger of the coronavirus subsided.
We are still waiting for that celebration.
I’ve walked beside so many of you through the valley of the shadow of death this year.
Your grieving, like mine, has often felt incomplete.

And I think part of the “incompleteness” is that there is so much to grieve.
There is so much we have lost…
So many we have lost…
So many ways of being that have been taken from us…
We have felt isolated.
Uncertain.
Alone.

And yet, we are not alone.
We are not alone in the sense that we are all going through this experience together.
And as a congregation, we are trying our hardest to help each one of you to feel connection in one way or another.
Whether it is a Zoom coffee time or a card from a child or a call from a staff member or a caring connection buddy, our hope is that you know that you are not alone.

But we are also not alone in the sense that the people of God have faced difficult times like these before.
We can often be so focused only on this moment in time, but if we zoom out and capture the larger picture of the biblical narrative, we find ourselves written into their stories.
Think of the ancient Israelites enslaved in Egypt…
Or the time of exile in Babylon…
Imagine what it must have been like to live through the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans…
The heartbreak and disorientation, grief and doubt, suffering and loneliness…
We hold those things in common with these faithful ancestors.

And it was in those trying moments that the people of God needed to remember that they were not alone, because God had never left their side.
And they turned to songs like those familiar words of comfort from the 23rd Psalm.
This hymn is not simply a text for funerals.
It is something we pray when we are in the valley.
In the depths of despair.
When evil and death and enemies surround us.
It is a wilderness song.
Even the imagery of the shepherd, the rod and the staff, remind us of trouble:
After all, a shepherd’s rod would hold off predators;
A staff would hook around the neck of a sheep caught in a crevice or bramble.
It is a promise that in the midst of whatever difficulty we might face, God was there.
God is there.
God brings hope and comfort and restoration and hope.
It is a hymn, a poem, a song that we use to cry out from those difficult places and imagine a way forward…
Imagine the joy…
Imagine the abundance…
Imagine the possibility…
All by the grace of God.

I’m reminded of the words of Sandra McCracken as she explains what it is like to sing our way forward:

I wrote the title track for the album, God’s Highway, with a friend of mine, Thad Cockrill and playing through the song it was actually a really dark season for me. I was kind of in a fog. And as we were writing, I remember trying to write and express how I was feeling. Thad, very pastorally, said, “You know the old spirituals would sing not about where we are in the moment. Not ‘my feet are tired’ and you know ‘I’m in a fog,’ but ‘My feet are strong. My eyes are clear.’” This way of singing ourselves forward. Sometimes with tears, sometimes with defiance, sometimes with great celebration.

When we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death we have to find ways to sing our way forward.
Sing our way forward with celebration and with joy.

All of which brings us to Psalm 98.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring this hymn, this prayer, as we think about what it means for us to be “together for joy.”

And we start with just the first three verses.
Like Psalm 23, when we read behind the lines, we remember that life was not always so grand for the people of God.
Why else would we need God’s right hand and holy arm to bring us victory?
Robert Alter notes that this word, victory, is actually rooted in the Hebrew word for rescue, which reminds me once again of the Shepherd’s rod and staff. (The Hebrew Bible – The Writings, p. 231)
While the specific enemy might not be specified, we are singing a new song because God is the one who can rescue us from the chaos, the struggle, the uncertainty, the despair.
In the face of these enemies…
In the face of the nations…
In the face of all that would destroy us…
we experience God’s bounty, God’s abundance, God’s restoration.
It’s like a table, prepared for us, in the presence of our enemies.
Anointing and blessing and overflowing…
How could we not sing when we remember God’s marvelous love?
How could we not rejoice in the face of God’s kindness and faithfulness?

Praise lifts us up from the valley…
Raises our spirits from the mire…
Sets our eyes on the truth of who we are:
Beloved children of God.

“Praise is a ladder for our spirits, a gift to help us climb up out of the shadows and into the light to get a new perspective on things, if only briefly. Praise brings us back in touch with the truth of our situation.” (Together For Joy)

I love that line… praise brings us back in touch with the truth of our situation.
It reorients us.
It helps us remember what is precious and what is essential.
And that, simply, is God.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Leadership Institute through the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection.
One of our keynote speakers was Ronald Heifetz.
Now, if you have ever read anything about adaptive leadership in the secular world… Heifetz was probably behind it.
For nearly twenty years, he has been consulting and teaching about what it means to lead in the world today… especially in the midst of difficult circumstances that require us to build new capacity and change the way we operate.
What I really appreciated about this particular lecture, however, is that he shared from his own faith tradition.
Heifetz talked about how the Jewish faith adapted after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem because of the leadership of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai.
In this valley of the shadow of death, the Jewish people turned their eyes in praise towards God and discovered the truth of their situation.
They had to figure out what was precious and essential to their faith to carry forward.
They had to figure out what was no longer serviceable and needed to be discarded.
And that had to figure out what innovation would allow them to take the best of their history into the future.

Heifetz went on to talk about how the Rabbi helped the people to sing old familiar songs in new ways.
With the Temple destroyed, the sanctuary of God moved from a physical to a spiritual structure and became centered on the home. Wherever the family was, there would be a sanctuary.
The priestly functions were taken on by the parent in the home, who would recite the blessings upon the family.
Rabbis took on greater authority in interpreting the text for the time and place.
Prayer that was built upon sacrifice and petition became a matter of the heart and a personal experience of God.

In the midst of their crisis, in the midst of the valley, they learned that what was precious and essential was not the Temple itself, but their relationship with God.
The God who spoke creation into being.
The God who led them out of Egypt.
The God who had been with them through every valley and time of exile and trouble.
And that God was leading them into a new future.
Turning their hearts to praise, they knew they could trust in the marvelous things God had done… and would do… for them.
They discovered new ways of being together for joy.

In the midst of this moment in the life of our church, we are discovering what is essential and precious as well.
The love of Christ that binds us together.
The grace of God that overcomes our failures.
The challenge of the Holy Spirit that pushes us onward to the Kingdom.
We are discovering what old songs we can sing in a new way.
Next week, we’ll talk more about some of the joyful things we are discovering, but for today, let me simply say this:
You are not alone.
In the midst of the grief…
In the midst of the valley…
When you aren’t quite sure where you are going…
Fix your eyes on God.
Cling to the one who has never left your side.
And sing.