Posts Tagged with Romans

You Have (Are) a Gift

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Text: Romans 12:3-8

As we start off this morning, I want you to find a blank piece of paper… or if you are on Zoom or Facebook, type in the comments or chat window.

I want you to think of one thing that you are personally good at.

What is one thing that you know how to do and do fairly well?

Now… if we were together in the sanctuary, I’d have you turn to your neighbor.  But, since we aren’t, I want you to share in the comments a few words about how you were able to use that skill or talent recently.   

For example:  one of my skills is that I can grow things.  I set out some of my extra seedlings on the sidewalk in front of our house for our neighbors to take.

Take a minute to share and read one another’s comments!

Thank you all for sharing!

This week on our road trip across the United States, we find ourselves in northwest Washington at Olympic National Park. 

With nearly a million acres of land, spanning a huge range of landscapes and precipitation, it contains so many different ecosystems that the largest concentration of life on the planet is found here! 

Photos of coastal survey research.

You can explore seventy miles of coastline with whales and puffins and oysters, driftwood from ancient trees, and the ever present ebb and flow of the ocean…

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Or make your way inland through old growth rainforests where 12-14 feet of rain fall each year. Centuries old hemlocks, threatened species like the northern spotted owl, mosses and ferns as far as your eyes can see…

Or maybe you want to climb to the top of glacier-capped mountains where golden eagles and Olympic marmots play among the alpine wildflowers…

All in one spectacular park.

But the balance between each of these seemingly separate and distinct elements cannot be ignored. 

As the National Park site describes, “Olympic National Park takes an ecosystem approach to management.  We believe that the health and survival of individual species depends on the health of entire habitats.” https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/threatened-and-endangered-species-of-olympic.htm

To put that in our own faith language…  the health of any part of the body depends on the whole.   

And every unique part of that habitat, or ecosystem, or body of Christ has an important and distinct function.

Each one is necessary.

Each one is valued.

Each one matters.

I want you to think back to that skill or gift that you mentioned earlier.   

Maybe it is a skill that you trained long and hard to learn, or maybe it is a gift that came naturally for you.

Whatever it is, it is something you see within yourself.

Hanging on to that gift in your mind, I want you to hear what Paul writes to us from Romans chapter 12.

You see… he continues his message from last week about what it means to be connected to Jesus Christ.

Hear these verses again from the Message translation:

I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you.

Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God.

No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

This gift that you have identified within yourself… it does not represent something that you own or possess or even have control of.

It represents something that God has given to you.

It represents a part of God’s plan for this world.

It represents one way in which the Body of Christ, the church, is called to share the love of God.

Have you ever thought about your gift that way?

Have you ever thought about how your baking or knitting or carpentry was a part of God’s plan for this world?

Or how your mechanical skills or photography or singing could bring the love of God to your neighbors?

Or how your laughter or negotiating skills or sense of direction could be used to share the gospel?

How your mathematical sensibility or your hard work or your ability to listen is an integral and important part of the church?

Or is your first response whenever the call of Jesus Christ comes to look around and say, “who, me?”

When I was in junior high and high school I loved speaking in front of people.

I was always the first with my hand up when it came time to read out loud in class.

I tried out for every play and musical.

I signed up for speech contests.

I competed, I practiced, I simply loved doing it.

Speaking in front of people came easily to me.

It was never something I had to think twice about.

I knew that in whatever field of work I chose, this skill would be useful.

It was something in the background, something I could fall back on, something I never had to think that much about.

But one day in college, I was asked to prepare a sermon for our campus worship.

Easy-peasy… I had written speeches before.

And I had preached before as a part of my youth group.

I didn’t worry too much about it.

In the midst of the preparation however,

in the midst of my wrestling with the text and really trying to find God in the middle, something in me clicked.

I realized that I wasn’t just writing another speech…

I was sharing God’s love with people.

I wasn’t up there acting or putting on a persona…

this was real.

This is what I was made for.

God wanted me to share his good news with people.

God created me to do this!

As Paul tells the people of Rome and by extension us… we are like the parts of a body, parts of a vital ecosystem.

We get our meaning from the body as a whole – our gifts and skills find their purpose only in relation to these other people and parts of God’s family.

Each one of you matters to this body of Christ.

Each one of you has something unique and amazing to offer to the world. 

God has created us for this! 

I want you to think for just a second about what this church would be like if someone like Rick stopped playing guitar…

or Wendell stopped fixing things…

or Sherrie stopped calling on neighbors…   

or Ella stopped serving…

or Becky stopped asking amazing questions…

or Hope stopped reaching out to friends…

What would happen if I decided to keep my gifts to myself, instead of sharing them?

Think long and hard about that gift you claimed earlier.

You have something unique and beautiful and powerful to offer.

You are called by God to do amazing things.

Yes, YOU.

Today, we are welcoming three new people into professing membership of the United Methodist Church. 

We are witnessing Becky, Ella, and Hope claim their roles and their gifts as part of this Body of Christ. 

Their gifts join together with all of the other ones in our vibrant and rich ecosystem.

Our congregation is filled with teachers and accountants and musicians and creators and parents and builders and leaders and servants…

We are stronger and healthier and more vibrant because each and every one of you are part of us.

As Paul writes:

since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, lets just go ahead and be what we were made to be.

In everything you do,

in everything that you offer,

from the moment you wake up until the moment your head hits your pillow at night,

ask how God can use you.

Take those gifts you have and share God’s love

through every goodbye you make in the morning

and every meal you deliver to the elderly in our community

and in every car your fix

and in every meeting you have at work.

Share the good news through every post you make on facebook

and every class you have at school

and in every game you play.

Do what you do with integrity, with love, with compassion.

Paul breaks it down like this:

If you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

We are the body of Christ.

We are his living, breathing, hands and feet in this world.

In everything we do… let God shine through.

The Stones Would Shout

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Text: Luke 19:29-40

If the disciples were silent, the stones would shout.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how no matter what happens in this world…  no matter the destruction or devastation…no matter the obstacles or despair… there is nothing that can stop God from being praised.

About three weeks ago, tornadoes filled the skies over Nashville. My friends at East End UMC woke up to discover their building had been destroyed. But they gathered that Sunday morning in the park next to the church. An alter made from broken pieces of their sanctuary grounded them. And they sang their hearts out, surrounding one another with love and lifting up the name of God in praise.

This week, I tuned into “Some Good News” a web series launched by John Krasinski, whom you might know from the Office or the new Jack Ryan series.  One of the stories he shared was of an elderly couple separated by COVID-19, because the wife is in an Alzheimer’s care unit.  Even in the midst of their separation and struggle, the husband stood outside of her window, singing “Amazing Grace” and you can hear her gradually catch on and start singing out her own praises of God. 

I think about those disciples of Jesus, headed into Jerusalem on that morning.  They had seen mighty and amazing things done by this man, their teacher. They had witnessed the dead being raised. The blind and the sick healed.  They had witness barriers and boundaries being crossed as women and children and Gentiles and Samaritans were welcomed by their Master.

Jerusalem was the seat of power.  And heading there, on that day, on that morning, with that colt… Well… it felt like a victory march!  Of course they were singing and shouting and praising God with a loud voice:

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!

These are echoes of the cries of the angels in the field… Of the psalmists…Of the prophets throughout history… They were witnessing God’s glory revealed and present…

and it was all taking place before their eyes!  Of course, they were praising God.

Only…

If we move just one verse past this Triumphant Entry, there is not joy, but weeping.  Jesus weeps.  He looks out over the city and can’t contain himself. Because he knows that this Kingdom they are waiting for, it will not arrive in an instant. He knows that in the coming week, those same disciples that were praising him would betray him.  He knows that there will be wars and destruction and illness and death long before these visions are ever realized.  He knows that this moment of God’s embodied presence with the people is fleeting.

We live in that in-between times. That Kingdom of God, it’s not fully here yet. Conflict rages in our world.  A virus has brought us to a standstill.  I could go on about the climate, and poverty, and racism… Jesus still weeps over our cities and towns and neighborhoods.

And there are days when it is awful hard to praise God.  It’s hard to lift up our heads and see the good. Some of you are already exhausted and the peak of this illness is still weeks away here in Iowa. Some of you are worried about loved ones who are sick. Some of you are on the front lines and every day you put yourselves at risk for others. And we can get so focused on the task before us, that sometimes, its hard to stop and focus on God’s goodness.

Maybe your own heart has been quiet this week. Maybe your lips have been silent. Maybe it’s not just this week, or this crisis, but the grief or the pain in your life has been weighing on you for some time.

I keep thinking… how do we praise God when the words just won’t come? 

And then I realized… maybe you don’t. 

If the disciples were silent… the stones would shout. That’s what Jesus told the Pharisees who were trying to silence their voices.  He was telling them that there is nothing that can stop God from being praised. There is no force on earth or on heaven that can stop this momentum. The Kingdom is coming and there is nothing they or any other power in this world  can do about it.

This week, Billie shared with us a passage from Romans 8 as a part of our staff devotion.  And I got to thinking about how Paul captures this sentiment in his particular chapter. 

He tells us that there is no comparison between these hard times and what will come next…But Paul also reminds us that it isn’t just us, not just human people, who are waiting for God’s Kingdom. Even the creation is groaning and waiting and breathless with anticipation.

And the moment we get worn out and can’t wait any longer and don’t know what or how to pray… well, that’s when the Spirit steps in.  That’s when our “wordless signs, our aching groans” are turned into prayer by God’s very spirit. Even the groans of creation are turned into prayer. Because when we fall silent and have no words to say, even the stones will shout.  It will shout out the truth that there is nothing at all in this world or beyond this world that can separate us from God’s great, amazing, sacrificial love. Not trouble or hard times or hunger or homelessness or danger or threats… Nothing. No thing. No power. No principality. Nothing that was created.  Not even death itself.

When we don’t have the words to sing.  When the world overwhelms our hearts.  When our lips fall silent. Look around. Look around at the signs of this great truth blossoming everywhere.  Look at the crocus and the daffodils with their white and yellow and purple blossoms of joy. Look at the buds forming on the tree and the grass turning green. Open the windows and listen to the birds sing their own tunes of praise. Watch the squinnys play in the yard and the wind blow. Let the warm sun fall on your face.  How are these not divine messages…songs from above… creation itself shouting out God’s praise?

We might not be gathering in the sanctuary this morning to praise God together. We might not be waving palm branches and lifting our voices. But we are not alone. No matter where we are today, the creation has joined us in praising our maker. The creation has joined us that hope-filled wait for the new creation, the Kingdom of God.

So my challenge to you all… Get out there and join in the song. Where do you see God’s wondrous world shouting out praises? Take a picture…. Make a short video… Send it to us here at Immanuel on our facebook page or by email… But also – share it with your friends and neighbors and loved ones.  Think of all the mighty things you have seen God do in your life and with a photo or a snapchat or an email… share the good news… shout God’s praises… let your voices raise in glory. Amen. 

We’re All Here

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Text: Romans 8:38-39, Acts 16:22-34

The first thing I want to prayerfully acknowledge this morning is that we are all entering this space from different places.
Some of you may be concerned about a family member or friend who you worry are having suicidal thoughts.
I know that some of us have lost a loved one to suicide.
And it is without a doubt that there are persons in this room who at one time or another have experienced a dark time and thought about suicide yourself…
No matter whether you have personal experience with this struggle or not, my hope and prayer is that we will all learn better how to share and offer hope and comfort to one another.

This morning as we reflect together on how we, as a faith community, can come alongside those who are considering suicide, I’m drawing heavily upon the work of Fe Anam Avis and Soul Shop. A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to not only take their Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, but also become a presenter for this program. Soul Shop was developed by the Pittsburgh Pastoral Institute to equip faith communities to minister to those impacted by suicidal desperation.
Notice I said “desperation” and not “depression.”
While sometimes suicide and depression are linked, that is not always the case. Not all people who are depressed have suicidal thoughts and not everyone who is suicidal is depressed.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “the great masses of men [and I would add women] lead lives of quiet desperation.”
There are many people in this world who are struggling just beneath the surface, invisible to the rest of us.
We might marvel at how wide their smiles are or how well they are handling the difficulties in their lives, not realizing that they feel overcome by the immensity of their situations.
And when they don’t feel like they can be honest about that desperation, they might become isolated, which leads even further down the path.
Fe Anam Avis reminded me that this is why suicide often comes as such a surprise to us. Too often, the depth of desperation in a person’s life is only visible after an irreversible tragedy.

When I was in college, one of my roommates attempted suicide.
She is and always has been a bright and bubbly person, full of energy and life. We noticed that she was a bit more sharp and stressed out, but we all were. It was college and life was full of anxiety and the drama of boyfriends and tests. We never sat down and had a real conversation about what was going on in our lives in that way… at least not until she had to be taken to the hospital and our whole friend group made the long drive in the middle of the night from Indianola to Des Moines.

I can remember feeling helpless and full of guilt and shame as I sat in the car that night.
Why didn’t I see it?
Why didn’t she tell me?
Why didn’t I ask?

The truth is, too often we feel unequipped to even begin to respond in the midst of our worry about loved ones.
But friends, we can move from a reality of others struggling with quiet desperation to one of honest conversation. We can create space right here at Immanuel, but also in the lives we live outside of this building, to be honest about the struggles in our life, for others to be honest with us, and together to and to know they are not alone.
In fact, one of the most difficult problems that people face in the midst of their quiet desperation is simply finding someone to talk to. Someone who will listen. Someone who will hear them. Someone who will be there.

And it starts with being able to talk about suicide.
I want to invite you to try something. I want to invite you to turn to the person next to you and use the word “suicide” in a sentence. Any sentence. Just practice saying the word.
Fe Anam Avis says that if you can say the word “suicide” in a sentence, you can save a life.

For too long, the church has largely been silent about this quiet desperation, instead of actually wrestling with the many different stories within our scriptures that relate to suicide.
We are quick to think of Judas, but that only further connects these kinds of thoughts with feelings of guilt, betrayal, and condemnation.
The very first thing I want to say about this is that our United Methodist position on suicide is very clear. “Suicide is not the way that a human life should end… a Christian perspective on suicide begins with an affirmation of faith that nothing, [not death or life, angels or rulers, or powers, things past or present…. NOTHING] including suicide, separates us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39).

The reality is, our scriptures describe many instances where people struggle with suicidal desperation… Job, Elijah, Jonah, Jeremiah, Paul, and King Saul, just to name a few.
And there is a text in the Bible that describes a successful suicide intervention… a moment where a life was saved because someone was willing to talk about suicide.
Let’s turn to Acts 16 and explore that story together.
First, I want you to notice in Acts 16:24 that the jailor in this story was busy just going about his life doing his job. He received the order, put Paul and Silas in the cell, and locked them up. Fe Anam Avis calls him a First Day person – someone who may never have remotely considered suicide and was totally unprepared for how quickly life could change and desperation could show up.

But then something unexpected happens. An earthquake shakes the prison, the doors fly open and the shackles of the prisoners are broken.
In that moment, described in verse 27, the jailor finds himself in a dark night of desperation. In his case, this was a sudden change triggered by a life event. We sometimes see this with young people after a break-up or failure, but also among adults who have experienced a dramatic failure or loss or rejection.

But there is another part of this story. The community shows up and they too are desperate. They are concerned and worried for the life of this person in their midst. They notice. And they say something.
“Don’t harm yourself. We’re all here!” Paul cries out in verse 28.
In that moment, the jailor discovers he is not alone… and he chooses to live.

One of my colleagues, Heidi Carrington Heath, has written about her own experience with suicidal thoughts and what it meant when someone showed up in her life. (https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2017/11/9/second-day-people-suicide-and-faith)
“I was 18 the first time I was suicidal… I don’t remember reaching out to my best friend, but I did.
I remember that she appeared at my door in what felt like moments with another friend of ours. He crawled on the floor with me… and told me that I had two choices. He told me I could leave the room walking, or he could carry me out, but the option of sitting alone in that room with a box cutter in my hand wasn’t an option anymore. I haven’t seen either of them in years, but I literally owe both of them my life.
In that moment, I became a second day person. Second day people are people like me who live through the dark night of suicidal desperation to see the resurrection of the second day. “
She goes on to write,
“People suicide primarily for two reasons: a loss of hope, and a loss of social connection. And if the Church of Jesus Christ and our faith communities cannot do something about that, we should shut our doors. Building communities where no one loses hope, and no one is alone should be the heart of our work together.”

And so to that end, I want to share with you a simple acronym for how we, as people of faith, can show up to provide hope and connection with one another.
C.A.L.L.

First… we Commit.
We commit that if we are ever experiencing desperation and thoughts of suicide that we will reach out and find someone to talk to. I am someone you can talk with – but so are so many other people in this room.
If we make this commitment, we reduce our isolation and we don’t have to carry those burdens all by ourselves.

Next, we can Ask.
If you notice that someone around you is struggling, don’t be afraid to ask if they are thinking about suicide. They may not tell us. They may not want to admit it. But simply noticing their struggle and being to say the words, “That sounds like a lot. It is a lot to carry. Sometimes, people going through what you are going through begin to think about suicide. Do you ever think about suicide?”
Simply asking the question helps someone to know they are not alone. That you are there. That you care for them… deeply.

And once we ask, we have to Listen.
Listen for their story.
Listen for their struggle.
Let them tell you about what they are going through and be willing to sit with them through that.

But then, as in the story of Heidi… and also the jailer… the final thing we can do is Lead someone to safety.
You cannot change someone’s thoughts or their struggle or desperation, but you can help them get to a safe place where they can get the help they need.
Maybe you sit with them and make a phone call.
Maybe you remove an object of harm.

You are not a professional and you don’t have to be.
Just remember that you are called.
CALL: Commit, Ask, Listen, and Lead to safety.
The apostle Paul struggled with his own life in ministry in Philippians 1:19-25, which perhaps better equipped him to notice the desperation in the life of jailer who was right in front of him.
But as people of faith, we all are equipped with love, compassion and mercy. We are all equipped with love and grace. And we know that life is not easy and that desperation is a reality for all of us.
So friends, you, too, are called…. And we are here. We are here for one another. We are here for you.

Sing! Play! Summer! – Amazing Grace

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Text: Luke 15

I have a fantastic sense of direction.
If you drop me in a new place with a map, I can easily get my bearings and find my way.
When I think about it, I can’t remember a time that I have ever been lost… at least not while I was navigating!
I do lose things, however.
I misplace things all the time.
My attention slips for just a few minutes and I set something down and the next thing I know, it’s gone.
In fact, on graduation day at Simpson College, my family was helping me move out of the house. We packed everything up and loaded the boxes into my mom’s SUV and the plan was for me to follow behind with my brothers in my car.
My parents took off and all of us young folks helped my roommates finish packing and loading their cars.
We finished and went to head home ourselves, when I realized… I couldn’t find my keys.
They were nowhere to be found.
In a panic, we called my parents and they found them packed in the top of one of the boxes in their vehicle.
So I dropped my brothers off at the movie theater, while my boyfriend drove me halfway back to Cedar Rapids to meet my dad and the keys.
Believe it or not… that’s not the only time I’ve lost my keys while moving.
And, of course… I lost one of my monkeys this morning =)  [reference to the children’s sermon]

Today, Luke’s gospel tells us the parables of the lost… the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son… the child who takes his inheritance and runs off, squanders it all and returns home.
A parable a short story that tells us a moral lesson… like the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not – the point is what we learn from it.
Luke groups these lost parables together, because he thinks it is key to who Jesus believes we are and how we are to live.
You see, at the beginning of this chapter, Jesus sat down for supper with some unsavory characters.
He was eating with tax collectors and sinners. Ooooo….
What? Does that not trouble you?
The idea that Jesus would sit down with a tax collector?
That’s probably because tax collectors today – while not our favorite people, are also not the unsavory villians of Jesus time.
But who might be?
What kind of people would we find it scandalous for Jesus to be having dinner with today?
What about drag queens?
Or Muslims?
White supremacists?
Or prostitutes?
Would any of those groups of folks make your feathers ruffle just a little bit?
Would you stop in your tracks and stare?
The Pharisees sure did.
They walked by the house where Jesus was having this grand old feast with a bunch of sinners and they started to whisper.
They started to grumble.
They started to complain… that fellow welcomes sinners!
And not only that – he eats with them!!!

And so loud enough so that they could hear – Jesus begins to tell these stories about the lost. About the shepherd that leaves behind the entire flock to seek out the one lost sheep.
The story about the woman who burns as much oil as a single coin was worth just to find a coin that was lost.

And when they found those lost things – Jesus said – there was great rejoicing…
In the same way God seeks the lost people of this world…
and God rejoices when they are found.
I may not know what it is like to be lost and not know my way home, but I do know what it is like to have lost something.
I know the desperation of seeking out that thing that I need – the thing that I love.
I know how important it is.
And so in some small way, I understand what it means for God to seek out those who are lost.
What is harder to understand is that I am someone who has been and who probably still is… lost.
We don’t like to acknowledge that we are sinners… that there are parts of our lives we still hold back from God.
We are fantastic at being being oblivious little sheep, wandering away from the flock and not realizing it.
Maybe it is a habit of telling lies, or the anger you harbor in your heart…
Maybe you like spending more time watching football than showing up to praise God…
Maybe you use and abuse the gifts of God’s creation…
Maybe pride has led you to believe you don’t need God’s help…
But whether we want to admit it or not, we are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
It is an ugly fact about each and every single one of us.
We can pretend it’s not so – but, maybe, at the very least, we can take comfort in the fact that we are all sinners.
We are in this together.
We have all fallen short of the glory of God.
And God seeks each one of us out anyways…

Today’s hymn of the day was the second most favorite song of the people of Immanuel… Amazing Grace.
It was written in 1779 by John Newton and his story reminds us of that simple truth that we are all lost… we have all fallen short… but that doesn’t mean God has given up on us.
Newton was born in 1725 and was taken to sea by his father who was a sea-captain. He rebelled, he drank too much, he got into trouble, and before he knew it, he was forced to join the British navy. He tried to desert, but was caught and had his rank stripped away.
Eventually he found himself serving on a slave ship, and caused a big stink among the crew, so they left him in West Africa – basically giving him to an African princess who treated him as a slave.
His father began to wonder where he was and sent out a rescue mission.
On the ship back home, a storm tossed the boat to and fro and they seemed to be sinking…
In that dark place, from rock bottom, with nothing left to lose, Newton began to pray and the ship drifted to safety.
He marks this day, March 21, 1748, as the beginning of his Christian faith.
As Diane Severance notes, “Only God’s amazing grace could and would take a rude, profane, slave-trading sailor and transform him into a child of God.” (https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/john-newton-discovered-amazing-grace-11630253.html)

Here is the thing, though.
Even after this moment, Newton wasn’t perfect.
He continued in his work as a slave-trader until the age of 39 when he eventually answered a call to ministry in 1764.
As part of his ministry, he began to write hymns, including Amazing Grace in 1779… a testimony of his own journey from wretchedness to salvation, from being lost to being found.
But it was not until 1788, thirty-four years after leaving the profession that Newton would renounce the slave trade and his role within it.
In 1788, he published a pamphlet, “Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade.” He became an advocate for the abolition of slavery and lived to see it end in Great Britian in 1807.

In many ways, Newton’s story reminds me of that lost son… the prodigal son… the one who is consumed by drunkenness and tries to make his own way and utterly fails.
Like the prodigal son, the love of the father rescues him and welcomes him home.
Amazing Grace speaks to this personal journey of salvation.

But I also think about the rest of his journey and how eventually Newton came to understand that every single person upon this planet is a precious child of God, worthy of love.
That God will not rest until every person is found….
The final verse of Amazing Grace is actually not attributed to Newton, but I think it represents that shift in his own life from the first person singular, to the first person plural.
From “I” to “we”

I am reminded of a story told by Rodger Nishioka who as a Presbyterian was working alongside some Russian Orthodox folks in an ecumenical project.
He made reference to the “Parable of the Lost Sheep” when someone interrupted him and asked him which parable he meant.
For a moment, I imagine Mr. Nishioka thought these Russian Orthodox folks didn’t know their bibles very well.
So, he summarized Luke’s parable about the shepherd looking for the one sheep that had gone missing from the flock of 100.
The Russian Orthodox priest looked at him and said, “Oh! You mean the Parable of the incomplete flock.”
In their tradition, God was concerned about the one sheep that went missing, because without that one sheep – the 100 would not be complete.
God wants to seek out and find all of God’s children and our family is only complete when all who are lost are found.
We are incomplete.
The family of God is incomplete when we leave out the tax collectors and sinners.
It is incomplete when we turn our backs on the drag queens and white supremacists.
We are not whole until our siblings who are Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist are welcomed.
We are lost if we cannot sit down with Jesus and the prostitutes.

As long as we diminish the worth of another person and hold them at a distance…
As long as we believe that others are unworthy, unfaithful, or uninterested…
As long as we act in hatred or anger towards our siblings…
As long as we are unwilling to sit down and share a meal God’s family is incomplete.

Like the woman with the lost coin…
Like the shepherd with the lost sheep…
Like the father whose son has gone missing…
God seeks out every single one of us until we are found.
Even me.
Even you.
Even them.
Thanks be to God.

The Redemption of Scrooge: Facing the Yet to Come

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Text: Romans 8:4b-17, Luke 4:18-19

There are a number of personality inventories out there, but one that has captured my imagination lately is the Enneagram. It describes people in one of nine categories, like the reformer, the achiever, the loyalist and the peacemaker (which is me).
Every morning, I get a little sentence or two in my email that has a thought of the day related to my type.
Today’s was an invitation to claim a new affirmation – “I now affirm that I am excited about my future.”

I now affirm that I am excited about my future.

I’m going to be completely honest and admit that I haven’t been very excited about my future lately. Partly because there is so much unknowing in my future. In our future.
There is the unknowing about what will happen with the denomination next February.
There is a whole lot of unknown in the political landscape of the world – nations experiencing unrest, treaties that are fragile, innocent lives caught in the middle.
There is the unknown that comes in our work… in our families… in our health.
Can we do enough to prevent severe climate change?
Will the infection spread in his leg?
How will the economy impact our workplaces?

Where there are unknowns, there are also fears. Fears as we begin to imagine what might happen.
These fears make it very hard to be excited, much less find the joy represented in the fourth candle on our Advent wreath.

What is ironic is that I don’t imagine Ebenezer Scrooge was the type of man who spent much time worrying about the future. His focus seemed to be on the present moment, his present moment, and making every penny count.
He was turned inward, unable to see the hopes and fears of the people around him, and seemed to not really even care about his own future story.
Until the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come arrives with the third chime of the bells.

Oh, what we wouldn’t give for that kind of glimpse into our future!
To know with certainty what the outcome of an election would be.
Or which course of treatment we should choose.
To be able to see the impact of the decisions being made today.

Scrooge is taken into his own future and allowed to see the end of his story. Standing in his own bedroom, the Spirit shows him his own body, “plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for…” (Stave 4).
He is taken to the home of the Cratchit’s and the realization hits him that the son of his employee, Tiny Tim, has died… the death of an innocent that surely would have been preventable with better access to medicine and care and food for strength.
And the man is shaken to his core.
The future that Scrooge discovers is a worst-case scenario.
It is our fears come to fruition.
A life lived without love that makes no impact on the world around it.

And he asks a question that resonates in my heart:
“Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be, only?”

Are these the things that will be?
Or of things that may be only?
Is the future set in stone?
Or can it yet be changed?

And then he cries out, begs the silent Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to listen:
“Hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been… Why show me this if I am past all hope?”

In catching a glimpse of his own past, present and future, Scrooge discovers that he doesn’t want to be the same person that he was.
The whole trajectory of his life has changed in this one night.
And the good news, the blessing, the joy of this moment is that he can change. He does change. And he can make change in the world.

The story of our Christian faith is a story of redemption and transformation.
It is the story of the possibility that we can change and that we can make changes in this world.

Often, it is by looking back on the mistakes of our past that we are spurred to repent and make changes in the future.

It is when we look around us at the injustices and inequities of the present moment that we discover ways we can change our way of being in the world.

Sometimes, it is in imagining the worst case scenarios of the future, naming our fears for what might happen, that we discover that there are changes we can make today in order to prevent them from becoming a reality.

I heard recently an interview with outgoing California Governor, Jerry Brown. No matter what you might think of his politics, I found this piece of advice he had for his successor to be profound:
“Imagine what could go wrong, and what could go wrong in the worst possible way. And after you imagine that, then take careful steps to avoid it… You gotta stand back and try to look over the horizon and say, “OK, what are the things that may not go right?” How do we correct that? How do we deal with it ahead of time?”

The very story of Christmas is God’s answer to that question.
What could go wrong?
What could go wrong in the worst possible way?
What can I do to correct it?

You see, God looked out at our future with all of the bad decisions and pain and grief and suffering that we experience, and God saw not a future that would be, but a future that might be.
A future that could be changed.
And so God came down and entered our lives.
God was born among us.
Immanuel.
And our Lord looked around at what had been, our past and history of struggle…
And looked around at what was, the present oppression and yearning of the people…
And Jesus recited the words of the prophets and declared a transformation, a new way of being in the world:
“He has sent me to preach good news to the poor…
To proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind…
To liberate the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And then that earthly ministry was given to us. The Holy Spirit poured out upon us, empowering us, filling us, transforming us, so that we might head into the world and make change ourselves.

Ebenezer Scrooge had lived a life of selfishness. He saw only his counting book and the success of his business.
But in the middle of the night, that visit from three ghosts turned his world upside down.
It was the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, setting him free from the shackles of what had been and empowering him to live the life that might be.

As Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, all of us who are born of the Spirit are set free.
We are set free from our past mistakes.
We are set free from our present selfishness.
We are set free from the fears of what might be.
And we are empowered and strengthened to claim a new vision of what might be for the future.

We don’t know what the outcomes of medical tests might be… but we can walk with one another through a journey towards wholeness and offer joy and hope.
We cannot see the end of conflict in this world… but we can speak up for peace and reach out to our own neighbors in love.
The final decisions our denomination might make in a couple of months are still to be determined, but we get to choose how we will continue to love and care and support one another, no matter what those decisions might be.

Wherever we go, whatever we do, in the midst of the mess and the beauty of life, we have been set free to embrace our hopes rather than our fears because we know that we are not alone in the struggle.
You see, the one who breathed life into creation is the same one who cried out from the manger in Bethlehem is the same one who walks with us through the trials and sorrows of today.
And while we cannot control every piece of the future, we do know that God is already there, ready to meet us.
For that reason, we face the future unafraid.
No matter what may come, God is with me… God is with you… and I’m excited about that kind of future.

A Way Forward? To Each Their Own Convictions

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Text: Romans 14:4-12

 

“How do we know we are following the way of Christ?… How do we navigate the culture around us?  What happens when Christians disagree profoundly with each other?”

There are just a few of the questions that Rev. Christine Chakoian believes Paul is trying to answer in his letter to the Romans. (CEB Women’s Study Bible Introduction)

And they are questions that we are wrestling with today.

What should we do when United Methodists, faithful followers of Jesus Christ profoundly disagree?  How do we find our way forward?

 

In Paul’s time, the conflict he saw in the Roman community was a clash between Jews and Gentiles – people who followed the laws of the Old Testament and those who had never lived under that law but who were accepting Jesus Christ.

At this point in time, Christianity was not really a separate thing from the Jewish faith…  It was a movement that had begun within the Jewish community, but it was also quickly taking root in Gentile communities who had no knowledge of or cultural connection with the Jewish faith

This created all sorts of problems:

Should someone be circumcised into the Jewish faith before being able to follow Jesus?

Did the Jewish dietary laws have to be followed?

What are the holy days that must be honored?

When you got to a cosmopolitan, diverse place like Rome, you had folks in the same community who held vastly different opinions about how the faith should be practiced.

People who ate meat and people who didn’t.

People who were circumcised and those who weren’t.

“One group, “Jeanette Good writes, “believes that the ‘right way’ is to rely solely on texts of old interpreted literally, and the other group is adamant that the ‘right way’ is to believe that God is being revealed in new ways to each generation.  Both groups are ‘in their camps’ and are sure their positions are the right ones.”  [1]

 

Sound familiar?

 

It would be impossible for us to talk about what comes next and how the various proposals to lead us forward might play out without getting a sense of the current landscape of the United Methodist Church today and the camps that people have fallen into.

We have them represented here by these four vessels of water.

The way I describe these camps is going to use terminology initially coined by Tom Lambrecht, the vice-president of Good News, a more conservative coalition within the UMC and then adopted by Tom Berlin.  Tom Berlin not only wrote the stewardship book that we shared together this summer, but he serves a theologically diverse church on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.   Both were members of the Commission on a Way Forward and both are noted as authors of two very different plans that have been proposed that we will discuss next week.

 

If you were here last week, we talked about six scriptures that have historically been understood to condemn homosexuality within the bible.  If you missed this message or the one from the week before, you can pick up a copy on the back table.

We also discussed how our task as people of faith is to think theologically:  to ask and reflect upon how God is working in the world today.   We begin with scriptures like these and we interpret and translate and make sense of them in light of other scripture, the tradition that has been passed down to us, and our own human reason and experience.

These four sources, what we call the Wesleyan quadrilateral, helps the church translate the gospel to the world, but also helps the church make sense of the world around us. Last week, I asked some theological questions that we are called to wrestle with as a result of reading these passages:

  • Does the description of people in this passage reflect our experience of LGBT+ persons today?
  • What do scripture, tradition, reason, and experience lead us to claim are taboo sexual acts today, framed by our understanding of Christian community?
  • What is natural for LGBT persons? What are the fruits we see in the lives of LGBT persons?
  • How do we talk about sex, sexuality, and identity that rejects the way people use and abuse one another and helps all people to honor their bodies?

 

Those who would find themselves in the progressive camp read these six scriptures, faithfully interpret them, reflect theologically, and believe that they do not condemn LGBT+ persons.

They believe that some these passages refer to culturally bound understandings of holiness that no longer apply in Christian community.

These passages are not talking about loving, mutual, relationships between two persons, but instead about exploitive violent actions and abuse or cultic sexual practices.

Members of this camp would also point to scriptures that they believe affirm LGBT+ persons within the scriptures.

For example, King David and Saul’s son Jonathan had a close relationship.  After Jonathan’s death, David laments:  “I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan!  You were so dear to me!  Your love was more amazing to me than the love of women.” (2 Samuel 1:26)

They might also point to the time when Jesus healed the servant of a Roman centurian in Matthew 8 and Luke 7.  Here, the Greek word for servant or slave – doulos – is not used, but instead, the word, pais, is used to describe the unwell person.   A pais in this time was either a child – a son,  or a close personal attendant, or was sometimes used to refer to a younger male lover.  Progressives see this as a possible example of Jesus encountering an LGBT+ person and not hesitating to heal… in fact, even affirming the strength of this person’s faith.
Progressives would call us to look for the fruit in the lives of all persons who claim the Christian faith – do they love God and their neighbor?  And for those who have experienced the call of God in their lives to serve, it wouldn’t matter if they were gay or straight.  Progressives believe that the same standards for holiness should apply to all relationships, whether gay or straight.  Is anyone being harmed through this sexual act?  Does this relationship demonstrate mutual love and respect?  How are chastity and fidelity expressed through this person’s life?

Progressives also would point to the marginalization of LGBT+ persons, not only in history but all around us today as well.  They see current prohibitions in church law as harmful not only to our witness, but to the actual lives of LGBT+ persons.  They would point towards statistics that show that LGBT youth are at a much higher risk for both homelessness and suicide than their peers and that LGBT youth for whom faith is important to them had a 5x higher rate of suicidal thoughts than their straight peers. [2]

As Jesus calls us to reach out to the sick, the oppressed, the hungry in order to offer life and life abundant, progressive United Methodists believe that a church that is not actively in ministry with LGBT+ persons and fully inclusive is being unfaithful to the gospel.

Those who would find them in the traditionalist camp read these six scriptures, faithfully interpret them, reflect theologically, and believe that scripture is clear about the prohibition of homosexual acts.

While justice might be a key word to describe progressives, covenant might be a key term for traditionalists.

They believe that these passages, along with others, describe what personal holiness looks like within the Christian community and that if we interpret the meaning away from these scriptures, than all of our understandings of personal holiness might be compromised.  God has created us in a particular way, man and woman were designed for one another, and only within the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman are sexual acts pleasing to God.

When we choose to follow Christ, traditionalists would argue, we reject the ways of this world and allow ourselves to be conformed instead to Christ.  That is the covenant under which we now live.

Traditionalists believe are called, in community, to hold one another accountable to this covenant.  That means there must be a clear, shared understandings of what is right and what is not.  To be faithful to the gospel, one must call out sin and invite repentance and transformation.  If we fail to do so, then we are allowing that person to remain on a path that might permanently separate them from God’s love.

 

So these are the camps in which we find ourselves today.  Progressives and Traditionalists, who each love the church, love Jesus, and love scripture.

 

When we turn back to the Apostle Paul and his description of conflict within the early Christian community in Rome, he appears to have solid advice for us to rely upon today.

“One person considers some days to be more sacred than others, while another person considers all days to the be same.  Each person must have their own convictions.  Someone who thinks that a day is sacred, thinks that way for the Lord.  Those who eat, eat for the Lord, because they thank God.  And those who don’t eat, don’t eat for the Lord, and they thank the Lord too.”

To each their own, Paul appears to be saying.

These practices, these convictions, they are not essential to what it means to follow Jesus.

If you are celebrating particular holy days in the Lord’s name – great!

If you choose to refrain from participating in the Lord’s name – great!

Because you are doing it all in the name of Jesus.

Whether or not you keep kosher laws or are circumcised or whether you prefer pew chairs or pews – as long as you are focused on your Lord – that’s all that really matters.

Paul goes on to say that we should not judge one another for our various convictions.  Each person will stand before the Lord in their own time.  We are not to force our own convictions about practices upon one another, nor are we to be a stumbling block to another person’s faith by allowing our practices to interfere with those of others.

 

Within these progressive and traditionalist camps in the United Methodist Church today are those who take Paul’s words to heart.  Tom Berlin uses sugar packets instead of vessels of water to demonstrate these various positions.

As you can see there are progressives and traditionalists represented here who have their own deeply held convictions about how we should relate to LGBT+ persons – justice and full inclusion or covenant faithfulness.

But there are those within each of these camps that understand people who have been wrestling with these questions arrive in different places.  These folks also don’t believe that the answer to this particular question is essential to our faith.

Lambrecht and Berlin would refer to these folks as compatibilists.

Compatibilists are willing to remain in community with those who disagree with them.  They know and understand that our very church is full of a diversity of perspectives on this topic, but that what unifies us as United Methodists – what IS essential is our understanding of grace, our focus on personal and social holiness, and the connection that allows us to be in ministry across this globe.

Compatibilists might best be described as those who firmly hold their own particular theological convictions, but also respect the theological convictions of others.  As we live together within the church, what is important is that there is freedom of conviction and no one is forced to act against their own beliefs.

As long as you love God and love your neighbor and seek to live and die for the Lord, the non-essentials of our faith should not divide us.
There are those within each of the progressive and traditionalist camps, however, who would reject the idea that this is a non-essential of our faith.

They would argue that Paul is talking here are about practices like what we eat and wear – truly non-essential things.  But values like justice and covenant are not something you can compromise.

Traditional non-compatibilists believe that our call to covenantal holiness requires us to maintain these standards across the church. They want the church to be faithful to what they believe are obvious prohibitions within scripture.  We are not called to be blown to and fro by the winds of culture, but must hold firm to the tradition that has been passed down to us.

Progressive non-compatibilists believe that our call to justice for all people requires us to see anew who Jesus is standing with in the margins.  They want the church to be faithful to what they believe are the obvious cries for inclusion within scripture.  We are not called to a legalistic faith, but must allow the Holy Spirit to lead us and recognize the presence of God in LGBT+ persons.

 

Within the United Methodist Church today, this division has created our current conflict.

Progressives are dissatisfied with the current language within our Book of Discipline and by and believes that it harms our witness for Jesus Christ in the world today.  They believe that they are being faithful to the gospel by disobeying the Book of Discipline in order to celebrate same-gender weddings and welcome LGBT+ folks into ministry of the church.

Those who are Traditional Non-Compatibilists see these actions and feel like the covenant we have made with one another has been broken.  They feel personally harmed by this betrayal and some are leaving these churches as a result.

Traditionalists who are frustrated that the covenant has not been honored are seeking to maintain the discipline of the church by naming and formalizing consequences of these actions.  We have a process for accountability within our Book of Discipline that begins with the filing of a complaint, and you may have heard in the past few years of such complaints being filed here in Iowa against pastors who have officiated same-gender weddings or who have publicly come out as queer.

Those who are Progressives see these actions and feel like it not only personally harms people who are LGBT+ but has also harmed their congregations as people have left their churches because we are not fully inclusive.

Within the United States, there are regional differences that are apparent.  The Western Jurisdiction is more progressive than other areas and in 2016 consecrated Karen Oliveto as a bishop, a woman who is married to another woman.

Annual conferences across the North Central and Northeastern Jurisdictions have committed to ordaining clergy based on their fruit, not their sexual orientation.
Southern Jurisdictions and Annual Conferences throughout the connection are advocating for a church that maintains its faithfulness to scripture and traditional understandings of marriage.

And there are global factors.

The conversation we have had today is largely U.S. based, but the United Methodist Church is a global denomination.  While assumptions should not be made about any particular area of the global church, it is thought that the majority of our African and Filipino brothers and sisters would describe themselves as traditionalists.  In many of their own cultural realities, homosexuality is rejected and in some places even an illegal practice.  Others, in parts of our connection like Western Europe, would align more with the progressives.  The goal of the Commission on a Way Forward was this:  To design a way for being church that maximizes the presence of a United Methodist witness in as many places in the world as possible, that allows for as much contextual differentiation as possible, and that balances an approach to different theological understandings of human sexuality with a desire for as much unity as possible.

 

Is the question of human sexuality an essential of our faith?  Will our response divide the church?

Or is it a non-essential?  Is it a place where we can respectfully disagree and create space for one another?

The plans that we will explore together next week will answer those questions differently.  The impact of these plans on our particular congregation can only be known if we have a sense of where this church itself stands.

For that reason, I want to invite you each to take and fill out one of these yellow surveys.  We will compile these anonymous responses in order to have a sense of the impact any of these plans might have on this church.

I’m going to give you a few minutes to do so right now.  There are four simple questions to answer.

First, based on what we have described today, where would you place yourself on this spectrum of progressive/traditional and compatible/non-compatible?

Next, three questions about how you personally might respond if there were or were not changes to our Book of Discipline.

As a reminder, here is a general description of the Book of Discipline’s current language:

The Book of Discipline affirms that we should be in ministry with all persons and reject homophobia.  It also states that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.  Marriage is defined as between one man and one woman.  Self-avowed practicing homosexuals may not be ordained as clergy.

 

What I want to leave us with today is a phrase that John Wesley clung to in his own ministry – a phrase that exemplifies the spirit of our passage in Romans today:

 

In essentials, unity.

In non-essentials, liberty.

In all things love.

 

May God continue to lead us as hold fast to the essentials of our faith, respect differences in non-essentials, and may love been the source of all that we do.

Let’s stand together as we are able and affirm some of those essentials that form the core of our faith.

[1] Jeanette Good.  Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 4, p 65

[2] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/queer-youth-religion-suicide-study_us_5ad4f7b3e4b077c89ceb9774

A Way Forward? 25-cent words

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Texts:  Philippians 4:8-9, Matthew 22:34-40

This past year as I taught confirmation, one of our lessons focused on how we are all theologians.
I wrote that word up on the board and one of our students exclaimed – WOW! That’s a 25-cent word!
There was an old idiom that you shouldn’t use a 50-cent word when a 5-cent word will do.
But just because a word is complicated doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it.
So we unpacked it. We defined it. And suddenly, that 25-cent word wasn’t so scary anymore.

Today, we need to talk about some 25-cent words.
These are words are important and form the background of both the conflict within our denomination and in how we might move beyond this tension.
So… will you pray with me?
Compassionate God, all creation delights in the presence of your Word.
May the authority of your Spirit bring understanding into our confused minds, and truth into our troubled hearts, that we may praise and serve Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (from the Worship@North website. https://northchurchindy.wordpress.com/ )

We are going to start in the same place as our confirmands. Our first 25-cent word is… theologian.
I am a theologian.
I have a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt University and I spent three and a half years studying divine things like scripture and ancient texts and history and the thoughts of other theologians.

But you know what?
You are a theologian, too.
You see, a theologian is simply anyone who reflects upon God’s action in the world today and as United Methodists we believe that every single one of us is called to this task.
Every generation must wrestle with our faith in a changing world.
The church needs to see problems and challenges like sexual abuse or global migration so we can provide a faithful response.
But, we also need to be able to figure out how to communicate the truth of our faith to a world that increasingly can’t understand us.
Theology helps us to do both.
Whether or not you knew it before worship today, you are a theologian.
I want you to claim that! Say out loud and proud: I am a theologian!

And as a theologian, your job is to answer a simple question: What can I say that is faithful to scripture as it has been passed down through tradition, and that makes sense in light of human experience and reason? (paraphrase of Book of Discipline p. 81)
As Paul told the Philippians, we are to focus our thoughts on what is excellent and true, holy and just. We are to practice what we have learned and received and heard from our mentors and teachers of the faith.
That is theology!
And as United Methodist theologians, you have four sources in discovering God at work in the world.
Scripture. Tradition. Experience. Reason.

These four sources make up our next 25-cent word: quadrilateral.
“[John] Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.” (p. 82)
All four are important. All four are necessary. All four help us to see where God is working in the world.
We start with scripture.
We end with scripture.
Scripture is the absolute foundation of all of our theology… so as theologians, we had better be reading and pouring over scripture in our lives.
But… and… scripture is always being interpreted.

First, scripture is interpreted by other scripture.
You cannot take a single verse out of context but need to look at the fullness of the entire passage and story.
And, we come to see as we read the bible that there is an overarching story within the scripture itself… a story of creation and redemption, a story of mistakes and forgiveness, a story that ends in the restoration of all things.
In our gospel, religious leaders ask Jesus to interpret and prioritize scripture for them. His response is one that provides us guidance when we in turn interpret scripture today – how does this verse lead us to love God and love our neighbor? (Matthew 22:34-40)

Next, we have the witness of how people have interpreted that scripture through time. Tradition shows us the “consensus of faith” that has grown out of a particular community’s experience. (p. 85-86)
Not all contexts and communities are the same. The experience of Czech immigrants in the Midwest was very different than that of African slaves in the Deep South. Each community passed on the gospel and created practices of faith that show us how the scripture made sense in their lives. We also connect tradition with the theology of previous generations that have been passed down to us in creeds and writings.

Tradition shows us how communities have understood God, but we also each have or own unique experiences.
Who you are and what you have been through is always with you when you open up the Bible – your pain, joy, anger, gender, economic reality…
It is why you can read the same passage of scripture repeatedly over time and discover something new with each reading.
But Wesley also talked about how God continues to reveal through our experiences and the fruit that we are bearing in our lives. When he saw the call in the lives of women around him, he began to license them as preachers.

Our final source of theology is reason. As the Book of Proverbs reminds us, each person is called to “turn your ear toward wisdom, and stretch your mind toward understanding. Call out for insight, and cry aloud for understanding. ” (Proverbs 2:2-3)
We believe that God reveals truth in many places, not only in scripture, and that we should pursue such knowledge and truth with our whole selves. Science, philosophy, nature: these are all places that help us to gain understanding.
Where we find contradictions within scripture itself or between a passage and wisdom of the world, reason asks what greater truths a verse might be speaking or how to prioritize and discern which is truer.

Our Book of Discipline reminds us that

“United Methodists as a diverse people continue to strive for consensus in understanding the gospel… while exercising patience and forbearance with one another. Such patience stems neither from indifference toward truth nor from an indulgent tolerance of error but from an awareness that we know only in part and that none of us is able to search the mysteries of God except by the Spirit of God. We proceed with our theological task, trusting that the Spirit will grant us wisdom…” (Book of Discipline p. 89)

The simple truth which lies at the heart of our conflict today is that people of faith, United Methodists who care about the scriptures and who come from diverse backgrounds, cannot come to a place of consensus in how we approach matters of human sexuality and in particular how we understand homosexuality.
We might use the quadrilateral differently or prioritize some aspects more than others.
But I think part of the difficulty is that we don’t even have a common understanding of the question we are seeking to answer within the scriptures.
And that means a couple more 25-cent words:

First, homosexuality. This word was initially coined in the 1880s in German and made its way into English usage in the 1890s. The word itself simply refers to sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex. Some modern translations of scripture use this word, but it didn’t even exist at the time the King James Bible was translated.

Many who seek to answer the question of what we should do today start from this definition. Their concern is largely with the physical acts associated with any given sexual orientation. Many prohibitions in our Book of Discipline focus on this as well, using the phrase  “self-avowed, practicing homosexual.” The question being raised by this group is largely about how we use our bodies and whether or not such use is good and holy.

Others focus on a more expansive understanding of the complexity of human sexuality, referring to a wider group of people through the term LGBTQ+.

Science and sociology have helped us to see in the last fifty years that our identity is complicated.
FINAL-genderbread-for-webThis graphic talks about four different aspects of our identity – all of which are placed on a spectrum. Our biological sex, how we identify our gender and how we express it, who we are attracted to… all of these factors play a role… which is why the terminology we use keeps expanding as well. There is a handout at the back that has this graphic as well as some common definitions within LGBTQ+ if you are interested. The question being raised by this group is also about how bodies, but tends to focus more on embodiment and identity as a whole person.

As a denomination, when we bring these questions to General Conference, we seem to have reached our limits of patience and forbearance with one another.
But as people of a local faith community, my prayer is that we can still remember with humility that now we see through a glass darkly and that we still might extend patience and forbearance towards one another as we explore a few scriptures together.

When we open the scriptures, there are six verses that our tradition has used to condemn homosexuality.
Genesis 19: Sodom & Gomorrah
Leviticus 18 & 20: Abomination
Romans 1: Exchanging Natural Relations for Unnatural
1 Corinthians 6 & 1 Timothy 1: “malakoi and arsenokoitai”
As United Methodist theologians, we start with scripture, and we end with scripture so we need to wrestle with these passages as background for our theology today.

 

Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom—everyone from the youngest to the oldest—surrounded the house and called to Lot, “Where are the men who arrived tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may have sex with them.”

First – Genesis 19: 4-5, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Angels from God arrive in order to determine if there are any righteous people in the town. The men of the city knock on the door of the house they are staying and seek to force themselves upon the visitors.
However, this is a great place to start using scripture to interpret scripture. While later Christian tradition adopted sodomy as a term for sinful, non-procreative sex, within the scriptures itself, the sin of Sodom was not sexual in nature. In Ezekiel 16, the prophet names the sin of Sodom as being proud and not helping the poor and needy. This was a culture that relied upon hospitality – when guests arrived the duty of the community was to welcome them and provide for their needs. To violently force yourself upon these visitors, attacking them, raping them, was against every hospitality code of the time. This is a clear violation of the command to love your neighbor.

The question we wrestle with theologically is whether or not our experience of LGBT persons today is reflected in this text.

 

You must not have sexual intercourse with a man as you would with a woman; it is a detestable practice.

 

If a man has sexual intercourse with a man as he would with a woman, the two of them have done something detestable. They must be executed; their blood is on their own heads.

The next two scriptures come from the Holiness Code in the book of Leviticus (18:22, 20:13). In many translations, sex between two men is named as an abomination, or detestable. Both of these chapters are concerned with sexual practices that were forbidden to the people of God as they were entering the Promised Land. It is a rejection of practices both in the land of Egypt and practices that may have been common among others in the land of Canaan.
The Hebrew word that we have translated as abomination or detestible is probably not a fair translation of the word. “Toevah” is understood by many today to instead mean ritually unclean or culturally taboo. The Israelites are called to be holy and set-apart and to adopt cultural practices that are different from their neighbors. In the larger context of Leviticus, these include commands about food, clothing, bodily fluids, and how you treat the stranger among you.
Today, our tradition still considers many of the practices within these two chapters of Leviticus to be culturally taboo, but not all of them. And we have moved away from many of the other prohibitions within these texts that we consider to be culturally bound – like eating shellfish or the cutting of hair. And that’s because we hold a different understanding of what makes us unclean in the eyes of the Lord. Peter’s vision in Acts 10 shifts the conversation within the Christian faith and his encounter with the gentile Cornelius leads him to proclaim, “God has shown me that I should never call a person impure or unclean.” (Actus 10:28)

Theologically, we ask today what scripture, tradition, reason, and experience lead us to claim as taboo sexual acts, framed by our understanding of what forms us as a Christian community that loves God and our neighbor.

 

That’s why God abandoned them to degrading lust. Their females traded natural sexual relations for unnatural sexual relations. Also, in the same way, the males traded natural sexual relations with females, and burned with lust for each other. Males performed shameful actions with males, and they were paid back with the penalty they deserved for their mistake in their own bodies.

Our next scripture comes from Paul’s letter to the Romans. His argument here in the first chapter is that Gentiles and Jews alike are without excuse and full of sin. The Jews have been given the law and claim to follow it but don’t. The Gentiles don’t have the law… instead they should have seen God revealed through nature itself. Augustine and Aquinas and others have carried this concept through our tradition and our use of reason: we can know God through the world around us.
Here in this chapter, Paul argues that the Gentiles should have known God. However, they rejected God and turned instead to idols. As he describes cultic practices of worship, he claims that their idolatry led God to abandon them to their desires. As a consequence, natural sexual relations were exchanged for unnatural ones and these people were filled with jealousy, murder, fighting, deception, gossip, and disobedience to their parents. (Romans 1:29-31)
Theologically, the questions we wrestle with today start with asking what is natural. If one understands homosexuality to be a choice then it would lead you to think that such acts are unnatural. However, for others who believe that persons who are LGBT were created that way, it might be unnatural for them to act against how God has made them.
This is another place where we might ask where our experience shows fruit in the lives of LGBT persons. Paul’s argument here is that same-sex acts are the result of idolatry and cultic worship and these people are filled with other bad behaviors. What are the fruits we see in the lives of people we know who are LBGT? What are the fruits of people who are not LGBT? Do they love God? Do they love their neighbor?

 

Don’t you know that people who are unjust won’t inherit God’s kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Those who are sexually immoral, those who worship false gods, adulterers, both participants in same-sex intercourse,[a] thieves, the greedy, drunks, abusive people, and swindlers won’t inherit God’s kingdom.

 

We understand this: the Law isn’t established for a righteous person but for people who live without laws and without obeying any authority. They are the ungodly and the sinners. They are people who are not spiritual, and nothing is sacred to them. They kill their fathers and mothers, and murder others. They are people who are sexually unfaithful, and people who have intercourse with the same sex. They are kidnappers, liars, individuals who give false testimonies in court, and those who do anything else that is opposed to sound teaching.

The final pairing of scripture is from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. We group them together because they refer to the same two words – malakoi and arsenokoitai. These words have been translated in multiple ways through our history of bible translation.
Malakoi literally means soft and has been translated as effeminate, as the passive homosexual partner, or as a male prostitute.
Arsenokoitai is a word that appears only two times in all of Greek literature – right here in the Bible. It is a word that Paul appears to have made up from two other words: Men and Bed. How tradition understands this word has changed drastically over time. Some think it refers to the dominant homosexual partner. Others think it refers to pimps – men who sell sex. Others think it is connected with temple prostitution, or the practice of older men taking young men (soft men) as sexual partners within the culture of the time.
In the context of the litany of other acts included in this list however, perhaps the Message translation most accurately captures the spirit of this passage. “those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom.”
The truth is, we have all done these things. But the grace of God is present in our lives and has redeemed us and so our call now is to honor God, creation, and our neighbors… and that includes honoring our bodies.

What can we say theologically about sex, sexuality, and our identity that rejects the way people use and abuse one another and helps all people to honor their bodies?

 

As I faithfully wrestle with a theological response to the presence and promise of LGBT persons in the life of the church, I am fully aware that I might end up coming to a different conclusion than you. We are all theologians after all, all tasked with using scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to weigh what we believe to be faithful responses in the world today.
The very conflict within our denomination is the result of this very tension and next week we’ll explore how people of faith have found themselves aligned with various positions today.
But my prayer, above all else, is that we would continue to lift up as our number one priority the love of God and the love of one another – and that includes those who don’t agree with us.
Our call as people of faith after all is to provide a welcome so vast and so radical that all might come to know and experience the saving grace of God lives. May it be so. Amen.

Eve Meets Mary

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Lately, as I’ve made my way home from work here at the church, I can see the stars in the sky. And it’s not because I’m here until 10pm.

No, the days are growing shorter… the air colder…
This is the time of year when we are preparing ourselves for the longest night, the winter solstice, and while the daylight wanes, we are clinging to reminders that better days are ahead.

Right here, in the midst of this season of darkness, we remember that it is in the darkness that new life comes.
The bulb has to be planted within the cold, dark earth to bring forth its buds.
Babies grow and are formed in the dark warmth of the womb.
And in this “bleak midwinter” we set out our evergreens and yule logs to remember that resurrection and eternal life are ours.
We are waiting, you see, during this time of Advent for the birth of the child spoken of by prophets… the Savior, Messiah, Prince of Peace, Light of the World.
And… as people born on this side of his birth, life, death, and resurrection… we are still waiting.
Advent you see, is not only a season of remembrance. It is also a time to look forward. The fullness of that kin-dom that Christ came to bring has not yet fully been realized.
All we have to do is open the newspaper to know that God’s will has not been done on earth.
We are still waiting.

Earlier this week, I heard news reports that the Island of Puerto Rico still only has power for 46% of its residents. The devastation of Hurricane Maria was so severe that months after the winds and rain poured down, rural areas still do not have any access to resources.
But not only Maria… the impacts of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana are still being felt.
While it is not as present in the news, the continual onslaught of storms in Louisiana has had a doubled impact because of the simultaneous destruction of wetlands. The dead zone in the Gulf created by run-off farther up the Mississippi and the altering of the flow of the Mississippi for human habitation has devastated the area. The US Geological Survey now reports that nearly 1,900 square miles of land have disappeared in the last seventy years.
Sometimes, the sin and destruction and pain of this world is almost too much to bear.
Sometimes, it feels like we have been waiting too long.
Sometimes, it is hard to have any hope when we look out at reality.

Maybe that is why I find so much comfort in the words of The Archbishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput. He defines hope as a choice, “a self-imposed discipline to trust in God while judging ourselves and the world with unblinkered, unsentimental clarity.”
Those words remind me that hope is not a naïve sentiment or wishful thinking.
We can look out unfiltered at the world that surrounds us… and we find hope at the intersection of what we see and our faithful trust in God
Hope doesn’t shirk away from problems or difficulties, but enters into them, confident that God will be there and will bring order, life, and joy out of the chaos.
That hope is not only for you and me. It is for all of creation. This whole world is waiting with us.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are reminded that “the whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice – it was the choice of the one who subjected it – but in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from slavery and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children. We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now.”

Whatever was intended for creation, with the tree of life and fertile land and those first humans holding dominion over it all, is not what we experience today.  When we read through those first chapters of Genesis, there is no mention of rainfall or storms, no death, no decay, only life, and life abundant.

Our faith explains the brokenness of creation – the cycles of destruction, natural disasters, violence, and death by pointing to a single moment: When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden (Genesis 3:6-7).
At that moment, everything changed.
That first sin, that first rejection of God’s intentions, had an impact on the entire world! God confronts Adam and Eve and there is not only punishment for the snake and the two humans, but as Genesis tells us, “cursed is the fertile ground because of you; in pain you will eat from it every day of your life. Weeds and thistles will grow for you, even as you eat the field’s plants; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread – until you return to the fertile land.” (Genesis 3:17-19)
We acknowledge this pain of creation even in the songs we sing this time of year. We proclaim how “fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy”…. But we also sing about the groaning of the earth itself and its longing for redemption… “no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.” (Isaac Watts, Joy to the World, UMH #246)

And as our Advent candle reading from Isaiah lifts up, it was not only the first sin of Adam and Eve that impacted creation, but as we continue to sin, the earth dries up and withers. (Isaiah 24:4-5)
Theologically, we are called to remember that our selfishness, our disobedience, our breaking of the covenant impacts the physical world around us. Because of our continued sin, the whole of creation is trapped in a cycle of death, enslaved by decay, and waiting to be set free.

So where is the hope that Paul writes of in Romans? Where do we turn for hope as we look out at the groaning of creation today?

maryconsoleseven

One afternoon I stumbled upon an image that took my breath away.

It was drawn by Sister Grace Remington who is a member of the Cistercian Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey here in Iowa. It depicts Eve, clad only in the flowing locks of her hair and clutching that forbidden piece of fruit. Her leg is entwined in the grip of a snake; her head hung in shame. Evil, sin, and death are her legacy. It is our legacy.
But with one arm, she reaches out and places her hand on Mary’s womb.

Mary stands there full of grace and mercy.
She gently touches the face of Eve as if to tell her it is okay. She holds her other hand over Eve’s and together they feel and experience the life of the one who was coming to redeem and restore all the creation.
There is hope.
When Paul writes about the groaning of creation and all of God’s children, he describes that pain as nothing compared with the “coming glory that is going to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18)
And then in verse 22, he uses the Greek word synōdinō to portray this reality; a word used only once in scripture to describe the agony of childbirth.
Creation is suffering labor pains.
Something new is about to be born.

In this season of Advent, this image of Eve and Mary fills my heart with possibility and invites me to hear the words of Romans 8 in a different light.
So often, I hear the frustration and groaning of the text, instead of diving in to see the good news.
Yes, the world around us is groaning, but they are labor pains. Creation itself is about to be delivered, to be release, to be set free to become what God fully intends for it.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul keeps pointing back towards Adam, because in those first human beings, we see God’s ultimate intention for the human race.
Paul believes that in Christ, in that child that would be born of Mary, the human project finds it’s completion (Jospeh Sittler).
In the beginning, there was a part for humanity to play – tending the garden, carrying the image of God, helping all of creation to thrive.
And now, as Christ is born into our lives and we claim the Spirit of God that sets us free, it is our job to take up that role once again.
As this image conveys, in Christ, we find release from our temptations… that snake of sin that would bind us is being stomped on by Mary.
In Christ, we find forgiveness for past transgressions… the head hung in shame and guilt is gently touched, the hand is embraced.
The way we have lived on this world – using and abusing God’s gifts for our own intentions – doesn’t have to be the way that we move forward.

In fact, Paul tells the Romans that those who have been set free by the Spirit of Christ have an obligation to live as God’s sons and daughters right here and now.
Not for our sake.
Not for selfish reasons.
But because the whole earth is waiting for us to do so.
The love and mercy of Christ reaches out to us as the descendents of Adam and Eve and yes, we are offered forgiveness, but more than than, we are empowered by God’s Spirit to live differently.

Paul believed that God linked the restoration of creation with you and me, and so I find hope in this season of Advent in the possibility that people of faith can help to change the tides of decay.

All throughout this season, we will highlight some of those stories and ways we can make an impact, but these Christmas Trees here at the front of the church remind me of one…

 

In the midst of that loss of habitat and wetlands in the Louisiana delta, people are working to restore the wetlands and help mitigate the impact of storms by collecting used Christmas trees.
As they deposit them into threatened bayous, they become the basis for new marsh vegetation and they help to reverse erosion.

We have a choice of how to live on this earth and whether or not we will obey the call of God to care for all of creation.
Just like this image of Eve, may we be transformed by the birth of Christ into our lives, so that we might be the hope for the world.

 

NOTE:  This sermon is an adaptation from chapter one of my book, “All Earth Is Waiting.”

Copyright © 2024 Rev. Katie Z. Dawson. All rights reserved.