Romans – Page 4 – Salvaged Faith

A summer of confession and struggle and hope

Posted on July 2, 2011Leave a comment

I have decided to journey through the book of Romans with my church folks this summer.

a) it’s the lectionary
b) I haven’t spent that much time with Romans before
c) it is fitting in nicely with our visioning process
d) it has absolutely positively hit me right in the gut and there is A LOT to preach about

I started off with confession… about one of the worst days of my life recently. Not that bad things happened, but that I was a terrible, awful person that day. Those verses in Romans spoke directly to my life and so I used my life as a lens for the good news to shine through.

This might be a very difficult summer of preaching if every Sunday asks so much of us… but I think in the long run, it’s going to do amazing things in this church!

I’m going to link here the weekly installments, just to keep them in one place:

P+3 – June 26: STOP… in the name of Love.
P+4 – July 3:
P+5 – July 10: LIFE in the Spirit
(vacation and youth mission trip took up a few weeks)
P+8 – Aug 7:
P+9 – Aug 14:
P+10 – Aug 21:

STOP… in the name of Love.

Posted on June 26, 2011Leave a comment

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Do any of you have days that you aren’t proud of?

I had one of them just a few months ago.

It was a day where I was grumpy and snarky. I was gossipy and rude.

My husband and I had a fight the day before and the disagreement still had not been resolved. The anger I was feeling crept out in a thousand different ways.

We just so happened to be at my in-laws that Saturday.

And when my husband’s grandfather confronted me about my changed attitude, my quick response was – “It’s my day off from church… I’m allowed.”

UGH!

Friends… I am not a perfect person, and I will never pretend to be a perfect person.

But as soon as those words slipped out of my mouth… as soon as I said, “It’s my day off from church… I’m allowed…” I realized how very wrong those words were… and how very wrong my bent towards sin was on that day.

This morning, we begin a journey with Paul and the church of the Romans. Paul has some really challenging words to share with us over the coming weeks and months… words that might cause you to sit back and say: UGH!

But that is what we are here for. We are here to encourage one another… to hold one another accountable… and to help each other grow deeper in their relationship with God and their love of other people.

Let us pray:

Dylan shared with us just a few minutes ago some words from the apostle Paul to the church in Rome.

Paul was a Roman citizen, a man with some standing in his little corner of the world, with rights and responsibilities some could only dream of.

When he writes a letter to the church in Rome, it is kind of like writing a letter today to the church in Washington, D.C. He is writing to the very seat of power. He is writing to people who are movers and shakers. He is writing to people who have influence in the world…

But in current terms, Paul was a nobody to the Romans. He would be like the mayor of a small Iowan town writing a letter to congress. No one knows who he is… and no one important would pay him the time of day.

So Paul is also writing to their servants and slaves and the commoners without any citizenship and status who have heard about God’s love and grace and have become a part of the church also.

And so Paul doesn’t start out his letter by listing his credentials…

He begins by talking about Jesus Christ and his work. He begins by saying, I am a slave of Christ Jesus….

Up until now, Paul has not made a journey to the city of Rome and has not had the opportunity to visit the church there. So this letter represents Paul’s first words to this church. It contains everything that he thinks it is important that they know.

In these pages are great and wonderful thoughts about sin and death and salvation and how we should live together as followers of Christ.

And so for a while, we are going to spend some time in this one letter, and see what Paul might also have to say to us today…

Since we are not starting at the very beginning, I want to give you a quick summary of what is contained in the first five chapters.

Paul writes at great length that all of us are under the power of sin. Gentiles don’t have any good reason to be excused from the power of sin. Jews don’t either. There is nothing that we can do to escape its power. Not works, not the law, not ritual, not closing a blind eye… nothing.

Nothing… except faith. Except trust. Except accepting the grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

His faithfulness makes us righteous. His faithfulness makes us worthy. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and by his blood we have been reconciled to God.

And so, by faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we have died to that old power of sin and now live under the power of grace.

All of that brings us to our scripture for this morning.

We are beginning our journey with this passage of scripture, because here is where it gets really practical.

If none of us can escape from the power of sin on our own… and if Christ really died to set us free… and if we accept and trust in that grace of God that Jesus Christ showed us…

Then what?

How are we supposed to live now?

Paul’s answer in these verses is simple… Stop letting sin get the better of you.

Stop offering parts of yourself to sin, to be used as weapons for wrong.

Stop setting aside pieces of your life, giving them to things that are not godly.

Paul is reminding us… if you truly accept and trust in the grace of God… there are no days off for sinning.

Remember my very bad, horrible, no good day…

Because of the argument my husband and I had, I let the anger I was feeling have control. I let it. I took all of those feelings and set them aside in a neat little box and decided that I didn’t need God’s help in dealing with them.

And because I gave that anger power and because I gave it free reign in my life, it took over. The next day I was bitter, and I had a quick wit and biting humor, and when I washed the dishes I banged pots and pans around… oh my goodness… I was a terrible person that day!

I CHOSE to let sin in. I chose to let my mind and my personality be under its power. I gave in.

Now, the thing is, in my old life… my life before Jesus Christ… that would have been normal. I didn’t have a choice. Capital “S” sin… the power of Sin was there, lurking around every corner and it had me by a tight leash.

But Christ broke those chains. Christ ended the reign of sin in my life. Christ set me free.

And through faith in Jesus Christ and the sharing of the sacraments… you too, can be and have been set free from the power of sin.

We are no longer ruled by sin…. And so now we are free to live holy lives.

The thing that always hangs us up at this point is the freedom has been defined as the power to do whatever we want.

But the truth is… we are always ruled by something. Our feelings, our government, our thoughts…

Just because sin doesn’t have control, doesn’t mean we can go about whilly nilly in this world.

And so in this passage, Paul introduces us to step two…

First, we were freed from the power of sin

So now… live under the power of grace. Live under the power of God. Turn your life over to God’s plan and purpose.

To do that requires a two part choice…. We have to STOP offering pieces of ourselves over to sin. And we have to START offering ourselves as instruments to God.

You see… the grace of God can and will make a difference in our lives… but only if we let it. Only if we don’t hold back parts of ourselves from God’s transforming power.

In this passage, Paul grabs us by the shoulders and is shaking us awake… At least I know for me it was like a slap in the face….

YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN! He reminds us. Sin has no more power over you…

YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN! So stop making excuses and trying to justify your poor choices.

YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN! So stop living your faith only on church days and start living your faith every single moment.

YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN! A new person! A fresh start! God’s holy creation!

So stop living like you did in the past and start embracing the power God gives you to be a child of God.

All around us this morning are stop signs.

They remind us that it is time to stop living like we did yesterday or last week, or whenever it was that you let Sin have power over you last.

In each of the pews, there are some smaller versions of these stop signs and I want to invite you to take one home with you.

Stick it on your bathroom mirror. Put it on the wheel in your car. Place it somewhere you will see it every single day. And let it be a reminder to you that you have the power to STOP living under the power of sin. You can STOP letting sin rule your day.

I want you to hold those stop signs in your hands for just a moment and think about one thing… one habit… one person or one situation that needs to stop being a part of your life so that you can say YES to God and start living the way God wants you.

If you have a pen… maybe write that thing on the back of your stop sign.

Let us commit together, to stop letting sin have power in our lives…. And let us together live holy and godly lives.

Amen!

Love… gotta have it!

Posted on December 19, 2010Leave a comment

The Sunday that I traveled up to Cherokee, my nine-year-old cousin Taylor was baptized.

One afternoon, she came home very upset from school.

You see, one of her best friends at school had asked her that day if she had been baptized.

Taylor wasn’t sure, and her little friend responded: If you aren’t baptized, you can’t be a child of God.

When I first heard the story, I remember feeling a flash of horror come over me. Did she really say that? What a terrible and awful thing to say to someone!

And then I started to wonder why exactly that statement was so off-putting to me: If you aren’t baptized, you can’t be a child of God.

Looking deeper, I realized that my understanding of baptism… the Methodist church’s understanding of baptism is very different from the view expressed by that little girl.

You see, in our United Methodist tradition, baptism isn’t a pre-requisite for receiving the love of God… it is a sign, it is a reminder, that we are already loved.

Baptism is acknowledgment of the fact that God’s grace is already active in our lives… it goes before us – before we even know it is there.

Pop quiz time: Who remembers what kind of grace that is? The grace that goes before us?

Prevenient grace – gold star!

As much as that statement about baptism made me quake a little bit – there is also a measure of truth to the statement. In baptism, we do put on Christ, we are clothed in his righteousness, we are adopted in the family so to speak. In our baptism, but also in our confirmation of that faith when we stand before the church and profess what we believe, we are say to God – I accept that you have called me and claimed me. I will live as a child of God with your help.

But what is important to remember is that it all starts with God. And God acts in our lives because we are loved.

Often times, it is hard to see God acting in the world. Sometimes the world is cloudy and dim and life seems bleak. In fact, in our Advent scriptures this morning, we hear words of promise spoken to people who were scared and broken. In the midst of troubled days, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah and offered a sign – a young woman is with child and will bear a son… and his name will be Immanuel.

God with us. Emmanuel.

God acted when He spoke His Word and all creation came into being. God with us, Emmanuel.

God acted when He led Abraham to the promised land. God with us, Emmanuel.

God acted when He saved a baby from the Nile river and led His people out of Egypt. God with us, Emmanuel.

God acted when He anointed a young boy named David as King over the people. God with us, Emmanuel.

God acted when He spoke through the prophets and gave them warnings and signs and promises. God with us, Emmanuel.

And then God acted in the life of a peasant girl from Nazareth. God with us, Emmanuel.
Paul saw these mighty acts of God as he looked back upon the faith he received and he proclaimed that it is through Christ – through the prophecies, through his ancestry, through his birth and life and resurrection – that God has come to be with us. Emmanuel.

He knew that it is only through Christ Jesus that hope, peace, joy and love are truly possible. In Christ we receive this generous gift of life, Paul writes, and we have the urgent task of passing it on to others who will receive it.

We have the obligation… the responsibility… right now… to take this hope, peace, joy and love that is taking root in our hearts… God with us… and to share it with everyone we meet.

And what is it that we proclaim?

God is with us… Emmanuel. And just as he did in the past, God goes before us making a new way.

I think a prime example of that during this Advent season is the vision given to Joseph.

Can you imagine what this man must have been feeling? He is engaged to Mary, looking forward to their marriage, and he comes to find out that she is pregnant.

God did it, she tells him.

Yeah…. Right… Of course he did… Our God goes around impregnating people.

But he loved this young woman.

According to the law, her punishment would have been stoning. But he didn’t even consider it. He didn’t want to make a scene, he didn’t want to humiliate her… and he certainly didn’t want to pretend that another man’s child was his.

He made up his mind to break off the engagement quietly. She wasn’t showing yet – people wouldn’t know that she had cheated on him.

And just when he had finally worked up the courage to do it and layed down to get some rest, an angel appeared to him in his dream.

St. Joseph with Christ Child. Michael D. O’Brien

Do not be afraid, the angel said.

Her child was conceived by God, the angel assured him.

God has done this to save his people… remember the prophets? Remember Isaiah? This is the one that you have been waiting for. This is Emmanuel. This is God, come to be with you.

Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.

God acted once again. God intervened and spoke words of comfort and peace.

And Joseph woke up, and took Mary as his wife.

I can actually imagine him running out the door in the middle of the night and heading over to her father’s house. I can see him pounding on the door, begging to see her. I can see them rushing over to the nearest rabbi’s house and waking up the whole household in the process…. Can you marry us tonight?

Because you see, when we realize that God is with us. When we realize that Emmanuel has come to dwell in our lives… we are filled with urgency. Urgency to share that good news with others. Urgency to tell the story. Urgency to obey God’s commands. Urgency to spread hope and peace and joy and love to everyone we meet.

When my cousin Taylor came home from school, believing that she wasn’t a child of God, my uncle sprang into action. He called up the pastor and asked what could be done. And there is no better way to remind us of the way that God loves us – the way that God has already acted in our lives – than to touch these cool waters of baptism.

And so, with our whole family there, that weekend, we surrounded Taylor with our love, reminded her of God’s love for her, and she knew that she was a child of God. She knew that God was with her… Emmanuel.

The only question left for us is who needs to hear those words today? Who needs to know that they too are loved? Where is God already moving and waiting for you to act?

Hope… that next year things will be different

Posted on November 28, 2010Leave a comment

Keep awake! Get ready! Prepare yourselves!

These are the words that fly at us from the scriptures on this first Sunday of Advent.

But get ready for what?

Light? Dawn? The son of Man?

Yes. Yes. And Yes.

Get ready for the hope of the world…

Will you pray with me? (adapted from Thom Shuman)

Lord of all:
you are as close to us as the breath in our lungs:
helping us to treat everyone with honor and respect;
healing us with serenity in these days of stress;
taking us by the hand to walk us home to the kingdom.
teach us all we need to know,
if we will but open our hearts, and listen to yours.
Help us to quit working the night shift in sin’s sweat shops,
but to dance in the Light of Advent joy.

How many of you have ever had a bad day? What about a bad week? Or a whole year?

Life is downright tough sometimes. It is unfair. It is cruel. We finally find the job we have been searching for, and then our spouse gets laid off. A misunderstanding destroys a friendship. Natural disasters wipe homes off the map. Children go hungry. And sometimes in the midst of all of the problems that we face in this world… the trials and the tribulations… it feels like God turns his back towards us.

And so, sometimes, in our frustrating times… in the days that seem without hope… we turn our backs on God.

We look for salvation in every place but the right place.

We look for things that will make us feel better – we self medicate with drugs and shopping sprees.

We turn towards the darkness and yell at it for being so dark.

And we continue to feel alone, and empty, and lost.

Have you ever been there? Yelling at the darkness? Do you know how much energy it takes to fight with something like “darkness”?

When I think back on the tough times that I have been through in my life… and as I have listened to folks share their own stories… the thing that finally got them out of the rut, out of that dark place, was that they woke up.

Whether or not the situation changed, they woke up. They started living their lives differently. They took stock of what was really important. They stopped being mad at the dark and started trying to let their own light shine.

It seems contrite to say that there are two ways of looking at world – either as a glass half-full or a glass half-empty… but maybe it really is as simple as that.

Either the world is a place of darkness or it is a place where the light of God dwells…

Either God has abandoned us or God is working out a plan of salvation.

Either Christ’s work is done or soon and very soon the Son of Man is coming…

Can you hear the difference in those statements?

Are we going to live as a people of the light?

Or are we going to let the dark overcome us?

That is our choice.

That is why the prophets and the apostles cry out – Keep Awake! Get Ready! Prepare Yourselves!

Stop living in the darkness, they keep saying: Let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Let us put on Christ, let us trim our lamps, lets get ready!

Sounds great… but how?

First to live in the light of hope, we need to stop living in the darkness. We need to let go off everything that bogs us down and drains us. In the words of the apostle Paul: we can’t afford to waste a minute, we must not squander these precious hours of daylight in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed!

I want you to take a minute and think about one thing that you can do differently this Advent season as you prepare for Christmas. What something that you can do that will renew your hope and your faith… instead of depleting your energy and your bank account? Maybe instead of spending all day on Saturday shopping for the perfect present, you will take some time next Saturday morning to have coffee and devotions with someone you have not spent time with lately… Whatever it is – Talk for a moment with someone near you about something you can do to “Wake Up!” this season.

Second: We have to remember that living in hope isn’t something that we have to do alone.

We all know Pollyannas and Susy Sunshines in our lives… people who are perpetually happy and optimistic. And sometimes their hopefulness is a little annoying because it doesn’t seem real, it doesn’t seem possible.

I’m not asking you to go out and look at all of the bad things in the world and pretend that they aren’t there.

Instead, to live in hope, means that we surround ourselves with people who can help us find a way out of the darkness.

When folks have a tough time, one of the first places they turn is the church. And that is because we are known for our love and our generosity. We are known for our compassion. We are known for being a people who let our light shine.

So when you are having a tough time – when you are having a hard time finding hope – then turn to those people around you who can hope for you. I know that we are a bunch of proud, do-it-yourself, hardworking midwesterners… but sometimes you need to be able to say, I need help. What better place to turn when you have no where else to go than to the people of hope?

And when you are able – you can in turn be hope for others.

We don’t do this very often, but this morning, I want to pass around our special offering basket.

There are a number of people in our community who need an extra bit of help right now. They need to see a sign of hope that next year can and will be different.

A number of our community funds are low and it is hard to give everyone the kind of assistance they need. But you can help. You can remind others that they are not alone this Christmas. You can be hope for someone through your giving right now, right here.

Lastly, to live in hope, we need to keep God at the center of it all. We need to keep the word and the path in front of us. When we take the time to seek the light of the world– then no darkness that comes will ever be able to put that light out.

I want to invite our children to come back up here and to bring their papers.

We talked about hope and transformation earlier and I asked them to help me out this morning. So they took these white sheets of paper and colored on them with white crayons.

And we wrote HOPE on these pages, didn’t we. We drew things that brought us hope.

We put the HOPE of Christ first… we put God first… so let’s see what happens when dark and cloudy and stormy times come.

(painted the white pages with white crayon with dark water based paint)

*gasp* what happened?

All of that hope keeps shining through, doesn’t it! All of the stuff that we thought was hidden and hard to see is there! And none of this darkness can take that away, can it?

Hope is sometimes hard to see. It is sometimes hard to imagine what a difference it can make in our lives. But I know that it has made a difference in my life… and I want to share with you the story of a young woman in Africa who lives in hope.

Setting the Table: The Silverware

Posted on October 24, 2010Leave a comment

Sing vs. 1 & 3 from “For One Great Peace” #2185 in The Faith We Sing

This is small part, in one small place, of one heart’s beat, for one great peace.

Sitting in the kitchen this week and helping with the United Methodist Women’s supper reminded me of the small part all of us have to play in this church. Some took up a knife to chop vegetables and others turned the crank on the ham salad. Some took up their usual post at the sink to wash dishes. Some found themselves in a familiar role serving drinks. Some set the tables. Some cleared the tables. Some served the food. Some cut the desserts. Each one had a small part… and each one of those small parts was absolutely necessary for the whole thing to happen.

This is small part, in one small place, of one heart’s beat, for one great peace.

Just as the supper could not have happened without all of those parts working together, neither could our church have survived 166 years in this place, without the body of Christ working together.

Not one of us was a part of this church when it began. Not a single one of us was a part of its founding. Or you would be really really old!!!

No, every single one of us was either born into this community or came to it of our own free will… possibly we were dragged here by our parents. =)

But as each of you have come through the doors, something about this community led you to stay. And I think that something has to do with more than just a friendly face or a smile and a handshake. I believe that you stayed because you realized that you had a part to play. You stayed because you were invited to be a part of the Body of Christ.

Note, I said invited… not forced, not coerced… not preyed upon by the lay leadership committee like vampires who smelled fresh blood. We must confess that does happen at times.

No, you stayed, and didn’t run screaming for your life… because you were invited to play a part. You stayed because this church had something to offer and because you found a way to offer back. You stayed and became the body of Christ.

And for those of you who are just coming through our doors for the first time this morning – I pray that you might find that part to play also.

This is small part, in one small place, of one heart’s beat, for one great peace.

The apostle Paul reminds the community in Rome and reminds each one of us here today that God has given us a part to play.

“Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life – and place it before God as an offering,” he writes.

“It’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you.”

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

Do your small part, in this small place, your one heart’s beat, for one great peace.

You see, the body of Christ in this place is made up of each of those excellently formed parts you were made to be. And for the last 77 years or so… you have been doing that. You have played your parts. You have been teachers. You have been listeners. You have been check-writers. You have hammered nails and painted walls. You have dried tears. You have planted seeds. You have lead others. You have each played your part.

When we set the table this morning with this silverware, it is because we bring before God all of the ways that we have served our Lord in the past.

Just as spoons and forks and knives all have different roles to play in helping us to eat… so we have been working along side one another as we have served God.

Take out those index cards you were given at the start of the service. Whether we are new to the faith or have been part of it since before we could speak, we each have some way that we have served the Lord. I want you to take your note card and share each of those ways you, personally, have played your part. Did you share leadership? Did you pray for others? Are you someone who is quick to offer help? Have you played a supporting role? What part of this body of Christ are you?

Take a minute to write down those things God has called you to share.

This is small part, in one small place, of one heart’s beat, for one great peace.

We each have a part to play, just as if we were forks, knives and spoons. God has set each one of us here with particular gifts and strengths to use.

But that also means that we have weaknesses. We have some things that we are not so good at. Just as a fork makes a lousy tool when we are trying to eat soup and a spoon doesn’t have a sharp edge to cut with… each one of us lacks certain gifts and talents.

As Paul writes to the Romans – each of us find our meaning and function as a part of Christ’s body. “But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we?… let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.”

You see, part of being the Body of Christ is recognizing that you are a fork and not a spoon. Part of being the Body of Christ is realizing that we need one another.

I for one have lots of things that I am not called to do.

I am not a details person. I can see the big picture and how things flow and can give a general impression about something… but I tend to forget about the small details that make the thing work.

And while I have been blessed with the ability to clean up messes without getting squeamish – I come completely undone around creepy crawly jumpy things.

This morning, I went to use the bathroom in our downstairs level and lifted up the toilet lid. There, on the seat, was a frog.

I had no idea how it got there, what it was doing, or what I was going to do about it. I just kind of stood there dumbfounded for a few minutes, until the cats realized something was up. Tiki, our big fat orange cat, walked up to the toilet… thinking he might drink out of it… when he noticed the frog. He batted, the frog leaped, I yelped and chaos ensued. The cats chased the frog around the bathroom and laundry room for a few minutes before I ran upstairs to my husband, absolutely freaking out.

I am not good around creepy crawly jumpy things. And I know it.

Part of being a part of the body of Christ is being honest about our weaknesses so that other people know where they are needed.

Working together, we have to let each other’s strengths to shine. We have to get out of the way in the places where we are weak so that we have the energy to do what we do best.

To be the body of Christ – we need to live out and embody those things we know and do best… but then we need to get out of the way. We need to let others teach us and help us. We need to give others a chance to lead. We need to practice saying, I need you.

Part of what we acknowledge when we come to the table is that as forks, we are not spoons. As knifes, we are not forks. I want you to flip that card of yours over and put a star on it somewhere. And then I want you to write down on that side of the card something that someone else here in the church has done for you. Some way that another person stepped up and lived out their part in the body of Christ. Some way that you couldn’t serve because it’s not who God made you to be.

Saying, “I need help,” is a difficult thing to do in the middle of a rural German community. But it is what Christ calls us to. Get out of the way and let others do their work. Be honest about your weaknesses. But then, lend a hand when your gifts are called for. It is not a sign of failure… it is a sign of true community.

This is small part, in one small place, of one heart’s beat, for one great peace.

And when each of our small parts get together, when each of the small things we can do add up… God works among us in amazing ways.

The Harper Avery

Posted on September 2, 2010Leave a comment

I have been catching back up on last season’s episodes of Grey’s Anatomy as I prepare for the upcoming season. While there were a number of interesting themes this past season, the idea of competition really jumped out at me in the last few episodes I watched.

(from ABC/ERIC MCCANDLESS)

In some ways, it began when Harper Avery himself was checked into Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. He’s the man behind the award which isgiven to prestigious surgeons who have done extraordinary things.

In episodes 6:16 – “Perfect Little Accident”, 6:17 – “Push” and 6:21 – “How Insensitive” there runs the idea that without competition, without a striving for greatness and collegial recognition surgeons will become lazy, fail to take risks, and medicine as a whole suffers.

Recently, there have been a number of articles written about the faith of young people. They talk about the need for parents to be more involved in the religious development of their kids, the commitment levels of teens, and ways for the church to be more welcoming.

But one tidbit of information caught my eye: If you want to reach the boys, and not just the girls—you have to make sure there is some friendly competition.

In my own experience, for our youth group, game nights are the most popular events for the guys. There is a sense of personal investment in the activity when there is a competition. It doesn’t matter if the prize is an ice cream treat or a break from doing the dishes—having an incentive makes all the difference in the world.

Friendly competition is healthy and exciting. Whether you yell, “last one to the top of the hill is a rotten egg,” or challenge a buddy to lose weight with you—having someone to encourage you, to push you, and to challenge you to succeed is important.

So, I wonder what the place is for competition in the life of our religious communities. Does God like competition? Can it help us to be more faithful disciples?

I’m of two minds on this issue. There are those pesky verses in scripture that remind us the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

But I also think adults crave the chance to belong to a team, to work together, to push themselves to do better, as much as kids do. I think adults need that sense of accomplishment just as much as young people do.

I’ve been thinking about Romans 12 in this context. For some reason, I remember verse 12:10 saying something about “outdoing one another in love.” In my memory, it was always this urging to make love the most important thing, to honor and respect others, and to always push yourself to be more humble, more serving, more faithful than the next gal. It felt like friendly competition to me.

But the New Living Translation says: Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.

The Contemporary English Version translates the passage: Love each other as brothers and sisters and honor others more than you do yourself.

The Message reads: Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

I found my memory jogged with the Wuest traslation : In the sphere of brotherly love have a family affection for one another, vying with one another in showing honor.

Either we are supposed to always put others first and let them win… or we are supposed to push one another in humility and honor… I’m still confused and my greek isn’t very good. If I infer correctly, the second part of the verse: te time allelous proegoumenoi – that last word really is telling us to take the lead in putting others first. Be first in being last… that’s just as confusing as Jesus!

But really… that is the spirit of all of Romans 12. Don’t think of yourself highly, but realize you are a part of a team designed to be Christ’s body. Figure out what you do well, and do it to the best of your ability. Be zealous, be joyful, give and love to everyone – no matter who they are.

This is our task to do together. And if we need a little encouragement along the way, if we need a friendly little shove in the right direction – perhaps that is part of what it means to be a team player. Perhaps without that extra little oomphf, then we like the surgeons will become lazy, fail to take risks in the faith and the kingdom will suffer as a result.

In my church, I’m proposing, therefore, a challenge.

We are kicking off a mission project for Heifer International the day after the big Iowa/Iowa State football game… and I know how many die-hard fans we have for both of these great teams.

So, I’m encouraging my church to put that spirit of competition to work. I’m inviting them to come dressed in theirblack and red and gold on that Sunday… and to bring their change and dollar bills. For the rest of the month, we are going to fill up jars for our favorite teams and at the beginning of October, which ever team has collected the most funds for Heifer International—the other group has to don the winning team colors at church.

We are encouraging one another to share with God’s people in need. We are working to live in harmony with one another, but adding a little bit of spiritual fervor there, too. And we’ll see just how far we can push one another through this challenge – we’ll see how deep people are willing to dig. And just to up the ante a bit… I promised that if we were able to raise $2500 for Heifer International – I would dye my hair!

The Gift of Gentleness

Posted on August 1, 2010Leave a comment

What is meekness? Gentleness?

The opposite of gentleness is seen in both of our readings today…

First, from the book of Kings:

1. Elisha is a man of God and yet he is human… and in a moment of frustration and embarrassment, he lashes out at a group of young boys.

2. Is that part of the scene something familiar to you? Can you remember the grumpy old man who lived down the block from you and would shout curses from the windows? Do you know of rude young people who jeer the elderly, the disabled, or anyone different from them?

3. Now, perhaps letting a slip of the tongue speak out a curse against the boys is one thing… but our young prophet Elisha doesn’t quite have the power of God firmly in his grasp yet. Aristotle once said that a person who displayed gentleness would be angry only “on the right grounds, and against the right persons, and in the right manner, and at the right moment, and for the right length of time.”

4. This is NOT what Elisha did. He may have been angry at their teasing of him, but they were only children, and rather than an eye for an eye – his curse called out bears from the woods that killed those children on the spot. We can look at this and firmly say it was ANYTHING but gentle.

Secondly, we see the opposite of gentleness in our gospel reading today from Luke.

1. Jesus sends forth the disciples at the beginning of our chapter with guidance as to what to do if people are rude and inhospitable to you: Shake the dust off your feet, turn and walk away.

2. yet by the end of the chapter… the disciples have already forgotten his example. When a town will not welcome them, James and John run back and ask Jesus if they can call fire down from heaven to destroy them…

3. Again – we have rash, arrogant, and excessive behavior… which Jesus quietly rebukes and they move on.

So, what is gentleness?

The Full Life Study Bible: restraint coupled with strength and courage.

Aristotle: halfway between excessive anger and indifference.

Paul demonstrated the kind of restraint Nathan had when he confronted David. As he writes to the Corinthians he asks them: “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit.” (1 Cor 4:21). He could be angry. He could be harsh. As a teacher, he probably knew something about discipline… but he wanted them to repent and transform their lives not out of fear… but out of the love and gentleness that was shown to them.

In John Wesley’s writing, we see the spirit of gentleness in his command to “do no harm.”

As our former Bishop Reuben Job has reflected upon that command, he writes: “I have found that when this first simple rule was remembered, it often saved me from uttering a wrong word or considering a wrong response.”

He adds, “I have also found that this simple step, when practiced, can provide a safe place to stand while the hard and faithful work of discernment is done.”

Maybe that is the key. Responding in gentleness allows us to take a step back and to determine proper response. And I think that if we are faithful to the scriptures we will find that gentleness should be the core of OUR response to wrong in the world…

Think of our gospel reading…

The brothers recall how the power of God was unleashed on people and communities unwilling to repent and they believe they are justified in doing the same.

But “Vengeance is Mine.” Says the Lord.

These words come from Romans 12:

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

You will heap burning coals on his head… that sounds an awful lot to our modern ears like we should send people to hell. But a colleague shared with me that this injunction is actually similiar to the first too – to feed and give drink to our enemies.

You see, in ancient cultures, fire was everything. Without a fire you had no warmth, nothing to cook over, no protection. A fire meant life in your home. And if your coals went out – your family faced death.

Sometimes if someone was nearby, you could take a container and they would fill it with some of the coals out of their own fire.

This passage says – if your enemy is hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; if the fire in their home has gone out… if the light of hope has gone out… if the fires of love had gone out in their heart… HEAP burning coals on their head. Overcome evil with good. Love them. Be gentle to them. And by doing this – you will light a fire in their heart.

And in our gospel reading, when Jesus rebukes the disciples, Jesus he is not only giving us an indication to how we should respond to injustice – with gentleness… but also how God-in-flesh responds:

“Jesus’ awareness of His power enabled Him to be gentle to those in need. The broken reed He would not crush but would fully restore. The flickering wick of a lamp He would not put out but would cause it to burn brightly again.” (Stanley Horton)

That is not to say that there will not come a time when there will be judgment. God will do what he has promised and will make all things right. But that judgment is not for us to make. Our job is to point to the truth and to love with generous hearts.

But as we look at our fellow brothers and sisters, we must remember that the gentleness of Christ died for us while we were yet sinners…

The gentleness of Christ is his power… Again from Horton: “ He gently takes the sinner and makes him whole.”

The Gift of Love

Posted on June 20, 2010Leave a comment

This week, my husband and I had two houseguests… our niece and nephew. They had the distinct honor of being able to have a sleep over at our house and boy, were they excited!

For the most part, I think that excitement came from hanging out with their favorite aunt and uncle. But a few hours into their visit, I got a hint of a different reason for their joy.

Our nephew loves to play with the wii. They have one at his house, but he is limited to 20 minutes per day of playtime. We were attempting to enforce that rule, but he stood up and looked at us very seriously and said: But this isn’t my dad’s house. His rules don’t work here!

Every rule that governed their lives at home – about bedtime, playtime, what they had to eat, what they could wear – these two assumed went out the window when they came over to Aunt Kaky and Uncle Spicy’s house. We were going to love them and spoil them and let them get away with anything and everything… or so they thought.

I think that many times, in our Christian faith, we too believe that rules go out the window when we believe in Jesus. More than a few times in my life, I have heard people say that all of the law and judgment of the Old Testament is done away with when Jesus comes. It’s like we magically are transported to a new world where all the tired rules from the past are done away with. We didn’t like all of those rules about not wearing poly-cotton blends, or staying away from shellfish, anyway. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth sounds pretty barbaric in our minds. And really… how can we be expected to not covet our neighbor’s possessions when their new car looks so nice and we want one just like it?!

It doesn’t help that Jesus says things like “I have come not to do away with the law but to fulfill it,” but then in the next breath he is breaking some Sabbath law by eating grain out in the field and saying things like “the law is made for man, not man for the law.”

How do we know what rules to follow? How do we keep ourselves from being too legalistic, without slipping in the other direction and becoming too lax in our moral compass?

It’s simple. We keep at the front of our minds the standard by which all laws are held: love.

The mixing of materials like polyester and cotton has nothing to do with love or how we treat our neighbors… we consider laws like this to be ceremonial by the standard of love we aren’t too concerned with them in our daily lives in the 21st century.

But there are many other laws that have everything to do with love. Like the ones Paul reminds us of in Romans: don’t commit adultery, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t covet… in each of these laws, we are faced with relationships. And love is the absolute standard for how we are to behave.

In Romans 13:8, Paul writes that we should owe no one anything, except to love one another. In saying this, he teaches “that our highest obligation toward men is our obligation to love them.” (Bob Deffinbaugh). More than our obligation to do the right thing, we are to love.

Of course, when love becomes your highest priority… the right actions naturally follow.

Because Love fulfills the law. When we act in love towards God and our neighbor, we are already living out the law. An act of love is never to commit adultery or murder. The love of Christ that should rule our hearts would never steal or covet.

Each of these acts would be unloving because they harm other people. Adultery destroys lives. Coveting is “desiring my good and my gain at my neighbor’s expense.” (Deffinbaugh)

Murder not only takes the life of another, but rips away from family members the life of a beloved. Stealing harms the economic wellbeing of our neighbors.

Bob Deffinbaugh summarizes what Paul teaches us in Romans 13 by saying: “We are to view our neighbor from the perspective of love. When we do, we will seek his good, avoid doing what is harmful to him, and thus fulfill the law.”

Love seeks the good for another. It doesn’t matter who they are – whether rich or poor, friend or enemy, neighbor or stranger. Love always seeks the good for others… even at our own expense.

That is the love that Christ showed us. Unconditional love. Self-sacrificial love. Love that bends down in service to others. Love shown to the stranger, to the sinner, to the rich and to the proud. Love that gives life.

Love like Jesus loved.

Love as if people, not laws, were more important.

Because the truth of the matter is, there are days when we will face a conflict between the laws of our fathers and the needs of humanity.

St. Thomas Aquinas once said that if a family is starving and the rich will not share their abundance with the poor – it is justified for a mother to steal to feed her children.

I think that Aquinas was able to make this bold and radical claim, because every time Jesus faced a conflict between the laws of the righteous and showing compassion and love to a sinner – he always came down on the side of love.

One of the most recognized examples of this is when Jesus came across a woman who was about to be stoned to death. In John, chapter 8, Jesus was confronted with one of the 10 commandments: a woman who had been caught in the very act of adultery.

Now, the first thing I wonder when I hear this passage is where the other offender was. If she was caught in the very act… certainly there was a man around somewhere who was also deserving of this same sentence. According to the law, both were required to be stoned.

But the man is nowhere to be found and the crowd is angry and ready to enforce the law to its fullest extent. But when Jesus enters their midst, he talks the crowds down, and helped her back on her feet. And then he spoke these amazing words to her: I do not condemn you – go and sin no more.

In his short and simple statement, Jesus shows us how love and the law fit together. God’s laws have been given to protect us. They are given to show us the good and holy ways to live. But love is always the standard.

When he says, “I do not condemn you – go and sin no more.” He is not saying that what she did wasn’t wrong. And he’s not saying that she isn’t responsible for her actions… because he asks her to live differently. He isn’t even saying that he accepts her apology, because nowhere in the text does this woman say anything, much less beg for forgiveness.

No, he simply forgives her. He loves her. He accepts her – no matter what she has done. When it comes to the law, the first thing Christ does is love. And then he asks her to respond to that love that he has shown by allowing him to change her life. (based on work by Gary DeLashmutt)

Yesterday, I drove to my cousin’s wedding in Iowa Falls and along the side of HWY 21, I saw a sign that said: “Hell is for deadbeat moms”. This being Father’s Day, it could have just as easily said: Hell is for deadbeat dads. All across our nation, all across the world, the first impulse of many Christians is to remind folks of their sin and to condemn them for it.

Most of these images are pictures not of love, but of anger… of hate… of judgement.

It is easy to do these things.

It is easy to point out the speck in the eye of our brother and ignore the log in our own eye.

It is easy to hate. It is easy to give up on someone and tell them they are going to hell… maybe even easier
still to send them to hell for their sin with a few stones or a firing squad.

But Jesus looks down upon the one who has done wrong and says – I do not condemn you…. Go and sin no more. Get up… let me help you.

Loving our neighbors is hard.

Loving the Lord with all of our heart, and soul and mind and strength is hard.

And unlike my niece and nephew, who thought they were getting a free pass to do whatever they wanted, we know that abiding in God what is asked of us may actually be harder than simply following the rules.

We will fail. Constantly we will fail in this charge to love.

But when we do, Christ will bend over and look us in the eye and say: I love you, I do not condemn you… get up… go…. And sin no more.

Amen.