self-denial – Salvaged Faith

What if we put the church last?

Posted on September 20, 2009Leave a comment

Last summer, when we went on vacation with my husband’s side of the family we all were packed into two different vehicles on the way home. My neice and nephew were fighting about who got to ride in our car, and so to make it the most fair, we divided them up and they got to switch places about half-way through the 7 hour trip. My neice, Cami, rode with us first.

And for the first thirty minutes of our drive – we sang one song. Over and over and over again. “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar.” Cami did “Who me?” yes, you, “Couldn’t be” then who? You get the idea.

Only, my husband liked to mercilessly tease my neice. Whenever the song got passed to him – he fully admitted eating the cookies! =) He would make chomping sounds and say how good the cookies were and my neice would protest! “You’re not really supposed to eat the tookies!!!” The fun part of the game is that no one ever really gets caught. The fun part is in blaming other people!

But when I read our scripture from this morning and find Jesus catching the disciples arguing – it’s a classic hand caught in the cookie jar moments.

The disciples were having a rough day. First they did some hard ministry casting out demons and healing people and then Jesus has them leave and head back to Galilee – familiar homeland for some of these guys. Only, he makes them keep quiet about even being back home because he wants to spend some time with them personally.

That’s all well and good – except for the fact that Jesus started talking about dying but not really being dead again. They couldn’t figure out how that fit into the whole “good news” mission that they were on, and after the last time when Peter got told that he was Satan for speaking up, no one dared question Jesus motives.

Instead they decided to have their own little private conversations. And somehow the topic of the day turned to who was the best among the disciples. Each thought they had a certain quality that made them special – something that caused them to shine just a little bit brighter than the others. Their efforts to outdo one another with pride and bragging practically turned into a full blown fight as they begun to point out one another’s weaknesses and faults. Elbows were still being jabbed as they all finally sat down after a long days walk in the house in Capernum for the night.

And Jesus carefully looked at each one in the eye and said: What were you arguing about on the way?

And the disciples froze. Surely he hadn’t heard! Were they really so dumb as to argue about who was the best? Ugh.

They felt so stupid. They felt exposed. They were caught red handed. And there was no one else to blame.

It’s fairly easy to look back upon them and find the whole situation rather silly. Jesus is talking about giving up his very life for the sake of the world and they are arguing about which one of them is better than the other. It’s easy, that is, until we try to imagine what it would be like if Jesus sat down among us and asked what WE had been talking about… what WE had been doing.

Many of us would probably fall silent too if we had to explain our actions for the last week… or month… or year.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what Jesus would say if he showed up in our congregation. In fact – whenever I hear Jesus talking in the gospels to an individual person – I’ve started substituting the world “church” in. Because I’m hoping for a word, a direction, a clue as to what we need to be doing next.

So last week, in our gospel reading Jesus said

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34, NRSV)

Reinterpreted:
If your church wants to follow me, it has to deny itself, take up its cross and follow me. The church needs to set aside its own wants and desires and head to those places of struggle between life and death, hope and despair in our world.

Whew… that’s a big old fat message!!!

I did the same this week:

After Jesus asks the disciples what they were arguing about… because he knows it was about who is the best, he tells them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

So I’ve been praying about that and here is what I hear when I put the church into that message:

Your church needs stop worrying about filling the pews, stop thinking that you’re so wonderful people should just be flocking to you… and instead needs to position yourselves as the last… as the least – as the servant of all and your church should go to where the people are.

To put it another way: God’s vision needs to come first – And God’s vision is for the people of this world. Look for where God’s heart is breaking in your community and humble yourself to go and serve there… everything else will sort itself out.

At the beginning of August – our church received an invitation. It was an invitation by our conference to participate in a journey that could help us do just that: follow Christ into the world and learn how to be the church in our community.

Jill Sanders, our Field Outreach Minister came down and shared this invitation with us at an Administrative Board meeting, and I know that some of you were there – but not all of you.

As we gathered – here were some of the statements that Jill shared with us that really rang true in our minds:

We live in an unchurched world and feel the church is ill equipped to respond. We look out at Marengo – at Iowa County – at our state and see so many people who need to hear that God loves them and we have no idea how to respond.

We are tired of just going to church and want to really be the church. We are tired of waiting for people to come to church and want to go make church happen in the world!

We are challenged by the passion and vitality of newer congregations. We want to know what makes them tick. We wish we had the energy and passion to be out there in the world bringing people to God.

We also said that we hoped God might give us increased clarity of purpose as a congregation. What are we here for? What are we specifically called to do?

And how can we develop leaders in our congregation? How can we help to nurture people, energize people around the tasks that God has called us to?

And Jill’s response…

That we are ready. That we are no longer a congregation that is merely surviving. That in these past two years we have grown and we are in a healthy place and that if we really want to answer those questions – that she has an invitation for us.

My hope was that in the weeks following that event, those who were there would talk about what that invitation entailed: this missional transformation process and that word of this thing might spread throughout the congregation.

But for those of you who haven’t heard… or those of you who may have forgotten – I want to share again what that invitation is.

The Missional Transformation Process is a two and a half to three year journey where we as a congregation ask:
Why does our community need this church?
What does God want us to do here?
And how will our church live out God’s vision in our life and mission?

Those are big questions. And to answer them, we would be invited to do a few things.

1) We need a committed group of 4 or 5 people who would be willing to go with me to 6 day long workshops. These workshops will be spread out over 2-3 years, and each one prepares us as a congregation to take the next step forward.

2) We as a whole congregation move through those steps through prayer, conversations, bible study, and by listening to God.

3) we open ourselves up to possibility. And we trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us and give us the courage we need to answer!

4) we do need to make a financial commitment to this process. As a congregation – spread out over three years – we would commit $1250 that would go towards the cost of workshops, materials, and a partner that will work directly with our church.

This process has six steps:

1) Getting Ready for the Journey
2) Discovering our Missional Context
3) Discerning God’s Call
4) Crafting our Missional Strategy
5) Shaping Missional Life and Witness
6) Living into a Faithful Future.

What might this all look like when we are done?

Possibilities: family church; youth church; Hispanic ministry; elderly ministry; something we can’t even imagine.

Can I be completely honest with all of you? When I first saw this process all laid out my first reaction was a huge sigh of relief. Because I desperately want to help our church to grow and thrive… but I know the only way to do that is to get on board with what God is doing here in Marengo. And as a new pastor, this resource is amazing. It takes the best of what we have to offer and molds it with what God wants from us.

But even as I’ve been excited about it, and as I have sensed some of you are getting excited about it, I have also sensed some really big reservations. It’s almost as if you all are thinking – this is a really great thing, but…

First, you think you’ve tried this before and it didn’t work.

Second, you may think this is a great idea, but you aren’t sure that you can personally make the commitment. We have to have 4-5 people who are committed to these workshops. People who are willing to not only show up, but who are willing to bring these materials back to the church. People who are willing to ask tough questions, people who aren’t afraid to speak up with creative ideas. People who are full of passion and energy. And what I have realized is that these may not be the people who have been faithfully serving our church in the past. They have been working long and hard and they are tired! And so what we need is prayer for God to place this calling on the hearts of a few people and we need the courage to look for people to stand up from places we may not have expected.

At our next Ad Board meeting – on October 4, we will sit down and decide if we are going to say yes to Jill’s invitation. What I need from all of you is serious considered prayer. I need you to think about this at home, with your family. I need you to listen for God’s prompting. I need you to look at any reservations you might have and to PLEASE come and talk with me or other people in leadership here at the church about them. I need you to ask questions, to share your feelings and your passions.

And probably most importantly, I want us to look back on our prayer of confession for today. I want us to think about what it means to put ourselves second or third in order for God’s vision and will to be in the front. And I want us to say those words again together…

God of patience and mercy, we come to you, offering “lip service” to serving you, but when things get difficult; when we are called to do something which is hard for us, we shy away from the duty and the opportunity. We turn our back on service out of fear of failure.

Forgive us, gracious Lord. Heal our fears and our weaknesses. Strengthen us and give us courage to truly be your disciples, not counting the rewards, but rejoicing in the work. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN. (Cokesbury Worship Connection)

Double-Dog Dare

Posted on March 9, 2009Leave a comment

Sermon Text: Genesis 17, Romans 4:13-25, Mark 8:31-38

How many of you have ever accepted a dare in your life?

Growing up, one of the most dreaded games to play at a sleepover was “Truth or Dare.” My friends weren’t really crazy people, but I was always afraid to choose “dare.” I would take any embarrassing or difficult question over having to do something silly, or dangerous, or oftentimes stupid.

I’ll be honest. I’m not an extremely adventurous person. I’ll roll up my sleeves in an instant to help someone, but putting my life on the line is not something that comes naturally to me!

How many of you are adventurers? Raise your hands if you have ever been sky diving? Or bungee jumping? I have NEVER been interested in things like that and I’ve always had this kind of secret admiration for people who did. I remember at Christmas one year, we were looking at photos of a cruise my grandparents went on and we came to this picture of my grandma bungee jumping! And she was like 65 years old! I couldn’t believe it!

I did however let my in-laws talk me into white water rafting.

Last summer, we got away for a week and headed up to the Menominee River on the border of Wisconsin and Michigan. There are rapids there that are really nice and at certain parts of the year are even class five – which means no one is allowed to be on them.

In July, when we went, the rapids were about at a class 3 – which our guide informed us was dangerous enough to have fun.

I actually brought some of the pictures with me of the rafting. When we got to the rapids, because they are pretty short, we actually get the opportunity to go on it twice. The first time, our raft made it through – I’m up here in the front….

It was a lot of fun, even though I knew it was kind of risky and a little bit dangerous. But I never thought that one of us could actually fall out… that is, until the second raft came down.

We were in a spot where we couldn’t see this happening, although we heard about it.

Now call me crazy – but even after hearing about that guy fall out – I still got in the boat and went a second time! I’m not entirely sure that if I had seen these pictures that I would have – although I did know that the guy was perfectly safe.

This morning, I’m talking about dares and risky adventures, because that is exactly what we find in our scriptures for today. Throughout history – in many ways and to many people, God dares us to follow. And unlike the dares and the crazy adventures that we undertake in this world – dares that are sometimes dangerous and often stupid, there are things we do every day that put our lives on the line…. But you know what? The dare that God calls us to undertake is the only thing that can lead us into new life.

First, we have the dare given to Abraham. We can read about it in Genesis, although Paul reminds us of this great dare in our passage from Romans this morning.

Abraham was a very old man – ninety nine years old the scriptures tell us – when this great dare comes to him. God called out and said, “I am God! Walk before me and be blameless!”

Now, at 99 years old – some of us would find that command just to get up and walk to be pretty difficult! But God also dares Abraham to be blameless – to be without fault. That is a dare that I don’t think any of us today could legitimately say we have taken up and been successful with.

But there is more to this crazy dare… God says that for his part, God will make Abraham the father of many nations.

God dares Abraham AND Sarah, who is well past childbearing age, to trust him. To take the leap of faith and become the oldest couple ever to have children together.

And Paul tells us – that “Hoping against hope, Abraham believed what God told him. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his body, which was already as good as dead, or when we considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”

Now… my first response when I hear this passage from Romans is that Paul is a big fat liar! Because if we go back to the Genesis version of the story – you know – the original version that Paul would have known very well – it tells us that Abraham and Sarah DON’T fully trust God’s promise. They take the dare, but try to follow in their own way. Sarah doesn’t think that she can bear children, so she gives her servant Hagar to Abraham and gets them to conceive a child for her.

That doesn’t sound like being blameless, or completely trusting to me. But perhaps why Paul can say those things is because in hindsight – he knows that eventually Abraham and Sarah did trust completely. Eventually they took on the dare and did it God’s way. No matter how many bumps in the road they hit before they got to the final destination, they still got there. They still made it to the end of their own white water rapids. So Paul conveniently forgets the bumps in the road because in the end, it was their faith that brought them life.

Which leads me to the second dare in our scriptures today. In spite of Peter’s confusion and his inability to fully understand what the call of Jesus entails, Jesus dares him and dares us to follow him. “Deny yourself – take up your cross and follow me!” Jesus calls out to the crowd.

In many, many ways – I think we are like Abraham and Sarah here. We hear the call of Jesus, but we aren’t quite sure if we can trust in God’s promise. Or rather, maybe it’s not that we don’t trust in God’s part of the equation, but we don’t trust enough in ourselves. We try to spin the dare into something that is much easier to manage, we know what the end result is supposed to be, so in the spirit of that great Sinatra song, I try to do it my way.

The problem is, it just doesn’t work like that!

Twice in this passage from Mark, the word “must” is used. The Son of Man must undergo great suffering. And if you want to follow Christ you must deny yourself. The only way to really follow Jesus is to let go of our ways, the ways of the world, and to accept the way of God.

Jesus dares us to follow him. Jesus dares us to do what is necessary – even though it might not be the easiest thing in the world.

I got to thinking about that difference between what is easy and what is necessary two weeks ago. I was at home one night watching “The Daily Show” a daily news program on Comedy Central hosted by Jon Stewart. He had a whole segment on President Obama’s address to the congress and in particular one line from that speech. As he was talking about the challenges that lie ahead, Obama had said that “This is America. We don’t do what’s easy. We do what’s necessary.”

Here is where Stewart jumped in with his response. “Have you MET Americans? We’re the people who invented the Roomba, because the other automatic machine we invented to clean the floor made you do this…(movement) THIS was too much.”

Now, the entrepreneurial spirit in our country does encourage us to come up with better and easier ways of doing things. We want things to be simple and convenient and to fit into our busy schedules.

The problem is that we treat our faith the same way. We try to fit our relationship with God into a box of our own making. We try to find a few minutes here and there between club meetings and basketball practice and our jobs and getting dinner on the table to follow Christ.

But Jesus is calling out to us – if you want to follow me, you have to deny yourself, you have to take up your cross. That is the only way. I will not conform to the world you have built for yourself.

I dare you to trust me. I dare you to make the hard but necessary decision to let go of all of that stuff you think you need, to let go of those relationships that only drag you down, to let go of the things you do to get ahead, and just trust that my way is better and that my way is the only one that truly leads to life!

The piece of the dare that gets a bit lost in translation and through time is the bit about taking up our crosses. Today, we wear beautiful crosses around our necks, we put them in our churches and we have transformed the challenging dare of the cross into this rather romantic idea of the burdens we must bear. I have read countless books and heard countless people talk about the crosses in their lives being an illness, or a family member who is difficult, or a bad patch they are going through. And too many times, I have heard people think that they need to stay in an unhealthy or dangerous situation with someone like an abusive spouse because that is their cross to bear.

But if we go back to this text and the world of Jesus, this dare to take up the cross would best be translated today as: I dare you to put the hangman’s noose around your neck – or I dare you to sit in the electric chair. Jesus was talking about cross – but in his world, the cross didn’t have all of the symbolic meaning it carries today. It was an instrument of capital punishment for the criminals of the Roman Empire.

When Jesus dares us to take up our crosses, he is daring us to take on the consequences of what a life following him will entail. Our crosses are the things that happen to us as a direct result of our decision to follow Christ, as a result of the things we do in Jesus name.

I know that in the Adult Sunday School class, one of their lessons recently was on taking risks. We live out our faith very timidly in this world. We treat our faith as if it were a private thing that is just between us and God and maybe those few people in our lives that we choose to share it with. Instead of doing what is necessary – speaking and demonstrating our faith loudly and boldly in the streets, we do what is easy – we go to church on Sundays and read our daily devotions at home and hope that that is enough.

At the community forum on suicide and depression recently, someone stood up and talked about the faith of a girl she works with. She said that this teenage girl is ridiculed and made fun of by her peers because she goes to youth group. She said that this girl is being torn apart inside, and that’s because as a young person, belonging is everything. That is an example of a cross to bear – facing that ridicule is a direct result of following Christ.

In this town and this place as adults, we might not face persecution if we go to church. We probably won’t be arrested like Paul was for speaking our faith openly. We probably won’t be dragged in front of a firing squad like Christians are in some parts of this world for simply being a follower of Christ.

But that doesn’t mean that we can sit back and relax. We can stand with people like that young girl and help her to carry the cross that she bears. We can continue to follow Christ and his message to the public square and speak out on national and world issues that harm life, rather than restore it. The United Methodist Church has a whole book full of our stances on issues like the death penalty, war and torture, the environment – all stances that as a church we feel are faithful to how Jesus has called us to live with one another. Writing a letter to your Senator or Representative, attending a protest, boycotting certain goods, even getting arrested during an act of civil disobedience, like people did during the sit-in movement during the civil rights movement – all of these things are ways that Christ calls us to follow him, and there may be crosses that we have to bear as a result.

You might draw out the hatred of a colleague. You might be fired from your job. You might even be arrested. But we have to remember the dare. It is easy to stay on the paths we are on, to take the safe road, but if we want to truly save our lives, we MUST take up our crosses, we must accept the dare, we must dive in feet first to the life of Christ.

That first step is the scariest. It’s like coming to the edge of the drop on a white water trip. You can see how far you have to go, and you can see the danger that lies ahead. But once you go over the edge, once you are willing to let go – then the ride takes over. You dig in with your paddles and row with all of your might. You hear the calls and commands of your guide and you’re willing to go whatever direction they need you to go. And no matter how scary it gets, no matter what trouble is in your way, you know that the guide has been on these waters before, that the guide knows the way through, and that even if you stumble and make a mistake and fall out of the boat – the guide will get you back in.

That guide is Christ. And if we let ourselves take the dare, if we take that first step and let go of our ways – Christ will be there. He will lead us in his paths. He will help us carry the crosses we may have to bear. And he will make sure that we get through this rocky ride to the smooth water on the other side.

Just take the first step. Put yourself out there… I dare you!