women – Salvaged Faith

Graves into Gardens

Posted on April 17, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 24:1-12

Earlier this week, I was preparing for worship and listening to some of the music selected for our time of worship today.

And, friends, I’m going to be honest, I’m struggling a bit right now.

I’ve got some family stuff that is heavy on my heart.

We’ve got some things to navigate as a church trying to increase our staffing and find our footing in the new normal of the world.

There is a big denominational conversation in limbo.

I have been participating in a church leadership cohort on the topic of how to navigate being overwhelmed and one of the things I realized is that if I were trying to work and care for just one of those situations, it would be a lot.

But when it feels like there are just so many pots on the stove, all needing attention lest they boil over… well, it is exhausting.

And you know what, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve overheard those fragments of conversation happening in the halls of the church, or grocery store, or work or school…

We can all read between the lines of those social media posts that try to be cheery.

We are navigating transition and grief in our families… divorce, loss, moving mom to the care center…

We are experiencing struggles with health and finances.

We watch the evening news and our hearts break.

We keep waiting for things to get back to “normal” because we haven’t wrapped our heads around the way things have changed for good.

After a while, it all starts to add up.

And we start to wonder where on earth God is in it all.

And so there I was, trying to figure out what good news to proclaim this Easter Sunday, when a lyric from one of the songs that we are singing at the Conspire Service just hit me like a ton of bricks and I started to weep.

“The God of the mountain

Is the God of the valley

There’s not a place

Your mercy and grace

Won’t find me again.”

In that valley, in that muck, in the struggle… that is where God is.

God isn’t just a God of the good times and the successes.

God is with us in the valley.

The valley of the shadow of death.

The valley of despair.

The rock bottom where it all feels like it has fallen apart.

That is exactly where grace and mercy find us.

It is where it found the disciples on Easter morning.

You see, this day began in hopelessness and grief.

It began with fear of the unknown.

It began with the gloom of death.

As we heard in the Gospel of Luke, Mary and Joanna, and Mary, and the other unnamed but faithful women who were with them went to the tomb.

They were bringing the spices and oils they had prepared to complete his burial ritual now that the Sabbath day was complete.

They showed up to repeat a familiar ritual practiced by Jewish women for centuries.

Everything they had known and believed had been pulled out from underneath them and there was nothing left to do but pray, mourn, and honor their teacher.

But through that valley of the shadow of death, grace found them.

When they arrived, the stone was rolled back from the tomb and the body of their Lord was gone.

I can imagine the shock and confusion that paralyzed them.

What does it mean?

What has happened?

What do we do now?

But then angels suddenly appeared among them: Why are you looking for the living among the dead?

They spoke once again the words Jesus had shared with them.

Promises of love that conquers death.

Words of hope for a life than cannot be defeated.

The truth that mourning would turn to dancing…

Shame into glory…

Graves would turn into gardens…

And in a moment of startling fear and overwhelming joy – a moment of holy awe – they remembered.

Think about how many times the disciples… men and women alike… heard Jesus share words about his death and resurrection.

But they couldn’t understand the promise because they never believed it would happen.

They simply could not wrap their minds around the idea of his death, much less the impossible miracle of resurrection.

When Jesus shared his final meal with them on Thursday night they let him down and failed to remain faithful.

And when Christ was crucified on Friday afternoon, many were paralyzed by their unbelief and others simply stood at the cross in stunned grief.

They couldn’t see past their own pain and fear and they forgot his promise!

But in one moment, all that Jesus said about life and death is suddenly made real to those women as they encountered that empty grave in the middle of a garden.

They rushed back to the disciples to share all they had experienced.

And they didn’t believe the women.

Couldn’t believe them.

It was nonsense, wishful thinking, confused thought.

You know what, the world around us, just like those disciples in the upper room who first heard from Mary and Joanna and Mary Magdelene, believes that the resurrection is nonsense.

It is wishful thinking. Scientifically unproven. Pie in the sky.

And I have to be honest, there are days that I have my own doubts.

I have an awful lot of questions, and maybe you do, too.

I can’t construct an argument for the resurrection of Jesus that makes sense to a rational mind.

I can’t point to evidence of its reality.

And when I’m down in the valley, stuck in the weeds, wallowing in grief, and holding the pain of the world in my heart, I often wonder where on earth it is.

But I can tell you, as I borrow the words of Debie Thomas, that it is “the foundation of my hope.”

“Without the empty tomb,” she goes on to write, “without Jesus’ historic, bodily return to life two thousand years ago, I simply can’t reconcile God’s love and justice with the horrors I see in the world around me. Death is too appalling a violation. Evil is too ferocious an enemy. Injustice is too cruel and endemic a reality. Humanity, though beautiful, is broken beyond description. I need the empty tomb. I need the promise of resurrection.”

There is so much in this world to feel hopeless and frustrated about, and honestly, I can’t get through it without God by my side.

I can’t prove the resurrection.

But I need it to be true.

I need to know that mourning will turn into dancing.

I need to hope that shame will turn into glory.

I need to trust that graves can become gardens.

Standing here, surrounded by lilies, I have come to discover that the God of the mountain is the God of the valley and that the shadows of fear and despair have been scattered by light and love.

The tomb is empty, the garden is in bloom, the Son has risen.

Grace and mercy are pouring out into the world and I find the freedom and the power to believe.

I have faith that the resurrection is really and truly our reality.

Faith is not just a pie in the sky wish.

It isn’t something pretty we sing to bring comfort.

Faith is a verb: Go. See. Do. Lift Up. Put Down. Heal. Cast out. Bring in. Give. Receive. Remember.

Faith is active.

Faith is out there in the world, sharing the healing love of God with others.

Faith is drying the tears of the grieving.

Faith is holding the hands of the sick.

Faith is that card of encouragement for the person whose life is falling apart.

Faith is planting bulbs as everything is dying, trusting they will bloom in the spring.

Faith is welcoming the stranger and throwing our arms open to embrace others.

Faith is sacrificing our time and our talents and our abundance so that our neighbors might be fed.

You see, the force of resurrection didn’t just bring Christ to life.

It transformed disciples into apostles.

It brought the church into being.

It formed us together into the body of Christ, alive in the world, hands and feet and hearts to carry on the mission and the ministry.

To keep planting the seeds of the kingdom.

To keep pouring out hope for a world in despair.

To keep fighting the weeds of injustice that threaten to take over.

We are here because those women went to the grave full of grief and sorrow and discovered a garden where hope and love and life was in full bloom.

And then they went from that place with faith and shared the good news with the world.

May the hope of the resurrection be the foundation of our faith and may it spill over into everything we say and do in this world. Amen.

Grounded with our Ancestors

Posted on November 3, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Matthew 1:1-17

The very name of our church, Immanuel, means “God-with-us.”
God is with us.
Right here in this very time and place.
Living, moving, breathing.

In times past, we relegated God to the heavens while we mundane humans continued our life here below.
And then we cried out in times of tragedy… “God, where are you?!”

In other times, the suffering in our midst was so stark that we thought surely God was dead… or even worse, didn’t care.

But that is not who God claims to be.
God takes on flesh and makes a home among us.
And his name is Immanuel.
God is here.

Diana Butler Bass is a respected Christian academic whose books offer hope and meaning to many. In particular, she is helping us all to navigate what it means to live as people of faith in a world that increasingly doesn’t care about what Christianity has to offer the world.
In her book, Grounded, she wrestles with what it means to really understand that God is with us. She describes it as “a social and political question with sweeping consequences for the future.” If we really focus on rediscovering and relocating and reacquainting ourselves with God, Immanuel, with us right here… it will reground our lives.
It will center us.
Give us purpose.
Remind us of who we are.
And…
It will call us to a new way of being in this world.
As Butler Bass writes,
“God is.. that which grounds us. We experience this when we understand that soil is holy, water gives life, the sky opens the imagination, our roots matter, home is a divine place, and our lives are linked with our neighbors’ and those around the globe. This world, not heaven, is the sacred stage of our times.” (p 26)

We are turning the corner on the Christian year and preparing for Christ to be born among us once again.
So I wanted to invite us to look at some of those relationships throughout the month of November that Butler Bass claims ground us in the life of God. Our roots – or our history and ancestors…. Our home lives… our neighborhoods… and this common, kingdom life to which we all belong.
How should we look upon those relationships if God is truly present in the midst of them?
How might our relationship with one another change?

Today, we celebrate the saints who have completed the race and now rest in the presence of God.
We remember their lives.
We cherish their memories.
Each one planted seeds of faith and hope and love in us and have shaped us.
I asked you to share with me some of your own stories of these saints in your individual lives.

One of you told me about Gramma Gert – or GG – the nucleus of your family. She never drove, but either walked or got a ride to church every Sunday. If you had anything to pray for… you took it to GG… because you knew it would get plenty of Godly time and attention.

Someone else fondly remembered their third grade Sunday School teacher, Mr. Going who taught them the Lord’s Prayer. Rather than simply memorizing it, they took it line by line and rewrote it in words that were easier for a child to understand. Mr. Going made faith real.

Another of you shared with me the story of your great grandmother who came to Iowa from Norway in 1862 at the age of six. She dictated her own life story and left these words at the end… Love one another, Jesus has said, “If you don’t love one another you don’t love me”… and she addressed her children and their future families saying, “I have prayed for you all, I put you all in the Lord’s hands… God bless you all, may we me up yonder where there is no parting anymore.”

Whether it was a parent, or teacher, a neighbor or great-grandparent, these people of faith left a mark on your life.

One of the things I have been challenged by in Butler Bass’s book, however, is to remember that our roots are far deeper than our memory.
We are shaped and influenced by generations that have come and gone… and yet we seem to have forgotten their stories.

I actually thought I was doing pretty good by this account.
My mom and I have done a bit of genealogy work on our families. We have spent hours researching names through the Mormon genealogy center. We’ve created family trees that go back not just hundreds, but thousands of years. In fact, one line that we traced goes back all the way to the year 6!
Together with great-aunts and cousins, we have trampled through cemeteries in south central Iowa to find tombstones of relatives long dead and gone.
We’ve even gathered iris bulbs from one of those long forgotten places and brought them home to bring a piece of the family back with us.

But Butler Bass notes that we save things and we gather information, but we don’t often collect what those details mean to our lives. “We have more information about the past,” she writes, “but less actual connection to it than those in previous ages.”
The truth is, I don’t know the stories of most of those names I have collected together in my family history. I can tell you where they lived and died and where they are buried… but what did they experience in this life? What brought them joy? What struggles did they over come? Their stories are largely forgotten because we stopped handing them down.
And even on days like today, when we celebrate communion with the saints of God, with those who have gone before us, when we invoke their presence and their memory… do we have any sense of whom we are eating with today?

Our text for this morning is in essence a family tree. It is a genealogy of Jesus Christ shared with us by the apostle Matthew in his gospel.
And truth be told, often we glance at those names and the same sense of dryness and lack of life and history overcomes us.
We gloss over their names as a boring list of people we don’t know.
But they are our spiritual ancestors.
And who they were matters.
And who was included in those histories matters.
One of the things that you might notice if you compare the genealogy of Matthew and Luke is that Matthew actually includes the names of some women!
We find the story of Tamar… who was left widowed and childless in an age in which that was a death sentence. This family tree continues only because she tricked her father-in-law, Judah, into getting her pregnant by dressing up as a prostitute.
Rahab was an actual prostitute who was part of the battle of Jericho… Joshua sent spies into the city to scout it out and Rahab is the one who sheltered them. As a result, her family was rescued and she married into one of the important families of Israel.
Her son, Boaz, married an foreign immigrant, Ruth, who tricked him into the relationship by getting him drunk one night.
We are reminded in this genealogy that Solomon’s mother was Bathsheba. His family story is one of adultery and murder as Bathsheba was taken advantage of by David.

These are stories of scandal, but also intense strength, compassion, resolve, and determination. These women and the lives they led are our spiritual ancestry!
I wonder if Matthew perhaps included these women in his ancestry of Jesus as one way of grounding the story of Mary and Joseph and rumors and scandal circulating around his birth. But also, it was a testimony to the faithful ancestors that gave someone like Mary the courage to keep trusting God would be with her in the midst of the journey.

How does knowing these stories ground our sense of purpose, identity, and ability to navigate the trials and tribulations of our lives? Might we call upon these ancestors and their faith in God to help us persevere in our own journey?

Another thing you’ll notice if you look at the family tree included in Matthew as opposed to the one in Luke, you’ll actually find two very different stories of where Jesus comes from and what his life means, claiming political and spiritual authority from different sources!
Matthew grounds the life of Jesus in the history of the Jewish people. As verse 1 proudly states: A record of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. He is the heir of the Kingdom of David and of the covenant of Abraham. He is the King of the Jews.
Luke’s version ignores most of kings and focuses on ordinary, everyday folks who don’t appear in grand stories of scripture. And his version goes all the way back, not just to Abraham, but to Adam… emphasizing the whole family of earth.
There was actually a joke I heard frequently growing up that all the Czechs on the south side of the Cedar River were related to one another. Not originally, of course, but because “bohemies” couldn’t swim, we all ended up marrying one another.
I saw this in my own lifetime… My Babi (grandma) was a Benesh and my Deda (grandpa) was a Ziskovsky.
Just two generations later, a second cousin from the Ziskovsky side married a fourth cousin from the Benesh side…
That’s in essence Luke’s point… Instead of emphasizing one thread of one famous family, he brings home the point that we’re all eventually related to everyone else. His is a family tree that is a lot like the image on the front of your bulletin… with a single origin for us all.
What does it mean for our relationships with one another, if we recognized our common ancestory and inheritance as children of God? If we remembered that our stories all start in the same place, grounded in the same history, created by the same God?

Today, we feast with our ancestors.
We remember the lives they lived.
We remember the faith they handed down.
And their lives help us to become even more grounded in our relationship with the one who not only created us, but who is right here with us.
A God who was, and is, and is to come.
Immanuel…
God with us.

Go Back Home

Posted on April 1, 20181 Comment

Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!

When those women showed up at the tomb on Easter morning, they didn’t know they were supposed to shout for joy.
They were confused and disoriented and more than a little startled by the angel appearing before them.
Christ has been raised?
He isn’t here?
What on earth is going on?

The only miracle they had thought to pray for was that somehow they would be able to roll away the stone.
They had come to this place expecting that the stench of death would fill the tomb.
In their arms, they carried only spices and oils for anointing the body of their friend, their teacher. Patiently they had waited until the sabbath was over and the sun had peeked over the horizon.

Many of us have been in that place.
We have trudged through the valley of the shadow of death, overwhelmed by our grief, going through the motions of ritual and closure because it is the only thing we know how to do in that moment.
Except unlike us, these three women: Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome, had no hope left in their heart.
There was no light at the end of this tunnel.
They were witnesses to a world-transforming, miracle-working revolution of thought and mind and now that it was snuffed out before them… now that Jesus was dead, three days in the tomb… now that the disciples had scattered… it was all over.
They were alone.
The empire had won.
Or so they thought…

Until they arrived at the tomb just after sunrise, carrying objects of mourning, and discovered the stone had been rolled away.
They slowly stepped inside the cavern, unsure, unsteady, unknowing… and were startled by a man in white standing in the room.
I can imagine one of them hoisted up the jar of spices, prepared to use it as a weapon to throw so they could make a quick escape.
But the man quickly spoke: I know you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the One they nailed on the cross. He’s been raised up; he’s here no longer. See for yourselves – this place is empty.
The Message translation of this passage notes that they got out of there as fast as they could, their heads swimming, completely beside themselves with this good news of great joy… but before they stumbled out the door, the messenger in white had some very clear instructions for these ladies, these first messengers of the gospel, the first preachers of the resurrection.
“On your way, ladies! You have work to do! Go and tell the disciples that Jesus is going back to where this whole thing started… back to where your ministry began… Go back home… and you will find Jesus there.”

Go back home.

Sometimes, we need to go back to the beginning of our story.
We need to remember where we have come from to understand where we are supposed to go next.

This Friday, we laid to rest our friend and church member, Donna Bales. In the midst of their grief, I listened as Donna’s children and grandchildren shared stories of their loved one. They talked about going back through Donna’s things and they even went back to the stories that Donna herself had told about her life growing up… about her parents and grandparents. In the process, they tapped into the core of who she was – an incredibly strong, yet humble woman, who taught them each how to embrace their own strength in life.

Perhaps you have had a similar experience when you have lost a loved one. When you go back home and start sifting through those memories and artifacts, revisiting things you thought were behind you, you start to discover a rich heritage in your past that has shaped who you have become.

The disciples of Jesus had made a lot of mistakes along their journey. They were human, just like you and me, and they fumbled and failed like we all do. Every step of the way, Jesus was there to guide them, set them back on the path, and to help them understand God in a new way.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples either betrayed him, denied him, or ran away in fear of their own lives. Their grief and shame hung heavily upon them.
How do you even begin to hear the good news of the resurrection in that moment?
How can you begin to start anew?
You go back home.
You go back to the place where Jesus first spoke your name, first called you into ministry, first showed you that God is present in our lives.
You go back to where it all began.

The messenger in the tomb that morning tells the women, and through them the disciples, that Jesus has already made a plan to meet them back home in Galilee.

It was there that Jesus began to announce the good news of God – “Change your hearts and your lives – Here comes God’s Kingdom!”
It was there by the Sea that he discovered Simon and Andrew, James and John, casting their nets into the sea.
It was there that Jesus cast out demons, healed the sick, turned water into wine, and multiplied the loaves and the fishes.

Jesus calls them back home to the place where their story began together.
Because it is about to begin all over again.
And they are going to need to tap into those rich memories and stories of forgiveness and the memories of miracles to help guide them as they take their next steps along the journey of God.

This past week, a good friend and mentor of mine, Rev. Michael Williams, died in Nashville. That city was home for me during my seminary years and while I couldn’t go back for the funeral, I found myself reconnecting with friends via facebook as we shared memories and I was able to livestream the funeral – a powerful service of death and resurrection – from here.

I sat in my office, watching the choir process into the sanctuary at West End United Methodist Church and as friends and colleagues stood in that pulpit to speak a word of God’s love. That church was my home for four years. It was where I worshipped. It was where I began my ministry. It was the place I first stood behind a communion table to break bread and share it with my congregation. That church home and those people formed and shaped my ministry and I would not be the pastor I am today without those experiences.
It was powerful to go back home, even if only through the wonders of technology, and to be reminded of where I have come from and where I am called to go next.
Where did you first encounter Jesus in your life?
Who were the people who surrounded you at that time in your life?
Was it at summer camp? At your grandparent’s church? Was it right here in this building?
Did that place come to feel like home for you?

My friend, Michael, wrote: “the people who have formed and shaped our lives while they were among us can still live inside us and influence the way we live even after their death. In some sense, as long as we continue to tell the stories of loved ones, they remain a presence within us and among us.”

When it feels like defeat and death have won the day, we are invited to go back home.
We are invited to go back to the place where this journey started for us and start retelling the stories of our faith.
And we discover there the presence of God all over again. We encounter the risen Savior. We are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. We are met by the Holy and Triune God who has promised to always be home for us.

In this season of Easter at Immanuel, we are going to be exploring what it means to have a place to call home in our faith lives. Our scriptures and messages will remind us that God wants to make a home among us, God-with-us, Immanuel… and that we are invited to make our home in God – to abide, to dwell in the presence of the Risen One.
Maybe today you have come home to this place, this family, this Body of Christ, and this is an opportunity to reconnect and get reenergized.
Maybe you haven’t yet found a place to call your spiritual home. If that’s the case, we invite you to join us over these next weeks and to go on this journey with us. And I pray that the welcome so many of us have discovered here might be shared with you.
But above all, wherever you call home, know that you are not alone. “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.” We are never alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.

A Different Kind of Proof

Posted on March 28, 2016Leave a comment

A man named Bob Ebeling thought he was a loser.

Mr. Ebeling was an engineer on the Challenger Space Shuttle and discovered that the O-ring seals in the rocket might not hold up in the cold temperatures of the 1986 launch.

He and fellow engineers pleaded with NASA to stop the launch, but they decided to go ahead anyways.

He went home, knowing the shuttle would explode. “And it did, 73 seconds after liftoff. Seven astronauts died.” (NPR 2/25/2016)

In an interview with National Public Radio, Mr. Ebeling shared that for thirty years has been carrying the guilt and the burden of the loss of life on that day.

Lots of people told him that it wasn’t his fault…

That he had done everything he could…

But he couldn’t forgive himself.

He believed one of the mistakes God made was picking him for the job.

And because NASA and the contractor in charge of the launch had never given him confirmation that he had done the right thing, he didn’t believe it.

What fascinates me about this story is that Mr. Ebeling did the right thing. He told the truth. He did everything he could to prevent the launch. And after his story first aired in January of this year, calls and letters poured in to his home. People who had been close to him. People who had worked with him. Complete strangers who had been moved to write and let him know that he wasn’t a loser, but a hero.

And yet, he wouldn’t believe… he couldn’t forgive himself…

Unless there was a specific act of proof – a call or a letter from NASA themselves.

I hear in his story the same kind of need to know and to find proof that I hear in our gospel lesson this morning.

Women trek to the tomb are the break of dawn. And they have no idea what to make of the stone rolled away. The body of their Lord is no longer there. What they are experiencing doesn’t make any sense until the angels appear and remind them what Jesus had told them: that on the third day, he would rise. And they remember.

Can you imagine their amazement?

They rush back to the disciples and tell everyone about what they have discovered. They tell them about the tomb. They tell the crowd: He Is Risen!!!!

And no one believes them.

They need proof.

They need something more concrete.

They need to see it to believe it.

And so Peter runs to the tomb himself, looks inside, and sees nothing but a cloth.

And the scripture says… he returned home, wondering at what had happened

But what I find amazing is that this account leaves out a key detail: It never says he believes.

And I think if I had showed up there, I would have been surprised and amazed, but I’m not sure I would totally understand what had happened.

I think he was unsure.

Filled with doubt and questions.

He didn’t have enough proof to believe that what the ladies had told him was true.

Unless there was a specific act of proof…

Friends, it isn’t easy to believe the story that we share with you this morning.

Resurrection? Yeah, right.

We haven’t seen it or experienced it.

We can’t go back in time and run to the tomb ourselves.

Angels aren’t popping in to worship this morning to tell us how it is.

If even the disciples had a hard time believing, how are we supposed to understand this good news?

Where is the proof? Where is the concrete evidence?

Mr. Ebling wanted a word from specific people in order to forgive himself.

And he got it. He got a call on the phone from one of the vice presidents for the contractor, Thiokol who told Mr. Ebling – you did all that you could do. (NPR)

And George Hardy, a NASA official involved in the Challenger loss wrote to Mr. Ebeling – “You and your colleagues did everything that was expected of you.”

And it started to make a difference.

And then came a statement from NASA itself: “We honor [the Challenger astronauts] not through bearing the burden of their loss, but by constantly reminding each other to remain vigilant… and to listen to those like Mr. Ebeling who have the courage to speak up so that our astronauts can safely carry out their missions.”

That was it. That was the thing he wanted to see and hear. The proof he needed to let go of his burden of guilt.

The disciples wanted to see it with their own eyes… to touch their Rabbi with their own fingers.

And Jesus appeared to them.

He showed them his hands and feet. He ate a piece of fish with them. He personally reminded them of everything he had said – that he was supposed to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.

They got the proof they wanted.

But there is something that those disciples didn’t quite understand…

something that Mr. Ebeling didn’t quite understand…

something that we don’t quite understand whenever we are looking for a specific piece of proof or evidence… something concrete to demonstrate truth.

Yes, Jesus gives them the proof they wanted – he shows them his physical resurrected self – but the proof they needed was still to come.

Jesus isn’t there to show them his body. He is there to send them forth to live out his message.

“A change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Look, I’m sending you to what my Father promised.”

What if we have it all wrong?

We always say, “seeing is believing.”

But what if DOING is believing?

What if in the very act of living out the resurrection and the good news of Jesus Christ we find the proof we are looking for?

What if we are looking for proof instead of living out the proof with our very selves?

You see, Jesus, didn’t ask us to intellectually understand the resurrection.

He didn’t ask us to be able to explain it scientifically.

He doesn’t want us to have a philosophical debate with people about it.

Jesus wants us to live it.

To change our hearts and our lives.

To go out in the world and turn it upside down.

He started a resurrection insurrection and Jesus rebelled against the powers of evil, sin and death… and now he calls us to follow him in turning the forces of destruction on their heads.

It is in the process of living it, that we discover just how true and real the power of the resurrection is.

Over the last few weeks here at church we have been reading this book, Renegade Gospel. And it hasn’t been an easy book. The author has challenged us time and time again to get out there and live our faith!!!

That has been a hard message to swallow, because so many of us feel like we aren’t doing as much as Mike Slaughter asks of us. We feel guilty because we don’t go as far as he asks us to go. We aren’t sure we are ready to give it our all.

But what Slaughter reminds us in the very last chapter is “that an abundance of faith is not necessary.” Jesus told the disciples that faith as small as a mustard seed could change the world. “It’s not about how much faith you have, but how much of what you have that you commit to action.”

You don’t have to believe every single word of the gospel to live out the power of resurrection.

You can have all kinds of doubts and questions and you can still live out the power of the resurrection.

I’m begging you… don’t sit back, waiting for definitive concrete proof before you decide to become a Christian.

I’m not sure it’s there.

But what I do know is that when I live out my teeny tiny little mustard seed faith and trust in the power of resurrection, I find intangible, mysterious, holy truth everywhere.

I find it in this room when I hear the stories of healing in this life and in the celebration of a life that will continue in the next.

I find in in a letter I received from one of you this very morning that describes how you have awakened to a new understanding of faith and discipleship.

I find it at the food pantry in the hope that comes to life on the face of a mom who was desperate.

I find it in the pile of goods and sleeping bags and food that are outside the sanctuary, waiting to be delivered to homeless people through Joppa.

I find it in the discovery on a child’s face when they learn a new word.

Mike Slaughter writes that “the resurrected Jesus revealed himself to his followers in a very personal and real way. But he made clear its impossible to know him apart from the commitment to become intimately involved in his life and mission. Intentional participation in his life and mission is part and parcel of faith. Faith is a verb!!!”

So friends, don’t wait for proof.

Don’t spend thirty years of your life waiting for some kind of external validation.

Just follow Jesus.

Go where he sends us.

Join the incredible movement to transform this world!

Live it out by showing forgiveness and grace to every person you meet.

Live it out by praying for the sick.

Live it out by loving the unloveable.

Live it out by holding the hand of someone who is dying.

And you will find the proof you are looking for…

Because Christ is risen!

No More Denial

Posted on May 13, 2012Leave a comment

Seventy five years ago, I probably would not have been welcomed in this pulpit. As a woman, ordination was out of the question. A combination of tradition and a patriarchal society and a way of reading the scriptures precluded the church from welcoming women as preachers and pastors.

But here I stand… robed, ordained, my calling from the Holy Spirit confirmed by the church.

As a young woman, I have always lived in a church that ordained women. I have always been a part of a church that valued the contributions women made in ministry, in leadership, and in the world. It has been a given.

And so it was a wake-up call to remember at General Conference this year that this church has not always welcomed everyone.

Of the many things we celebrated – one was the fortieth anniversary of Cosrow – the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women. CSRW has worked tirelessly these past forty years to make sure women have had a place in the church… and continue to work hard in places like Nigeria, Tanzania and the Congo to help the United Methodist Church there continue to affirm the calling of women in a culture that has traditionally been led by men.

We also had a time of celebration of full-communion with our African Methodist brothers and sisters. For students of history, the historically black Methodist denominations in our nation were formed out of discrimination and exclusion… beginning with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The AME Church was founded in 1816 by Richard Allen who left the Methodist Episcopal Church. At the time, black congregants were segregated to the second floor gallery and although the church affirmed his calling to be a pastor… Allen was only allowed to preach to and minister to other black Methodists.

After the AME Church came other Pan-Methodist denominations like the AME Zion church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Union Methodist Protestant Church and the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church.

Twelve years ago, the United Methodist Church repented of our acts of discrimination and exclusion towards our brothers and sisters and this year, we celebrated full-communion together. We now recognize one another’s churches, share sacraments, and affim the clergy and ministries of one another’s denominations.

I think that it is important to have this backdrop of our own exclusion, presumptions, and history of discrimination as we read our text from Acts for this morning.

You see, Peter has been sent on a missionary journey to the home of Cornelius… a gentile. A Gentile is a non-jew, someone who was not a part of the family of Israel, someone who was an outsider as far as the faith was concerned. Gentiles would not have been allowed into holy places of the Jewish temple. They were excluded because they were unclean. They were different. They were not welcome.

But while Peter is in this community, he has a vision of the clean and unclean joining together. He has a vision of a new sort of body of Christ. And when he goes to preach to Cornelius and his family, the Holy Spirit descends upon them and they recieve the gift of faith.

Peter’s world has just been turned upside down. Those he thought were outside of God’s love and power have just had it poured upon them. And exclaims: “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water, can they?”

No one could deny their gifts. Water was brought and Cornelius and his whole family were baptized on the spot… they were part of the family of God.

I wonder if at various points throughout our history faithful folk stood up and exclaimed about women or people of color: These people have received the Holy Spirit… just like we did – How can we stop them from being baptized? How can we deny them a place at the table? How can we stop them from being ordained when God has so clearly spoken in their lives?

I wonder what kinds of upside down realizations helped people to reverse traditionally held views about who was outside of the call and power of God? John Wesley, the founder of Methodism was against women preaching in principle… until he witnessed the Holy Spirit working through the lives of women like Sarah Crosby, Grace Murry, and Hannah Ball. He relented and licensed them for preaching in the circuits across England.

And I wonder where we need to have our worlds turned upside down once again?

In a small community like Marengo, we are not exceptionally diverse. And so when we come to church we find a lot of people who look and think and talk like we do. Or at least it might appear that way.

When we dig deeper, we find that we are young and we are old. We are rich and we are poor. We are healthy and we are in need of healing. We have been educated by the streets and we have been taught in universities. We vote republican and we vote democrat. And yet, we have made room here in this place for all of this difference. God is good!

And yet, there are still people missing from our midst. There are still people in this community and in this world who either do not know that they are welcome here or who actively feel excluded from this community and from leadership in our church. Our sign outside might say, “All Welcome…” but do we truly live that out with our lives? And do we actively let people know with our words and our deeds that they truly can enter this building and be a part of our community? Do we go out into the world to discover where the Holy Spirit is active and moving in the hearts of children of God?

In our gospel lesson this morning, we are reminded that we have been chosen by God. We are friends of Jesus… but not because of anything special that we have done to deserve that recognition. No, God chooses who God wants. And as we look through history we find that God choose people like the murderer, Moses; the deciever, Jacob; the prostitute, Rahab; the tax collector, Matthew; and the super-religious, Saul.

In spite of our pasts, in spite of our present, in spite of where we were born or who we were born, God has chosen to love us. And God also chooses to love people outside of these four walls. The Holy Spirit is out there in the world right now moving among people in this community: parents with little kids; single moms; drug addicts; gays and lesbians; the elderly who are homebound; folks who partied too much last night; and people who don’t want to know Jesus Christ.

God is out there moving! It was the Holy Spirit that led our apostle Peter into the community of Caesarea and into the household of Cornelius. Cornelius may have been a Gentile, but God was moving in his life. Cornelius actively supported the local synagogue and Jewish ministries… even though he was not allowed in the Temple to worship like those who were born Jews.

God chose to speak through him. God chose to act through him. And Peter was the one who needed the wake up call to see that the Holy Spirit could move even outside of the traditional bounds of faith.

In his farewell message to his disciples, Jesus not only called them friends, but he also reminded them that they were sent. Sent out into the world to point to where the Holy Spirit is moving. Sent out into the world to love the people, to love the creation, and to bear the fruit of the gospel. And as we go, we need to remember that God can and does choose people who don’t look like us, talk like us, love like us, minister like us.

In May of 1956, the Methodist Church began to ordain women with the same full rights as men. And in May of 2012, the United Methodist Church voted to fully recognize and value the ordination and sacramental authority of men and women that our church had shut the doors to 200 years ago. And this General Conference, we began to make the first steps towards reconciliation with Native American brothers and sisters – who we as United Methodists have actively pushed to the margins of society.

As we experienced those acts of repentence at General Conference, my heart couldn’t help but wonder who we are leaving out today and are not yet ready to even admit… who are we still excluding? Who has God called while we remain in denial? May we have open eyes and open hearts and open minds to see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people in this world. May we always be ready and willing to share this church and this ministry with all of those whom God has chosen. And together, as friends of God, may we all go into this world ready to bear the fruit of the Gospel.

Treasures in the closet

Posted on February 16, 2012Leave a comment

When my grandmother passed away, my aunts and I spent hours going through her closets. Grandma Doni was a stylish lady. She was put together. But she was also my grandma, and we didn’t necessarily have the same fashion sense.

While there were a number of nice suits and jackets and outfits, there were few that really tripped my trigger. As a 20 year old college student, the clothes just didn’t fit with my life. Shoulder pads were out. The fits were off. But I reluctantly took a few pieces, stuck them in a closet at my parents and left them.

A couple of months ago, I was peeking in that same closet looking for my sewing machine. It was passed down from my grandma, too. It is this heavy, old, seafoam green monster and I love it. But there in the closet, I also saw a few of those jackets and suits and found my eyes drawn to this pink camel hair pencil skirt. Of course, it had a matching jacket that still seemed a bit hideous, but that skirt caught my attention. So, I took it back home.

It hung in my closet for a bit until I finally decided to bust it out this past Sunday. I paired it with some white tights and a white wrap-around/button-up shirt.

One of my favorite things about the skirt is how well it is made. The lining is crisp. The side zipper actually hides inside the pocket. It fits in all the right places and moves well.

But most importantly, putting on that skirt, I think I stood taller. I thought about the woman she was and the woman she would have wanted me to be. And I would like to think that she would be pleased to see me up there, at the front of the church, in her pink camel hair skirt 🙂

competing goods and womens’ bodies…

Posted on February 10, 2012Leave a comment

Lately, womens’ bodies and health care and pregnancy and contraception and abortion and religious freedom and laws and the kitchen sink have been tossed around and talked about ad naseum.

My twitter feed blew up with critiques and praises of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. My newsfeed from facebook was littered with comments about rights to health care and freedom of religion. Over breakfast, having coffee, in person, on the phone, the issues these questions raise are all around me.

And I guess why this is so exasperating for me, personally, is that I can’t figure out what to say and where to stand. I see all sorts of different sides to these issues. There are a thousand shades of grey to understand in the conversations and multiple “goods” that unfortunately do not play well together. And so when I’m asked my opinion or what I think about it, it would probably take three hours just to lay out all of the pieces of the puzzle… and that doesn’t include any time spent trying to actually give an answer.

Most often, however, the arguments are boiled down to two positions.

On the one side – let’s just call it what it is – the left side – the argument comes from a question of whether or not people have access to resources they need to care for their bodies, make informed decisions, and lead autonomous lives. It is about rights and conscience.

On the other side – the right side – the argument begins with the beliefs/traditions/morals that institutions hold about our bodies. It is also about rights and conscience.

You could start trying to pick a side by asking yourself -well, which is more important? An individual’s rights? or an institution’s beliefs?

But then that leads to questions about what happens when one individuals conscience leads them to harm another? What happens when an institution’s conscience leads them to harm another institution? or an individual? or a group of individuals? Who/what is more valued? Which institution gets the say? The government? A church? Are any particular persons more “persons” than others?

(we aren’t even dealing with details, yet… just the big picture of rights)

Take the issue of birth control and the mandate (or whatever it is) that all institutions will have to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees through their health care. It doesn’t apply to churches, but it would to educational institutions, hospitals, etc. that are religiously affiliated. Which puts the issue of institutional vs. individual right smack dab in the center of the debate for an institution like the Roman Catholic Church that does not see contraceptives as a moral good. It prevents life, therefore they are against it. I can completely understand and respect an institution’s beliefs and values and want them to have the freedom to stand by them. But I would also like for the many Catholics who actually use birth control pill to have the ability to have it affordably. I would like for the teenagers covered by their parents insurance who use birth control pills to mitigate acne to get it for a good price. I would like the women who suffer with long and painful periods to be able to make a choice and have it covered by their employeers insurance if they need to use the birth control pill or IUD or other method to help regulate their cycles. I recently read that over 50% of the women who use the birth control pill do so for a reason besides pregnancy prevention. That number absolutely floored me.

As I heard on NPR this afternoon – if it is an argument about religious freedom… the bishops win. If it is an argument about accessibility of contraceptives for individuals… then the administration wins. I want both institutions and individuals to have the freedom to make informed decisions and to stand by their convictions. But in these particular issues, we just can’t have it both ways. So which is more important? Religious freedom? or access to health care? Pressed to make a choice, I take the fifth.

I think I struggle also with the issue of abortion because it is not clearly a black/white issue… as much as people try to frame it that way.

The official United Methodist position regarding the issue can be found in The Book of Discipline:

The beginning of life and the ending of life are the God-given boundaries of human existence. While individuals have always had some degree of control over when they would die, they now have the awesome power to determine when and even whether new individuals will be born.

Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion. But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother, for whom devastating damage may result from an unacceptable pregnancy. In continuity with past Christian teaching, we recognize tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion, and in such cases we support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures. We cannot affirm abortion as an acceptable means of birth control, and we unconditionally reject it as a means of gender selection.

We oppose the use of late-term abortion known as dilation and extraction (partial-birth abortion) and call for the end of this practice except when the physical life of the mother is in danger and no other medical procedure is available, or in the case of severe fetal anomalies incompatible with life. We call all Christians to a searching and prayerful inquiry into the sorts of conditions that may warrant abortion. We commit our Church to continue to provide nurturing ministries to those who terminate a pregnancy, to those in the midst of a crisis pregnancy, and to those who give birth. We particularly encourage the Church, the government, and social service agencies to support and facilitate the option of adoption. (See ¶ 161.K.)

Governmental laws and regulations do not provide all the guidance required by the informed Christian conscience. Therefore, a decision concerning abortion should be made only after thoughtful and prayerful consideration by the parties involved, with medical, pastoral, and other appropriate counsel.

From The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church – 2004. Copyright 2004 by The United Methodist Publishing House. Used by permission.

I appreciate the nuance that our position holds. I believe it tries to hold up the goods of not only life, but also the good of family, responsible parenting, a woman’s body. It also leads us into prayer about “the sorts of conditions that may warrant abortion.”

One of my most memorable experiences in seminary was attending the Cal Turner Center for Moral Ethics retreat. Graduate students from five different fields were brought together to discuss issues that we all will face in our career fields. I was surrounded by students from the law, business, medical and nursing school – along with my colleagues from the divinity school. The presenter that really helped me to understand the “gray” area of the abortion question was Dr. Frank Boehm, who had written a book called, “Doctors Cry, Too.” He talked about his experiences in the emergency room treating young women who had either tried to perform abortive measures on themselves or had recieved “back-alley” abortions. They found themselves in the E.R. with deadly infections, rips and tears, and irreparable damage. Some died. He struggled with his convictions about life and the pragmatic reality that safe and legal ways of terminating a pregnancy were needed or these women would continue to use whatever means necessary. His story has caused me to truly not have an answer when asked if I am pro-life or pro-choice. I both want to uphold the sanctity of life and want those who see no other options to have safe and legal options available to them. I also firmly seek to provide options and resources and hope to those who find themselves in those positions.

The UMC position also tries to bring some nuance to the very term “abortion.” We make a distinction between the stages at which procedures are performed. But mentioned here in this piece is no mention of the “morning-after pill.” Some who are pro-life today would oppose use of the morning-after pill because it would prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg. And yet, most morning-after pills are merely strong doses of the same ingredients found in other contraceptives. In reality, many contraceptives are effective in part because of this reason. At the same time there is national conversation about mandating the coverage of contraceptives in health care, states like Mississippi have proposed legislation that take the definition of abortion to extremes that could potentially make said contraceptives illegal. That measure was NOT passed thanks to 58% of the voters of the state rejecting the measure. We have to have these conversations because even if and when we agree that protecting life is good, we don’t agree about what life is and when it begins. Fertilization? Implantation? when an embryo becomes a fetus? According to some places in the Old Testament, life was determined by the breath. We have talked about life ceasing with heart beats, so does it also begin with them? What about brain waves? It is a complicated and difficult conversation with no easy answers.

In all of these questions, there are goods that we are trying to achieve. Goods like health, life, equality, choice, accessibility, convictions, morality, community, and accountability. And unfortunately, sometimes those goods compete and we have to choose between them. And sometimes our decisions are merely choices between evils rather than goods. I see so many different sides and truly faithful and good people coming from all different perspectives. My number one hope is that we might have these conversations with civility, respect, and a willingness to listen to the heart and experience of another person.

I just wish that these debates weren’t always about women’s bodies. It is frustrating that we live in a world in which so many of these complicated issues have to do with what women can and cannot do with their bodies and have so little to do with the physical bodies of adult men. I sometimes wonder if the conversations would be different.

Bible and Newspaper #1

Posted on February 24, 2011Leave a comment

Coming home from a recent conference in Washington, D.C., I’m trying to be more courageous. But I’m also faced with the reality that being a pastor, and ministering to a diverse group of folks… I can’t always link and share and say everything that I want to…

So, here is what I am going to do.

I’m going to continue to encourage us to look at the world with the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. And when stuff comes up that affects us all, I’m going to try to point out where our church has spoken on the issue and how we have interpreted scriptures.

So, for the first one, we might as well dive right in to the hard stuff: Abortion.

I do not believe abortion can be seen as a starkly black and white issue – all are bad or all are good… real lives of real people are bound up in these life and death decisions. And no matter what choices we have made, our task as Christians is love and care for one another – to help people heal and to be whole.

For those of us who are United Methodist and from Iowa, I encourage you to read House File 153 and to hold it in light with our own denominational position on abortion and our best understandings of scripture. Both Exodus 21 and Psalm 139 come to mind… one does not hold embryos, fetuses, or any unborn child to the same standard of life and the other does.

And perhaps, also think of the implications of such a law. How would it affect birth control which in part prevents the implantation of fertilized eggs? How would it affect emergency contraceptives? How would it affect the decision making process when the life of the mother is at risk if pregnancy is carried to term?

And not related to the issue, what does it mean for checks and balances that included in this bill it is written the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over a portion of our legislation.

Pray, read, and if you feel led, call your state representantive. As a citizen of this state, you have a voice… as a person of faith, you have something to say.