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Blessed are the Debonair

Posted on April 24, 2016Leave a comment

This morning, we celebrate God’s good creation.

We celebrate the gift of this world… this earth that has been placed in our care.

And I’m sure you are wondering as you heard the scriptures for today and look at that sermon title… what in the world do these things have to do with creation care?

Well, as I prepared for our time of worship today, I spent some time in the works of Lutheran eco-theologian Joseph Sittler.

Rev. Sittler was born in 1904 and in his work began connecting Christian theology and environmental matters as early as the 1950s. He firmly believed that care for the earth and our environment is one of the central concerns of our faith.

He also loved to explore the ways various biblical translations impacted our understanding of what they mean. Robert Saler points to his fascination with a French translation of the Beatitudes – in particularly Matthew 5:5.

We know the verse today as “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

However, “Sittler noticed that the French would often translate this as ‘blessed are the debonair.’ “ (Saler)

Immediately, you probably have an image in your mind of what it means to be debonair. I know, for me, it was almost the opposite of meek.

Yet, as Sittler explains:

… “debonair” in French, in the time of the French Bible of John Calvin, meant a person who is not an idolater, one who hasn’t gotten hooked up in anything worldly, one who is so sophisticated as to know wealth for what it is and that it isn’t everything…

This is a person who has a kind of centeredness that doesn’t let the idols of this world capture it. It’s a kind of debonair in which you sit lightly on the offerings and temptations of this world because you have a vision of something better…

I think about this in the context of our passage from Acts.

Peter has operated under a world view his entire life that divided the world into good and bad, clean and unclean, impure and pure. He was hooked on an understanding of the world that separated him and those like him from others.

There were some things, and some people, as a part of this creation that were outside his concern. Just as he traditionally wouldn’t have been allowed to enter the house of a Gentile, he couldn’t eat certain foods.

But then he has this vision… a vision that opened up his world as never before.

As the Message translation describes that vision in modern language:

Something like a huge blanket, lowered by ropes at its four corners, came down out of heaven and settled on the ground in front of me. Milling around on the blanket were farm animals, wild animals, reptiles, birds—you name it, it was there. Fascinated, I took it all in.

^7-10“Then I heard a voice: ‘Go to it, Peter—kill and eat.’ I said, ‘Oh, no, Master. I’ve never so much as tasted food that wasn’t kosher.’ The voice spoke again: ‘If God says it’s okay, it’s okay.’

There are two things happening here.

Missionally, God is opening Peter and the disciples’ hearts to the possibility of ministry among the Gentiles. God is helping them come to a more sophisticated understanding of their mission that is no longer limited by the old delineations. The Holy Spirit sends Peter to a non-Jewish family who is converted on the spot.

But important for our conversation today, God is helping Peter to understand that all of creation was made by God and it is all a gift. Just as there is no distinction between clean and unclean people, there is no distinction between clean and unclean animals or birds. God has made it all and to God it all belongs… yet it is also being given to Peter, to the people, to us, as a gift… as an inheritance.

In his reflections on the beatitudes, Rev. Sittler considers those debonair who will inherit the earth:

It doesn’t say they shall own the earth, or control the earth…It says they shall inherit the earth.

…The difference is: what you own, you probably earn, or make. An inheritance is something you don’t own. You don’t deserve it. It’s a surprise. You live in the world with a gentle spirit, because the whole of creation is a kind of outrageous surprise, a gift.

Blessed are they of a gentle spirit, because they live in the world not as ones who strut around as if they own the place… Rather, their first feeling for the world is one of tender wonder, gratitude, and amazement.

And Peter does have that sense of awe. The Message translation in particular captures the drama, the wonder of it all, by saying that Peter was fascinated and took it all in. That gentle debonair spirit took over. He realized that the systems of division between clean and unclean he had lived with his entire life were stripped away.

Every little bit of this world was made by God and belongs to God and we are merely granted temporary guardianship and use. Like Adam and Eve were given creation in Genesis to care for, to steward, to use for their needs, so this world is gifted to Peter and to us.

Rev. Sittler describes a moment when he saw that debonair spirit in action:

I went with some college kids on a trip, a big Saturday afternoon walk through the gigantic Douglas-fir forest in the lower slopes of the Cascades. I watched these sophisticated kids . . . . When they walked into the woods, they became quiet, silent. They would reach out and pat the big trees as they went by. The further we got into the woods, the quieter they became.

Then the phrase came to me, “They inherit the world, because they don’t own it.”

They don’t think of it fundamentally as potential two-by-fours, though it’s all right to use it that way wisely; if you love a thing, then you’re prepared to use it wisely.”

Why should we, as people of faith lift up creation care? Why would someone like Joseph Sittler claim that environmental concerns are one of the central issues of Christianity?

Precisely because it is one of the richest gifts and inheritances that God has given us.

As we state in the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church:

All creation is the Lord’s, and we are responsible for the ways we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life, and space are to be valued and conserved because they are God’s creation and not solely because they are useful to human beings… we should meet these stewardship duties through acts of loving care and respect. (Book of Discipline, ¶160)

And if we truly love God, if we truly love one another, if we truly love this gift of creation, then our love will lead us to use it wisely.

The greatest commandment, after all, is to love. And that love should fill every relationship and every engagement with the world.

And that love also leads us to periodically check ourselves and ask if we have taken this gift for granted. That love calls us to speak up when we see others abusing our common resources. That love demands that we teach our children and ourselves how to walk gently and carefully among this precious planet.

Blessed are the Debonair… for they shall inherit the earth.

We have been given this world as a gift, and we are to make sure future generations are able to inherit it as well.

References:

Robert Saler – “Eco-Justice Commentary on the Common Lectionary Easter 5”

Jospeh Sittler, “His God Story,” in The Eloquence of Grace: Joseph Sittler and the Preaching Life, ed. Richard Lischer and James Childs, Cascade, 2013, 23-24

See(k)ing Jesus

Posted on March 13, 2016Leave a comment

I’m sometimes asked what the difference is between Christians who are out there serving people in the world and regular, ordinary people, who are out there serving.

So many of our businesses here in Des Moines are great proponents of volunteerism. Every time we go to a Meals from the Heartland event, or collect stuff for the food pantries or the schools I hear about Wells Fargo or Principal or Hy-Vee doing the same sort of thing.

Is there anything different about the character or the content of what we do as people of faith?

Most days, if we are honest, probably not.

Should there be?

Absolutely.

But what is it?

Mother Teresa was once showing a bishop the community she served. It is said that she asked the bishop, “Would you like to see Jesus?” She then took him around a few corners to a man laying on a leather pallet who had clearly visible things crawling on his body. The bishop stood there in shock, but Mother Teresa knelt down and wrapped her arms around him, holding him like a baby in her arms.

“Here he is,” she said. To which the bishop replied – “Who?”

“Jesus” was her answer. “Didn’t he say you’d find me in the least person on earth? Isn’t this Jesus challenging us to reach out and love?” (wright-house.com/religions/Christianity/mother-teresa.html)

Seek and you will find.

That is what our gospel reading says.

Or as Michael Slaughter reminds us in “Renegade Gospel” – the passage uses the present continuous tense… Ask and keep on asking… Seek and keep on seeking…

The bishop wasn’t looking for Jesus and couldn’t see him in the suffering of the man on the pallet. But Mother Teresa was. She was looking for him every day. She was seeking Jesus every day. She knew that in every moment she was serving, she was doing it to Jesus.

Seek and keep on seeking and you will find.

The problem is, we aren’t always paying attention to Jesus.

I think one of the fundamental differences between Judas Iscariot and Mary in our other gospel text this morning is that the first was focused on himself and the second was seeking Jesus.

As _________ shared with us this morning, Jesus and the disciples were with Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany. And in the midst of the gathering, Mary takes this extravagantly expensive bottle of nard and anoints Jesus feet with the ointment.

This story itself appears in different ways in different texts.

In some cases the woman is unnamed, in another she is Mary Magdelene, and here she is identified as a different Mary.

In Matthew and Mark, the story comes earlier in the timeline and the woman anoints his head – a prophetic act that symbolizes his kingship.

But here, H. Stephen Shoemaker points out, that she anoints his feet, which would signal instead his imminent death. She, unlike the disciples, unlike Judas or Peter, had already accepted the true meaning of his teaching- that he was about to die. (Feasting on the Word)

There Jesus was, in the flesh, right in front of both of them.

Seek and keep on seeking and you will find.

But the gospel of John points out that Judas was so focused on that bag of money and his own selfish interests that he wasn’t even paying attention to Jesus.

Mary, on the other hand…

Mary sees Jesus in front of her, plain as day. She sees the suffering he is about to undergo. She sees his fear and pain. She sees his holiness.

Mary knew that this might be the last time she saw Jesus before he made the final trip to Jerusalem.

She knew their time together was short.

And she knew she could do this one thing for him. She anoints his feet in an act of worship showing her love and reverence for him. That was all that mattered.

When I heard that story about Mother Teresa, embracing the man who was suffering, I thought of Mary and Jesus. The tenderness of the physical touch. The dignity bestowed. The compassion and love that were offered through the embrace.

Love is costly.

Whether it is expensive perfume or the risk of embracing a diseased stranger, love is costly.

To use a word we shared last week – love is prodigal.

It is extravagant and sometimes appears wasteful. It is overwhelming and too much. And sometimes, by its very nature, it is immensely temporary.

In his reflection on this text, William Carter notes:

“Lots of extravagant gifts are put into the air, where they soon evaporate. A church choir labors to prepare and intricate anthem, and three minutes later it is gone. The teacher prepares the lesson, stands to deliver, and then the class is adjourned. Mourners provide large arrangements of flowers to honor those whom they grieve. Saints donate large sums of money for their congregations to spend. Why do they do this? Love has its reasons.” (Feasting on the Word)

Where Judas saw wastefulness and a hit on his personal pocketbook, Mary saw an opportunity to pour out extravagant love to her Lord and Savior.

Even his excuse – Hey! We could have spent this money on the poor – comes off as a limited perspective. For Jesus, in turn, quotes from Deuteronomy 15:

“Give generously to needy persons. Don’t resent giving to them because it is this very thing that will lead to the Lord your God’s blessing you in all you do and work at. Poor persons will never disappear from the earth. That’s why I’m giving you this command: you must open your hand generously to your fellow Israelites, to the needy among you, and to the poor who live with you in your land.”

And what I can’t help but hear in his response is the reminder that while Mary had the opportunity to pour out extravagant, generous love to Jesus in that moment, in just a few weeks, he would be gone.

And then, their responsibility, OUR responsibility, is to pour out that same extravagant love to the poor in our midst.

Give generously.

But you see, Jesus changes the dynamics of that exchange.

Because, now, it is not simply because it is a command from God on high.

Now, we do so, now we give and love and get down on our hands and knees to serve because whatever we do for the least of these, our brothers and sisters, we are doing it for Jesus.

That, friends, is the fundamental difference that we can offer the world.

We can love our neighbors as we would love Jesus, himself, present in front of us.

As we serve the homeless here in Des Moines – and a group is going out to do just that with Joppa this afternoon – you can serve them as you would serve Jesus.

As Slaughter writes in chapter four, “When Jesus walked Planet Earth, everyone could see him in the flesh – friends, followers, and foes. We no longer have that opportunity. Now that Jesus’ physical presence is removed, the world can no longer see him, but we can. Those who are born of the Spirit are able to experience and see him today. When we ask, seek, and knock in expectation, we find what we are looking for.” (p. 82)

Seek and keep on seeking and you will find Jesus right in front of you.

Too often, we miss out on the opportunity to truly love extravagantly because we are too focused on ourselves.

Or because we are going through the motions.

Or because we simply aren’t paying attention… because we don’t realize Jesus is right in front of us.

The world can no longer see him… so they do good deeds and they serve their neighbors and think nothing of it.

But friends, the essential character of HOW we serve is different, because when we look into the eyes of someone who is sick or dying or struggling, we don’t see an opportunity to do good… we can see Jesus.

When did you see Jesus?

When did YOU last see Jesus Christ?

When did you interact with him?

When did you hold his hand?

When did you share a meal with him?

When did you visit him?

When did you offer him a cup of water?

And when you saw him… how did you show your gratitude and love to him?

Prodigal Rabbi

Posted on March 7, 2016Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago, Trevor and I were at a workshop about how we change our thinking in the church from membership to discipleship.

We talk a lot about membership. We are preparing our confirmation students to become members. We are about to have a new member class. And it’s almost like once you cross that magical membership threshold, then that’s it. You’ve done it. You have reached the peak of your faith journey.

And that’s because we don’t have a process in place to help all of us continue to grow in our faith beyond that point.

So in this workshop, we talked about making the shift to discipleship as our primary focus. A life-long journey of following Jesus.

But what does it really mean to be a disciple?

Rob Bell shares in his video series Nooma what it really meant to be a disciple in Jesus’ time.

He describes how most little Jewish boys and girls would have been instructed in the Torah – the first five books of the bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And by the age of 10, they would have memorized the Torah. They would know it by heart.

When they got to about 10, many of these boys and girls would then go and learn their family trade, but the best of the group would continue to the second level – where they would spend four or five years learning and memorizing the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. Joshua through Malachai.

And at the age of 14- or 15, many more of these students would learn the trade of their families, but the best of the best would try to continue on and would seek out a rabbi and apply to be one of their disciples. “A disciple just doesn’t want to know what the rabbi knows. A disciple wants to be like the rabbi and wants to learn to do what the rabbi does.”

When you went to seek out one of these rabbis, they would grill you and find out what you knew because the rabbi wants to know if you had what it takes to follow them, to be like them. And many would be turned down. Only the best of the best of the best were invited to come and follow that rabbi. And you would leave EVERYTHING behind – your family, their trade, your home and village – and you would devote your entire life to being like your rabbi, learning to do what your rabbi does. This is what it means to be a disciple.

But, something shifts when Jesus comes around.

In Luke’s gospel, he goes out and calls his first disciples and they aren’t the best of the best of the best.

They are fishermen.

They are young men who went back home to practice the family trade after the first or second level of education.

Jesus isn’t seeking the best of the best of the best.

Jesus doesn’t think that you have to be the smartest or wisest or most clever person in order to follow him and be his disciple.

He thinks that Simon Peter and James and John and Levi and all of those ordinary people have what it takes to be his disciple… to learn from him… to know what he knows… to do what he does.

I think it starts to make a whole lot more sense for me, knowing this, why the Pharisees were so mad at Jesus.

Because many of those Pharisees were rabbis; those who accepted the best of the best of the best to be their disciples.

And they looked around and saw Jesus hanging out with the riff-raff. With the not-good-enoughs. With the nobodies. And in that sense, Jesus was giving their profession a bad name!

They saw him taking his gifts and his knowledge and wasting them by giving them to just anybody. Instead of calling the best of the best of the best, Jesus was calling the least and the last and the lost. They thought he was recklessly wasteful and extravagantly generous.

I used those words when I first arrived at Immanuel to describe Jesus.

It was a sermon on the parable of the sower – who scattered seed wherever he went, without regard for whether or not it would grow. I remember some of you gasped in shock as I started throwing sunflower seeds all over the front of the chancel area!

And that day, I used the word “prodigal” to describe that sower. Because to be “prodigal” means to be recklessly wasteful and extravagantly generous.

It is the same word used in our gospel lesson for this morning.

The prodigal son is recklessly wasteful and throws away his father’s fortune … but that same word can also be used to describe the father who welcomes him back home. If we continued just a few verses in the story, the older son is upset at the prodigal nature of his father’s love for this lost and useless brother.

The dad in this story is filled with compassion when his boy returns home. He runs out and surrounds him with love. He gives the boy the best of what he has. He kills the fatted calf. He is extravagantly generous, pouring out love and grace and forgiveness in his rejoicing.

In fact, all three of these parables about the lost things – the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son – are reminders about the lengths God will go in order to demonstrate love for us.

They are reminders about the extravagant, reckless, wasteful, abundant grace and mercy of our God.

A God who loves us so much, we were given the Torah, the law, the teaching to guide our way.

A God who loves us so much, the prophets were sent to call us back into relationship with God – over and over and over again.

A God who loves us so much, that God became one of us, walked among us, taught us, and called us to follow.

Our God doesn’t care if you are the best of the best. Our God doesn’t care about your background or age. Our God doesn’t care about your skills.

Our God looks at you and sees infinite worth and potential.

Our Jesus, our Prodigal Savior, looks at you and is willing to give up everything to seek you out and find you.

Our Rabbi looks at you and thinks – you can do what I can do… you can be like me.

And so Jesus invited those disciples… and now us… to follow in his footsteps… to be covered in the dust of our rabbi… to set everything aside and become like Jesus.

As Michael Slaughter puts it in chapter 3 of Renegade Gospel:

“When I confess that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, I commit to follow Jesus in a lifestyle of sacrificial service, walking in the dust of my Rabbi. Whatever my Rabbi values, I value. Whatever my Rabbi thinks about God, I think about God. Whatever my Rabbi thinks about people, I think about people… I act like my Rabbi, talk like my Rabbi, love like my Rabbi, and give my life away for my Rabbi’s mission.”

You may have noticed around this building the signs for this “Renegade Gospel” study we are doing, and it includes the quote – Jesus didn’t come to start a religion.

Well, I think today, we are reminded that Jesus didn’t come to make members of Immanuel United Methodist Church.

In fact, our mission as a church has nothing to do with membership… we have said clearly that we are called to “Make Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World.”

Jesus came to invite people like you and me – ordinary, everyday people – to come and follow him.

Jesus came to invite the least and the last and the lost into a lifelong relationship with him.

Jesus came to invite us to grow more like him every day.

To love more like him every day.

To forgive more like him every day.

To turn this world upside down and transform it with God’s power every day.

And we are empowered to keep working toward the day when we don’t simply know what Jesus knows, but we do what he does.

That’s what this place is for. We are a community of disciples, trying to be more like Jesus every single day.

We are a community of disciples, gathered to be re-energized and strengthened to go out into the world, and live, in Christ, a life of love, service, and prayer. Amen.

Renegade Gospel: The Red-Letter Rebel

Posted on February 21, 2016Leave a comment

There was a challenge issued TWICE by Mike Slaughter in chapter one of this Renegade Gospel book we are examining during this Lenten season: to read through one of the gospels and pay specific attention to the red letters… to the words of Jesus… spoken there.

I pulled out my bible and started with Luke. Luke is the gospel assigned for this particular Lenten season according to the powers that be. It is the gospel we will be following most weeks during worship.

The very first time Jesus speaks in Luke’s gospel, it is in the synagogue in his hometown and he is preaching.

Jesus reads from Isaiah, explains a bit about what he has read, and makes everyone so angry they drive him out of town and try to throw him off a cliff.

I really hope you don’t try to do that to me this morning!

Now, many of his words, like the ones we find today in the reading (Rod/Natalie) just shared with us, are words of healing or forgiveness or calling.

“Woman, you are set free from your sickness” (Luke 13:12)

But almost every single time, like we found in our reading today, when Jesus does so, he really makes people angry.

He calls the wrong people, he forgives the unforgiveable, he heals on the wrong day…

The synagogue leader, in this particular healing, was “incensed” (as my bible puts it) that Jesus was healing on the Sabbath.

And all of this anger and frustration on behalf of the system was slowly coming to a boil, as we find just a few verses later.

As our reading continues, the Pharisees (the religious leaders) are plotting together with the political leader, Herod, to be done with Jesus for good.

Now, Herod’s father was the one who had tried to kill Jesus as an infant because he thought he might be a threat to his power.

And this Herod has already beheaded John the Baptist.

Both Herod and the religious leaders were upset about the populist movement stirring up in response to the ministry of John and Jesus.

As Mike Slaughter writes in Renegade Gospel:

“Jesus could never be perceived as a protector of the status quo” (p. 27)

I think the same is as true today as it was then.

Jesus is never satisfied with things the way they are, because Jesus has a vision of the way things can and should be.

He is constantly getting into trouble for doing what is “right for the sake of people” … even if it was against “the rules.”

I think, at the core, Jesus is always pushing the status quo, always challenging us to do more and to be more faithful, because his goal is nothing short of the Kingdom of God lived out on earth… and friends, we aren’t there yet!

Those of us gathered in this room are incredibly blessed… even if we struggle… because we have more resources at our fingertips than most people in this world.

But even here, in a great city, in a great state, in a great country, can we agree that we’re not in heaven yet?

And the KINGDOM is the standard Jesus is holding us to. The KINGDOM is the standard Jesus is holding the political and religious leaders to. The KINGDOM OF GOD is the standard.

And so even today, as a modern religious leader of the Christian faith, I read these words of Jesus and I am still challenged and pushed to really think about the teachings I share with you and how I call us to live them out together.

And all of those harsh words Jesus has for the Pharisees…. well, they are for people like me, too. Because too often, as your leaders, we have simply not preached the gospel! We haven’t shared the vision of the Kingdom of God and we haven’t given you the tools to truly be the Body of Christ, in the world, helping to bring that Kingdom to fruition.

And friends… I think that’s what we, the Body of Christ, are supposed to do.

When I re-read Luke’s gospel, over and over again, Jesus asks us to not only hear his words, but to obey them. Just on a glance back through this morning, I counted at least 9 times (Luke 6:47, Luke 8:21, Luke 9:48, Luke 10:1, Luke 10:28 & 37, Luke 11:28, Luke 12:1, Luke 18:22)… Jesus asks us to not only hear but to do them. To live them. To go and do likewise.

We are trying to be faithful Christians and put into practice what Jesus says.

And, here is the good news I discovered in these commands to “go and do likewise.”

Jesus is NEVER angry at ordinary people who doing the best they can to live out their faith.

He never shames them.

He never scolds them.

He invites them! But he doesn’t get mad at them for where they currently are in their journey of faith.

He is never upset with someone if they aren’t ready to do it. Jesus simply sends them on their way. Maybe another day, in a different sermon, they’ll be ready.

In our United Methodist tradition, we call this “going on to perfection.” Discipleship is a lifelong journey and you are wherever you are today without any judgment.

We are called to be like Jesus, and we fully acknowledge and admit that we aren’t there yet!

And why would we be? Jesus is divine! The Son of Man AND Son of God. The standards are the very KINGDOM OF GOD!

We are mere mortals, trying to live up to the standards of the divine.

There is a quote by Barbra Brown Taylor in her book, “The Preaching Life” that has always stuck with me:

Over and over, my disappointments draw me deeper into the mystery of God’s being and doing. Every time God declines to meet my expectations, another of my idols is exposed. Another curtain is drawn back so I can see what I have propped up in God’s place – no, that is not God, so who is God?

It is the question of a lifetime, and the answers are never big enough or finished. Pushing past curtain after curtain, it becomes clear that the failure is not God’s but my own, for having such a poor and stingy imagination. God is greater than my imagination, wiser than my wisdom, more dazzling than the universe, as present as the air I breathe, and utterly beyond my control. (p. 10)

Every day, when we read the gospels, we pull back the curtain, as Barbara Brown Taylor writes, and we discover that we aren’t Jesus yet… we still have a ways to go!

We still have discoveries to make about what it means to be a faithful Christian.

But here is the beautiful and amazing thing about “going on to perfection”…

Every day, we also have an opportunity to grow more faithful.

Every day, we also have a chance to be more loving.

Every day, we also get to be a better Christian than yesterday.

The words of Jesus are NOT easy. The standards he sets for us are incredibly high! You know, Kingdom of God level!

But even in the midst of those Kingdom standards and Jesus’ never ending call for us to respond accordingly, there is grace upon grace upon grace.

One of my favorite lines in the chapter for this week from Mike Slaughter was this:

Although Jesus always called his followers to enter the small gate and take the narrow road to the Kingdom, he repeatedly taught mercy and relationship over rigidity and judgment. (p. 28)

And he points to Peter as the prime example.

You know Peter… the disciple who constantly questioned Jesus motives and got it wrong.

You know, Peter… the one who fell asleep in the garden.

You know, Peter… the one who denied Jesus three times when he needed him the most?

Jesus has ridiculously high standards. But when we don’t meet them… when we fail… and we will… Jesus keeps welcoming us back.

Keeps loving us.

Keeps showing mercy and love.

Keeps pouring God’s sanctifying, perfecting grace into our lives so tomorrow we can pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and try it again.

There is life and power and love and grace and mercy in the red-letter words of Jesus.

Jesus is constantly pushing our world through these words to rebel against what is… in light of what could be.

Jesus is asking us to examine ourselves, our church, our world, and to ask:

Can we be greater tomorrow than we are today?

Can we be more like Christ tomorrow than we were today?

Can this world look more like heaven tomorrow than it does today?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Always.

Thanks be to God.

Remembering Our Place #growrule

Posted on February 15, 20161 Comment

This Lent, I have been using a tool called “Growing a Rule of Life.” Each day there is a video and a prompt question to engage with. And of course, I’m behind already.

Friday’s video reminded me that we need structure, we need planning, we need the framework in place before we start these kinds of disciplines, and the very fact that I didn’t schedule time for my days off and for Sunday (which is always a hectic day in my world) proves the point.

The question we were left with that day is simple: when you connect with nature, what is meaningful about it?

When I truly connect with nature, I find that I, myself, my ego, is diminished. So much of my life is spent working and relating and living my life and everything revolves around myself and my calling and what I’m supposed to do or not do.

Yet when I truly connect with nature, all of that ceases.

I still my soul.

I stop.

And I am humbled by the reminder that there is so much else going on in the world that is not me.

The falling of snow flakes. The robins in the trees. The buds already forming. The hawk gliding overhead. The slow decomposition of the leaves that are life and death all wrapped into one.

And all of it continues without me.

In fact, all of this life probably would do a lot better without our human interference and selfish use and abuse of the world.

When I truly connect with nature, I am overcome with how small I am, and how beautiful the world is.

My soul cannot help but be awed by our Creator.

So much of the time, I’m rushing here and there, from meeting to project, to home and back.

Without creating space to stop and pause and connect with the world around us, I will forget who I am. I will forget how insignificant these tasks are in the grand scheme of things. I will forget that it is not about me… but my Creator.

Practicing Our Religion in Public

Posted on February 11, 2016Leave a comment

By some accounts, yesterday morning I did exactly the opposite of what Jesus tells us in Matthew.

Some of us gathered at a local coffee shop, a public place, to pray and impose ashes and remember we are merely human.

We were out there, practicing our religion in public.

I always find this passage from the gospel of Matthew such a very strange text to be assigned for Ash Wednesday, but there it is. Every year, on this day, these are the words that are proclaimed.

When you pray, shut the door and pray in secret.

When you give, don’t look for praise.

When you fast, don’t let it show.

All of these seem to speak against exactly the kind of public activity of gathering in a coffee shop to impose ashes.

Or the rather public display of walking outside of the church after worship with a big black cross on your forehead.

We are starting a series in worship here at church called, Renegade Gospel, and are reminded that Jesus didn’t come to start a religion. Jesus didn’t come to hand out new rituals for us to follow.

But you know what, Jesus did come to start a revolution.

Jesus did come to re-instigate a relationship.

Jesus came because of the simple fact we remember today. We are nothing but dust and to dust we shall return.

When we look deeper and contextually at our gospel reading in Matthew today, we come to understand that Jesus isn’t warning against being religious people in public.

No, he is asking us to stop pretending to be religious just because we are in public.

Jesus is calling us back into relationship… with God, with ourselves, with one another.

He is calling us back to the reality of our sin, our failures, our outward trappings of religion that demonstrate little or no faith on the inside.

As the Message translation sums up this passage: When you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production… Do you think God sits in a box seat? Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. (Matthew 6:5-6)

That sentiment is echoed in the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:13. He is reaching out to them and asking that they listen, that they heed his words, because of what they have seen and heard about his faith.

He hasn’t hidden it. He has lived it. Fully. And living his faith has gotten him into lots of trouble.

The kindness and holiness of spirit, the genuine love and truthful speech… all of it has brought dishonor, ill repute, punishment… and yet he and the other disciples persist. They are not afraid to live out their faith publically for all to see and directly in the face of the religion of the day.

We might think of religion as the rituals and rules, the culture and conditions of faith. It is the box we put our faith in.

But Jesus comes to break the box apart and pull us out into the world.

Jesus comes to help us understand that our relationship with him is about far more than prayerful words and pious actions.

The gospel is yearning for us to be so caught up in its mercy, love and goodness that we can’t help but live into its revolutionary reality.

We are called to stop pretending to be religious and start living faithfully.

Whether this morning, gathered in a public space, or right here, tonight, in this community of worship, we are proclaiming the revolutionary message of the gospel.

We are dust.

We are nothing.

We are sinful.

We need help.

And those words are anathema to our culture. In a world where we try to show how strong and powerful and successful they are – they are tantamount to treason.

But we stand on the street corner and say them anyways… because they are true.

And because Jesus has come.

The one who created us out of dust will re-create us from the dust of death.

There is mercy and forgiveness in this place.

There is life, even in the midst of death.

And that, we should proclaim from every place we find ourselves.

We should invite every friend and stranger alike into that revolutionary truth.

What can thrive here? #growrule

Posted on February 11, 2016Leave a comment

Last year I took four weeks of spiritual renewal leave and wanted to focus on cultivation… in relationships, in my spiritual life, and literally, in my back yard.

I had far more intentions than time, but I was able to manage to clear out one entire section of the retaining wall (seen behind the owl mug in the picture). Vines and weeds and trees were growing in the midst of the mulch and rocks. I wanted to start from scratch and add some order to the space.

The question put forth today in “Growing A Rule of Life” is simple: In your garden, what will thrive… what can thrive if you let it?

What I discovered last summer was a whole lot of things were thriving I didn’t really want anymore.

So the English ivy was pulled and I discovered day lilies hiding under all the vines.

I cut back and cleared volunteer mulberries.

I destroyed a viney, busy mess of poison ivy, and cut out growth on a tree that had been cut down long before we arrived.

By clearing away the clutter in my garden, I created space for other things to thrive. Like the lilies and a lilac bush I discovered hiding in the mess of it all.

It was hidden in the very back corner, with volunteer trees suffocating it and so I moved it to a better spot and now it will have more sun. I’m anxious to see how it has weathered the winter and whether it will thrive in its new location or not.

I also am trying to figure out what to do with about 20 volunteer redbud trees in the space. They are thriving, but will need pruning and support in order to grow into proper trees. And they simply cannot thrive so close to one another, so the majority will have to be pulled. That is still a project for another day.

In the space I cleared, I also tried to plant wild ginger. Yet, it seemed to yellow and fade as the summer went on.

Just because we want to cultivate certain things, doesn’t mean we can.

As I build a rule of life, these lessons are helpful. There are all sorts of things I might want to plant, but I simply don’t have time or room for it all. Focusing on a few things that can thrive and will help me thrive in my journey of discipleship is wonderfully freeing.

Some things I think can thrive:

Intentional Sabbath: setting firm boundaries between work and home/rest
Blogging as a spiritual discipline: a place for reflection upon the Word, our faith lived out in the world
Prayer time and space: physically creating a space to spend time listening to God both at work and at home.

Look. See. Live. #growrule

Posted on February 10, 2016Leave a comment

As part of my Lenten disciplines, I’m using a tool from The Society of Saint John the Evangelist called “Growing a Rule of Life.”

As Marjorie Thompson writes:

Certain kinds of plants need support in order to grow properly. Tomatoes need stakes, and beans must attach themselves to suspended strings… human beings are much like these plants… we need structure in order to have enough space, air, and light to flourish. Structure gives us the freedom to grow as we are meant to.

And a rule of life is just that kind of structure and support. There have been times in my life when I have practiced this kind of rule of life: a college covenant discipleship group comes to mind. But it has been a while since I have formed one and I’m looking forward to this season of structured discernment.

Today’s question from SSJE asks: How might the rhythms you observe in nature inform the way you live?

I was struck today by the snow falling outside of my window. During this time of year, it seems like we find ourselves in an endless cycle of snow, melting/slush/dirty heaps of snow, and then it snows once again.

This morning, we gathered for Community Ashes at a local coffee shop. We gathered to remember our common humanity and sinfulness. We gathered in solidarity with those across this world who are suffering and mourning. And when I pulled up to the coffee shop at 6:20 am… there was that gross, dirty snow all along the sides of the road. I pulled out the supplies and we began to impose the dark, sooty, ashes – signs of our mortality and repentance – upon one another’s foreheads.

Then a snow flake fell.

And another.

And before long, the whole world outside the window was blanketed in silent, fluffy, pristine snow.

On the very day we echo the words of Psalm 51, pure white snow fell from the sky.

Have mercy on me, God, according to your faithful love!

Purify me with hyssop and I will be clean;

wash me and I will be whiter than snow.

I am a human being, like any other human being. Though I strive for perfection and seek to become more and more like Christ, I have a long way to go.

Just like nature spoke aloud today that fresh snow or bright sunlight will take away the grime, so my life needs God’s mercy and the joy of salvation to cover my mistakes, to melt away my imperfections, to renew my spirit. Over and over again.