Not Just One in a Million

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Sermon 4

Sermon: Ephesians 2:11-22 -- The Meaning of 'Is'

Last week we talked about the grace of God present in our ordinary, daily life. Using Ephesians 1:3-14, we learned that our understanding of who God is, cosmic Lord and intimate caregiver, allows us to dance, to give thanks, as David did. Allows us to dance even on days that seem unremarkable. This week we continue in Ephesians, moving from our understanding of who God is to who the Church is to be. The passage ends with the reminder that the Church is to be a dwelling place for God. But what does that mean? And how do we become God’s dwelling? Let’s take a look and see what we can uncover.

In explaining the reconciling work of Christ, Ephesians chapter 2 compares what was before Christ to what is after Christ. Chapter 2 opens with what was—a world of hostility and conflict, a world of death. The next 12 verses, our reading for today, go on to describe what is—peace and unity, life in Christ.

The writer of Ephesians uses a lot of contrasting images to illustrate this concept:

SLIDE aliens vs citizens;

SLIDE strangers vs saints;

SLIDE outsiders (or “the uncircumcision”) vs insiders (or “the circumcision”);

SLIDE division vs reconciliation;

SLIDE far-off vs near.

It’s important to know that these are comparisons being made between Gentiles (the “yous” of the passage) and the Jews. In this passage, the writer is stating that the Abrahamic covenant established in Genesis 17 made visible through the act of circumcision, which had been exclusively for the Jews has been opened to everyone through Christ. This is a common theme for Paul’s letters, and a pretty familiar concept for us as Christians. No surprises there.

I think what makes this particular passage interesting is the emphasis on peace. Verse 14 begins “for [Christ] is our peace”. What does this mean? We have so many examples of people across both space and time using Jesus for anything but peaceful ends. How can this passage help us understand peace? And what is to be the result of that peace?

SLIDE

I think a beginning clue may be in today’s lectionary psalm, which we sang earlier, Psalm 23. It’s one of the most familiar in the psalter, and for that reason we must be careful not to gloss over it as though we fully understand what it means.

When I was preparing for this week I read a bit of a commentary on this Psalm, and that little piece has stuck with me all week, so I’ll share it with you now. I’m about to make an argument based in grammar, which sounds horrifically boring, but stick with me—it pays off. I would venture that most of us know this psalm by heart, so I’m going to begin the first verse and I’d like you to finish it. “The Lord is my shepherd” (congregation replies with “I shall not want”.) That’s it. That’s the first verse. The first half of that verse sets the stage upon which the rest of the psalm is built. YHWH, the king, the sovereign, the Lord, is MY shepherd. Everything flows from that understanding.

The second half of the verse is where things, in my opinion, get interesting. The Hebrew verb translated as “shall not want” literally means as “not lack”. SLIDE So we have “The Lord is my shepherd. I do not lack.[MM1] ” In the grammatical structure of this verse there is no explicit connection between these two statements. There is no “so” or “therefore” between clauses. The verse does not read, “The Lord is my shepherd, therefore I shall not want”. There is no causal relationship between Lord and “not lack”. “The fact that “the Lord is my shepherd” and the fact that “I do not lack” are so integrally connected, so inherently a part of one another, that one fact does not “cause” the other. The shepherding of God and the absence of lack are simply two sides of the same coin.”[1]

SLIDE

I’m going to read the verse aloud again, and I’d like you to take a moment and try to separate these two ideas in your head while holding them in relationship with one another, without making one cause the other—feel free to close your eyes if it helps.

(READ SLOWLY) “The Lord is my shepherd…………. I shall not want………….”

It’s hard isn’t it? I’ve been thinking about it for a week and I can almost do it…for a split second…sometimes.

Perhaps this seems like a frivolous argument, but I want you to stick with me for a few more moments. We have trouble separating these statements because our brains are wired to automatically make causal connections. It’s a developmental thing we need to keep us safe in the world—I touched a hot stove therefore I burned myself, therefore I know not to touch another hot stove. Hot stove caused burn. Avoid hot stove.

Our brains automatically rationalize this verse as “Because the Lord is my shepherd I do not want.” And rationalization is such an automatic process for us that to try and think of this verse in another way short circuits our brains. But I think our brains short circuit because we try to rationalize this concept. (See, there, another causal relationship…) It is not rational.

We live in the world. We know the experience of lack. Here at Grace we fed hungry people this week. We had our finance committee meeting this week, and I hate to break it to you, but we’re not exactly rolling in the Benjamins. SLIDE Lack is real. Lack is has causes. Yet somehow, even in the face of all we see, we are told otherwise. We are let in on the mystery of God’s provision. Somehow lack is not. And it makes no rational sense. Though it has been lost in the English translation, the brilliance of this poem is its ability to confound us with its utter simplicity. God is. Lack is not.[MM2]

I believe the closeness of this connection is how we are to understand the Peace of Ephesians 2. Christ is. Peace is. Christ does not cause peace. Christ and peace are two sides of the same coin. This means that the work of Christ and the work of peace are the same work. What is that work?

Verse 14, which began, [Christ] is our peace," continues and tells us that the work of Christ is tearing down dividing walls, reconciling and uniting people. This is work that is hard for us to imagine. We, as humans, are really good at creating separation, good at identifying difference. We divide people into categories based on SLIDE race, gender, tax brackets, SLIDE geographic location, those with and without “stars upon thars” SLIDE, religious preference, and untold number of things. We do this for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are positive, like creating data sets to figure out how best to use our resources, But some of these reasons are negative, like trying to separate ourselves from people we think we don’t like. Often we believe that this separation creates peace. When I was a kid Mom drew an imaginary line in the bedroom I shared with my sister. She had one side, and I had the other. She was responsible for cleaning her half and I was responsible for mine. She couldn’t be in my half and I couldn’t be in hers…except that her half had the door in it…which meant that I haaaad to enter the room…a lot. And I took great delight in that fact.

This concept of separation extends beyond families. We adopt the phrase “good fences make good neighbors”. SLIDE Nations build boundary walls believing that they will end hostilities. Believing that separation will breed peace. Even as Christians we separate ourselves into denominations, letting what may be valid disagreements prevent us from loving one another and working together. When we do this, we confuse a truce with peace. A truce is not peace. A truce is a pause button. We think that because we no longer see the hostility that it has somehow gone. And we are caught unaware when that hostility can no longer be contained and boils over. A truce is not Christ’s peace. Christ’s peace is about reconciliation and unity. About the removing of that which divides. Peace destroys division. Peace creates unity. Christ is. Peace is. Unity is.

SLIDE This is what we, as the church are to be about. Verse 15 tells us that since Christ has unified humanity into a single people, we are to be about the work of reconciliation. The work of unity. This is not to say that we have to agree all the time. Unity is not conforming to a singular opinion. However, unity does demand that we not allow our disagreements to create barriers. That we respect one another enough to honor each other’s non-transgressable personal boundaries. This means that we will have to trust each other enough to reveal when our boundaries have been crossed, and that we will have to forgive each other. This means that at times we will have to let go of our pet projects. This means we will have to admit when our idea is not the best idea. This means that we will not always get our way. Even Jesus didn’t get his way all the time. But knowing that what was gained would far exceed what was lost, Jesus did the thing he did not want to do and brought near us who were far off. Ephesians 2 tells us that this horrible event is Jesus’s ultimate act of reconciliation.

Have you ever wondered why we take time in our service to pass the Peace of Christ? The passing of the Peace is not a time to check and see who’s here. It’s not the church’s version of the 7^th inning stretch. It’s not even a time to greet one another. In fact, to call it a time of greeting is a severe misunderstanding of the fundamental nature of Christ’s peace.

Extending the Peace of Christ is more than a greeting. It is an act of reconciliation and an affirmation that peace is. Even when the world is in turmoil, peace is. Even when our church is in turmoil, peace is. And when we hold something other than peace in our hearts, when someone has frustrated us or has said something we disagree with, extending the Peace of Christ is an opportunity for forgiveness and reunification. This is why we pass the peace after our confession and pardon. Christ has reconciled us with God and with one another, and so we turn and offer signs of reconciliation and peace to one another. “May the Peace of Christ be with you.” May the Peace of Christ be. Peace is present. Peace is now. Peace is.

I’m not asking you to live in some idyllic pasture separate from the realities of the world. That would be foolish, and certainly would not benefit the Kingdom of God. I’m asking you, this passage is asking you, to remember that as Christians the true reality, that which bubbles under the surface and gives us hope, that which we know will someday be fully and mysteriously realized, is peace. Christ is the place where past, present, and future collapse into one. And, though it may be uncomfortably mystical, this bending of time and space allows us to respond to the realities of the world with the Peace of Christ. This peace tears down walls and creates unity. This peace and unity turn us into the dwelling place of the Spirit—a spiritual temple for God. But this temple is not built of walls. It is built of people. People who seek to follow Christ. And just as Jesus stretched his arms wide on the cross, welcoming in those who were once far off, we too stand, arms stretched wide, reconciling that which divides, and welcoming strangers into the household of God.

May it be so.

[1] Feasting on the Word, year B vol. 3, 251.

[MM1]Put this on slide

[MM2]This sounds like Yoda.

Sermon 3

Sermon: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 & Ephesians 1:3-14 (Year B, Proper 10) "Dancing in Ordinary Times"

Today we read from two different passages, two passages which on their face don’t seem to have a lot in common. One is the tale of King David’s ecstatic entrance into Jerusalem. The other is the introduction to a letter sent to people in the region that would become what we know as Turkey. How do these two stories relate? And what do they have to teach us about the way God would have us live in the world? Let's see if we can figure it out.

The passage in 2^nd Samuel tells the story of David’s bringing the Arc of the Covenant to his new city. Now David had good reasons to celebrate. The northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah had been engaged in a bloody civil war. The war was finally coming to an end, resulting in the merging of two long divided peoples. David, now king of a united nation, decides to move his capital city from Hebron (the burial place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah) to Jerusalem, and take the Arc of the Covenant there to build a permanent dwelling for it.

The journey from Baale-Judah (the modern city of Kairiath-Jearim), where the arc was, to Jerusalem is less than 10 miles, but takes months to complete. The text tells us of two primary reasons for the duration of the journey. First, David was traveling with 30,000 fighting men and who knows how many slaves, servants, boys, women, and children. Army records don’t exactly tally the army’s entourage. Secondly, there was an accident with the arc in which one of the bearers touches the arc is killed. Remember that the Arc is equipped with carrying poles to prevent such a thing from happening. Anyway, after the display of the power of the arc, David is afraid to move on lest he anger God.

Nevertheless, eventually the processional does move on, and as David and company approach the Jerusalem, David can no longer contain his joy—for the work that God has done uniting the kingdoms, for the new start in the new capital, and probably because he’s glad the arduous journey is finally over.

David dances, and dances, and dances, and dances….and scandalizes people. Whether it’s because he’s dancing, because he’s wearing priest’s robes, or maybe because he’s wearing so little we can’t entirely know, but whatever the reason the dancing is shocking. But David doesn’t care. Doesn’t care that people are talking, or that he might look like a fool. In this extraordinary moment, David unabashedly dances, and instruments are played, and sacrifices are made, because words simply aren’t enough on their own to express what David feels. David’s dance embodies his gratitude for the goodness of his Lord.

Have you ever experienced something that left you without words? Like David, there are times when words can’t express what we feel—weddings, births, deaths, an unexpected surprise, graduations, a really good chocolate cake…are all times when words often fail us. Maybe we want to give thanks for reconciliation and reunification of family and friends. Or remember those who have made us who we are. We mourn loss. We praise God for being with us in the middle of our journeys. We shout for joy for new birth and new beginnings. In such times we too dance, and sing, and cry out, and weep, and play instruments, and just like David, our responses are often unconscious and spontaneous. These extraordinary and overwhelming moments prompt us to behave in unusual ways. Move us beyond what we would normally do.

It’s easy to dance in the extraordinary times. But what about all of the other times? How do we dance on a regular old Thursday? How do we dance when the car won’t start, or when the basement floods? How do we dance on ordinary days?

I’m sure you’ve noticed that the decorations in the sanctuary have been changed from red to green. This is because we follow the church calendar. The calendar varies a little based on which Christian tradition you follow, but it basically looks like this:

Purple for Advent and Lent, white for Christmas, Epiphany, and Easter, red for a few holy days, and green for all of the other days. The green “season” we call ordinary time (the time between the second Sunday in January and Ash Wednesday, and again for the Sunday after Pentecost up until Advent), and you can see it is roughly two thirds of our year.

Interestingly enough, the term “Ordinary time” doesn’t mean “boring” time. It actually comes from the way we count the days of our liturgical seasons—I know there’s at least one mathematician in the congregation who knows the difference between cardinal numbers (one, two, three, etc.) and ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.). So, our counting of the Sundays is where “Ordinary time” gets its name. For example, this is the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost.

But the usual understanding of “ordinary” fits too. These are days where we aren’t celebrating anything in particular—they are simply ordinary. And that feeling of sameness, of banal repetition, can lure us into thinking that ordinary is somehow less important, but that would be a big mistake. Even though ordinary time sounds, well, ordinary, and looking at green for so long might make us nauseous, ordinary time is crucial to our understanding of God’s desire for the world. Ordinary time teaches us that even in the mundane moments of life God is still busy at work, doing miraculous and extraordinary things. This is what the letter to the Ephesians points us toward—the daily work of God in the lives of God’s people.

The letter to the Ephesians opens with dramatic, superfluous, rapturous, over-the-top praise. It’s almost as if the writer can barely find the words to explain the wonder of God and so throws all the words he knows at the page. At great detriment to the beauty of the passage, I’m going to briefly summarize it again for you: God is our blessing, has thought of us from before time, and desires for us to be made whole in love; Christ is the way that God has planned for us to be brought into God’s family, and because of Christ we are redeemed and free; not just free, but abundantly free and entirely provided for; the Spirit has sealed us, protecting, guiding, and promising us that we are God’s children and heirs; and finally God’s plan for us is long-range, from the beginning of time until the end when all is made whole, and the Kingdom is fulfilled.

I think our ability to dance in ordinary times stems from our understanding of this passage. This passage points out that God is to be our focus, because all that we have and all that we are, as well as all of the promises of the future are based on the unchanging blessings and love of God.

When we focus on God, understanding who our dance partner is, it becomes a whole lot easier to trust that we’ll be guided competently through the complicated steps of life. That isn’t to say that focusing on God is always easy. Sometimes things trip us up. Sometimes fear scatters our focus and makes trust difficult. But because we know who God is and we know that God “has settled on us as the focus of his love”, we can let God lead.

And not only does God lead us, but God invented the dance! If we take this passage to heart we know that God has been planning from the beginning for us. This passage assures us that we are chosen to be loved. We are adopted. We are redeemed, free of penalty. We are gifted abundantly with everything we could possibly need for life. We are sealed with the Spirit and are God’s forever. And we know that in Christ we see who we are and what we are living for. And although Jesus had some pretty extraordinary days, Jesus is actually all about the ordinary.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but most of Jesus’s ministry was done in the course of his daily life. Sure, he spent some time in the temple, but most of the time he was walking down the street or hanging out on hillsides when people found him, people who were hungry for healing, nourishment, and relief from the misery of their daily circumstances. Not only that, but Jesus met people where they were—stepped from his ordinary existence into theirs—and showed them the love that had been planning for them since the beginning of time. In this sense, the saving work of Christ, the work that tells us who we are, makes even the ordinary, mundane, dull, days holy. The work of Christ “has sanctified all of time, bringing us and the whole of our experience into the orbit of resurrection.”[1] This is the good news revealed to us in ordinary time.

The world that we live in doesn’t follow this calendar. It doesn’t understand celebrating the average. Our world celebrates extreme achievement. Our world seeks out the new and unusual and isn’t satisfied unless things get bigger, equating new and bigger with better. Our world often becomes a caricature of itself because it has lost the ability to appreciate the small beauties of ordinary life. And people who order their lives around the calendar of the world ceaselessly work themselves to achieve a continually novel existence, consequently missing the tiny and wondrously budding work of God in their midst. Knowing the confused priorities of our world, it should not surprise us that what our world calls ordinary, God has called holy.

And knowing what we know, the work of Christ, the daily giving of abundant grace, we can confidently state that though there may be nothing particularly special about today, or tomorrow, or next Thursday, God continues to be at work in our lives, even in the mundane moments. In the mowing of our lawns. In the visiting of friends. In our feeding of the hungry. In going to meetings. In playing with our kids, grandkids, nieces, and nephews. In fishing, and in watching storms on the horizon.

This is what the letter to the Ephesians points us toward—the knowledge that because of the work of God’s salvation through Christ and the Spirits continual blessing on us all of our time is sacred, is special, is redeemed. God is present and at work in all of it, calling us to dance even when things seem ordinary and we see no reason. After all, the scope of God’s plan for us and for the world is a bit beyond what we can grasp.

So maybe ordinary is what God desires most. After all, God’s entrance into human existence didn't seem all that special. God didn’t come to earth as a god. God didn’t come to earth as a king. God didn’t even come to earth as a priest. God came to earth as the child of an unwed mother and a tradesman. If that isn’t an extraordinary use of the ordinary, and a reason to dance, I’m not sure what is. And just as with David, our dancing in ordinary times might scandalize people. Might make them wonder whether or not we're crazy. But it also might make them wonder how we can dance for no particular reason. Might make them see the one with whom we dance.

May it be so.

[1] Stookey, Calendar, 134.

Sermon 2

Sermon: Ezekiel 2:1-5 (Year B, Proper 9) "Prophesy and Anamnesis"

Ezekiel 2:1-5

God said to me: O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you. And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord God.” Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

I don’t know what you think about for fun, but have you ever sat around and thought about what it means to be a prophet? I’m going to pretend that you have—it’ll make me feel better if I’m not the only one. You know, you’re doing chores around the house or driving to and from work and your mind wanders. Anyway, in my thinking I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of being a prophet is about being willing to say things you know people won’t like, things that might get you into trouble. I’m not talking about rude, contentious things. I’m talking about considered dissent. We often think of the prophets as firebrands—we sort of picture this wild man with unbound hair and wide eyes wearing sackcloth and madly roaming the streets. But if you read the prophetic literature carefully, most of these prophets spoke out of pastoral concern for the people in their midst. And I think it takes a special kind of person to be able to tell truths no one else can. It takes a special kind of person to say the truth in love, and to be willing to take the backlash for the good of everyone. It takes a special kind of patience to be a prophet, knowing people likely won’t recognize the divine truth in your message. This is the work of prophets and in this passage we encounter Ezekiel’s call into this work.

But, as with so many of the prophets, that was not Ezekiel’s first choice. As a little boy, Ezekiel did not say, “Gee Mom, I want to be a prophet.” No one says that. The work of a prophet is hard. First of all you often have visions, so people automatically think you’re either a little nutty and dangerous, or excessively pompous. You remember Joseph’s brothers tried to kill him for having uppity visions. Then you have to do weird stuff. Jeremiah is told to do all kinds of strange things, including wear a loin cloth that’s been buried in the banks of the Euphrates river…? What is that about? And then, let’s not forget that Hosea marries a prostitute. Explain that one at the family Christmas table. Then you are uprooted from your home and sent to a place where people are usually being naughty, and you have to tell them that God told you to tell them to knock it off. It’s sort of the adult, ancient Near East version of “I’m telling Mom!” You know, “If you don’t stop doing that thing Mom told you not to do I’m going to tell Mom and you’re going to be in soooooo much trouble.” Except that instead of getting grounded or having your mouth washed out with soap, cities get destroyed and people get carried off into captivity.

In fact, the Israelites were in captivity when Ezekiel was called to be a prophet. He had been a priest in the temple during the first Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. When the temple was destroyed in 587 BCE a significant portion of the Israelites were carried off, and Ezekiel went with them. This captivity was a major psychological blow for the Israelites. They were Yahweh’s chosen people. How could this happen? The social structure of their community and their identity was tied to agriculture and the temple. When they were forced to leave their homeland, the place promised to them by God, they began to be filled with doubts. Who were they? Where they not God’s chosen? And if they weren’t chosen, if they weren’t the people of the Promised Land, then was Yahweh who they thought? Was Yahweh as powerful as they thought? Could they depend on God? Without the temple, God’s dwelling place on earth, would God even be able to find them? Would the gods of Babylon treat them any better?

These are the things they are struggling with when we open to chapter 1 of Ezekiel. Though the content of Ezekiel’s prophesy is pretty harsh (there’s a LOT of destruction), in many ways it is still good news: God comes to Ezekiel in Babylon—God’s holy GPS finds them even in captivity! And God doesn’t only find them, God sends some pretty scary messengers to…let’s say “reassure” them. The four (FOUR!) angels, each with four faces (human, lion, ox, eagle), multiple wings, and cow’s feet, pull a gleaming chariot that sounded like a thunderous army. And if that isn’t enough, above the chariot is the flaming form of God seated in a sapphire throne.

When God shows up, God really shows up! Without uttering a word God says, “In case you’d forgotten, I’m still the all-powerful God you’ve always known.” And in the face of this splendor, Ezekiel throws himself to the ground. This is where we find Ezekiel at the beginning of chapter two—face down in the dirt. A sensible place to be, if you ask me.

Now in my initial reading of today’s passage, there were three things that stuck out to me, and I think these things offer some insight into how we might begin to think about what this passage means for us. First of all, God doesn’t call Ezekiel by name, but instead calls him the generic “mortal”. This is not the loving God who knows the number of hairs on our head or leads us through green pastures beside still waters. This is the cosmic God of power. This designation calls attention to Ezekiel’s frailty—the gleaming being in the most terrifying mode of transportation ever wants us to be aware of the difference in divine and human station. God is God and we are not.

Secondly, God tells Ezekiel to get up, but doesn’t wait for him to do it. We don’t know whether or not Ezekiel’s legs work after his big scare, but God doesn’t wait around to find out. Rather God sends the Spirit to pick Ezekiel up and set him on his feet. Lastly, Ezekiel is told not to be concerned with the success rate of his message. In fact, he’s told that it’s basically going to fail. God says, “I’m sending you to do this thing and they’re probably not going to listen to you,” which has to be a tough thing to hear. It has to feel like a set up for failure. But it matters not that the message likely won’t be received, because for Ezekiel, the faithful response is to live out his calling no matter what. The people might be in denial about how they ought to respond, but if Ezekiel does his job, there will be no question about whether or not God has spoken. The focus is to be on the will and work of God, not the response of humanity. These are some pretty astounding things to all be crammed in five verses.

So what are we to take from this? The first thing, I think, is comfort. God knows we are mortal. God does not expect perfection to come from frail, flawed beings. God deals with us—even calls us to do holy work—as we are. You know, I don’t even deal with myself this graciously. Are there any other perfectionists in the house? For those of you who are perfectionists, self-identifying or identified by friends, have you ever noticed how difficult it is to work with others? Nobody’s work is ever as good as mine. And it’s a funny thing, but I never get around to finishing projects that are always in the process of being perfected. I never get around to completing the task set before me because I can’t see how it can possibly be successful if my work isn’t perfect. God is not concerned with this. God wants our best, but knows perfection is beyond us.

And, secondly, this means that God knows when a task is maybe more than we can handle. God knows when we are in need of divine intervention. When this happens, God sends the Spirit to pick us up, to help us do what needs doing. I’ve never been a parent, but I’m an aunt, which I like to think of as destination parenting. By that I mean I go to a destination, parent for a few hours, and then go home, have a glass of wine, and enjoy a sense of accomplishment. My sister, on the other hand, is raising a three year old boy. He is hilarious and rotten to the core. He stays cleaner if he runs around naked. He is no longer phased by consequences because it’s more important to him that he get to test out his own ideas about how the world ought to be. Frequently those ideas put him in physical danger, or in direct contradiction to what his parents know need to happen. And my sister is in charge of rearing that ball of chaos, ensuring he makes it satisfactorily into adulthood. I asked her, “Aren’t you ever exhausted from being somebody’s boss all the time?” I know she is, and though she’s never said it to me in this way, I know that when she’s at her wits end she finds strength from somewhere beyond her to do what needs to be done for herself and her family. God does this all the time—calls us to do something and then breathes into us the ability to do it.

This brings me to the third point, reception. We are not responsible for the reception of God’s message. We are responsible to deliver the message in ways it can be understood, but ultimately the choice to act, what verse five refers to as “hearing”, can only be made by the ones to whom we are sent. If you happen to follow the lectionary, you know that today’s gospel reading is from Mark chapter six. It’s the story of the apostles being sent to proclaim the good news of repentance and healing. Jesus tells them essentially the same thing God tells Ezekiel: you are going to face mixed reception, and if people won’t listen, shake the dust off your feet and move on to somewhere else. Don’t be discouraged, but keep looking for the places where you can do good in the name of God. Depend on God for the strength to complete the task at hand, and depend on God to work out the reception of the message.

Now, up to this point we’ve been talking as though we were in the place of Ezekiel. But let’s face it, sometimes we’re the Israelites. The NRSV translation we read today calls them rebellious and “impudent and stubborn.” The Hebrew translation, a bit more descriptive, reads, “these children have hard faces and hard hearts.” Ouch! What happens when our faces and hearts can no longer bend and beat with the love of God? What happens when we are the ones in need of a gentle prophetic reminder?

In those times God will send a prophet to us, but will we recognize the prophet? I think just as we are to speak into the world, the world speaks to us. Maybe it isn’t exactly prophesy but I think we still need to pay attention, because it points us to the places where we should be speaking. It doesn’t take much time listening to the news to know that there are things in the world not only worth speaking against, but in dire need of our voices. In fact, I read several things this week that really disturb me, but I’ll only name two.

First, it seems like more than coincidence that eight black churches have mysteriously burned in South Carolina in the last two weeks. We don’t like to think that this could be intentional, and I know that our country’s discussion on race is very tense right now, but I’m not sure how we can in good conscience call this coincidence. Second, the Pelham, North Carolina branch of the Ku Klux Klan has reserved the lawn of the South Carolina state house for a rally on July 18th to protest the state’s removal of the confederate flag. This is their constitutional right, and they ought to have it. However when asked about the charges facing Dylann Roof, the chapter’s leader said, “I feel sorry for the boy because of his age and I think he picked the wrong target. A better target for him would have been these gang-bangers, running around rapping, raping and stealing.”[1] This turns my stomach. A better target? A BETTER TARGET?! Now, this man has every right to his beliefs, and I am not suggesting he be censored, nonetheless it makes me sick. Please tell me it bothers you too. This is the world speaking to us, and as far as I’m concerned, this death-dealing voice is a reminder to the church that our work is not done.

Brothers and sisters, not only do we serve the Prince of Peace, but we know that no matter how far we are from God, even if we’re rapists or gang bangers, or any other racist stereo type, we are loved and can be forgiven. Period. We might deserve death, but God, whose wisdom is beyond our own, has chosen to offer us life. And let’s not forget that Jesus’s last act on Earth was to forgive the criminal hanging beside him. To forgive the one the world had condemned. Do we remember this? Are we willing to be the ones who speak words of life?

We don’t want to hear that we haven’t always done a good job of using our voices for God’s kingdom. Not only racism, but greed, hatred, classism, environmental degradation, consumerism, unnatural busyness, fanatic nationalism, and so many other things are waiting for us to stand up and say, “God is not honored by this. God condemns this. World, you have lost your focus and God desires better for you, and for us all.” We as Christians are to proclaim this in word and deed. This is not a message that the world wants to hear, but that doesn’t get us off the hook. That is our calling and God still wants our best.

When we fail to allow God to set us on our feet and send us into the depths of our calling we have essentially done what the Israelites did—they forgot who God is. They thought that they had been set up, allowed to fail, and been left to stand on their own. And sometimes the pain we see in the world, the hunger and the hatred, can make us wonder the same thing. Is God who we think? Have we been set up to fail? Are we on our own? And when we forget who God is, both the cosmic God of power and the tender shepherd, we run the risk of hardening ourselves against the will of God for our lives and our world.

How do we keep from becoming hard? An easy ways is to stay connected to God. To do things that remind us of who God is. To give thanks for the vast and unimaginably deep love that God has for us. To recount the myriad ways God has been faithful when we have turned away. One of the ways we do this is through the sacrament of Holy Communion. Communion re-presents the mighty and gracious acts of God on our behalf. It reminds us of the work of the Spirit, and prompts us toward thanksgiving. It points us to a time when God’s will will be fully done on earth and our words and deeds will be brought to fruition. In it we are strengthened for the work set before us, because in it God is mysteriously and fully present in ways we cannot understand.

This brings me to the funny word you see in your bulletin, anamnesis. And it’s a word I love. Anamnesis is remembering something from the past in such a way as to make it alive in the present. I’m sure you’ve all experienced this at some point, remembering friends or family or past vacations and mission trips. I’ve seen it in the light of your faces as you’ve told me stories about Bill and Kurt--people I don’t know, but because of you I feel their presence. For a moment those past people and places are very real and present, and the love and gratitude we have because of their presence in our lives overflows from us into the world.

Communion does this for us. And in it, as we recount the mighty acts of God on our behalf, as we taste and see the goodness of the Lord, we don’t simply remember the Good News, we become the Good News here and now. We are changed. We are sanctified, becoming more like Christ, and in this Christ is present. This is anamnesis.

Being a living memory is not easy, and so we must be constantly reconnected. We return to this table again and again for nourishment, for strength, for encounter with the One who, knowing our mortality, stands us on our feet and sends us out as bearers of Good News. We return so that we can continually reaffirm that we are for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood, called to be one with each other in ministry to all the world.

May it be so.

[1] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/kkk-chapter-north-carolina-rally-south-carolina-statehouse-confederate-flag-119548.html#ixzz3ekgoczab

Sermons -- I'm postin' 'em.

My mom asked me to post my sermons so she could read them. Enjoy, whoever else is out there!

Sermon 1: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 "Strange Angels"

As I was preparing to write this first sermon, a friend asked me, “Are you going to give one of those “get to know you” sermons, or are you going to give an actual sermon?” And, while I understood what he was saying, I found this to be a very strange question, because in this either/or, this or that, yes or no black or white world in which we live, nothing is ever quite that clear cut. Our world is mostly gray areas. So maybe it’s ambitious, but I hope to do both—to let you know a little about me as I give an “actual” sermon. You see, I’m a both/and kind of person.

Now, I’m also a history nerd. Before I go on, I’d like to ask you all, please, PLEASE don’t come up after the service and quiz me. Please don’t ask me who the secretary of state was in 1893 (John Foster), or who assassinated Leon Trotsky (Ramon Mercader), or which country holds the record for the longest time standing on one foot (76 hours, 40 minutes…I promise this sermon will not go on that long…). If you ask me these sorts of things I will make up answers and you will be disappointed.

Alright, getting back on track… Since I’m a history nerd I like context, so when I hear a passage like today’s I always wonder three things: 1) Who are the people reading and writing this? 2) What were their lives like? And 3) What is this piece of writing trying to do?

The answer to the first question (who are these people?) is a bit mysterious. Though this letter is traditionally attributed to Paul, it was most likely written by someone else. The writer has extremely detailed knowledge of the worship practices at the temple, so the author was likely a Levite. This letter’s audience is equally mysterious. The letter dates from 60-95 CE, so we know that whoever they were, they were second-generation Christ followers, and scholars believe they were located in Rome.

The answer to the second question (what were their lives like?) is a bit more clear. The contents of the letter indicate that the recipients had faced imprisonment, persecution, torture, confiscation of property, public abuse, and ridicule at the hands of the Roman government. You see, Judaism, partially due to its antiquity, was a protected religion under the Roman law, but fledgling Christianity was not. The Romans really didn’t care who you worshipped as long as you included Cesar in that worship and also paid your taxes. The Jesus followers’ refusal to play the Roman game often put them on the wrong side of the law, imprisoned, tortured, and persecuted.

Knowing a bit about the author and audience makes answering the third question (what is the purpose of the writing?) fairly simple. It seems that the writer of this letter had heard that this community was struggling—attendance was lax and commitment was waning. Essentially, in the face of surmounting pressure, the people of this community were having doubts about whether or not following Jesus was worth all the trouble. I know none of us here have ever had similar thoughts, but try to imagine what it might be like.

Acting out of pastoral concern for what he or she saw as waning certainty and devotion, the author wrote this encouraging letter…turned theological treatise. Seriously, have you all ever tried to read this thing straight through? It’ll make you head spin. This letter is a powerhouse of thought—the first 12 chapters offer a lighthearted traipse through the paltry topics of God, Christ, Spirit, Church, and Faith.

And then we get to chapter 13. If what came before is an in-depth explanation of major doctrine, this by comparison feels almost like a check-list. A lot of scholars more brilliant than I look at this passage and call it a list of moral maxims, and it makes sense why they think this. The items on this list, the dos and don’ts of Christian life, directly relate to the things the people in this community were experiencing. But what does it mean for people who aren’t experiencing those same things? What does it mean for us?

When I look at this list of “neglect nots”, I see a list that’s about rightly ordered relationships. Based on this passage, the relationship we ought to have with those in prison and those being tortured is solidarity, remembering our own times of captivity and pain inflicted at the hands of others, or maybe even times when we held ourselves captive. We are to be faithful and committed to those we have joined to ourselves in the bonds of marriage. We are to esteem money properly, realizing that no matter how much we accumulate it cannot save us. We are to let ourselves be guided by leaders who live faithful lives. And we are to offer to God our praise, not only with our lips, but with our belongings, freely giving that which has been given to us.

Now if you’ve been following along with the reading you’ve probably noticed that I skipped one of the items on the list. The one about strangers. And that’s the one I want to focus on today. Just to recap, that one was: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. It seems to me that that one is the biggest, most vague one of all. Everyone we don’t know is a stranger. We know who prisoners are—for better or worse we even know where they live. Money, we know it. We know who our leaders are. I’ve never been married, so maybe I’m way off base on this one, but I assume that you know the person you’re married to. At the very least you recognize them on sight.

The thing is, we know strangers on sight too. They aren’t like us. They’re the ones who don’t fit. The ones who don’t do things quite like we do. Their words are different from ours. They eat weird things and have ideas that are different from ours. Strangers are scary. The early Jesus followers knew this—strangers could be informants, could be people who want to get close only to hurt us. We aren’t under the threat of persecution, nonetheless, we teach our kids about “stranger danger” not just because it’s catchy and rhymes, but because the phrase holds truth.

And yet this verse turns that notion on its head by suggesting that the appropriate relationship we are to have with strangers is one of welcome. Of giving. You all are probably familiar with our bishop’s writings on “Radical Hospitality”. Bishop Schnase suggests that hospitality:

Begins with a receiving, perceiving, listening, opening, accepting attitude—a readiness to accept and welcome God’s initiative toward us. It is sustained with active behaviors that place us in the most advantageous posture to continue to receive God, welcome Christ, and make room for grace. And so it involves interior decision and soul work, a listening and receptivity to God, as well as habits that transform us as we regularly, frequently, and intentionally make room in our lives for God.[1]

Welcoming strangers is one of those habits that transforms us, but we do not do it simply with the hope of transformation. We extend hospitality because but for God’s hospitality, of welcoming us into the work of grace, we too would be forever estranged. We extend hospitality, God’s vital love, because we have first been loved.

Not only are we to be hospitable, but this verse insists that strangers, with their weird and sometimes unsettling ways, are messengers of God. The greek word for angel—angelos—literally means messenger. Whenever we encounter angels in the Bible they are almost always delivering a new message from God. A revelation made specifically for that time and place. Sarah was freed from the cultural shame of barrenness by word of a divine messenger. Pharoah is made aware of his insignificance in comparison to the God of the Israelites when the angel of death passes over his family and kingdom. Angels appeared to Mary and Joseph with news that upended their worlds. Shepherds made a journey—moving their herds based on a message from a host. Peter is brought a message of very real release from prison. These angels, with their revelation from God, change the course of people’s lives. And change can be scary. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the first words the angels often speak are “do not be afraid.”

This passage contains a similar message, proclaiming, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” We do not have to fear change because in a world where everything is continually in motion Jesus does not change. God is constant, and our constant God promises to be with us no matter what. But constancy doesn’t mean inertia. After all, this is the same God that promises to make all things new. That promises to turn our stagnation into transformation. That loves us too much to leave us as we are, and instead calls us forth to something better.

As I look around I don’t yet see that all things are new. Our world is desperately in need of renewal; in need of newness of life and newness of purpose. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not yet who I hope to be. I’ve got corners with cobwebs and closets with skeletons just begging for a good spring cleaning. This renewal requires change, and strangers, with their foreign ways of being, are inherently agents of change. And this, I think is the good news: when we welcome in these strange angels, we welcome in the newness that God desires to work among us!

How does this happen? I think it has to do with what is required in meeting strangers. Meeting strangers often pushes us out of our comfort zone and requires us to go to the edges of our known world. To go to unfamiliar places to meet unfamiliar people. Places we don’t usually go. Sometimes you do want to go where everybody knows your name, and that’s okay, but what are the odds that you’ll encounter strangers there? We are creatures of habit, and when we are comfortable we run on autopilot and can sometimes miss things that are right in our faces. How many times have you been wandering around your house looking for something that, for the life of you, you can’t find, only to discover, as you’re about to throw the mightiest of fits, that the thing you’re looking for is already in your hand? Is that just me? (Or “Oh good, it’s not just me.”) How much quicker is your search when your child, spouse, or friend points out to you, “um…aren’t you looking for that thing in your hand?”

That’s what strangers, with their fresh perspectives, do for us. They push us into unfamiliar, boundary-expanding places, and then remind us that the thing we were looking for (love, acceptance, welcome…freedom to be who we have been created to be) has been with us all along. We encounter the love of God when we extend it to others. God’s love is that big. So big that somehow when we give it away we end up with more than when we started. And it is God’s love that transforms us, perfecting us into the image of one who is “the icon of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). The one who is the same, yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). The divine one who takes the posture of a servant and pours out all that he is for the sake of the world (Phil 2).

In her book Missional. Monastic. Mainline. Elaine A. Heath, professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology at SMU argues that Jesus makes clear that God’s ultimate meaning is love and is the example that mercy always triumphs over judgement. She goes on to say,

“This means that at the most basic level Jesus respects us. Why would Jesus invest so much effort and love, to the point of death, if he did not think we were amazing? Respect for others is woven into everything Jesus says and does.”[2]

And we are to go and do likewise, extending respect, mercy, love, and grace to all we meet, especially the strangers in our midst and those we are sent to. This is hospitality.

I would be very surprised if any of this is new to you all. I believe you already know this. One thing that has been made clear to me again and again is that you are people called to go and do. I am astounded by the sheer number of mission activities you all are involved in. And because of this, you know that you don’t come back from a mission experience saying, “Man, I’m so glad I changed those people.” No. Instead you come back saying, “Man, I can’t believe how that experience and those people have changed me and the way I look at the world.” Or, “I can’t believe how my understanding of God and grace has changed and expanded.” Of course we hope that our participation in the work of God affects some kind of good for our brothers and sisters, but we don’t enter into that work with any agenda other than the sharing of what God has given us—our time, talent, effort, money, love, acceptance, grace, forgiveness, joy, all of it is our sacrifice of praise, which is pleasing to God.

And there is more good news! When we grow accustomed to using these tools and gifts in particular ways and begin to question whether what we’re doing is really worth it, strangers show up to reveal to us new ways to use our gifts, and to remind us that what we’re looking for is always at hand. And what we’re looking for, according to C.S. Lewis, is to “participate in the beauty and goodness of life.”[3] After all, Jesus didn’t come to condemn us (John 3:17), but came that we might have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10b), welcoming us into the life of grace, asking us to lay aside our own desires for bigger and better ones. That isn’t an easy task—that’s why we as Methodists talk about “going on to perfection” and have always argued about whether or not perfection can actually be attained. The purposes of God, revealed in our encounters with strangers, point us to places where the abundant, life-giving love of God is needed. This doesn’t come without its challenges and knee-knocking moments, but our willingness to go and do is a tangible promise as we become an icon of the icon of the invisible God[MM1] .

So why this message now? The truth is that you and I are both strangers. Some of us stranger than others, I’m sure. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. But through our weird Methodist system of itinerancy God has called us together in this time and this place to do something. To be something. Something that is for the glory of the Kingdom of God. And we may not fully know what that is, but we know that in this there is a revelation, a new word, for us.

But we will not stay strangers. There will come a time when we will be friends, when mutual love will continue among us (Heb. 13:1). And yet, we will still be called to extend hospitality to strangers. To open our arms figuratively and literally and to seek out those people who are different from us. People, God’s messengers, who will call us into uncomfortable and unfamiliar place, and who will teach us another story about the never-resting faithfulness of God.

[1] Schnase, Five Practices of Fruitful Living, 17.

[2] Heath, Missional. Monastic. Mainline., 27.

[3] Feasting on the World, Year C, vol. 4, 19.

[MM1]This is probably straying a bit afield…and is a little overwrought…

In fact, this whole paragraph might be entirely unnecessary.