Monday, March 15, 2010
"Keepin' the Faith" with Steve Shoemaker
Oh. I forgot to say that I had a good time on Steve's show talking about fair trade and my trip to Nicaragua. We had SIX callers, which I thought was really great. If they put it on the website, I'll try to put a link in here.
starting out another week
I wasn't planning to preach this next sunday. I thought I had a pulpit exchange arranged. But it fell through. So instead of focusing on Holy Week, I've got to put together one more "renewal sermon".
The scripture lessons are Philippians (I press on for the upward call of Christ) and G. of John (Mary annointing Jesus feet). After a bit of "textweeking", what strikes me is about how these two have in common a sense of burning desire for intimacy with Christ.
And God knows THAT won't preach.
But I wish it would. Because if anything has changed in me and my life in the last few years, it has been that I've fallen in love with Jesus. I loved him before. I respected him before. I knew he was important - the most important person ever to have lived.
But I wasn't just thrilled by the chance to hear what he said. I didn't linger over descriptions of his actions. I didn't savor every morsel of every story he ever told. I didn't imagine what it would be like to see him face to face. And now I do those things.
Which makes me weird, I think. It for sure hasn't helped my preaching any. But I'm not sorry.
The scripture lessons are Philippians (I press on for the upward call of Christ) and G. of John (Mary annointing Jesus feet). After a bit of "textweeking", what strikes me is about how these two have in common a sense of burning desire for intimacy with Christ.
And God knows THAT won't preach.
But I wish it would. Because if anything has changed in me and my life in the last few years, it has been that I've fallen in love with Jesus. I loved him before. I respected him before. I knew he was important - the most important person ever to have lived.
But I wasn't just thrilled by the chance to hear what he said. I didn't linger over descriptions of his actions. I didn't savor every morsel of every story he ever told. I didn't imagine what it would be like to see him face to face. And now I do those things.
Which makes me weird, I think. It for sure hasn't helped my preaching any. But I'm not sorry.
renewal of relationship. Mar. 14 sermon
Mar. 14, 2010
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Renewal of Relationship
Reconciliation is a word that has, lately, taken on some unfortunate cultural baggage: right now, the reconciliation that is in the news is some fancy or not-so-fancy (I don’t know!) parlimentary procedure: the process that the US congress is doing to try to get a health insurance reform bill through, in spite of the fact that they can’t come to any agreement as to what the bill should be.
If this time together is going to be of any use to us at all, we are going to have to completely shut that usage of the word out of our heads, and think, not what reconciliation means on Capitol Hill, but what it means in the Bible AND on the Central Illinois plains.
Reconciliation, according to Biblical uses, means a renewal of relationship - to bring together, to reunite persons who have been estranged. It has the flavor of settling accounts - we talk about reconciling our checkbooks, which means to make the necessary corrections and additions and substractions so that we agreed with the bank and we can start off the new month on and even, agreed upon solid ground.
That word - reconciliation is at the heart of our scripture lesson today. It occurs, in various forms, 5 times, six if you count a paraphrase. God has reconciled us to himself. We have ministry of reconciliation. In Christ God was reconciling, and entrusting us with the work of reconciliation. Be reconciled - since God has named you an ambassador of reconciliation.
First and foremost - reconciliation is something that God has caused to happen between God’s self and ourselves. It’s a complete reversal of the estrangement we cause by ignoring God, or defying God, or going against God’s love for us or others - what theologians call sin. That stuff makes our lives shallow and ugly and mean and hateful, both to ourselves and to God. It’s not that God hates us. But that when we are full of Hate, we can’t relate to the One who is Love. There is an unbridgable distance between God and us.
Then God reaches across that great divide and draws us close through Jesus Christ. In Christ, we can see ourselves and see God, together as we are meant to be. And that changes everything in ways that are profound - and profoundly difficult to explain. It opens up new possibilites for friendship. It breaks down dividing walls between people. It connects us with the good and beautiful and true in the universe. It’s grace. They don’t call it amazing for nothin’, folks!
Paul - who is a great little explainer - is at a loss for words. So he writes this: If anyone is in Christ (and words fail him. There is no “that person is” or “surely God makes that person” or . . . anything . . . He just explodes: ) NEW CREATION!
Paul’s real genius - the idea that underlies so much of his greatest work - is that he understands and makes clear an inherent tension within human beings - even faithful Christian human beings: Within each of us lie two contradictory inclinations:
(Author Sarah Miles puts it this way in an interview I read on beliefnet this week:)
People profoundly want to be made new, and people profoundly want to be clothed in Christ, to be born again. They want to be reconciled new creations!
And they profoundly want to cling to everything old—about the world, and about themselves.
Part of us is desiring more God, has glimpsed more, had an experience of more that it’s trying to recreate. And that’s the job of people who run churches—to try to listen to that desire, and feed it.
We have the impulse to experience this new creation and the impulse to stifle it. And the church needs to be the place where we come to get the courage to tell “the secret” of the deep and transforming love God has for us and all people.
Reconciliation is something we experience. And something we are expected to help others experience. Paul’s pretty clear about that. So is Jesus. And followers of Jesus need to be reminded of that every once in a while. What a blessing that the Corinthian and the Philothian churches have Paul to remind us: Being Christian is about sharing with others the grace of God as we know it in Jesus Christ.
How we who have experienced renewed relationship with God become ambassadors, messangers, participants in renewing relationships in our extended families, our communities, among our neighbors, our co workers, the folks that live down the street?
I’m not talking about evangelizing here. Not about bringing others in or telling them about our experience. But about listening to them and prayerfully discerning how God is moving toward reconciliation in their lives. IN our community’s life. In the world - which is now our neighborhood. And becoming part of that.
And it’s sort of urgent. Paul says, “As we work together, we urge you not to accept the grace of God in vain. Don’t be reconciled and then fail to offer reconcilation to others. For God says, “at an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.”
We don’t want to get to the end of our lives and realize that we have missed our opportunities to reconcile, to be agents of reconciliation for God in the world.
This was brought home to me this week in an essay I read by Steve Martin, the comedian/actor Steve Martin. And I want to share it with you. Because it speaks of the beauty and urgency of reconciliation in a sort of different voice:
The Death of My Father By Steve Martin
In his death, my father, Glenn Vernon Martin, did something he could not do in life. He brought our family together.
After he died, at the age of eighty- three, many of his friends told me how much they loved him--how generous he was, how outgoing, how funny, how caring. I was surprised at these descriptions. I remember him as angry. There was little said to me, that I recall, that was not criticism.
Martin does recount a few pleasant memories of his father. There are maybe five, all told. His father had wanted a career in show business, but had given that up early on, and settled on real estate. And he took no pleasure in his son’s success as a writer, comedian/ actor. His lack of support is almost comic. After the son won an Emmy at age 23, his dad said, “Well, I hope now you’ll go back to college and get a degree in something you can fall back on.” He wrote bad reviews of his son’s performance and had it published in the realtor’s newsletter Stuff like that.
The younger Martin had a friend whose parents both died young, and he advised Steve that if he had anything to work out with his parents that he do so, since they wouldn’t be around forever. So he started taking them out to lunch once a week. But his father was so domineering and critical of Steve’s mother that he finally figured out he’d have to take each of them separately. That became their routine for many years.
And as he grew older and had health problems, his demeanor became, if anything, even more belligerent. Until finally, he was under hospice care, and the cantankerous man began to soften just a bit. Then one day in May, 1997, we all found ourselves gathered at my parents' home, in Orange County, California. I walked into the house they had lived in for thirty-five years, and my weeping sister said, "He's saying goodbye to everyone." I walked into the bedroom where he lay, his mind alert but his body failing.
He said, almost buoyantly, "I'm ready now." I understood that his intensifying rage of the last few years had been against death, and now his resistance was abating. I stood at the end of the bed, and we looked into each other's eyes for a long, unbroken time. At last he said, "You did everything I wanted to do."
I said, "I did it because of you." It was the truth. Looking back, I'm sure that we both had different interpretations of what I meant.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Another silence fell over us. Then he said, "I wish I could cry, I wish I could cry."
At first, I took this as a comment on his plight but am forever thankful that I pushed on. "What do you want to cry about?" I finally said.
"For all the love I received and couldn't return."
He had kept this secret, his desire to love his family, from me and from my mother his whole life. It was as though an early misstep had kept us forever out of stride. Now, two days from his death, our pace was aligning, and we were able to speak.
To be in stride - to draw alongside and move into the future together - to be able to speak and to hear the other - this is reconciliation.
In Jesus, God has drawn alongside us. And now he is trusting us to draw alongside others, entrusting to us the reconciling message, that God may renew relationships in and through us.
In the next few minutes, hold the scripture in your heart: If anyone is in Christ - NEW CREATION! Ask God to show you where you might participate in God’s work of reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Renewal of Relationship
Reconciliation is a word that has, lately, taken on some unfortunate cultural baggage: right now, the reconciliation that is in the news is some fancy or not-so-fancy (I don’t know!) parlimentary procedure: the process that the US congress is doing to try to get a health insurance reform bill through, in spite of the fact that they can’t come to any agreement as to what the bill should be.
If this time together is going to be of any use to us at all, we are going to have to completely shut that usage of the word out of our heads, and think, not what reconciliation means on Capitol Hill, but what it means in the Bible AND on the Central Illinois plains.
Reconciliation, according to Biblical uses, means a renewal of relationship - to bring together, to reunite persons who have been estranged. It has the flavor of settling accounts - we talk about reconciling our checkbooks, which means to make the necessary corrections and additions and substractions so that we agreed with the bank and we can start off the new month on and even, agreed upon solid ground.
That word - reconciliation is at the heart of our scripture lesson today. It occurs, in various forms, 5 times, six if you count a paraphrase. God has reconciled us to himself. We have ministry of reconciliation. In Christ God was reconciling, and entrusting us with the work of reconciliation. Be reconciled - since God has named you an ambassador of reconciliation.
First and foremost - reconciliation is something that God has caused to happen between God’s self and ourselves. It’s a complete reversal of the estrangement we cause by ignoring God, or defying God, or going against God’s love for us or others - what theologians call sin. That stuff makes our lives shallow and ugly and mean and hateful, both to ourselves and to God. It’s not that God hates us. But that when we are full of Hate, we can’t relate to the One who is Love. There is an unbridgable distance between God and us.
Then God reaches across that great divide and draws us close through Jesus Christ. In Christ, we can see ourselves and see God, together as we are meant to be. And that changes everything in ways that are profound - and profoundly difficult to explain. It opens up new possibilites for friendship. It breaks down dividing walls between people. It connects us with the good and beautiful and true in the universe. It’s grace. They don’t call it amazing for nothin’, folks!
Paul - who is a great little explainer - is at a loss for words. So he writes this: If anyone is in Christ (and words fail him. There is no “that person is” or “surely God makes that person” or . . . anything . . . He just explodes: ) NEW CREATION!
Paul’s real genius - the idea that underlies so much of his greatest work - is that he understands and makes clear an inherent tension within human beings - even faithful Christian human beings: Within each of us lie two contradictory inclinations:
(Author Sarah Miles puts it this way in an interview I read on beliefnet this week:)
People profoundly want to be made new, and people profoundly want to be clothed in Christ, to be born again. They want to be reconciled new creations!
And they profoundly want to cling to everything old—about the world, and about themselves.
Part of us is desiring more God, has glimpsed more, had an experience of more that it’s trying to recreate. And that’s the job of people who run churches—to try to listen to that desire, and feed it.
We have the impulse to experience this new creation and the impulse to stifle it. And the church needs to be the place where we come to get the courage to tell “the secret” of the deep and transforming love God has for us and all people.
Reconciliation is something we experience. And something we are expected to help others experience. Paul’s pretty clear about that. So is Jesus. And followers of Jesus need to be reminded of that every once in a while. What a blessing that the Corinthian and the Philothian churches have Paul to remind us: Being Christian is about sharing with others the grace of God as we know it in Jesus Christ.
How we who have experienced renewed relationship with God become ambassadors, messangers, participants in renewing relationships in our extended families, our communities, among our neighbors, our co workers, the folks that live down the street?
I’m not talking about evangelizing here. Not about bringing others in or telling them about our experience. But about listening to them and prayerfully discerning how God is moving toward reconciliation in their lives. IN our community’s life. In the world - which is now our neighborhood. And becoming part of that.
And it’s sort of urgent. Paul says, “As we work together, we urge you not to accept the grace of God in vain. Don’t be reconciled and then fail to offer reconcilation to others. For God says, “at an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.”
We don’t want to get to the end of our lives and realize that we have missed our opportunities to reconcile, to be agents of reconciliation for God in the world.
This was brought home to me this week in an essay I read by Steve Martin, the comedian/actor Steve Martin. And I want to share it with you. Because it speaks of the beauty and urgency of reconciliation in a sort of different voice:
The Death of My Father By Steve Martin
In his death, my father, Glenn Vernon Martin, did something he could not do in life. He brought our family together.
After he died, at the age of eighty- three, many of his friends told me how much they loved him--how generous he was, how outgoing, how funny, how caring. I was surprised at these descriptions. I remember him as angry. There was little said to me, that I recall, that was not criticism.
Martin does recount a few pleasant memories of his father. There are maybe five, all told. His father had wanted a career in show business, but had given that up early on, and settled on real estate. And he took no pleasure in his son’s success as a writer, comedian/ actor. His lack of support is almost comic. After the son won an Emmy at age 23, his dad said, “Well, I hope now you’ll go back to college and get a degree in something you can fall back on.” He wrote bad reviews of his son’s performance and had it published in the realtor’s newsletter Stuff like that.
The younger Martin had a friend whose parents both died young, and he advised Steve that if he had anything to work out with his parents that he do so, since they wouldn’t be around forever. So he started taking them out to lunch once a week. But his father was so domineering and critical of Steve’s mother that he finally figured out he’d have to take each of them separately. That became their routine for many years.
And as he grew older and had health problems, his demeanor became, if anything, even more belligerent. Until finally, he was under hospice care, and the cantankerous man began to soften just a bit. Then one day in May, 1997, we all found ourselves gathered at my parents' home, in Orange County, California. I walked into the house they had lived in for thirty-five years, and my weeping sister said, "He's saying goodbye to everyone." I walked into the bedroom where he lay, his mind alert but his body failing.
He said, almost buoyantly, "I'm ready now." I understood that his intensifying rage of the last few years had been against death, and now his resistance was abating. I stood at the end of the bed, and we looked into each other's eyes for a long, unbroken time. At last he said, "You did everything I wanted to do."
I said, "I did it because of you." It was the truth. Looking back, I'm sure that we both had different interpretations of what I meant.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Another silence fell over us. Then he said, "I wish I could cry, I wish I could cry."
At first, I took this as a comment on his plight but am forever thankful that I pushed on. "What do you want to cry about?" I finally said.
"For all the love I received and couldn't return."
He had kept this secret, his desire to love his family, from me and from my mother his whole life. It was as though an early misstep had kept us forever out of stride. Now, two days from his death, our pace was aligning, and we were able to speak.
To be in stride - to draw alongside and move into the future together - to be able to speak and to hear the other - this is reconciliation.
In Jesus, God has drawn alongside us. And now he is trusting us to draw alongside others, entrusting to us the reconciling message, that God may renew relationships in and through us.
In the next few minutes, hold the scripture in your heart: If anyone is in Christ - NEW CREATION! Ask God to show you where you might participate in God’s work of reconciliation.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Way the Week Worked on Me
Still thinking about the day spent at "Moving Back into the Neighborhood" and the emphasis on listening to and looking for what God is doing around the church (rather than inside the walls of the church building)
And listening to the scriptures. Which I practice some.
The passage I'd tentatively chosen for this week seemed better than ever: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 is all about parallels between God's work and the work God calls us to do. Reconciled to be reconciling.
An interview with Sarah Miles (love her) about her new book included her insight about Paul's understanding that human beings both do and do NOT want to be a new creation. And how the church so often feeds the "don't let God change me or my world" side of the equation rather than the NEW CREATION side. ("If anyone is in Christ - - - new creation!") And about how becoming the new, reconciling creation is the real business of God's people. interesting.
Then PeaceBang posted an essay by Steve Martin about the death of his father. And the opening line is about how, in death, the father did what he never did in life: bring the family together. And it's all about reconciliation.
So you'd think I could string those things together . . . so we'll see.
And listening to the scriptures. Which I practice some.
The passage I'd tentatively chosen for this week seemed better than ever: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 is all about parallels between God's work and the work God calls us to do. Reconciled to be reconciling.
An interview with Sarah Miles (love her) about her new book included her insight about Paul's understanding that human beings both do and do NOT want to be a new creation. And how the church so often feeds the "don't let God change me or my world" side of the equation rather than the NEW CREATION side. ("If anyone is in Christ - - - new creation!") And about how becoming the new, reconciling creation is the real business of God's people. interesting.
Then PeaceBang posted an essay by Steve Martin about the death of his father. And the opening line is about how, in death, the father did what he never did in life: bring the family together. And it's all about reconciliation.
So you'd think I could string those things together . . . so we'll see.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Renewal - - of appetite. Sermon 3/7/10
Lent is the Old Anglo Saxon word for SPRING. It is a time for us to practice being renewed. Get ready for resurrection and the new life in Risen Christ. So far our scriptures have pointed us toward Renewal through gratitude, and the Renewal that comes in the midst of Life’s darkness.
This week’s scripture points us toward a renewal experience that is has more pleasant associations for us: Call it a renewal of appetite.
Scripture:Isaiah 55:1-13
Hunger and thirst are important parts of human experience.
God has used hunger and the satisfaction of hunger as powerful ways to communicate his love and care for his people. Our scripture lesson this morning is just one instance (and one of my favorites, at that.)
Isaiah portrays God as a gracious and bountiful host, calling his people to come and get it! - come take part in a banquet of rich and nutrient dense food and delicious clean water and nourishing fresh milk.
This invitation to eat, drink and rejoice is welcome good news for those who are looking for renewal. And there is nothing quite as renewing, quite like the feeling of joy and relief when real hunger is assuaged. Moods lift, pains dissipate, outlooks brighten. Food is great stuff.
What has worried me this week, as I’ve lived with this passage, is that we live in a time and place where food is cheap and hunger - real, stomach growling, hunger is getting to be a rare thing. Physically, I mean. The Biblical metaphor of God feeding his people works spiritually because it taps into what we know physically. And I think we are living in a time and place in which hunger is becoming rare.
A story I heard on the radio last week seems to confirm my sense that hunger is not a common experience. It said:
“Gone are the days when parents forbade their children to snack in between meals. The trend these days seems to be toward continuous eating.
Childhood snacking trends are moving toward three snacks per day as compared with 30 years ago, when children ate an average of about one snack a day. And many school-age kids — about 1 in 5 — are snacking up to six times a day.
The same is true of young adults and adults in general: In young adults
Snacking prevalence increased from 77 to 84%. Calories consumed per snacking occasion increased by 26% and the number of snacks per day increased 14%.
Among all adults, snacking has become more common. 1 in 3 adults eat more than 6 times a day.
This is not the way it used to be. You know that. Studies prove it.
But so what? What would your mother say? Don’t snack, you’ll spoil your appetite! The danger is that we won’t be hungry when we sit down to eat the good, nutritious meal. We won’t want to come sit with the fam, or sit with ourselves over something worth saying “grace” over.
Which makes me wonder - could that be true in the spiritual aspect of our lives as well? Could we lose our appetites for the spiritual food God prepares and spreads before us?
The scripture seems to confirm that God’s people have always faced this possibility: The Bible asks: Why do you spend your resources on things that don’t feed you? Why do you waste your money on what doesn’t satisfy? Apparently, even in Isaiah’s time, God’s people were eating spiritual junk food, rather than coming to Him to be fed.
So think with me - what are the spiritual ding dongs and ho hos (I’m sure none of you actually eat REAL ding dongs and ho hos. As if there was anything real IN a ding dong or a ho ho, which there isn’t, by the way.) we use to get by when we need a little spiritual pick me up during the day?
When we have worries - do we take them to God in prayer? Or do we open the fridge?
REAL Comfort or comfort food?
When we feel unhappy with our lot in life, do we take one of the many opportunities to do something good for someone less fortunate? Or do we buy something?
Divine Love? Or “love those boots?”
When we are bored, do we take a walk and let our mind be filled with the beauty of creation? Or do we call up the town gossip, or get on the internet, and laugh at someone’s stupid decision or misfortune?
Priceless JOY? or a cheap laugh?
When we feel the need for enlightenment and a little time spent thinking of higher things, do we struggle through a difficult passage from God’s Word, or do we pick up an “inspirational” story from some magazine . . .
Wisdom from on high, or a quick dose of sentimental sweetness?
Maybe you are different. In fact, I’m sure you are different. Those are just snacks that tempt me and spoil my appetite for the goodness of God. Your specific ding dongs are no doubt slightly different. TV? Video games? Counting your money? Day dreaming about revenge? Pride in your own accomplishments? I don’t know. There are lots and lots of ways we can dull our appetites for God. I’ll give you a minute to think about those things. But before we get to that, it’s important to remember that none of those things really, in the long term, WORK.
Thanks be to God’s gracious love and wisdom in creating us, the hunger and thirst for The DIVINE never is entirely satisfied until we finally come to CHRIST and take what THE HOLY SPIRIT has to give us.
Even when we don’t realize it, we still are hungry for the good stuff that only God can give. We are thirsty for the life giving water, whether we know it or not. Like those signs out in the desert southwest - at the grand canyon and parks out there where the humidity is so low it’s almost dangerous. There are signs that say: "'Stop! Drink water. You are thirsty, whether you realize it or not.'"
Well, Scripture tells us that we are thirsty for God, whether we know it or not. We are hungry for the comfort and joy and peace and purpose of God, even though that hunger may be so dulled by the snack-y junk food we’ve downed to try to satisfy ourselves.
And God promises that, when we accept his invitation and come to the table, he will fill us with good things. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Take. EAT.”
the last couple of weeks we’ve made renewal circles - prayer circles - as a way of focussing on how God might renew us during this season. This week, take a couple of minutes and get in touch with your spiritual appetite for God’s goodness.
the prompt on the circle says, “God, help me give up snacking on . . . . . Renew my appetite . . . “
After a couple of minutes, Betty will play through “Break thou the Bread of Life” We’ll stand and sing.
This week’s scripture points us toward a renewal experience that is has more pleasant associations for us: Call it a renewal of appetite.
Scripture:Isaiah 55:1-13
Hunger and thirst are important parts of human experience.
God has used hunger and the satisfaction of hunger as powerful ways to communicate his love and care for his people. Our scripture lesson this morning is just one instance (and one of my favorites, at that.)
Isaiah portrays God as a gracious and bountiful host, calling his people to come and get it! - come take part in a banquet of rich and nutrient dense food and delicious clean water and nourishing fresh milk.
This invitation to eat, drink and rejoice is welcome good news for those who are looking for renewal. And there is nothing quite as renewing, quite like the feeling of joy and relief when real hunger is assuaged. Moods lift, pains dissipate, outlooks brighten. Food is great stuff.
What has worried me this week, as I’ve lived with this passage, is that we live in a time and place where food is cheap and hunger - real, stomach growling, hunger is getting to be a rare thing. Physically, I mean. The Biblical metaphor of God feeding his people works spiritually because it taps into what we know physically. And I think we are living in a time and place in which hunger is becoming rare.
A story I heard on the radio last week seems to confirm my sense that hunger is not a common experience. It said:
“Gone are the days when parents forbade their children to snack in between meals. The trend these days seems to be toward continuous eating.
Childhood snacking trends are moving toward three snacks per day as compared with 30 years ago, when children ate an average of about one snack a day. And many school-age kids — about 1 in 5 — are snacking up to six times a day.
The same is true of young adults and adults in general: In young adults
Snacking prevalence increased from 77 to 84%. Calories consumed per snacking occasion increased by 26% and the number of snacks per day increased 14%.
Among all adults, snacking has become more common. 1 in 3 adults eat more than 6 times a day.
This is not the way it used to be. You know that. Studies prove it.
But so what? What would your mother say? Don’t snack, you’ll spoil your appetite! The danger is that we won’t be hungry when we sit down to eat the good, nutritious meal. We won’t want to come sit with the fam, or sit with ourselves over something worth saying “grace” over.
Which makes me wonder - could that be true in the spiritual aspect of our lives as well? Could we lose our appetites for the spiritual food God prepares and spreads before us?
The scripture seems to confirm that God’s people have always faced this possibility: The Bible asks: Why do you spend your resources on things that don’t feed you? Why do you waste your money on what doesn’t satisfy? Apparently, even in Isaiah’s time, God’s people were eating spiritual junk food, rather than coming to Him to be fed.
So think with me - what are the spiritual ding dongs and ho hos (I’m sure none of you actually eat REAL ding dongs and ho hos. As if there was anything real IN a ding dong or a ho ho, which there isn’t, by the way.) we use to get by when we need a little spiritual pick me up during the day?
When we have worries - do we take them to God in prayer? Or do we open the fridge?
REAL Comfort or comfort food?
When we feel unhappy with our lot in life, do we take one of the many opportunities to do something good for someone less fortunate? Or do we buy something?
Divine Love? Or “love those boots?”
When we are bored, do we take a walk and let our mind be filled with the beauty of creation? Or do we call up the town gossip, or get on the internet, and laugh at someone’s stupid decision or misfortune?
Priceless JOY? or a cheap laugh?
When we feel the need for enlightenment and a little time spent thinking of higher things, do we struggle through a difficult passage from God’s Word, or do we pick up an “inspirational” story from some magazine . . .
Wisdom from on high, or a quick dose of sentimental sweetness?
Maybe you are different. In fact, I’m sure you are different. Those are just snacks that tempt me and spoil my appetite for the goodness of God. Your specific ding dongs are no doubt slightly different. TV? Video games? Counting your money? Day dreaming about revenge? Pride in your own accomplishments? I don’t know. There are lots and lots of ways we can dull our appetites for God. I’ll give you a minute to think about those things. But before we get to that, it’s important to remember that none of those things really, in the long term, WORK.
Thanks be to God’s gracious love and wisdom in creating us, the hunger and thirst for The DIVINE never is entirely satisfied until we finally come to CHRIST and take what THE HOLY SPIRIT has to give us.
Even when we don’t realize it, we still are hungry for the good stuff that only God can give. We are thirsty for the life giving water, whether we know it or not. Like those signs out in the desert southwest - at the grand canyon and parks out there where the humidity is so low it’s almost dangerous. There are signs that say: "'Stop! Drink water. You are thirsty, whether you realize it or not.'"
Well, Scripture tells us that we are thirsty for God, whether we know it or not. We are hungry for the comfort and joy and peace and purpose of God, even though that hunger may be so dulled by the snack-y junk food we’ve downed to try to satisfy ourselves.
And God promises that, when we accept his invitation and come to the table, he will fill us with good things. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Take. EAT.”
the last couple of weeks we’ve made renewal circles - prayer circles - as a way of focussing on how God might renew us during this season. This week, take a couple of minutes and get in touch with your spiritual appetite for God’s goodness.
the prompt on the circle says, “God, help me give up snacking on . . . . . Renew my appetite . . . “
After a couple of minutes, Betty will play through “Break thou the Bread of Life” We’ll stand and sing.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Short week, long haul
I've been on the road a lot this week, and I'm staying close to home today, trying to get some past-due work done, and my sermon written. I'm going to go to Bloomington tomorrow for a workshop about how to have the church make a bigger, better impact on the community.
On Monday I took Chris to Midway and said good bye to him. Drove back and had committees and Session.
Tuesday I went to a transition team retreat in Springfield, at a franciscan monastery. Very nice. I wish I could have stayed. But I came home in time for choir.
Wednesday the only place I went was the grocery store. Made good stuff for Pastor Soup. 9 people came. It was fine.
So that leaves today for me to get most of the week's work done.
Now that I write it, I feel more deserving of my harried feeling.
Breathe in the Spirit of peace. Breathe out frustration and fear. Ahhhh. That's better.
On Monday I took Chris to Midway and said good bye to him. Drove back and had committees and Session.
Tuesday I went to a transition team retreat in Springfield, at a franciscan monastery. Very nice. I wish I could have stayed. But I came home in time for choir.
Wednesday the only place I went was the grocery store. Made good stuff for Pastor Soup. 9 people came. It was fine.
So that leaves today for me to get most of the week's work done.
Now that I write it, I feel more deserving of my harried feeling.
Breathe in the Spirit of peace. Breathe out frustration and fear. Ahhhh. That's better.
Sermon for Feb. 28th
Here is the manuscript I preached from. It came out somewhat like this. (Some parts, not so much.)
Lent is the Old Anglo Saxon word for SPRING. It is a time for us to practice being renewed. Get ready for resurrection and the new life in Risen Christ. Last week our scriptures pointed us toward “gratitude” - one of the foundations of renewal. Taking the time to be conscious of and name our blessings is a renewing exercise, and one that I hope you engaged in this week.
This week’s scripture points us in a different direction, toward an experience that is more difficult and less pleasant, perhaps, but just as real and just as necessary for our renewal:
Genesis 15:1-18
I’ve told you about the night I climbed a mountain in Nicaragua in the dark. I’m going to tell you “the rest of the story”.
When they dropped the five of us off at the foot of the mountain, with our host Luis, the sun was just beginning to set. But a sunset in the mountains is not like sunsets here in Illinois. The sun doesn’t gently settle closer and closer to the horizon, the darkness working it’s way from east to west, seeping around but not melting into the glow of champaign/urbana to the north, bumping off of streetlights, porch lights, headlights on the highway.
Here, night comes slowly and gently. In Nicaragua, in the mountains, it descends, boom, like a curtain. Within minutes, we were walking in what to me was a pitch black night. Up a mountain. We stopped and got in our back packs, rummaged around and found flashlights. I had an LED book light that was nice and bright. Very focused in a tight circle, but bright. That was good because one woman had forgotten to bring one. She walked in front of me and I tried to shine my light so that it hit the ground in front of her feet as we moved forward.
We walked single file, because the path was about twelve inches wide. Recently it had been traveled by a mule who hauled up food and the gringas water. So we had to step carefully over mule manure, as well as rocks and tree roots.
Quantos minutos hasta la casa? Diez o quince. Bien. We chattered a little among ourselves at first. But after 20 minutes or so, we had to quit talking in order to climb. Esta cerca la casa? Muy cerca, Luis promised. But we kept walking.
After about a half hour, which included crossing a stream by hopping over rocks, all kinds of fears began to play in my mind. I told the woman in front of me, “If I have a heart attack here, don’t send my body back to the states. Please. Just bury me here. It’s fine.”
We couldn’t see anything but the 24 inches ahead of us. We heard children singing and calling, up the mountain just a little bit. Are those your children, Luis? The children are welcoming you! he told us. But we walked past the point where we heard them and on up the incline. Every time we passed through a pasture gate, we’d ask again, “Quantos minutos? Esta cerca?” And be assured, “Muy cerca.”
It hit me that I was about a million miles from home, with a little group of women, following a man I’d never met before to a destination I wasn’t sure existed. Banditos. Kidnapping. Clips from a Mexican film about the revolutionary struggle that I’d seen played in my head. I could see the images clearly, because I couldn’t see anything else. It was so dark. I couldn’t see the hand in front of my face. That dark. And I will admit now that I found the experience . . . a little unsettling. All right.
Perhaps that is why when I read this very rich and interesting narrative about the renewal of God’s covenant with Abram, it hit me this time that much of the action here takes place in the dark. And that darker emotions - fear and doubt and anger and even the threat of violence - are part of this renewal story. Verse 12 says “A deep and terrifying darkness descended on Abram.” And this account of human experience in our holy scriptures seem to invite us to think about times when we, literally and figuratively encounter God in the dark times of our lives.
How do we seek renewal and new life when the darkness closes in? When, like Abram, we begin to doubt what God is doing, and we wonder if maybe he has forgotten His promises to us.
Abram was at one of those points in life where things seemed pretty dark. God had called him out, and he’d gone. But God had promised him a child, and he had no child. God had lured him away from his father’s house in Haran, promising a new home. And Abram was still living in a tent. Was it possible that this had all been a mistake? Was God just fooling with him? Had he made the whole thing up in his own head? Abram was in a dark place - a place of fear and doubt. And he wasn’t too happy with his life, or with God. That’s a dark place.
Christians, we have dark places in our lives, too. times when loss, confusion, fear and doubt obscure our lives. We can’t see what’s ahead. We don’t feel sure of God’s involvement. We are in the dark. And it can be a bad time.
In Abram’s story, into this terrifying darkness, a light comes, in the form of a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. Our scriptures are filled with examples of light shining through the darkness, and yet, we still have trouble believing and trusting that God will bring light to our own terrifying dark places. Even when we know that Jesus is the light — to outshine all other lights, to overcome any darkness — we still huddle in fear when the darkness descends
Lent is a time when we face the darkness (together?) and admit that it scares us to death, and that we doubt God’s promises, and Lent is a time in which our connection with God and God’s intention for our lives can be renewed.
In the midst of darkness, Abraham did some things that can guide us when the darkness falls:
1 Most important! He kept talking to God. Even when all he had to say was a complaint. I know how easy it is to quit talking when God seems to have forgotten us. It’s a mistake to just keep mouthing the “Make me thankful that things aren’t worse.” prayers. We have to tell God what’s on our heart. If you don’t think you have the words, open your Bible and pray the psalms of lament. “Dogs surround me. They are yapping at my heels, trying to bring me down. Why don’t you protect me from these malicious people.” “My friends have betrayed me. Those I thought were my friends talk about me behind my back.” “I am exhausted. My strength is poured out and my bones are dried up.” There are words. Say them. God is not going to be shocked. He is big enough to handle your frustration. Talk. And listen.
2 Perform rituals to remind you who God is. Abraham performed this ritual sacrifice at God’s command. This ritual is clarified by the curses attached to a Sefire treaty, from the 8th century BCE: "Just as this calf is cut in two, so may Mati`el [one of the kings involved in this treaty] be cut in two, and may his nobles be cut in two." In Genesis, therefore, Yahweh is invoking upon himself a curse in order to make his promise credible: "May I Yahweh be cut in two if I do not carry through on my promise to Sarai and Abram."
It was God’s way of saying “Cross my heart, Hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” It was ritual. It was a visible sign of an invisible committment. It was a symbol meaning - I’ll keep my promise, or die trying.
In the dark parts of life, we need those symbols of God’s love and care and willingness to suffer for us. We need the cross. Come to church. Even if it’s hard and the sermon’s don’t apply, and the hymns sound hollow, and you don’t know why you are here. Where else are you going to see the cross? Where else are you going to be reminded of the promise of God to save you - a promise fulfilled by Jesus, even though he did have to die trying.
3 Know that its OK to believe and doubt at the same time. Faith isn’t the same thing as certainty. Faith is the substance of things hoped for - the evidence of things NOT SEEN. Abraham believed and questioned. And his faith was reckoned as righteousness. Remember when Jesus is asked to heal the centurion’s child? The father says, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” And Jesus did it. Having all the answers isn’t faith. And having stronger faith doesn’t necessarily lead to having more answers. Ask Job. Ask Jesus. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
I’m aware that there are flavors of Christianity that claim to have more answers - some claim to have all the answers - And they have answers. When I was younger, before any real darkness came into my life, I thought I had all the answers, too. From the Bible, of course. but then life happened to me. The darkness came, and I found out something about all those answers. Some of the answers are wrong. It’s like taking the SAT - you have to know when a wrong answer is going to cost you more than just leaving the question blank.
If I know what to do in every situation - If I ALWAYS KNOW what’s right and wrong - If I’ve got a rule for every situation -
I don’t need God much anyway. what’s he gonna do? Applaud my perfect life? But if I don’t - then I am more like Abram, and the rest of the human race.
We live out our faith, and ask our questions, and look to God’s mercy to sustain us.
Abraham in his time, and more fully Jesus Christ, showed the life of faith to be lived as we live it - sometimes in the dark - with barely enough light to take the next step.
Abram had a smoking firepot and a flaming torch. On the mountain in Nicaragua, I had an LED book light. But that light can be enough for us to keep going in faith, until the sun shines brighter again.
Even the darkness is not dark to God. The dark places of life can be places of renewal, if we do as Abram did:
Keep talking honestly - nagging or complaining, even - let’s just call it respectfully requesting that God enlighten you about his intentions.
Keep your eyes on the sacrifice that reminds you of God’s faithfulness - the cross. That means keep coming to church - strange as it may be, it brings you face to cross with God’s love.
Keep believing and doubting at the same time. That’s what faith is all about.
Last week, we filled out gratitude circles, listing blessings for which we thank God. This week, I’d like you to fill out the circle that petition God to shed light on the dark places of life. This might be your life, or dark places in the world. Any place or situation that makes you, like Abram, wonder if God is doing what God said he’d do. Place those prayers in the offering plate, like we did last week.
After a couple of minutes, Mark will play through the hymn, and we’ll rise to sing.
Lent is the Old Anglo Saxon word for SPRING. It is a time for us to practice being renewed. Get ready for resurrection and the new life in Risen Christ. Last week our scriptures pointed us toward “gratitude” - one of the foundations of renewal. Taking the time to be conscious of and name our blessings is a renewing exercise, and one that I hope you engaged in this week.
This week’s scripture points us in a different direction, toward an experience that is more difficult and less pleasant, perhaps, but just as real and just as necessary for our renewal:
Genesis 15:1-18
I’ve told you about the night I climbed a mountain in Nicaragua in the dark. I’m going to tell you “the rest of the story”.
When they dropped the five of us off at the foot of the mountain, with our host Luis, the sun was just beginning to set. But a sunset in the mountains is not like sunsets here in Illinois. The sun doesn’t gently settle closer and closer to the horizon, the darkness working it’s way from east to west, seeping around but not melting into the glow of champaign/urbana to the north, bumping off of streetlights, porch lights, headlights on the highway.
Here, night comes slowly and gently. In Nicaragua, in the mountains, it descends, boom, like a curtain. Within minutes, we were walking in what to me was a pitch black night. Up a mountain. We stopped and got in our back packs, rummaged around and found flashlights. I had an LED book light that was nice and bright. Very focused in a tight circle, but bright. That was good because one woman had forgotten to bring one. She walked in front of me and I tried to shine my light so that it hit the ground in front of her feet as we moved forward.
We walked single file, because the path was about twelve inches wide. Recently it had been traveled by a mule who hauled up food and the gringas water. So we had to step carefully over mule manure, as well as rocks and tree roots.
Quantos minutos hasta la casa? Diez o quince. Bien. We chattered a little among ourselves at first. But after 20 minutes or so, we had to quit talking in order to climb. Esta cerca la casa? Muy cerca, Luis promised. But we kept walking.
After about a half hour, which included crossing a stream by hopping over rocks, all kinds of fears began to play in my mind. I told the woman in front of me, “If I have a heart attack here, don’t send my body back to the states. Please. Just bury me here. It’s fine.”
We couldn’t see anything but the 24 inches ahead of us. We heard children singing and calling, up the mountain just a little bit. Are those your children, Luis? The children are welcoming you! he told us. But we walked past the point where we heard them and on up the incline. Every time we passed through a pasture gate, we’d ask again, “Quantos minutos? Esta cerca?” And be assured, “Muy cerca.”
It hit me that I was about a million miles from home, with a little group of women, following a man I’d never met before to a destination I wasn’t sure existed. Banditos. Kidnapping. Clips from a Mexican film about the revolutionary struggle that I’d seen played in my head. I could see the images clearly, because I couldn’t see anything else. It was so dark. I couldn’t see the hand in front of my face. That dark. And I will admit now that I found the experience . . . a little unsettling. All right.
Perhaps that is why when I read this very rich and interesting narrative about the renewal of God’s covenant with Abram, it hit me this time that much of the action here takes place in the dark. And that darker emotions - fear and doubt and anger and even the threat of violence - are part of this renewal story. Verse 12 says “A deep and terrifying darkness descended on Abram.” And this account of human experience in our holy scriptures seem to invite us to think about times when we, literally and figuratively encounter God in the dark times of our lives.
How do we seek renewal and new life when the darkness closes in? When, like Abram, we begin to doubt what God is doing, and we wonder if maybe he has forgotten His promises to us.
Abram was at one of those points in life where things seemed pretty dark. God had called him out, and he’d gone. But God had promised him a child, and he had no child. God had lured him away from his father’s house in Haran, promising a new home. And Abram was still living in a tent. Was it possible that this had all been a mistake? Was God just fooling with him? Had he made the whole thing up in his own head? Abram was in a dark place - a place of fear and doubt. And he wasn’t too happy with his life, or with God. That’s a dark place.
Christians, we have dark places in our lives, too. times when loss, confusion, fear and doubt obscure our lives. We can’t see what’s ahead. We don’t feel sure of God’s involvement. We are in the dark. And it can be a bad time.
In Abram’s story, into this terrifying darkness, a light comes, in the form of a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. Our scriptures are filled with examples of light shining through the darkness, and yet, we still have trouble believing and trusting that God will bring light to our own terrifying dark places. Even when we know that Jesus is the light — to outshine all other lights, to overcome any darkness — we still huddle in fear when the darkness descends
Lent is a time when we face the darkness (together?) and admit that it scares us to death, and that we doubt God’s promises, and Lent is a time in which our connection with God and God’s intention for our lives can be renewed.
In the midst of darkness, Abraham did some things that can guide us when the darkness falls:
1 Most important! He kept talking to God. Even when all he had to say was a complaint. I know how easy it is to quit talking when God seems to have forgotten us. It’s a mistake to just keep mouthing the “Make me thankful that things aren’t worse.” prayers. We have to tell God what’s on our heart. If you don’t think you have the words, open your Bible and pray the psalms of lament. “Dogs surround me. They are yapping at my heels, trying to bring me down. Why don’t you protect me from these malicious people.” “My friends have betrayed me. Those I thought were my friends talk about me behind my back.” “I am exhausted. My strength is poured out and my bones are dried up.” There are words. Say them. God is not going to be shocked. He is big enough to handle your frustration. Talk. And listen.
2 Perform rituals to remind you who God is. Abraham performed this ritual sacrifice at God’s command. This ritual is clarified by the curses attached to a Sefire treaty, from the 8th century BCE: "Just as this calf is cut in two, so may Mati`el [one of the kings involved in this treaty] be cut in two, and may his nobles be cut in two." In Genesis, therefore, Yahweh is invoking upon himself a curse in order to make his promise credible: "May I Yahweh be cut in two if I do not carry through on my promise to Sarai and Abram."
It was God’s way of saying “Cross my heart, Hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” It was ritual. It was a visible sign of an invisible committment. It was a symbol meaning - I’ll keep my promise, or die trying.
In the dark parts of life, we need those symbols of God’s love and care and willingness to suffer for us. We need the cross. Come to church. Even if it’s hard and the sermon’s don’t apply, and the hymns sound hollow, and you don’t know why you are here. Where else are you going to see the cross? Where else are you going to be reminded of the promise of God to save you - a promise fulfilled by Jesus, even though he did have to die trying.
3 Know that its OK to believe and doubt at the same time. Faith isn’t the same thing as certainty. Faith is the substance of things hoped for - the evidence of things NOT SEEN. Abraham believed and questioned. And his faith was reckoned as righteousness. Remember when Jesus is asked to heal the centurion’s child? The father says, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” And Jesus did it. Having all the answers isn’t faith. And having stronger faith doesn’t necessarily lead to having more answers. Ask Job. Ask Jesus. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
I’m aware that there are flavors of Christianity that claim to have more answers - some claim to have all the answers - And they have answers. When I was younger, before any real darkness came into my life, I thought I had all the answers, too. From the Bible, of course. but then life happened to me. The darkness came, and I found out something about all those answers. Some of the answers are wrong. It’s like taking the SAT - you have to know when a wrong answer is going to cost you more than just leaving the question blank.
If I know what to do in every situation - If I ALWAYS KNOW what’s right and wrong - If I’ve got a rule for every situation -
I don’t need God much anyway. what’s he gonna do? Applaud my perfect life? But if I don’t - then I am more like Abram, and the rest of the human race.
We live out our faith, and ask our questions, and look to God’s mercy to sustain us.
Abraham in his time, and more fully Jesus Christ, showed the life of faith to be lived as we live it - sometimes in the dark - with barely enough light to take the next step.
Abram had a smoking firepot and a flaming torch. On the mountain in Nicaragua, I had an LED book light. But that light can be enough for us to keep going in faith, until the sun shines brighter again.
Even the darkness is not dark to God. The dark places of life can be places of renewal, if we do as Abram did:
Keep talking honestly - nagging or complaining, even - let’s just call it respectfully requesting that God enlighten you about his intentions.
Keep your eyes on the sacrifice that reminds you of God’s faithfulness - the cross. That means keep coming to church - strange as it may be, it brings you face to cross with God’s love.
Keep believing and doubting at the same time. That’s what faith is all about.
Last week, we filled out gratitude circles, listing blessings for which we thank God. This week, I’d like you to fill out the circle that petition God to shed light on the dark places of life. This might be your life, or dark places in the world. Any place or situation that makes you, like Abram, wonder if God is doing what God said he’d do. Place those prayers in the offering plate, like we did last week.
After a couple of minutes, Mark will play through the hymn, and we’ll rise to sing.
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