You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ category.
ASH WEDNESDAY
February 13, 2013
Before there was shame or guilt or blame, there was sin. In the book of Genesis, sin is clearly estrangement…separation…from God, from nature, from each other, and ourselves.
Shame is a popular substitute. Shame, as I define it, is something that originates outside ourselves. Shame is something your feel, but its origin is in ‘being found out.’ This ‘being found out’ involves something you feel inadequate about, inferior even. Shame is the focus on what others might feel about you or think about you. Shame is a popular substitute for Sin. It is much easier to manipulate others by shaming them.
When I was a child we had a fairly straightforward disciplinary program at my house. For large transgressions we were referred to my father. In my case, I don’t remember my sisters ever receiving this penance, the paddle would be retrieved from the broom closet and I’d get a swat and that was that. My mother, however, was a master at shame. For days, weeks sometimes, after the error in my ways she would talk the thing to death with phrases like “I am so disappointed in you.” It may not surprise you to know that I preferred the corporal punishment.
Shame can be so manipulative because the old adage, “I did the crime, I’ll do the time” doesn’t work. For in the midst of the shaming it appears as though it will never end.
Then there is guilt, another popular alternative to sin. Guilt, at its best, is an internal experience. Thinking of my childhood again, when I knowingly disobeyed my parents I felt guilty. My mother’s other superpower was that she was able to discern a particular aura, not like the transfiguration; somehow my countenance revealed my true nature, and she would talk me to death until I revealed the transgression.
In my view, it is sad that no one identifies with Adam and Eve these days. Pastors like me would rather remind you of Gods grace than point out the many ways your behavior adds to the human predicament. It is way too easy to point this out in others.
There is enough guilt to go around. Shame is regularly used in the cultural wars we find ourselves in. Fists are still shaken at those people over there whose behavior does not square with what we have decided is acceptable over here. The in the religious camps, leaders on one side deride leaders on the other side. Politicians are the same. If sin is discussed it is used to demean someone else.
To get at the heart of this matter, we must first deal with the sinners in our midst. By that, I mean ourselves. All religions remind us that actions have consequences for which guilt can and must be acknowledged, forgiveness humbly begged, reconciliation sought. I believe Sin is the condition of being separated from God; engaging in those actions that oppose the Kingdom of God, knowingly willed and done. But, like virtue, sin results from habits that take time to develop, and even longer to overcome. Sin, moralists tell us, is disease of the soul, not a passing headache. That is what makes it so hard to come to terms with. Yet, if the Scriptures are to be believed, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one contrite sinner than over the 99 righteous who have no need of repentance.
Although the challenges we face may be different from what the ancients faced, or even what our grandparents faced. The human condition has not changed. We church folk might complain that people have slipped away from their religious commitments. But did you notice, again, we are focusing at somebody ‘out there.’ In reality the only place to gain some ground on the condition of the culture is in here. With us.
To God’s people, not everyone, the prophet speaks: First, Joel predicts dire consequences and gets their attention with ominous threats: “Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming.” He predicts a “day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness … like blackness spread upon the mountains.” His fearsome predictions continue at length. Got your attention? Then, when one imagines the people quaking with fear, he totally changes his tack. “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
Joel has called upon the people of the land to repent. “Rend your hearts, not your clothing,” he commands. Thus, God “relents from punishing.” The people of God are to evidence their renewal of commitment with fasting, weeping, and mourning. These were (and are) traditional religious practices, not always as life-changing as one could wish. Jesus didn’t seem terribly impressed with wailing prayers, preferring private prayer. In a culture where public prayer is an expected custom, such prayer can become a status symbol. It is still popular with televangelists and with politicians. We have heard of the Pharisee who prayed in the temple, rather pompously Jesus thought. It isn’t that such displays have no value, if sincerely offered. The issue is that they can be an empty ritual.
Listen, Jesus was more impressed with our treatment of each other than with our religious observances. Only insofar as the latter improved the former would Jesus have encouraged what Joel recommended. Lent is a decent corrective because it begins with insisting that as individuals admit our gone wrongness; then, Lent, with its ancient wisdom invites us into practices that have the potential to improve your relationship with God and neighbor.
Here’s the thing, All this begins with you. You need to get right with God. As your pastor, I will defend you from everyone who wants to heap guilt on your head, shame you into believing you are garbage. As your pastor though I do you no service by avoiding the fact that you are a sinner; there is some distance between you and God and your neighbor and you created it.
So what to do?
Joel said it: “Rend your hearts, not your garments.” Inward change. It’s a step beyond wanting to be different, or trying to be different. It’s becoming different. That can never be an act of the will. Only God can change me, and even that is a slow, incomplete process. But sincere prayer can do it. So I find that repentance is a companion effort, that God will do God’s part if I do mine. Life is so much better that way. The effort to increase our faithfulness is the sacrifice God most values.
Ash Wednesday, and Lent for that matter, is not about making you feel guilty. There is no place for shame or shaming here. Lent is about stripping off the layers of grime and varnish (Fr. William Byrne, in “The New Faithful” p. 35, by Coleen Caroll, Loyola Press, 2002) and reclaiming the person and life God already recognizes in you.
THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
January 27, 2013
“A Witness to Grace”
Nehemiah 8:3
81all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel.2Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month.3He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.5And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up.6Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen’, lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.8So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
9 And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.10Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’
Soren Kierkegaard once observed that in worship God is the audience, we are the participants. We come from the messiness of life, trying to get kids up and hair combed; some come straight from the night shift; others from one disaster of sorrow or illness; another from a place of degradation and rejection; I do not know all of the specifics, but I do know that we gather here after getting through the make-up and costume departments so that we can ‘represent,’ that is, give testimony to God’s presence in our lives and our sevice in the Kingdom.
I once heard a story which illustrates this. One time Rev. Tom Long was asked to preach at what was billed as a special “family worship service.” It was a great idea . . . on paper. The notion was to hold the worship service not in the sanctuary but in the fellowship hall. There families would gather around tables, in the center of which would be the ingredients for making a mini-loaf of bread. The plan was to have the families make bread together and then, while the sweet aroma of baking bread filled the hall, the minister would preach. When the bread was finished, it would be brought out and used for a celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
It was a great idea . . . on paper. But it didn’t work well. Within minutes the fellowship hall was a hazy cloud of flour dust. Soggy balls of dough bounced off Rev. Long’s new suit as children hurled bits of the dough at each other. Husbands and wives began to snipe, nerves were frayed. Then the ovens didn’t work right and it took forever for the bread to bake. Children whimpered, babies screamed, families were on the verge of falling apart. But finally, and mercifully, the end of the service came. The script called for Long to pronounce the normal blessing saying, “The peace of God be with you.” Too tired and irritable to ad-lib anything, Long just said it straight out, holding limp, flour-caked hands to the air and saying, “The peace of God be with you.” And immediately, from the back of the trashed fellowship hall, a young child’s voice piped up, “It already is.”
It is quite amazing, really, that we are able to remember to gather here on Sunday morning and give testimony, in front of God and everyone, that we are still God’s people.
It was Ezra who stood for so long before the audience of the people, reading the book of God’s law to them from early morning until midday. On that day there was something majestic, an authority at work. “The ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.”
Ezra himself was not the authority, of course, but the book, the law now reclaimed and remembered, the words given to Israel through Moses. The majesty and glory is in the book. When Ezra opens it in the sight of the people, they all stand up.
But not only the book. Ezra blesses YHWH, the divine name, the great God, and they lift up their hands and cry “Amen, Amen.” And then they bow their heads to worship this God, their faces to the ground. Then comes reading and interpretation, that the people might understand. They weep at hearing the law of God, and Ezra, Nehemiah and all the priestly teachers exhort them not to grieve but to go and feast, for this day is holy. The great meal, spread out among the people, is to be shared by all, with portions sent to those who have none.
The passage in Nehemiah describes a great liturgy, a public act whereby the whole nation is reconstituted and rededicated by the covenant and the presence of God. They greet, they bless, they worship, they listen. They are bidden to turn their tears to joy and to eat and drink in one vast and scattered banquet. The Torah makes them a people again. “This day,” says Nehemiah, “is holy to our Lord.”
Before the Word of God can be believed, remembered, or appropriated, it must be heard.
Karl Barth referred to the Word of God in its threefold form: written, living, and preached. The importance of the preached Word in the context of worship should not be underestimated. Just as the men and women of Israel were willing to stand for hours listening to the Word of God, so we, too, must be willing to invest the time, effort, and energy necessary to hear God’s Word. Jesus said, “Let him who has ears to hear, hear.”
When the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in the midst of the Civil War, the slaves who lived within the realm of the Confederacy remained in bondage. Many did not know about the proclamation when it went into effect. Its authority was denied and nullified by local and regional power. Yet Lincoln, in both his words and his claim to authority over the whole of the split and rebellious Union, contended that the proclamation was nonetheless true and real. And so this flawed and partial emancipation became the herald of a fuller freedom, a fulfillment yet unreached. It was a witness.
In form and action, our liturgies are like the one that Ezra led. We bless and worship and listen and think. In some places we even stand up to honor the book and the word it brings to us. We acknowledge grief and are bidden to joy; we eat and drink, and provide some portion for the needy.
Are these little gatherings, then, for all that seems domestic and intimate in them, also occasions of public proclamation, gatherings where — as in Nazareth — we receive an authoritative word, not my words, a word that proclaims a reality waiting to be claimed? Are we imagining and enacting the shape of a future that claims our obedience? Do we believe in such a way that we are reknit as a body, members of one another, a commonwealth and not just people for ourselves? Are the words fulfilled in our hearing? Is God’s grace active and effective in our lives?
This Sunday I will stand and declare it to be so.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
January 20, 2013
Second Sunday after Epiphany
Sermon Title: “Until We Shine”
Isaiah 62:1-5
The Vindication and Salvation of Zion
62For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
2 The nations shall see your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will give.
3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
Last week we went to a Baptism. This week, a wedding. Weddings are, at their best, an exercise in hope. At their best, they are like the living out of a dream.
There may very well be a few present this morning who not only have been to a wedding recently but were the participants.
If your nuptials were within the scope of your memory, you might remember what the pastor was trying to tell you during the ‘pre-wedding sessions.’ One of the things I try and tell people is that the one you are marrying will change. Like everyone and everything which God has created, change is inevitable. Brides find that the dress so carefully cleaned and boxed has somehow shrunk. Grooms find that less hair products are necessary. But what really is dynamic, requiring adaptation, is the relationship itself.
We were at the dinner table one evening. It was my childhood table, my mom and dad and two sisters were there, carrots were passed and my father said, “no thanks. I never really did care for them.” We all looked at him, but my mother especially, we looked at him as though he had lost his mind, or that his body had been hijacked by some other, unknown being. He had, after all, sat in that very chair and ate cooked carrots for, well, decades. I guess he changed.
Weddings also require that the participants understand that one of the biggest challenges is, not to love the one you have married, but to love the one your spouse will become.
For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
Isaiah speaks of this challenge, between bride and bridegroom, not in human terms, but in the perfect world of God’s relationship with us.
See it is just wrong to go into any relationship, dissatisfied with the present state of things, hoping, well, I’ll change her. Let me tell you a secret about human relationships: “don’t count on it.” For us it is best to go in with the realization that we cannot change our beloved. However, it is written somewhere, “nothing is impossible with God.”
Now, This possibility does not promise that if we only wish hard enough, cajole persistently, that God will work through our petitions, insistences, bargaining even, and turn that which we need into that which we desire.
The first hurdle that any disciple must leap over, jump even is that God seeks to change to suit our needs. Wrong. it may seem like God changes. No matter how devoted we are to God, no matter how hard we try to parade our love and fidelity across the heavens, seeking some shift in the Divine intention, God does not change. Instead, God seeks to change us.
This unbelievable commitment is revealed in Isaiah’s wedding scene, not by turning water into wine, but through a similar miraculous process. God will not leave us alone. We are a people who are pursued; gone after, even into strange lands that seem far away from everything the world hoped for us. At our most basic, elemental self, we are never beyond transformation. Not in a sudden wave of the hand, reflected in some strange ripple on the surface of those earthen vessels, but by an unwavering seeking us out.
Jesus takes common water and turns it into precious wine. In like manner, God takes common sinners and turns them into a royal bride. By uniting with God in covenant…in relationship…the nation is redeemed and made new again despite its sinful past. In the ancient world, a bride’s purity was of ultimate concern. The purity of the bride assured the purity of the marriage. In this scenario, however, Isaiah recognizes that the bride, Israel, is less than pure. The bride is made pure through the act of marriage. The bride is purified not because of any action on the bride’s part; the bride is redeemed and made pure due to the gracious and pure love of the bridegroom.
The love that is affirmed at a wedding is not just a condition of the heart but an act of the will, and the promise that love makes is to will the other’s good even at the expense sometimes of its own good-and that is quite a promise.
Fredrick Buechner, in his book “the hungering dark,” writes,
Like so much of the Gospel of John, the story of the wedding at Cana has a curious luminousness about it, the quality almost of a dream where every gesture, every detail, suggests the presence of meaning beneath meaning, where people move with a kind of ritual stateliness, faces melting into other faces, voices speaking words of elusive but inexhaustible significance. It is on the third day that the wedding takes place; the third day that Jesus comes to change the water into wine, and in the way of dreams the number 3 calls up that other third day when just at daybreak, in another way and toward another end, Jesus came and changed despair into rejoicing. There are the six stone jars, and you wonder why six – some echo half-heard of the six days of creation perhaps, the six days that preceded the seventh and holiest day, God’s day. And the cryptic words that Jesus speaks to his mother with their inexplicable sharpness, their foreshadowings of an hour beyond this hour in Cana of astonished gladness and feasting, of a final hour that was yet not final. But beyond the mystery of what it means, detail by detail, level beneath level, maybe the most important part of a dream is the part that stays with you when you wake up from it.
THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST
January 13, 2013
“A Family Event”
Theme: Baptism
Text Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
I remember a five-year old kid in the first church I served as pastor. His parents had wanted to wait to have their son baptized until he would be able to remember and have some understanding of the meaning of the occasion. So one Sunday after worship–the Sunday before the baptism was scheduled–Max, his mom, his dad, and I gathered around the font. I sensed that Max was a little dubious about the whole affair, but I dove in anyway. I took the top off the baptismal font, reached my hand down into the dry bowl, and pretended to scoop up a palm full of water. I placed my dry hand on his dry head and said brightly, “Next week, we’ll be doing this with real water.” Max folded his arms across his chest, looked me straight in the eye, and announced, “No way, man. No way.” Eventually Max relented, even as my belief in the value of infant baptism deepened considerably.
Today we are going to a baptism. We are not going as a the congregation. The congregation comes with a certain amount of distance. These days it almost seems to be an exercise in Voyeurism. We watch what is an intimate moment. I know, I know, the pastor will ask us a question eventually about our willingness to care for the one baptized. This promise is not the same as the promises made by family.
We are family today. Like it or not we are part of the family. So bring your camera. Plan on going over to ‘memaw’s and ‘papaw’s’ afterwards for some barbecues, bologna and cheese, macaroni salad and all that. We are family, like it or not, at this baptism.
The family. We are strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. Even though we are what some commentators call ‘postmodern’ people without the strong cords of genetics, not so here. We are family. And we are a family who does not need those deep maroon cords to save seating for those of us who are real family.
I don’t know about you, but the more I think about this, the more I don’t like it. One of the problems of identifying family too closely is that it becomes a process of exclusion rather than inclusion. I do not know of anywhere in Scripture that supports such a position. Oh, there are plenty of other examples, insisting that God’s people, if they really are God’s people, often find themselves giving something of themselves for others, sacrificing even, so that the circle may be widened.
There was an Apostle named Philip who went down to Samaria to widen the boundaries. Do you remember who the Samaritans were? They were cousins to Israel, and over an old family feud they had become outcasts. They were the ones whose invitation to the family reunion always must have gotten lost in the mail. “You didn’t get your invite?” I cannot imagine what must have happened! Yes you can, you know what happened. “relatives are the worse friends” said the fox as he got chased off by the dogs. (Danish proverb).
But down to Samaria he goes. Then, as an insurance policy, Peter and John go down there too. See, if I was a Samaritan and heard that from now on I would not only get my invitation to the family reunion but that I would be welcome when I arrived, I would be skeptical. How welcome would these new members of the Kingdom of God really be? Some of them probably heard this news, all you need to do is come. This banquet is not that difficult to enjoy, you just have to sit down to it.
Then the most straight laced Apostles came. You would anticipate problems when these two show up. Maybe they have come to enforce the seating chart. These were two of the insiders who were there at the transfiguration. They were trusted to put together the details for that first of the last suppers. “Let’s see what happens,” some probably whispered, “you know, before we go all in and get the rug pulled out from under us, again.”
And they learned what every Christian community has come to know since then: that through your baptism there is now, and never will be, any division. Those old hostilities are turned to unity through the power of the Spirit.
An ancient Christian catechism describes baptism as a “visible sign of invisible grace.” By the grace of God, we are surrounded and upheld every day. Moreover, we are defined, not by outward appearances, but by this same grace. The great Protestant Martin Luther was plagued at times by a sense of unworthiness and despair. To drive back those demons, he kept an inscription over his desk that read, “Remember, you have been baptized.” Often, he would touch his forehead and remind himself, “Martin, you have been baptized.”
Yesterday I conducted the funeral for Anna Firestein. As I drove along in the funeral procession I was greeted by the usual impatience and frustration of others that his line of freshly washed cars, lead by a hearse, would have the audacity to interupt their morning schedule of errands and make them pause for a moment. Then, in the middle of nowhere, just over by the Sheets, there was a man walking along the side of the road. For some reason he was nicely dressed. Suit. Tie. Topcoat. When the procession passed, he stopped his walk, turned toward the procession, slightly bowed his head, and ‘crossed himself.’ I thought, there is one of the ‘family’ who couldn’t be with us today.
I would like to think that folk in that messy church down there in Samaria are my Ancestors. You don’t choose your relatives, I know that. Ancestors are another thing all together. Ancestors are not required to be in the same bloodline. Ancestors are chosen by the decedents. This is an altogether different kind of family. So by virtue of our baptism, Abraham and Sarah are our ancestors. Issac and Rebecca are too. So are lesser known, but no less important folk like Priscilla and Aquilla. We are part of a long line.
In his book Craddock Stories, celebrated preacher Fred Craddock tells of an evening when he and his wife were eating dinner in a little restaurant in the Smokey Mountains.
A strange and elderly man came over to their table and introduced himself. “I am from around these parts,” he said. “My mother was not married, and the shame the community directed toward her was also directed toward me. Whenever I went to town with my mother, I could see people staring at us, making guesses about who my daddy was. At school, I ate lunch alone. In my early teens, I began attending a little church but always left before church was over, because I was afraid somebody would ask me what a boy like me was doing in church. One day, before I could escape, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the minister. He looked closely at my face. I knew that he too was trying to guess who my father was. ‘Well, boy, you are a child of. . .’ and then he paused. When he spoke again he said, ‘Boy, you are a child of God. I see a striking resemblance.’ Then he swatted me on the bottom and said, ‘Now, you go on and claim your inheritance.’ I left church that day a different person,” the now elderly man said. “In fact, that was the beginning of my life.”
“What’s your name?” Dr. Craddock asked.
He answered, “Ben Hooper. My name is Ben Hooper.” Dr. Craddock said he vaguely recalled from when he was a kid, his father talking about how the people of Tennessee had twice elected a fellow who had been born out of wedlock as the governor of their state. His name was Ben Hooper.
Children of God, remember that you have been baptized and rejoice. Yes I know, this family line is both wide and deep. Being part of a family is not always easy, but this one is worth it, claim your inheritance.
I would also want us to remember that Baptism creates the kind of family where we are free…every one of us is free, in this family at least..to pour out the contents of who we are, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness and grace, blow the rest away.
Remember. Please? It will be helpful from time to time, I promise.
Let us pray.
For the baptism of Jesus, when he was made one with us, and for our baptism when we are made one with him and one another, we praise you, O God. As we enter a new year, help us to remember whose we are, so that we might glorify and enjoy you forever.
We lift up to you all those you have randsomed everything for: for those whose lives seem to be nothing more than difficult days, those separated from these family ties by, misunderstanding, violence, sickness, and even the grave.
Because they are yours as much as we are, we trust your grace; and that even now your Holy Spirit is working in them, and on their behalf. We pray as Jesus taught us,
Recently, one pastor blogger type offered a post on the difficulties of ministry. Heck, I even ‘shared it’ on FB. Today, my Abbott offered a link to another version of this sort of ‘self-exposure.’ It was a nice balance. It was written by Rev. Katherine Willis Pershey. You can read it here.
I read her reflection and liked what I read. I cannot say however that her experience is mine…
While I relate to both the first and second ‘list’ mine would be different. If I was to list ten things I wanted people to know about ministry, and me, it would go something like this:
1. I am blessed to do this work. Being a Pastor is a real privilege. We are allowed to travel along with people through the most joyous and sorrowful parts of their life. Some people use the word mundane to describe what day to day life is reduced to. I don’t really get much of that. Mundane periods somehow seem to compete with what can be described as sacred. In fact, all of life is sacred and a pastor’s life is full of opportunities to notice…not only on those happy days when it is easier to be aware of God’s beneficence, but also on those difficult days when it is tempting to be misguided into thinking that God is absent. By vocation and advocation, I get to notice, and in noticing so serve others as a reminder of God’s presence.
2. I did not choose to be a pastor. Will Willimon, while dean of the Chapel at Duke, had a senior asked to meet with him. They talked as they walked together across campus. The woman said, ‘I want to go to seminary.’ Willimon asked (in his usual ascerbic fashion) “why would you want to do that?” Student: “I want to help people.” Willimon replied “have you met any of these people?” Only a crazy person would go to the vocational counselor, take the inventory, speak to the advisor, and go off to seminary. My own pastor gave me the best advice I have ever received on this subject, “don’t do it unless you cannot help yourself.” He said this to me to help me understand some things; not that ministry is hard, because it is hard like other careers are hard, but because it requires a sense of call. That is that ministry is something God is calling you to do. You can try and avoid it and run off to Tarshish. You can be as mad as you want, even if things don’t go the way you want in Nineveh. But without this sense of call, and it being confirmed in your community, it simply doesn’t make any sense. I have tried to do other things, God nagged me back into this.
3. I am an introvert at heart. I have learned, over the years, to function as a public – large group – person. I have a colleague who’s extroverted nature leaves her ‘Jazzed up’ after Sunday morning responsibilities. I, on the other hand, feel like I need to go for a walk down a trail kicking a stone. Or take a nap. I have discovered that at my best, I oscillate between time in the study and prayer and those more public responsibilities. If I seem reserved, it doesn’t mean I am mad at you or anyone else. It could simply be that the gas in my tank is getting low.
4. I am continually amazed that so many people devote so much of their time and treasure to this ministry we share. It is often said that the church does not take hostages, we kill ‘em. The flip side is that there are a few painful folk who use the church environment to work out their own demons of guilt or frustration. There are countless others who balance their life between career, family, and being a faithful disciple, to the benefit of the church, their employer, and their family. I am blessed to be around these folks and they serve as faithful guides to me when they tell me ‘no’ in timely and appropriate ways.
5. I am not stupid. There was a time when pastors where one of the top two or three most highly educated people in the community. Now, it is not so. Still, pastors worth their salt know something about finances, organizational development, systems theory, psychology; not to mention homiletics, liturgy, theology, biblical interpretation, and pastoral care. Some of us, many actually, finally heeded God’s call after being prepared for and working in other disciplines. Many of us do not dominate the process of church work because we believe it is our role to allow the Gifts of others to be in service, encouraging the exercise of them above our own. Not having to be the authority or expert is a personal quality I cherish. Holding my tongue is another. Nobody likes a smart-aleck.
6. I am a normal Guy. The other day I happened to meet a member of a congregation I served some time back. He said, “I miss you…you are a man.” I replied, “last time I checked, yes…” He said, “no, what I mean is that we could talk about deer hunting or the football game.” I took this as a compliment. Still, I worry. I worry because what I try to do is what (I pray) others do…be the person God created them to be and at the same time point toward God in this very normal life. There are those who want to put the pastor up on a pedestal. I suppose there may be valid reasons to allow this ascension from time to time. To remain there leads (for me) to disappointment when it is discovered that I am a normal guy. When we were expecting a child in our first parish, one ‘church lady’ responded to our announcement saying “how did that happen?” I told her, “the normal way.” The daughter of one of my predecessors, a pastor of a generation before me, told me her dad felt it necessary to wear a shirt and tie while mowing the lawn. True story. I am fortunate that most people know me, and love me, for who I am.
7. I do have great flexibility in my schedule, and I appreciate that. The up side is that if I am attentive to what experts call ‘self-care’ I schedule a day off a week. A whole day off. This doesn’t always happen. Someone asks, can we meet Monday night? Usually, even though I try to take Mondays off, I meet with them. The office staff some times says TGIF. I almost never say that. So when my wife and I get to enjoy a Friday night like ‘normal’ people it is cherished. Also, I am not a good date on Saturday night. Fortunately, puttering around the house, taking my bird-dogs for a run, all by myself, is fine with me. My colleague in ministry, our office manager, reminds me to schedule down time. I am thankful for that permission giving. My predecessor reminds me to read and study. My associate says that “At your best, you worship God with your mind, so do it.” I am lucky to have some folks around who remind me that this flexibility is not only an opportunity to accomplish more but as Marva Dawn says of worship, can provide a ‘Royal‘ waste of time.
8. I run interference for my wife and children. I do not know how I would do this without my wife, a person of faith who is a blessing to me and to the church where he participates in a variety of ways. Still, don’t ask me if she will do this or that, ask her. And, she might not say yes. This ain’t a package deal.
9. For me, faithfulness means a certain reverence for the tradition, attention to scripture, and social action…just like Jesus. This reveals itself in my participation in a religious order, my sticking with the lectionary scripture, and my support of social action others would describe as liberal. Some see me in a collar and think: strict orthodoxy. The bible study at church doesn’t know which way i am going, right or left. For those of you who read the bible, I find myself returning to St. Luke, because there Luke’s Jesu demonstrates God’s proclivity for the poor, the marginalized, those social outcasts. This means doing something about injustice. So some think I am a ‘bleeding heart liberal.’ I think these things go together without a harsh literalism or turning tradition to traditionalism.
10. Do you remember me saying i have tried to not be a pastor? One reason is that i just never felt like i am the ‘right kind of person.’ So I am thankful. Being a pastor reminds me, God is good. God is generous. And if I really am doing what God wants me to do, God is gracious.
EPIPHANY
January 6, 2013
“Threat and Promise”
Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
It is good to be here with everyone this morning. I know you see me here each Sunday, but last Sunday I was away, using that final, coveted, vacation Sunday. Someone, a week or so ago, when I said, “I’ll see you later” replied to me, “is that a threat or a promise?”
Well, I am back. And I want to tell you that I learned something while I was away. See, being a participant, rather than a worship leader, reminded me of just how majestic this movement is. When we gather to sing praise, hear the Gospel read and proclaimed, and bring our offerings in worship, we are reenacting the drama that Isaiah describes.
You may not realize it, but if you somehow get pushed to the front of the procession of this thing called church, worship may seem far removed from the grandeur that Isaiah describes. If you have ever sat in a worship committee meeting, you know that no small amount of time is spent on determining the light settings, how to the ushers will distribute the plates of bread and the cups of wine. When you are in the midst of trying to untangle the ushering procedure for lighting the candles on Christmas Eve, or figuring out who is responsible for getting the Eucharist down to the Nursery; the connection to the awe Isaiah experiences may not be obvious.
In some ways, preparing for worship is like making sausage. If you are involved in the creation of what is a beautiful thing to share in, your taste for it may wane because you have been wrestling with the ingredients. I have a friend who recently prepared some sausages. He offered to give me some. I asked him, “does it have caraway seeds?” “Sure,” he replied, “that’s what makes it good!” “Not to me,” I said. And so I am left to either pick out those bothersome seeds or to learn to enjoy it as it is. Our style of receiving the Eucharist varies, and so I get one response, “when are we having ‘real’ communion (as in at the rail). Another tells me that I am insensitive to people with mobility problems when we do not have pew communion. And so it goes.
For the most part what we end up with in worship is something that we find tasteful. Some people will look at the newsletter or the bulletin to determine which communion service is which and will attend the one that suits their desire. And so the congregation itself becomes pretty homogeneous, similar faces, similar preferences. One commentator described the worship hour as “the most segregated hour in North America.”
That is not the vision Isaiah offers here. God is gathering the multitudes. To hear this here, in our church, should come as something as a threat. It may bring to our awareness those who are not present, but should be. I am not speaking about those members who teter on the edge of being removed from the membership list. I am speaking about those people within the range of our geographical ‘pull’ that need to hear the gospel but because they do not feel welcome, they stay away.
When the Magi came to bring gifts to the infant Jesus, they weren’t the completeness of which Isaiah speaks either. The best they could do was to represent the ‘nations’ bringing treasures to their Lord. The best that Luke’s shepherds could do is reinforce the idea that those on the margins of society often recognize what God is up to much more clearly than those folks sitting in church who believe they have the answers.
When traveling one summer, Becky and I went to church. Yes I know it is kind of like a bus driver going on a bus trip, but it is what we do. Outside there was a sign, “Norfolk United Church of Christ.” Below it was the phrase, ‘the friendly church.’ We parked the car and went in. Greeter at the door said, ‘mornin.’ Gave us a bulletin. We found our way into the nave, got a seat. People were yuckin it up out in the narthex. I could hear them from where we were sitting, in the back. We went through the service ran the gauntlet of people greeting each other, hugs, asking about the ‘big baseball game.’ How’s it going down at the shop, good? Good. We made our way unscathed, back out into the parking lot, and not one person said a word to us. Oh, the pastor did shake our hand, she asked us if we were from Norfolk, we said no. That was it. That was our experience at the friendly church.
In Flannery O’Conner’s short story “Revelation,” Mrs. Turpin, a woman who prides herself on her proper and upright life, is constantly annoyed by those around her who she perceives to have fewer social graces, less integrity, whose lives are just not up to her standards. One evening at sunset, as she is watering down the hog pen on her farm, a light falls on her eye and she sees a ‘bridge extending upward from the earth.’
EPIPHANY
January 6, 2013
“Threat and Promise”
Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
It is good to be here with everyone this morning. I know you see me here each Sunday, but last Sunday I was away, using that final, coveted, vacation Sunday. Someone, a week or so ago, when I said, “I’ll see you later” replied to me, “is that a threat or a promise?”
Well, I am back. And I want to tell you that I learned something while I was away. See, being a participant, rather than a worship leader, reminded me of just how majestic this movement is. When we gather to sing praise, hear the Gospel read and proclaimed, and bring our offerings in worship, we are reenacting the drama that Isaiah describes.
You may not realize it, but if you somehow get pushed to the front of the procession of this thing called church, worship may seem far removed from the grandeur that Isaiah describes. If you have ever sat in a worship committee meeting, you know that no small amount of time is spent on determining the light settings, how to the ushers will distribute the plates of bread and the cups of wine. When you are in the midst of trying to untangle the ushering procedure for lighting the candles on Christmas Eve, or figuring out who is responsible for getting the Eucharist down to the Nursery; the connection to the awe Isaiah experiences may not be obvious.
In some ways, preparing for worship is like making sausage. If you are involved in the creation of what is a beautiful thing to share in, your taste for it may wane because you have been wrestling with the ingredients. I have a friend who recently prepared some sausages. He offered to give me some. I asked him, “does it have caraway seeds?” “Sure,” he replied, “that’s what makes it good!” “Not to me,” I said. And so I am left to either pick out those bothersome seeds or to learn to enjoy it as it is. Our style of receiving the Eucharist varies, and so I get one response, “when are we having ‘real’ communion (as in at the rail). Another tells me that I am insensitive to people with mobility problems when we do not have pew communion. And so it goes.
For the most part what we end up with in worship is something that we find tasteful. Some people will look at the newsletter or the bulletin to determine which communion service is which and will attend the one that suits their desire. And so the congregation itself becomes pretty homogeneous, similar faces, similar preferences. One commentator described the worship hour as “the most segregated hour in North America.”
That is not the vision Isaiah offers here. God is gathering the multitudes. To hear this here, in our church, should come as something as a threat. It may bring to our awareness those who are not present, but should be. I am not speaking about those members who teter on the edge of being removed from the membership list. I am speaking about those people within the range of our geographical ‘pull’ that need to hear the gospel but because they do not feel welcome, they stay away.
When the Magi came to bring gifts to the infant Jesus, they weren’t the completeness of which Isaiah speaks either. The best they could do was to represent the ‘nations’ bringing treasures to their Lord. The best that Luke’s shepherds could do is reinforce the idea that those on the margins of society often recognize what God is up to much more clearly than those folks sitting in church who believe they have the answers.
When traveling one summer, Becky and I went to church. Yes I know it is kind of like a bus driver going on a bus trip, but it is what we do. Outside there was a sign, “Norfolk United Church of Christ.” Below it was the phrase, ‘the friendly church.’ We parked the car and went in. Greeter at the door said, ‘mornin.’ Gave us a bulletin. We found our way into the nave, got a seat. People were yuckin it up out in the narthex. I could hear them from where we were sitting, in the back. We went through the service ran the gauntlet of people greeting each other, hugs, asking about the ‘big baseball game.’ How’s it going down at the shop, good? Good. We made our way unscathed, back out into the parking lot, and not one person said a word to us. Oh, the pastor did shake our hand, she asked us if we were from Norfolk, we said no. That was it. That was our experience at the friendly church.
In Flannery O’Conner’s short story “Revelation,” Mrs. Turpin, a woman who prides herself on her proper and upright life, is constantly annoyed by those around her who she perceives to have fewer social graces, less integrity, whose lives are just not up to her standards. One evening at sunset, as she is watering down the hog pen on her farm, a light falls on her eye and she sees a ‘bridge extending upward from the earth.’
Upon it were the whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of blacks in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself (and her husband) had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right…she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.
I suppose that such a procession is a threat to some, but to most, if you can get over yourself long enough, is it a promise that gives us hope.
We Waver
December 23, 2012
Isaiah 40:12-26; Romans 4:18-25; Luke 1:46-55
If you have been counting, you know that today is the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Advent is that liturgical season that has been jettisoned in the interest of expediency. It has become the “Christmas season.” One commentator recently complained that there is no ‘war on Christmas,’ the war is on Advent.
Some people don’t really know what Advent is, or why we bother with it in the first place. This is a really old practice, dating back to the sixth century. So for the last fourteen hundred years or so the church has been observing what, for most of that period anyway, was a lot like lent. I suppose that this is the reason that Advent is to some, distasteful.
I, for one, have not given up one darn thing for Advent. It is kind of nice, really, to plunge headlong into the excesses of food and frivolity without any guilt. After all, it’s Christmas! Cookies started coming weeks ago. Would I like one? Why not, it’s Christmas! A dinner splurge. There are lots of opportunities for that. What, my diet? Why not, it’s Christmas! I am sure that none of you would qualify my behavior as reckless self abandonment, but let’s face it, some boundaries have gone down! And why not, it’s Christmas!
Tis the season to waver from our commitments to our diet, our budget, and yet, surprisingly, our discipleship seems to have a little up-tick in commitment.
In the last week or so social media has been ablaze with a movement called #20. Ann Curry of NBC asked her Twitter followers to commit 20 ‘random acts of kindness’ to honor the twenty children killed in Newton Connecticut. Did you hear about that? Haven’t you been watching your twitter feed? One lady paid for the gasoline a stranded motorist needed to continue their journey. Another person paid off the layaway bill of family at one of those ‘big-box’ stores. It is heartwarming really.
What wavering is going on at the moment, in the discipleship movement anyway, appears to be on the positive side. Except in the parking lot of the mall in Wyomissing of course. Just try and sneak into that parking spot I have my eye on. Except for there, maybe, it is a time of generosity and kindness. And why not, it’s Christmas!
I do not know if you realize it, but the fact of the matter is that it isn’t Christmas. It’s Advent. Advent is that season of the church year when Pastors do their best to stave off every intrusion of pagan ritual and mythology, holding back the wave of Carols. It is a season of the year when congregations suffer through “There’s A Voice in the Wilderness Crying” and then dash out to their cars after services tune their radio to the “All Christmas music, all the time” station. On my way in to church earlier this week I saw, on one of those big, bright, computer generated billboards, a notice that on Comcast Cable channel 247 you can hear “Christmas Music” all the time.
All the time? I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that on December 26, the 27th at the latest, those stations will go back to their regular programing.
I saw on the news this week a story about a man in Australia who had one of those dash cameras like in a police car. For some reason another driver got angry at him, followed him, cut him off, rammed him, and finally jumped out of his car, jumped onto the hood of the victims car and with his fist, smashed the windshield. The news reported noted that, ‘well, there is a lot of stress this time of year.’ It was almost as if they were making an excuse for the behavior by saying, “after all, it’s Christmas.”
I would like to say that the best in people comes out at this time of year, but I can’t. It’s a mixed bag. Sometimes we see extraordinary examples of love and generosity. Other times we see the worst of self-centeredness and violence. Even those who identify themselves as disciples of Jesus waver. It is part of the human condition. Our fidelity is sometimes with Jesus and sometimes, well, somewhere else.
Advent is a season of preparation. What it is really about is getting ready. It is about faith formation just as lent is about faith formation except that we don’t have to give up eating meat on Friday. Advent is about bending our own lives toward the path of discipleship.
I know you have already heard the lessons for today. I simply want to remind you of two examples of discipleship contained in them.
Paul reminds the Romans of Abraham: “20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,21being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”
Isaiah speaks to Israel, living as it were in a land and amongst a people that did not share their faith commitments. He repeats the promise of God to a scattered people, “26by the greatness of His might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.” The promise remains, if you will just remain faithful, that you will be gathered in.
It is interesting, if you are a word geek like me, to remember that the word spelled Waiver is similar to the word Waver. Waiver, with an “I,” is to relinquish a claim or a privilege.
In Luke, Chapter One, it is almost the same, but different. To the Sarah and Abraham the messenger said, ‘nothing is impossible to God.’ To Mary, a teenage girl in a little town in northern Israel, unmarried – she had been promised by her family to a carpenter who lived there in Nazareth by the name of Joseph, but they were not yet married – the messenger said, “You are going to have a child.” “But I don’t have a husband!” The messenger said, “do not be afraid, Mary for you have found favor with God.”
She is up against it. She is an unwed mother. She is not rich, she is poor. She has not privilege, she is a woman in a society that only gives women status through their Husband. Soon as he hears this he is likely to cancel the whole deal. The messenger tells her, don’t be afraid. It will work out, not the way you or anyone else expects, it will work out.
So Mary finds some way to remain steadfast, to not waver. She is so certain – how can you not be with those tiny feet kicking around in your belly – that God’s promises, “..as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever” that she goes through with it. She goes the whole way, pondering these things in her heart. Wondering, faithful wondering, even while her son’s friend comforts her at the foot of the cross.
I do not know how you can do that, I really don’t, unless somehow you are able to keep holding on to that promise. I wonder if we have learned our lesson. If God can give a child to an old couple in a tent in Saudi Arabia and change the world; if God can change the heart of one fanatic named Saul so thoroughly that he cannot stop sharing this promise; if God can give a baby to a teenage girl in northern Israel, a baby that people still talk about 2000 years later, why would we ever waver, give up, shrug my shoulders? I think, I think that it is worthwhile to stick to this promise, even though other promises are offered that seem better at the time. Advent is important because it is a time of preparation, reminding me to remember these things.
Hang on to this promise that Mary sings. It will come in handy before we meet again.
We Waver
December 23, 2012
Isaiah 40:12-26; Romans 4:18-25; Luke 1:46-55
If you have been counting, you know that today is the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Advent is that liturgical season that has been jettisoned in the interest of expediency. It has become the “Christmas season.” One commentator recently complained that there is no ‘war on Christmas,’ the war is on Advent.
Some people don’t really know what Advent is, or why we bother with it in the first place. This is a really old practice, dating back to the sixth century. So for the last fourteen hundred years or so the church has been observing what, for most of that period anyway, was a lot like lent. I suppose that this is the reason that Advent is to some, distasteful.
I, for one, have not given up one darn thing for Advent. It is kind of nice, really, to plunge headlong into the excesses of food and frivolity without any guilt. After all, it’s Christmas! Cookies started coming weeks ago. Would I like one? Why not, it’s Christmas! A dinner splurge. There are lots of opportunities for that. What, my diet? Why not, it’s Christmas! I am sure that none of you would qualify my behavior as reckless self abandonment, but let’s face it, some boundaries have gone down! And why not, it’s Christmas!
Tis the season to waver from our commitments to our diet, our budget, and yet, surprisingly, our discipleship seems to have a little up-tick in commitment.
In the last week or so social media has been ablaze with a movement called #20. Ann Curry of NBC asked her Twitter followers to commit 20 ‘random acts of kindness’ to honor the twenty children killed in Newton Connecticut. Did you hear about that? Haven’t you been watching your twitter feed? One lady paid for the gasoline a stranded motorist needed to continue their journey. Another person paid off the layaway bill of family at one of those ‘big-box’ stores. It is heartwarming really.
What wavering is going on at the moment, in the discipleship movement anyway, appears to be on the positive side. Except in the parking lot of the mall in Wyomissing of course. Just try and sneak into that parking spot I have my eye on. Except for there, maybe, it is a time of generosity and kindness. And why not, it’s Christmas!
I do not know if you realize it, but the fact of the matter is that it isn’t Christmas. It’s Advent. Advent is that season of the church year when Pastors do their best to stave off every intrusion of pagan ritual and mythology, holding back the wave of Carols. It is a season of the year when congregations suffer through “There’s A Voice in the Wilderness Crying” and then dash out to their cars after services tune their radio to the “All Christmas music, all the time” station. On my way in to church earlier this week I saw, on one of those big, bright, computer generated billboards, a notice that on Comcast Cable channel 247 you can hear “Christmas Music” all the time.
All the time? I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that on December 26, the 27th at the latest, those stations will go back to their regular programing.
I saw on the news this week a story about a man in Australia who had one of those dash cameras like in a police car. For some reason another driver got angry at him, followed him, cut him off, rammed him, and finally jumped out of his car, jumped onto the hood of the victims car and with his fist, smashed the windshield. The news reported noted that, ‘well, there is a lot of stress this time of year.’ It was almost as if they were making an excuse for the behavior by saying, “after all, it’s Christmas.”
I would like to say that the best in people comes out at this time of year, but I can’t. It’s a mixed bag. Sometimes we see extraordinary examples of love and generosity. Other times we see the worst of self-centeredness and violence. Even those who identify themselves as disciples of Jesus waver. It is part of the human condition. Our fidelity is sometimes with Jesus and sometimes, well, somewhere else.
Advent is a season of preparation. What it is really about is getting ready. It is about faith formation just as lent is about faith formation except that we don’t have to give up eating meat on Friday. Advent is about bending our own lives toward the path of discipleship.
I know you have already heard the lessons for today. I simply want to remind you of two examples of discipleship contained in them.
Paul reminds the Romans of Abraham: “20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,21being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”
Isaiah speaks to Israel, living as it were in a land and amongst a people that did not share their faith commitments. He repeats the promise of God to a scattered people, “26by the greatness of His might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.” The promise remains, if you will just remain faithful, that you will be gathered in.
It is interesting, if you are a word geek like me, to remember that the word spelled Waiver is similar to the word Waver. Waiver, with an “I,” is to relinquish a claim or a privilege.
In Luke, Chapter One, it is almost the same, but different. To the Sarah and Abraham the messenger said, ‘nothing is impossible to God.’ To Mary, a teenage girl in a little town in northern Israel, unmarried – she had been promised by her family to a carpenter who lived there in Nazareth by the name of Joseph, but they were not yet married – the messenger said, “You are going to have a child.” “But I don’t have a husband!” The messenger said, “do not be afraid, Mary for you have found favor with God.”
She is up against it. She is an unwed mother. She is not rich, she is poor. She has not privilege, she is a woman in a society that only gives women status through their Husband. Soon as he hears this he is likely to cancel the whole deal. The messenger tells her, don’t be afraid. It will work out, not the way you or anyone else expects, it will work out.
So Mary finds some way to remain steadfast, to not waver. She is so certain – how can you not be with those tiny feet kicking around in your belly – that God’s promises, “..as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever” that she goes through with it. She goes the whole way, pondering these things in her heart. Wondering, faithful wondering, even while her son’s friend comforts her at the foot of the cross.
I do not know how you can do that, I really don’t, unless somehow you are able to keep holding on to that promise. I wonder if we have learned our lesson. If God can give a child to an old couple in a tent in Saudi Arabia and change the world; if God can change the heart of one fanatic named Saul so thoroughly that he cannot stop sharing this promise; if God can give a baby to a teenage girl in northern Israel, a baby that people still talk about 2000 years later, why would we ever waver, give up, shrug my shoulders? I think, I think that it is worthwhile to stick to this promise, even though other promises are offered that seem better at the time. Advent is important because it is a time of preparation, reminding me to remember these things.
Hang on to this promise that Mary sings. It will come in handy before we meet again.
WE WORRY
December 16, 2012
Luke 12:29-40
I wasn’t going to work on a sermon this week, seeing how the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world and all. But our calendar says we have a few remaining days on this ‘third rock from the sun’ so I decided I had better do something, next week is another matter.
This is the third Sunday in Advent. As the calendar falls this year, next Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Advent is but two days before Christmas. So we only have nine days until this child arrives. So if you are not worrying about Mayan prophecy, perhaps you are worrying about this one,
9 Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’
We know, because our Sunday school teacher told us, that this coming Messiah is going to start out like we all do. A baby. Babies may not invoke the same kind of anxiety as Almighty God, unless they are your baby. Now, this child is not ‘our child.’ None of us are Mary. None of us are Joseph. Still, we are not unlike parents who are anxiously awaiting the birth of the child.
This territory, let’s call it anticipation, is fraught with worry. I know there is a positive side to anticipation. We look forward to good things coming our way. There is an optimistic way to wait. And you do not need to search very far to find this kind of perspective. Just look at those sweet little cherub faces that are anticipating all of the generosity and trimmings that go along with the birth of our Savior. But what do children know?
They don’t know anything. They have no concept of all of the planning and preparation that goes into the meeting of these expectations. Not to mention the cleaning. Grandpa and grandma, meemaw and papaw are coming in from their house over the river and through the woods. We usually go there, but they are coming here. It isn’t that anyone comes with a white glove tucked in their pocket, pulling it out not so discretely to swipe the coffee table I forgot to dust. Because we are cooking, there is a certain orchestration that must occur, with precision, to make sure everything lands on the table at the precise strike of two, hot. And we know that Uncle George will arrive forty-five minutes late.
These children do not know what it means to try and find the best deal on some particular item; maybe they will like this other model, or perhaps they will settle for a similar item? I don’t know. What if they are disappointed? How about a cash card. That may work. Nothing speaks the holiday quite like cold hard cash. Let them get what they want, then I won’t have to worry about the fact they may not like the socks or scarf I have chosen for them.
These are, of course, first world problems. Most of us do not have to worry about the basic essentials of life. Most of us do not have to worry that in our holiday travels there will not be any room in the inn. But worry is still worry; it is still those emotions that drag you down, thinking as you are about the worst case scenario, perseverating on some image we have cooked up in our mind that expects something bad to happen. Do you know what I mean?
When I was a child, I had a favorite magazine. This was before I subscribed to the Christian Century and the Atlantic Monthly. I liked to read Mad Magazine. The central figure in this fine literary journal was a person by the name of Alfred E. Neuman. His motto was, “What, Me Worry?” His face, with jug ears, a mop of hair and one eye positioned lower than the other graced many covers of the magazine and his looks alone communicated that he worried about nothing except mischief. is the intellectually uncurious “What, me worry?” This was changed for one issue to “Yes, me worry!” after the Three Mile Island incident. Apparently there are some events in the world that can move the most carefree of us to neurosis.
This week in Connecticut has taught us that, if we needed a reminder.
If we insist upon a purely cognitive response to the events of life, most of us would be reduced to a shivering lump in the fetal position. But we aren’t. Most of us are able, somehow, to get up, get dressed and go out into this world so full of threats.
The Evangelist Luke quotes Jesus to say, “…do not keep worrying.”
Did you notice this phrase? It neither treats worry as something that does not exist, nor does it criticize those who worry. Jesus simply says, ‘knock it off.’ I am hesitant to offer such advice, because in the case of worry it is much harder to stop it than to start it. Still, that is what Jesus says, ‘do not keep worrying.’
I don’t know about you but rather than a simple admonition to stop it, it would be helpful to have some idea how. Fortunately there is a suggestion. Like all suggestions in the bible, you do not need to heed it. You can choose to go on your way, with your worry beads in your pocket, working them through your fingers over and over again. It is especially difficult to resolve this because the advice sounds so simple! What is it? Jesus offers an alternative thought. In a real sense he says, think about this, not that. What is it? Instead of thinking about all that can go wrong, what should I think about? Think about this: “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
I have another suggestion for you this week. Can you consider that God has given you the kingdom? The future will arrive as surprisingly as a thief in the night, but notice this: what is coming is not a thief in the night; it is a party in the morning, a party where we who aspire to be servants of the Lord will be served, treated as guests of honor. That isn’t so bad is it? The question is really what you want to think about.
Just the other day I responded to an email one of our Deacons sent out, giving praise to God for our Christmas concert. I replied to all, saying,
One of the beautiful things about last night was/is the Body of Christ, present, in the whole event. ‘There are a variety of gifts,’ writes St. Paul, ‘but the same Spirit gives them.’
Some sang, some played, some organized, some baked, some welcomed, some shepherded children to rehearsals, some cleaned up, you get the idea. No one discussed the particularities of budget, nor was there any arguments about some ‘profane’ matter. We simply banded together, used the gifts God gives us, and proclaimed the Gospel to a weary world.
As the Celt’s say, I found last night a ‘thin place’ where God’s presence was close…the distance between heaven and earth was minute.
Thank you everyone for sharing your gifts.
It occurs to me that what we experienced is truly a Body of Christ moment. See, our congregation is pretty large, with multiple interest groups, varied stakeholders if you will. There are multiple expressions of ministry held by widely diverse constituencies, whether measured by age, gender, socioeconomic status, level of education, or political persuasion.
Yet at our best, the differences live side by side with a connection: ministry.
Gil Rendle (who a few of our folk heard speak recently) once said,
a major learning of the wilderness, however, is that the opposite of multiple, often competing, differences that have now divided us…is not a singular identity but a shared center.
Comments: