Christmas Eve: God, the Original Grinch

With nods toward William Willimon's 'Upside Down Christmas' and Ron Ferguson in the Glasgow Herald I submit my christmas Eve sermon

Have Yourself a merry little Christmas, let your hearts be light
From now on all troubles will be out of sight…

That is the song that we sang on Christ the King sunday to begin to prepare us for the Christmas season

There are many other Christmas songs, they’ve been on the radio since Halloween
That express this same sentiment…

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know
Where the tree-tops glisten and children listen
To hear sleigh-bells in the snow.

There is a sentimentality to Christmas
That I find very tempting.
We are bombarded with images everything being
Warm, welcoming, and ok.
And let’s face it, at the end of a stressful
Trying year, this dream that we might have just a few days
Leading up to Christmas where
Families can get together without disagreements
We can treat others and ourselves to gifts which represent
The love we have but are sometimes just to busy or preoccupied to express
We can remember being young again when there were no responsibilities or worries,
Each day was an exciting new adventure and
And under the tree was something wondrous and energizing
Lets face it,
Trying to pay the bills,
Dealing with work stress
Taking care of kids, which we love, but which can be exhausting
Working through relationship struggles
The list goes on and on of the weights we carry
And the picture of Christmas
A time to say goodbye to troubles
To just be joyful and peaceful
That is pretty tempting


But that isn’t the Bible’s version of the birth of the Christ child.
When Worship and Fellowship met a few
months ago to begin planning for Advent
The word terrified leapt out at us like we had never read or heard it before…

Lk 2:8-10 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

Terrified… in greek phobos from which we derive our word phobia…
Arachnaphobia, the fear of spiders, Glossophobia, fear of public speaking
Xenophobia, fear of strangers or aliens…

The shepherds, did not experience the first Christmas eve as
a time when everything was finally right (at least, not at first)
First,They had an extreme attack of angelophobia,
or perhaps even theophobia,
fear of God and God’s messengers .
Maybe even gospelphobia
Fear of God’s message.

We can’t say that everything is merry and bright for Mary
When the angel appears to tell her
that God has picked her to carry the Messiah
All her plans, all her dreams, shattered
Her peaceful existence, gone
Now instead of plans for a simple happy life
Her mind goes spinning
As she ponders what her village will say
What her parents will do with her
How Joseph will react.

We can’t say that all troubles are out of sight for Joseph,
The trouble is just beginning when the angel appears
To tell him that he must stay with Mary and protect her.
Just when Joseph was setting down roots
Getting his home built for his new wife
And his business set up to provide for her
He is ripped from his roots to guide her to Bethlehem
He is left sheltering her in a stable
And as if that were not enough
The same angel appears again
And Joseph has to gather what little of his things he has brought
With him to Bethlehem and flee to Egypt
To save the baby that is not even his own
From the violence of Herod
No, “I’ll be home for Christmas…’ for Joseph
For Joseph Christmas is fleeing from danger into the dark unknown of life
In a foreign country
The risk of trying to start life over in a far-away land

Everything changed when the angels announced Jesus birth
His birth turned Mary’s life upside down
His birth turned Joseph’s life upside down

The Christmas story of the bible seems to have just the opposite effect
that we hope Christmas will have
God seems a bit of a Grinch…
Going out of his way to ruin our Christmas Spirit
Well, perhaps not ruin,
But confront our Christmas spirit

So the question I suppose, is,
For all the e-mails, articles, head-shaking in frustration and tongue-clucking
About the lack of Christ in Christmas in the culture around us…
Do we really want Christ in our Christmas
Because putting Christ back in Christmas
Replaces a story of merry and bright, troubles out of sight

With Mary’s song

Lk 1:46-53

50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.

There is something a bit dangerous about this Christmas story with Christ in it
And I suppose that where we view the story from affects whether it will
Cause us joy or phobia.

If, as we have imagined Mary and Joseph,
We have already got a pretty good life,
Maybe not perfect,
But we have plans and dreams
And most parts of our life seem well organized
And properly placed
And going just the way we had hoped
Putting Christ back into Christ
Will be phobia inspiring,
For this Christ child has come to interrupt our plans
Confront our assumptions and
Turn our worlds upside down

There is the story (this is the will willimon part)told of two students...
They had met their Sophomore year at one of our information meetings for the Spring Student Mission Team to Honduras. We've been sending three mission teams to this, the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, for some time now. Few students go on one of these teams and return as they came.
He excitedly told me that, after they met that night, they had been going out together and things seemed great between them.
"We're going to Honduras together," he said, "and who knows where it might lead for the two of us?"
So that day, around Christmas time, when I saw him walking dejectedly across campus, I asked, "What gives?"
"Marianne isn't going to Honduras," he said gloomily.
"I'm sorry. I wonder why," I said. "She can't afford the time?"
"No," he said, "Marianne said that her older sister, Clarinda, went down there and it changed her. Made her Mom and Dad furious. Clarinda said she got born again down there. Marianne said she got turned upside down."

Are you sure you want Christ back in Christmas?
Pretty unsettling things can happen to us once we kneel at the manger

On the other hand
If we are more like the shepherds,
Outcasts, ignored or derided,
The announcement of the Christ child will bring joy
If, like the Magi, not kings or wisemen, but mistrusted foreigners,
We have experienced feeling left out, cast aside, or forgotten
Having the world turned upside down might not be such a bad thing

Jesus made a ministry of interrupting and confronting.
By touching lepers,
Guarding prostitutes
Eating with tax collectors
Making all the unwanted, expendable
Folks of the world his sisters and brothers
And proclaiming that they would make up the people of God
Would be welcomed first into the kingdom
Well, that kind of world upending message,
The last being made first,
The least wanted made most wanted,
Well, that would be good news.

And perhaps that is why the shepherds left rejoicing,
And Mary and Joseph submitted to god’s will
And the Magi took the risk of finding a new way home
And a new way in life
And perhaps, just perhaps,
That is what you really want to hear in church
Not let your hearts be light
all troubles will be out of sight

Perhaps you want to hear
God has come to be with us
his presence will interrupt our lives
And his proximity will confront our plans
And when this baby grows up,
He will challenge us to take up a cross and follow

Merry Christmas

Redefining Faith; Don't forget Diakonia, Faith as Passionate Service

Church: A Community of Service

Question: What is Faith? How would you explain faith?

Intro: Tattoo story and the visibility of faith.


I found a story on-line this week about a church that was celebrating it’s first year anniversary with tattoos. Yup, that is right. No anniversary tea’s or pot-lucks, no guest speakers or special organ concert’s. This church, made up of mostly 20 and 30 somethings, celebrated their church anniversary by throwing a tattoo party. Along with loud praise music, and food, they lined up for tattoos. It’s actually a growing sub-culture in the tattoo world, Christian tattooing. What is it about tattoo’s.

We could be a bit cynical and say that once again the church is capitulating to popular culture. That these churches are more interested in being cool or hip than in being faithful. We could say that because the church in America has been steeped in a radical individualistic culture of self-expression that the traditional expressions of faith are being rejected for an expression that is no rooted in the Christian story and its history. In other words, these new young Christians do not become a part of the church, but instead completely make the church part of themselves… instead of conforming to Christ, Christ is forced to conform to popular culture.

While you could say those things and have a point, I do think there is something to learn from young Christians and their ink, and not just because I have a couple of tattoos myself. Because the act of getting tattoo’s does symbolize something that young adults and teens today are asking us, the established church to provide for them.

You see faith has long been thought of mostly as something interior and personal. I ‘have’ a faith and that faith consists of my beliefs and the ‘feelings’ I have when I pray, or worship, for example. Just the language I used, which is often the way people speak to me, shows how individualized faith is. It is deeply personal, it is mine. And as I have reflected on before, one of the phrases I hear so often, and which if I am honest drives me nuts, as much as I love the person saying it to me is… Pastor I haven’t been to church, but I still believe. Faith is interior, a system of ideas, an intellectual exercise at best, a feeling of warmth in its worst form really.

Tattoos symbolize what young adults and teens are begging us for… a faith that is not just inside me, but outside, not just in my thoughts, but in my actions, in my practices. A faith is isn’t something that I ‘have’ and therefore control, but is something that has me and controls me, compels me, drives me. Young Adults and Teens want a faith that isn’t something we have, but instead something we practice and pass on. They want, in other words to be passionate, not only in thought or word, but in deed. Faith without works is dead, James would tell us… and teens and young adults are begging us to make that verse our motto. Tattoos, as odd as they are, tell us something about what kind of faith young folks want… a faith that is visible and not private, a faith that is a part of the body and not just the mind or the heart, a faith that costs something, is even uncomfortable, for this reminds us of sacrifice.

The question is, are we passionate about practicing our faith? And the answer, as we talked about last week, is that young adults and teens are telling us that we are not. Faith is not worth sacrificing over. We squirm if we are asked to sacrifice more than an hour of our Sunday morning. Instead of faith being something we will sacrifice for, faith is often the first to be sacrificed. Worship for a walk in the woods or the beach. Sunday morning sacrificed for a good time Saturday night. They are watching folks and they are seeing and reflecting for us just what we are teaching them… Worship, Faith, is a option for feeling better, but it is simply one option among many others, and these others arouse more passion than practicing faith.

II. Back to interactive sermon time: What four things did Christ command us to do? Now three of these we actually do practice and one of them lies often forgotten or is optional. A hint. One of the three that we get, Baptists call ordinances and we practice them regularly.
Baptism
Communion
Love One Another

Jn 13:1-15
13:1 It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.

2 The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

7 Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

8 "No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."

Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."

9 "Then, Lord," Simon Peter replied, "not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!"

10 Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. 13 "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

What do you suppose Jesus was trying to teach the disciples here? What specifically was he commanding them to do?
He was commanding them to live lives of compassionate service. Faith in him was meant to be practiced… and the washing of the feet was meant to be a regular reminder of all the acts of service that Jesus had showed them in his time with them…
Acts of service such as…
Feeding the starving thousands with bread and fish
Healing the sickness and disease of so many (not forgetting that poverty and malnourishment was the cause most likely of this sickness)
Again through healing taking lepers from the isolation of being outcasts and leading them back to home, to family
Placing himself between an angry crowd and a woman caught in sin

This foot-washing story and command is meant to remind us of the life of sacrificial service that Jesus lived, and to inspire us to acts of sacrificial service. Our faith is not complete in acts of piety such as prayer and worship, although these are vital aspects of faith. Our faith has not grown to its potential if it consists of warm thoughts, or a feeling of self-satisfaction, or in being nice when the occasion presents itself. The foot-washing story reminds of Jesus whose entire ministry among was was focused on seeking those in need, and serving them. Putting himself in harms way to provide for them. That is a lot more than just ‘nice’ I think you will agree. Our faith is not complete unless it is practiced in diakonia, in service to others. And not just occasionally. Service is meant to be the steady drum-beat guiding our lives just as worship and prayer is a constant part of our lives.

This, I believe, is something that young people can believe in.

This is something the early church believed in and struggled with.

Ac 6:1
6:1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.
NIV

Ac 2:44-46
45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
NIV

Ac 4:33-35
34 There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
NIV

Ro 15:25-28
25 Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there. 26 For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem . 27 They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.
Distributing food, selling possessions to offer assistance to the poor, churches tithing not only for their own ministry, but to send back to Jerusalem… the early church understood what the foot-washing command meant… that they would live lives of service.

As I said before, a faith that does not include a passion for service and regular component of hands on service is not a complete faith.

And I think that we grow in this area by beginning with a change in our language. Instead of asking people to join a committee, lets start asking people what ministry they feel passionate about. Instead of asking new members what committee they are interested in (because whether we like it or not, committee’s are not going to raise new Christian’s passions) lets ask them what mission God is calling them too.

We have many… a clothes closet, a hygiene closet. We have a nutrition ministry. And let me pause there for a moment to say we are re-visioning that nutrition ministry. We will need a new coordinator for that ministry and we are considering working with the RI food bank, and opening the food closet twice a month instead of just having it available by emergency appt. But in order for this to work we will need many people who feel passionate about feeding the hungry, called to give time and energy to this mission.

Although our AI Visioning process revealed to us another mission, I would like to suggest that first and foremost our goal for the next couple of years is focusing on this nutrition ministry. I would like to suggest that our goal for the next couple of years is to widen the circle of those who regularly participate in these works of service, such as the food closet and clothes closet and Holiday food baskets and Summer meal programs. Not only encouraging more of us, the members of the church to get hands on involved in these ministries, but also more community members involved, for in inviting them to serve, we are inviting them to follow Christ. And in including our children we are not only teaching them to serve, we are teaching them to follow Christ.

Now our AI goal is to create a ministry partnership with an American Baptist Missionary and a community perhaps in central America; to get to know the people, to learn about their struggles and then to create a plan, a long term plan to serve them, visit them, but not just to serve them, to create a relationship with them.

I’m asking you to pray for both of these missions of service; the nutrition ministry and the sister relationship with a foreign missionary and church; pray for a coordinator for the nutrition program, pray for the families that we serve, and pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you your passion for service. Pray that the Holy Spirit will show us show us how to grow in faith, how to grow from a faith that believes into a faith that serves, how we all together should grow from a faith that we hold, into a faith that we practice and pass on.

Jn 13:17
17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

So let us also, in these 100 days of prayer, pray that we will be blessed with the courage and commitment to wash other’s feet as Christ has washed our own.

The Mission of the Church is to be a Learning and Teaching Community; Bible; Word of God

The Church as a Community of Teaching and Learning
Acts 2:42/Deut 6:4-9

Intro:
The Question(s) we start with this morning are… Who taught you about faith? What did they teach you? How?

[time of sharing]

Part I: The Apocalypse of Faith?
The Book of Eli is a movie starring Denzel Washington who plays a character on a mission. He lives in America, but it is a post apocalyptic America, an America after the destruction of nuclear war. If you have ever seen the Mad Max movies you can imagine the landscape… no vegetation, little food, little clean water, small colonies of disfigured survivors, ruined and abandoned cities, rubble. As with any post apocalyptic movie you have to have cannibals for the good guys to fight and Denzel fights more than a few cannibals.

We don’t know much about his mission, not at first. He carries a book. A rare book. He needs to get it from the East Coast to the West Coast where the last enclave of civilization stands.Carnegie is the bad guy. He is looking for a book. He controls a little settlement because he controls a supply of clean drinking water. He wants the book because in the book are words with power, words that would enable him to take control of what is left of the America.

As we go along we find out two things. The book that Denzel carries and that Carnegie seeks is the Bible. The last Bible. There is no more religious faith of any kind in this apocalypse. Denzel has to save the last Bible and Carnegie wants it for his own purposes. There is no prayer, no faith.

I’m not recommending this movie necessarily. It’s ok, some good fight scenes. But the thought of an America without any memory of the Bible or the Christian Faith, accept for one lone man on a mission to save that tradition, to save the Word of God, intrigued me.

But its only fiction.

Right?

Part II:
A new book just came out about youth ministry. It is based on a study by Christian Smith and Melinda Denton who work for the National Study of Youth and Religion. The book is by Kenda Creasy Dean and it is called Almost Christian.

I am going to read to you, from an article about the study and the book, by the books author, as found in the Christian Century.

I don’t generally read long quotes but I think we need to hear this…

Smith and Denton reported ‘seeing an alternative faith in American teenagers, one that ‘feeds on and gradually co-opts if not devours’ established religious traditions. This faith, called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism,… is affiliated with traditional faith communities but… [leads to teens] practicing a very different faith than historic orthodox Christianity. If teenagers wrote out the creed of this religious outlook, it would look something like this:
• A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.
• God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible…
• The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.
• God is not involved in my life except when I need God to solve a problem.
• Good people go to heaven when they die.
Smith and Denton claim that MTD is ‘colonizing many historical religious traditions and , almost without anyone noticing, converting believers in the old faiths to its alternative religious vision of divinely underwritten personal happiness and interpersonal niceness’… It may be the new mainstream American religious faith for our culturally post-Christian, individualistic, mass-consumer capitalist society….A significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that it is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into… Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.’

Dean summarizes the report in this way:
“American young people are, theoretically, fine with religious faith — but it does not concern them much, and it is not durable enough to survive long after they graduate from high school.” [Quote from her book]
Then she adds this: “One more thing: we’re responsible.”

Part 3:
I grew up in a very conservative evangelical church, American Baptist, but very different. From childhood I was bombarded with stories from Revelation of the rapture, the anti-Christ, the Tribulation, war and suffering… and it scared me to death. It really did.

I grew up and went to seminary and learned what I think is a better way to read Revelation and it doesn’t frighten me any more. It challenges and convicts and inspires me, but it does frighten me.

This frightens me.

It frightens me because my experience tells me that Smith and Denton and Dean are not Henny Penny running around crying the sky is falling, the sky is falling. We’ve are watching it happen.

Dean writes ‘we ‘teach’ young people baseball, but we ‘expose’ them to faith. We provide coaching and opportunities for youth to develop and improve their pitches and their SAT scores, but we blithely assume that religious identity will happen by osmosis and will emerge ‘when youth are ready ‘ ( a confidence we generally lack when it comes to, say, algebra). ‘

Dt 6:4-9
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Part 4:
Last week, we talked about the Vision of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Do you remember that Vision? God tells Abraham that he will be blessed and that he will be a blessing. He will have child, who will have a child and eventually many and they will have a land…

What we read today was the conclusion of that part of the blessing… Moses and Israel, the descendants of Jacob have reached the Promised Land…

And now the next stage of the Vision unfolds. All the peoples of the earth will be blessed… that is what God promised, that was the next stage of the Vision…

That Israel would be the people that God entrusted with the very words of God for all the nations; Who would devote themselves to being shaped by that word into a living witness, In their practice of prayer and worship, in their practice of justice and righteousness.They would not only have the word but hold it in their hearts and minds and be before a watching world The embodiment of God’s word and the life it brings.

Deuteronomy is a Mission statement. Carry my Word to the People.
Wake up to It, and go to bed with it… walk with it and talk about it, and fill your home with it Take it to work and above all, impress it upon your children…the Hebrew word translated impress literally means pierce… a permanent mark

the Word of God, given to Moses and the people of Israel…
the word of God, the faith, the Christian lifestyle handed down to us…
entrusted to us by; [the list of our church's saints and those people they told me about to open the sermon]

The Word of God Entrusted to us by the word made flesh Jesus
Mt 28:19-20
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

We have been entrusted with this Word.

Our mission is to be a people devoted to it, to reading it and learning it and discussing it and living it and in so doing passing it on…

I heard an Imam respond to the threat to burn the Koran and he said something that I found very inspirational. He said that you could burn the books, but that the Koran was in the hearts and minds of the Muslim people and that could not be burned.

In the end of the movie, Book of Eli, the bad guy gets the Bible, Eli, looses the book, it is lost…

Incidentally, Carnegie gets the Bible but he can’t read it. Eli is blind. The Bible is in brail and Carnegie can’t interpret it. There is no one to explain it to him. (Which I think is a startling metaphor of the fact that the Bible itself is not enough… it takes a community to interpret it, explain it and live it so that it can be taught. Which is what the text from Deuteronomy is telling us. Read it, Learn it, Live it, Teach it)

But all is not lost. Eli doesn’t have the book, but he has memorized every word.
And his last act before dying of the wounds inflicted upon him by Carnegie and his evil henchmen
Is to dictate the Bible to a scribe so that the word is not lost.

Friends, the Word is not lost.
We can pass it on to our children and to all the un-churched and de-churched folks who enter our doors…
The saints we remembered have dictated it to us through their lives of faith
Christ has entrusted it to us…

It will take all of us…It doesn’t matter if your children are grown and no longer here, it will take all of us…It isn’t enough to believe that the Bible is God’s word or to be of the opinion that the Bible is important.

Convictions, wrote James Wm. McClendon, are not just beliefs or opinions, … for our convictions show themselves not merely in our professions or belief or disbelief, but in all our attitudes and actions…
And if that were not challenging enough, McClendon goes on to say of the church…no mere collections of the curious will count.
James William McClendon, Jr.
Doctrine p 29

John Howard Yoder wrote similarly contrasting two choices for the church… ‘run-of-the-mill’ devotion or a ‘heroic’ level of devotion.

J.H. Yoder; The Priestly Kingdom
The Kingdom as Social Ethic, p. 83

These are serious times my sister’s and brothers. We are not living in the post Apocalypse described in the book of Eli, the land with no faith and with no Bible and with no one to teach what it means and what it looks like in action. But Denton, Smith and Dean suggest that we are slouching toward apocalypse. This is not the time for casual or curious Christianity. This is the time of Conviction and Heroic Efforts.

This is our Mission. To be the Heroic and Convicted Community of Learning and Teaching.
Will we accept it?

The Vision of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob

A sermon on Vision
Texts: excerpts of the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Intro:
As many of you know, the leadership team and many active members of Berean Baptist Church recently finished the planning stage of a process called Appreciative Inquiry, which is a exercise in discerning our Vision for the next 5 years or so. The process actually produced enough ideas to keep us going for 20 years, but we will revisit out vision at least every five years.

Anyway, this process started with group meetings. All the members of the church were invited to attend small group meetings in which they were asked questions such as: When have you felt most a part of the mission of Berean?, When have you felt that you have grown most spiritually at Berean?, and When have you felt proudest to be a part of Berean? These questions didn’t just lead to simple answers, but to stories. People began sharing stories of their best experiences at BBC and we wrote them down and collected them all. Then the leadership team read through all the stories and highlighted the themes that these stories held in common. Then the leaders summarized all the stories that went with each theme and these all became pieces of the story of Berean. Next we imagined, what will the next generation of BBC tell as their story. 20 years from now, what stories will the members be telling? We wrote what we imagined for each theme and that became our Vision. From that vision we created a list of Goals and tasks.

I want you to notice the fact that stories played an important role in both our discerning of who we are at Berean and who we feel God is calling us to become. Stories are the key.

I recently heard an interesting story on NPR that explained that the human brain is ‘wired’ , created, in such a way as to make sense of our struggles and troubles, and to create goals for ourselves, through story. The brain stores and makes sense of information through stories. The example they gave was the true story of a man who wanted to become a writer and work in Hollywood writing movie scripts. But his father grew very ill and so he needed to let that story go and create a new story, a story where he helped his father. He connected to the story of King Arthur and the movie Camelot. This is how he made sense of his world. The point is that we do, whether we are conscious of it or not, connect to the books, movies, plays. We probably all have had the experience of saying, after finishing a book or movie, ‘that story is my story, that character is me.’ God has created us to make sense of the world we live in, by connecting to stories and telling stories and seeing our lives as a story. Which brings me to a couple of stories from the Bible.

Ge 32:22-30
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
The man asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jacob," he answered.
Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."
But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

What is Jacob wrestling for? A blessing. Ok, now follow me back to Genesis 12.

Ge 12:1-3
The LORD had said to Abram , "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
"I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."

To really make this point though we have to remember that Abram’s father was Terah and that Abram had a brother named Haran. In chapter 11 we learn that Haran dies and later Terah dies in Haran. Scholars think that this is just a coincidence, that Terah dies in the village or land called Haran, and that he had a son named Haran. I just can’t help believe that it is more than coincidence. To me it seems like a window opening this story up so that it becomes more than just past history. If we read this, imagine ourselves in this story we know exactly where Abram is in Haran. We know what it is to experience loss and to wonder where we are and even who we are. We know the shock to the spirit of the loss of a loved one, a divorce, getting laid off, or fired. We know the pain and the disorientation that these events cause, and so we know where Abram is.

Which makes hearing the voice from the dark night sky promising ‘blessing’ , a promise, a glimmer of hope, the good news that will help us to navigate the strange, painful and confusing times of our lives.

As I thought about these two stories, Abram hearing the promise of a blessing and Jacob wrestling for a blessing, and the many times in between, it occurred to me that this was the Vision, the Story that allowed Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to make sense of their lives. As Abram awaited the birth of a son, he could remind himself that he was a man ‘blessed’ by God. As he wandered and wondered, sometimes fought the aggressive tribes that surrounded him on his sojourn, Abram could remind himself that he was a man blessed by God. Even when his own decisions (like that incident with Hagar) caused he and his family pain and anger, Abram could rely on the story, the Vision, the one blessed by God.

Jacob most surely must have been raised with this story and told that was the grandson of the man blessed by God. Jacob’s story offers hope and warning, as I read it. As the second born son, the promise of a blessing not for the eldest, Esau, but for the youngest, Jacob, is a promise for all those who are considered ‘less than’ unimportant, ill equipped, and expendable, that God blesses whom God chooses, not based on wealth or prosperity or popularity.

It also warns us against hubris. Jacob and his mother both work to manipulate Isaac and trick Esau. That we are a people who carry a Vision, the Vision of God’s Kingdom as proclaimed by Christ, does not mean that we understand the Vision completely. God’s will and way is still a mystery to be explored and not a weapon to be used for our own power or benefit.

Still I don’t think it too much of a stretch to imagine that throughout Jacob’s life, that story, of Abram hearing the voice from the heaven’s offering blessing, was remembered, in times of trial and struggle. And even though it was a struggle, and the story, the vision didn’t protect Jacob from pain and challenge, it did always give him the hope to carry on, and a sense of direction through confusing and painful times.

The other day I listened to an interview with an author on the radio. I was driving so I couldn’t write down his name or his book. What caught my attention was the point he made about the source of his vision as a husband and father. As a writer he looked to the great writers, the important pieces of literature to explain the beauty and the brokenness of our humanity. And he found wisdom there. But he then learned about the lives of these great writers and to his disappointment, so many of them could not live up to the beauty they observed, nor could they avoid the ugliness they described. He went on to observe the same phenomena among those who shape the opinions of so many in our country, tv pundits and radio talk show hosts, who proclaim a vision, but cannot live up to this vision.

I think he touched upon something important. As we approach election time, ‘change’ seems to be the election campaign slogan of choice. Everyone seems to be about change, which is really a one word story, a one word vision that promises a new and successful path ahead, that this or that leader can take us to. It worked for President Obama. My point is not to be cynical about politics, but to point out the deep need among people who are looking for a vision. All of these things point to the need many people feel, for a vision, for a story to make sense of their world and offer a way ahead.

I think it is time for us to boldly proclaim our vision; that we have a vision that will not disappoint as politicians, celebrities, and philosophies all eventually will. We know of a man who could proclaim a vision and live up to it, a man named Jesus who created the Kingdom where-ever he traveled, who died as a result of his vision and who was resurrected so that we might be empowered to pursue his vision.

This is a time for vision. So many churches in our state are struggling financially and find it hard to agree upon mission and ministry and so loose more members than they gain. I consult with them. So many don’t have a Vision. Or their vision is for things to either stay the way they are (if they are reasonably good) or go back to the way they were 40 years ago. But God’s vision for us is the same as it was for Abram, it calls us forward into the future, away from what is, not matter how comfortable that is for us, and toward and what is yet to be, with all of its promise and all of our fear of the unknown.

This is a time for vision Berean, a time for us to leave behind what once was and move boldly on to the future God has created for us and is empowering us to realize.

God bless you all.

The Holy Spirit Unites us in Community

The Holy Spirit Gives us the gift of Unity and Community

Primary Text:
1 Co 12:12-13
12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free — and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

Secondary Text:
Gal 3:26-29
26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek , slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Eph 4:3-6
4 There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ro 14:5-8
5 One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8 If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

Can we really proclaim with authenticity or conviction, the unity that Paul writes about throughout the New Testament letters?

For example, when we try to explain to someone new to faith who we are as American Baptists, we end up talking about other Christians whom we are NOT like and then comes a list of denominations;
Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and then Protestant, which then divides into Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist. Even these break down further; American Baptist, Southern Baptist, National, Progressive, Alliance of Baptists, and on and on… The differences that divide us are often spoken of more than the similarities that unite us (not to mention the Lord that unites us). Most prevalent in the public eye is the division that surrounds the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church and/or in ministry.

So can we really speak about the unity of the church as a gift of the Holy Spirit? I suppose we can either give in and stop hoping for unity, but Paul says we are already unified by the Spirit.

Perhaps I am naïve, or perhaps I am overconfident but I think that one reason we struggle to be united and find ourselves separating into groups so often as Christians is because we mistakenly assume that our unity is born of our agreement. We all assent to this creed or in the case of Baptists, we all agree on these general principles.


But when we look at the churches to whom Paul wrote we see that he is proclaiming unity to churches that are divided and in disagreement. The Church at Corinth was divided up into a number of factions. The wealthy and the impoverished, those with gifts of the Spirit and without, and apparently a hierarchy set up among those who had the ‘important’ gifts and those that had ‘less important’ gifts. There was division in Galatia and division in Rome about what day to worship, diet, and ethnicity.

Apparently Paul did not see agreement as the seedbed of unity. As a matter of fact Paul seemed to think that the impossible could happen and that the Spirit just might unite people despite or even through their differences.

let me bold and say that one of the reasons that the church has failed and continues to fail to preach and teach peace is because we keep assuming that our unity is born of agreement. When we do not agree, we divide amongst ourselves, the Spirit is a concept but not an active presence and we loose our ability to be a relevant witness to the peace of Christ. We are not willing to build it, so it becomes a word we use, but not a activity we pursue.

Lets look particularly at Romans 14
5 One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.

Did you hear that? Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. Paul does not only accept that there are differences, but seems to celebrate here and in 1 Corinthians, the diversity of the church.

Unity is a process. When we disagree and then either fall to the side of not speaking about it, or fighting and voting and ending the conversation, OR fighting and leaving or firing someone… we are cutting the work of the Spirit in the church out. We are not trusting that the Spirit is both guiding and instructing us and in essence we are proclaiming that we know best, not the Spirit.

Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind is the key, but not as a scriptural proof that we should be stubborn. When we disagree and honestly admit it, and lovingly engage in disagreement, The Spirit can work to instruct us. Disagreement is an opportunity for me to reflect carefully about what I believe and why. Being clear about my own perspective and going to scripture and tradition to check my views out, is a process by which the spirit instructs me. Listening… let me say this again, Listening to another persons perspective is also a way for the Spirit to instruct. I have to be open to the fact that the Spirit may change my mind. The Spirit may want me to hear another perspective so that I can grow.

And even if my mind is not changed, nor is theirs, I can learn patience, I can learn appreciation for the wideness of God’s glory… I can learn to accept others without demanding that they be like me. In a sense we are truly learning how to love for we are valuing the image of God in the other without that other changing for our comfort.

Let me make an illustration, a risky illustration because I’m going to talk about a current disagreement.

You may have figured it out now, that I am uncomfortable with the presence of the American Flag in the sanctuary. To me it is idolatry. But others do not hold that view. To others it is a prayer of blessing and reminder of the goal, what we aspire to Christians in America, to witness to our faith.


The flag is here. I remove it for Christmas Eve and Holy Week.
It isn’t about winning or loosing. It isn’t about being right or wrong. So often we as a church fail to let the Spirit move among us because we are stuck thinking that we have to prove right and wrong. Let me tell you. There is value and wisdom in the perspective of those who want the flag in the sanctuary. I still disagree, but I appreciate the wisdom. They are fully convinced in their own mind… I disagree, but I accept that they have thought this through and struggled with the issue.

Because we believe that the Spirit unites us we can leave behind dealing with disagreements through thinking about right and wrong, winning and loosing.
We listen carefully, we speak honestly, we are open to new perspectives. Instead of being entrenched we are open to change. If there is not change we are learning patience and appreciation for the ‘other.’
And in all this we are creating peace. In the disagreement and the way we behave in the disagreement we are creating peace.

I will not be the pastor you have called me to be if you always agree with me. But neither will you be the congregation you are called to be if I do not disagree and challenge you upon occasion.

Now I hope that the issue of the flag isn’t the main topic of discussion at coffee hour.
But the reality is we will have many topics to discuss in the coming months and years together. We are planning of exploring becoming a green congregation with a green church building. There will be many perspectives on this issue. And even if we agree to pursue this goal, we will disagree about how to pursue it. We may disagree about how much to spend or what steps to take. But I am convinced that if we can hold onto our belief that we are already unified, even in our disagreements on this issue, the Spirit will be working and guiding and leading us and we will not only find a way to become more green together, but we will also show the world how to create peace.


We will also begin to talk about becoming an AWAB church which means that we will openly proclaim our welcome of our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers. This is sure to stir up a variety of opinions and emotions. We must remember at that point that we are already unified… one Lord, one faith, one Baptism. In the disagreement the Spirit is working to unify us, instruct us, guide and guard us. And in a day when churches are dividing over this issue, I still hope that we will stay together, unified and we will show the world how to live in peace.

God Bless You All

The Holy Spirit: Fruit

Another follow-up devotion from this past sunday's sermon

Verses for Wednesday Gal 5:22-26
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no
law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature
with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in
step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying
each other.

Prayer for Wednesday:
Be present, Spirit of god, within us, your dwelling place and home,
that this house may be one where all darkness is penetrated by your light,
all troubles calmed by your peace, all evil redeemed by your love,
all pain transformed in your suffering,
and all dying glorified in your risen life.
Jim Cotter

Thought for Wednesday:
Yesterday we meditated on the fact that we are freed so as to pursue the love of God, but sometimes we need some more concrete virtues to pray for and meditate on as a focus. Paul offers Gal 5 as one example of concrete virtues for the disciples to ask for, develop and seek. While Paul does not call these ‘fruits’ as a plural, but all of them are the one ‘fruit’ of the Holy Spirit, I confess that I am stronger at
some and weaker in others. So while we pursue all of these slices of the
orange which is the fruit of the Spirit, each may personally want to petition
the Holy Spirit for specific ones.
The fact that Paul calls them ‘fruit’ is intended, I believe, to teach us an
important lesson. To pursue patience, for example, relying on our own
strength of will, is not what Paul is describing. The fruit of the Spirit is not
something that we attain with our own labor. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift.
So while we must, through prayer, worship and the fellowship of the
believers seek to practice these virtues, we do so relying not on our own
wills, but on the support of others and the generosity of the Spirit. My point
is, don’t view the exercise of these gifts as something you must do yourself.
Instead, through prayer and the support of other disciples, receive these as gifts.
Don’t try to muster them of your strength alone, but instead ask to receive
them and imagine yourself and how you will look, act, and feel having
received them.

The Holy Spirit Frees us to be Embraced by God's Love

This post is a prayer and devotional guide following this past sunday's sermon.

Verse for Tuesday Romans 8:1

8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus

Prayer for Today:
O Holy Spirit, whose presence is liberty, grant us that freedom of the Spirit which will not fear to tread in unknown ways, nor be held back by misgivings of ourselves and fear of others. Ever beckon us forward to the place of your will which is also the place of your power, O ever-leading, ever-loving Lord.
George Appleton
THought for Today:
The frightening thing about freedom is the challenge of the
unknown. ‘Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t’ is a
maxim that rules many of us from time to time.
Today I want to encourage you to focus on what the Spirit frees you
for! We spoke about this briefly two weeks ago in the sermon. We
are freed for God’s love, ‘there is now no condemnation.’ We are
freed from guilt and anger which keep us from being loved by God,
so that we can participate in God’s love. This is important because
sometimes the sinful things that enslave us, say anger, have been vital
for our lives. If we have been hurt deeply, anger is an effective shield
which guards us from ever being hurt again. It will not be enough to
ask the Spirit help us let go of our anger… that will leave us feeling
vulnerable. Instead we ask the spirit to lower the walls so that we
might know God’s love… we can take a risk for God’s love. Find a
verse about God’s love and make that your centering prayer for the
day.

The Holy Spirit Frees Us!

The Holy Spirit Frees Us!
Acts 16:16-40 & Romans 6:22-23

Question: The Holy Spirit promises us a future, a new creation, but how do we move toward that?
Bad News: The Freedom of the Spirit is a gift, but it is a challenge to experience it and grow into this freedom.
Good News: The joy of serving and suffering
Celebration: In order to grow into the future that God has promised, the Spirit frees us from our past and present sins, fears, and doubts.

Introduction:

So, we started a new sermon series last week focusing on the Holy Spirit. Instead of getting bogged down in creeds and what they have to say about what the Holy Spirit it, I decided we would focus on what the Bible tells us the Holy Spirit does. As we have also just finished us our Long Range Planning process, and we are focusing on the future of BBC, last week we started with the Holy Spirit’s activity which is promising and creating a future. To make this a bit less theoretical and more practical we looked at Paul’s situation in the church at Corinth which inspired him to write about the future that is promised or guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. Suffering, you may recall, was the immediate problem, the question, the need… Paul’s emotional suffering by feeling embarrassed by a church member at Corinth, watching the church in Corinth struggle to move into the future because some many of the old behaviors, and cultural norms, which went against the ethics and practices of this new community created around Christ, remained so prevalent.

That particular struggle, the struggle of leaving behind, of being freed of that which holds us back from becoming what God created us to be, that we have witnessed is our potential in witnessing and remembering the life of Christ, that is what I want us to consider momentarily today. Paul is certain that the Holy Spirit promises us a future, a new creation. And the first step toward that new creation, that future, is freedom from the past, or even the present. The Holy Spirit Frees Us from that which hinders us from growing into the future the Spirit promises and God is creating.

Which is what the stories we read from Acts 16 poetically illustrate. The Holy Spirit is mentioned, but the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the apostles is the storyline throughout Acts.

First the girl, possessed by ‘spirits.’ She is bound not only by this ‘spirit’ but also by the men who have enslaved her for their own profit. In the greek she is enslaved by a Pythian Spirit, pythian is related to python… which I think gives us a amazing image of a young girl who is strangled, totally constrained by this spirit and these men… with no possible way to be free.

As we read Paul casts out this spirit, and her owners first get incite a mob and then get Paul and Silas arrested, thrown in prison, their feet in the stocks. Another image… bound in chains, locked in stocks…
But the Holy Spirit causes an earthquake which frees them.

And then finally the prison guard himself… distraught at the fact that Paul and Silas were free, and the thought of the reprisals of his superiors for ‘letting’ the prisoners free, draws his sword to do himself in… until again, Paul intervenes. And he is freed from his own sword.


The point is unmistakable. No matter what binds us… the frighting and unknown in the evil spirit, the abuse and oppression of others in the girl’s owners, the mob, the guard,
Regardless of what constrains us… the stocks, even when we feel the sword at our necks… the Holy Spirit will free us, is freeing us.

All this meant to stir not only the heart of the Christian, but the imagination… whatever binds me and holds me back from following Christ and becoming the image of God I’m created to be, the Holy Spirit will free me of.
BUT, as nice as that sounds…

I couldn’t help but think of Brooks Hatlen, one of the characters from ‘the Shawshank Redemption.’ Brooks Hatlen had been a prisoner in Shawshank Prison for most of his life. He had made a life in that prison, working in the library. By the time he was released, he was an elderly man, and he didn’t know how to fit into this new freedom. He couldn’t adjust to freedom and so took his own life.

What happened to the girl, to the jailer? Did they stay free? Did they fall back into old patterns, struggle to overcome the habits that had formed them? What did they do to grow into this freedom, because as wonderful as it sounds that the girl and the jailer were instantly free…
Our experience tells us that we are more like Brooks… it can be tough to adjust to this new found freedom.

Even Paul acknowledges the struggle to live into and up to the freedom we are given.

Rom 7:18-19 I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.

As exciting and important as the stories found in Acts 16 are… that we can be free, that the Holy Spirit frees us from our past, our sins, our doubts, fears, regrets… I still want more. Acts 16 gives us a promise, a vision… we too are free. But I feel like Paul and Brooks… I struggle to adjust to this freedom and I want some pointers, some steps, some specific actions to take so as to insure that the Holy Spirit is freeing me.

But as much as I look, and I have been looking and reading and thinking all week, I don’t find specific steps in being freed by the Holy Spirit. And this has really frustrated me. What must I do to be free by the Holy Spirit?

Then it occurred to me that if God gave us specific steps beyond believing in Christ and following in his path, if we received specific instructions, we, like the disciples in Corinth from last week, would soon find a way to feel ourselves superior to others. It would cease to be the mysterious gift of the Spirit that freed us, but our own labor and work and will, which we would use to feel superior to others. We aren’t told specifics so that we humbly rely on grace, trust that the Holy Spirit is freeing us… stay focused on the vision of being free.

But then the Holy Spirit did reveal one secret. I almost said, ‘I found one secret’ but it wasn’t me, it was the Holy Spirit really.
This one secret was revealed.

When Paul was freed from his terrorist lifestyle, arresting Christians and supervising the stoning of Stephen, when he was freed from that… it took a community. He was sent to Ananias for prayer.

When the Holy Spirit freed the girl, She (the Holy Spirit) worked through the community of believers represented by Paul and Silas.
When Paul and Silas were freed by the Holy Spirit from prison, they were together…
And the jailer too, depended on Paul and Silas, a community of believers through which the Spirit would work.

It hit me then that the one hint to remaining open to the freeing work of the Holy Spirit is to stay faithful to the community of those who follow Christ. It is in the gutsy work of remaining together in community; in which our fears, doubts, bad habits, sins sometimes rub up against others, hurt them, disappoint them, affect them… that the Holy Spirit, through the support and honesty of others, frees us. We will not be freed in isolation, but experience the freedom of the Holy Spirit when we stick together, lift one another up, prayer, sometimes struggle, reflect honestly, confront lovingly, but always in love and humility… when we are this kind of community, the Holy Spirit, Paul says, makes us free.

God Bless You All

The Holy Spirit Gives the Promise of a Future

First Sermon on the Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit Gives a Promise for the Future

2 Cor 5:1-5

Understanding the Holy Spirit can be challenging.

Perhaps this is because talking about the Holy Spirit can lead in one of two confusing directions.

First, we can get bogged down in the creedal language which tries to explain the Trinity, such as the insertion of the word filioque in the Nicene Creed which caused the East-West schism in 1054. I will admit, my eyes glazed over at this point in my History of the Church class. It isn’t particularly interesting or meaningful, and we Baptist’s tend to take a pragmatic approach to theology in general.
On the other hand we may have some experience with the Holy Spirit through the charismatic church, Pentecostals and the practice of speaking in tongues, dancing, and in rare and extreme cases the snake handling. And while I’m not denigrating speaking in tongues, it’s just not my thing, nor is it yours I suspect. But since we’ve seen or heard of these practices ‘In the Spirit’ we get a little nervous about this thing called, the Holy Spirit.

Which is why I wanted to talk about the Holy Spirit by focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit. Today, we are going to talk about the Holy Spirit as a Promise, as providing Hope.

But to get there we have to turn to Paul and understand a little about the situation he is in with the church at Corinth. Because this situation leads him to write about a number of things, including the Holy Spirit.

First, as much as Paul loved the church at Corinth, a church which he started, he had a contentious relationship with this church. They were famous, many years after the writing of letters we now call 1 and 2 Second Corinthians for being ‘engaged in strife’ (1 Clem. 47.3) NIB

Paul wrote many letters and made visits to the church at Corinth after he established it. At one of those visits it is suggested that one of the church members made a verbal attack against Paul, none of the other church members defended him and this left him feeling hurt and angry. He left, thought about another visit, decided against it as it may have lead to a confrontation which may have made him feel better, morally superior and powerful, which publically embarrassing someone else can do I suppose, but it isn’t the way to handle things in church, so he decided not to risk it.

The Episode at Corinth:

The church at Corinth, which Paul is exchanging correspondence with, is a bit of a mess.
There are many issues that Paul has to deal with... We find the list of problems detail in the first letter to the Corinthians.
Factions are forming around who has been baptized by whom...Peter, Paul, or in the name of whom... Jesus... cliques about whose baptism is... correct... those who baptisms are (quote unquote) correct consider themselves to be of higher status than the others.

A man is living with his father's former wife
while other groups are espousing abstinence from marital intimacy
both again based on their... enlightened faith... both those who have an anything goes view and those who have an abstinence only perspective...feeling themselves superior

there are groups fighting about meat sacrificed to idols... some say that their faith means that it does not matter where the meat has come from... others thinking that practice of eating meat sacrificed to idols is a sin... both thinking themselves better than the other.

Some speak in tongues and think themselves superior... some prophesy and think themselves better...

The wealthy members are starting communion with cocktail hour and are inebriated... with little food or drink left for the poor members to share in the agape meal... at the Lord's supper that they are supposed to share. They assume their economic status enables them special benefits that the poor members are not worthy of.

I mention all of this because what inspires Paul to write about the Holy Spirit isn’t his love of metaphysics, logic or philosophy. What has inspired him to write his letters and to write about the Holy Spirit is his experience with suffering, trauma and the trials of life. And although our lives may not compare to arrest, imprisonment, angry mobs and beatings… we can identify with this experience in a much deeper and more personal way than in considering the fine metaphysical points of the filioque.

But Paul’s view of suffering is, well, strange…

For Paul suffering and trauma is a confirmation that the Holy Spirit is working… He is comforted by suffering because it proves to him that God is saving, re-creating, renewing individuals, humanity, community, all creation, through the Spirit.
And that is Paul’s comfort… as Ernest Best says, ‘ [for Paul] comfort is not the removal of suffering nor the assurance that everything will turn out all right in the end nor that others have suffered worse things nor that it will soon be over…’ ‘the comfort lies in knowing Christ better, in being more firmly united with him…’
Did you hear that? All of us as disciples are in a process of being saved from sin, old destructive, selfish, hurtful ways. The Holy Spirit is working in us and through us, saving us and saving others… but that causes suffering. To face our own failings and fears is painful. To patiently walk with others as they are confronted by the Holy Spirit with their failings can really hurt. To stand up to the sin that surrounds us, that causes poverty, bigotry, intolerance, or violence can be frightening. But Paul see’s this as proof that the Holy Spirit is doing something.

Let me insert the clichéd and obligatory ‘Pastor’s Children’ illustration here.
Lance is playing baseball this spring. Lance takes after his father (me) in many ways. He has talents and gifts… but baseball is not one of them. Catching and throwing and batting just doesn’t come naturally to him, it is a struggle. It frustrates him that he can’t do well. Just the other day he was very disappointed with himself for not hitting every ball pitched to him at batting practice. So he wants to quit. The frustration and discomfort of learning something new and difficult overwhelms him a bit. Now I know from personal experience, that with a little patience, some work and some time, he can learn. I know he has the potential… but to get to the potential, he has to suffer the frustration…
This, I think, is how Paul views the suffering he goes through in his ministry. The personal suffering of squabbles, the suffering of watching his churches struggle with sin and past behaviors that they cannot seem to leave behind, the suffering of mobs and arrests and beatings. All of it is the momentary frustration of growth… growth in him, growth in his church, growth in the community… toward Christ, the Kingdom… the Spirit is working in all of this for our growth.

This is perhaps the challenge to the church, a critique really, of the church, not just ours but all…
Because instead of teaching people how to face frustrations, new and challenging situations, ideas, differences as the Holy Spirit working in and through us… we avoid the whole situation. Send it to a committee, take it to a vote, loose patience and argue our point of view, leave and go somewhere less challenging where our perspective will not be challenged, stay home…
In a sense Paul I think has a good word about conflict, which we try to avoid. Conflict that he certainly didn’t enjoy, but which he fervently believed was the work of the Holy Spirit fulfilling a promise of a future of a tomorrow in which we will be close to Christ, resurrected with Christ, made a new creation as God intends. The Holy Spirit gives Paul the gift of seeing what is being accomplished, salvation, what is yet to come, new Life in Christ… which will cause some conflict within and among us… but the end result is New Life…
Paul has the crucifixion of Christ fixed firmly in his mind. Through that suffering the Spirit created new life. Which is why Paul could have such an odd view of suffering and strife, could virtually celebrate it.

I must be doing something right… Paul seems to say… the Holy Spirit must be working here…

Which is not my first reaction. Someone boos and I stop singing. Someone criticizes and I stop speaking or acting. But not Paul, Paul saw resistance and struggle as a sign that the Spirit was renewing. The Spirit gave him a vision of what he was to become and what all creation was to become, and suffering and struggle is just the process; like learning to hit a ball, or do algebra, learning a new skill for a new job, marriage counseling… facing the discomfort of today, because the Holy Spirit promises us a tomorrow closer to Christ, a tomorrow in which we are that much closer to the image God created us to be.

How do we do it?

That is the question right?

That is another thing that makes the Holy Spirit difficult to think and talk about. It is mysterious because it can’t be qualified.

But I think that Paul had some promises in his mind that I want to share with you to close…and if you want to learn, as I too want to learn, how to stop avoiding the struggle and to see it as a process of growing in faith, remember these verses, read them daily, meditate on them, pray them…

Isa 32:14-17
The fortress will be abandoned,
the noisy city deserted;
citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever,
till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
and the desert becomes a fertile field,
and the fertile field seems like a forest.
17 The fruit of righteousness will be peace;
the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.

Isa 44:4
Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant,
Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.
3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants.
4 They will spring up like grass in a meadow,
like poplar trees by flowing streams.

Eze 37:12-14
13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.'"
I don’t know for a fact that Paul was thinking of these verses. But I do know that Paul was convinced that the Holy Spirit used suffering and struggle and difference and even division as a catalyst for growth…
Ro 8:34-39
Christ Jesus, who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.


2 Co 4:16-18

16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
NIV

Earth Day Sermon: Loving What God Loves, How God Loves

Jn 13:34-35

34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

What signs of spring do you notice and enjoy the most?

April 22nd marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day

One of challenges of preaching about environmental issues is that some, if not many, will assume that this whole green movement is the trick or the conspiracy of Democrats and Liberals who are either quoting bad science or creating pseudo-scientific claims. So some feel as if this eco-theology is a wolf in sheeps clothing, the wolf being politics.

Another of the challenges to preaching about eco-theology is that some might think that going green is a perfectly legitimate thing… but what has it to do with faith? Talking about the environment should be the task of scientists not pastors and theologians. How can preaching about the environment have any affect on the my faith?

I hope to be able to answer those questions, briefly, today.

First, a little game.

I find myself becoming more and more an advocate of the true ecologists where their recommendations are realistic. Many of these people have done us an essential service in helping us preserve and protect our green zones and our cities, our water and our air. The growing possibility of our destroying ourselves and the world with our own neglect and excess is tragic and very real.

Who said that? Take a guess.

Is Creation Care a political game? Is all of this concern with going green rooted in the work of Politicians like Al Gore and Hollywood movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, and therefore completely suspect suspect
I want you to look in your bulletins at the call to worship, which is based on canticle of the sun by Francis of Assisi. It was composed by Francis in 1224 and incidentally Christine, you might find it interesting that it is definitely one of the first, possibly the first work of literature written in the Italian language.
Next I want you to look at the Thought at the beginning of this week’s devotional booklet
For God brought things into being in order to communicate the divine goodness to creatures and thus be represented by them. And because God’s goodness could not be adequately represented by any single creature, God produced many and diverse creatures, that what one lacked in representing divine goodness might be supplied in another. For goodness, which exists in God simply and uniformly, exists in creatures multiply and distributively. Thus the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, another Italian priest, considered by some to be the greatest of the Catholic Churches theologians. Summa Theologica and Summa Contra Gentiles is still studied in seminaries today and not just Catholic Seminaries, I studied pieces of the Summa by Aquinas at Andover Newton which is a Baptist school. Thomas Aquinas lived from 1225-1274.

Now, I’m giving you this history lesson, because I know you love history lessons.

Seriously, my point is that eco-theology is not some new fad. It is not inspired by modern politicians or movie-stars. Creation Care has been a part of the Christian Tradition and a part of our practice as disciples for hundreds and hundreds of years.

On to Love…

The question you might be asking yourself right now is…

What has this all got to do with love. Remember the passage from John we read? What is the connection between Jesus command to love one another and Environmentalism, or a term I prefer for Disciples of Christ, Creation Care?
What does the popular culture mean by love?
What does the Bible, specifically the gospel story of Christ, teach us about love?
You see it all starts with love.
I want to suggest that one way to summarize our Christian faith is to say that by following Christ we are participating in the creative love of God.
Jn 13:34-35"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you , so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
Jn 15:9-12 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you .
Jn 15:17 This is my command: Love each other.
What Jesus has come to earth to do is to teach us how to receive God’s love, respond to God’s love and share God’s love.

But what does God love?

Us!

Yes! God loves us…

Ro 5:7-8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us .

But here is the thing…

Here is the connection.

Go to
Ge 9:12-17

12 And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

17 So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."

What is a covenant?
It is a binding agreement… but more than that it is a relationship…
And at the last supper, before Jesus died, he said to the disciples…
This cup is a what?
A new covenant poured out in my blood, poured out for many…
So one way, not the only way, but one way of understanding covenant is to say that it is a loving relationship…
And we often think that this covenant… this promise of love… is for us…
But Genesis 9 tells us that God does not only love humanity…
God also loves… the earth, the creatures, the animals… Creation…

Now, a little bit more Bible hopping here… go to…

Ro 8:18-23
19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Did you hear that?
Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage!
Now what Paul is talking about is Justification…
The new creation that we become when we are re-born in Christ…
BUT, notice that it isn’t just humanity that God justifies, that God re-creates…
It is all of creation.

You’ve gotten the point now, haven’t you…
God does not just love humanity, but also, all of creation.

Paul, we just read, echoes Genesis 2. Genesis 2 says that we were created to serve and protect the earth… and Paul sees our re-creation through Christ benefiting not just us… but all of creation… the earth…
Here is the connection you see.
Christ has commanded that we love one another as he loved, his love inspired and empowered by God’s love… And God loves all of creation!
Therefore, if we as Christ followers, as disciples of Jesus, if we want to fully participate in God’s love…
We will participate in caring for all creation.

The growing possibility of our destroying ourselves and the world with our own neglect and excess is tragic and very real.

Who said that? Take a guess.

Billy Graham
Approaching Hoofbeats (1983)

Creation Care is not some new fad, nor is it a liberal democratic conspiracy. Even Billy Graham was concerned for Creation… you can’t accuse him of being liberal!

What I hope you have learned this morning is that Creation Care is an ancient part of our Christian Tradition even if it was largely ignored for our lifetimes…
I hope you have learned that care for creation, the duty to care for it comes not from the mouths of politicians and movies stars, but from the Bible itself…
And that we are inspired to greater levels of care for creation not so much from fear, although, as Billy Graham himself said, we should fear the consequences of our cruelty to creation, but through a deepening connection to the love of God. Through loving creation, caring for it, learning to live in ways that are gentle with the environment, that are careful and not damaging, we are participating in God’s love… Loving what God loves, how God loves.

I'm Alive! Should I Go to Church or to the Beach?

The question that is the title may seem silly, but I've been asked it many times in 10 years of ministry.

This assumption, that happiness or fun can replace worship, was the one fear I had about yesterday's sermon. Would people hear 'Remember, You are Alive, so savor and take delight in the beauty of life around you,' and think that walks on the beach, or in the woods, or sleeping in, or going dancing on Saturday night, would be a perfectly reasonable replacement for worship?

So two follow up ideas.
One comes from Thomas Merton who writes, 'A Tree gives glory to God first of all by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be, it is imitating an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree.' You can find this is Merton's 'Seeds of Contemplation' and if my theology memory is correct, Merton is riffing on some things that Aquinas once wrote about Nature. The point is... the created world around us in all its natural beauty hold great potential to point us to deeper reflection about God and experience of God. So taking time to attend to the natural world can be a form of prayer, a way of being present and aware of the presence of God.

Just the other day as I went walking in the woods the sound of the shuffling leaves under my feet caught my attention. Were they dead leaves? No, not really, I thought. Although they were no longer green, they were in the process of enriching the soil. Their nutrients would one day nurture a flower or a tree. so they were not really dead to my thinking, but part of life, by enabling life. Which reminds me of the words of Jesus in John, 'Unless a grain of wheat falls.' Of course Jesus is referring to his own death and resurrection. But it seems that it also refers to the life of a disciple. We grow in faith not only for our own 'salvation' but also so that our words and deeds, our example and life, can become the nutrient for others to follow in faith. and I found peace and joy in that moment. Savoring life, watching and listening to nature, not working, but simply being, allowed the Spirit to speak to me.
so the beach is a great place to rest, relax, and enjoy the beauty of God's creation.

But it must remain in balance. This is point 2. In John 20 it is the presence of the risen Christ that bring joy and life. so created things, like the beach, music, movies, vacations, can be conduits for God's grace. A time of rest and happiness are wonderful things... but only if they, even in some simple way, cause us to ponder and experience God's love for us, God's grace. They cannot replace worship, but they are vital supplements, because they can be a time of reflection and rest for us.

Worship is the key really. THe point isn't to replace traditional sunday morning singing, praying and experiencing of the Word with something else, BUT to expand our own idea of worship, so that from the sunday morning prayers and sermons, we learn to seek and find times for prayer and reflection all around us in the world. And this is the key to being alive and savoring life.

John 20:19-31; Remember, You are Alive!

Remember, You Are Alive!


The doors are locked…
The disciples are boxed in by fear…
Locked in dread
Fear of the Jews…
Not all Jews, but the Jewish leaders who just handed Jesus over to be crucified…
And Peter knows that he is known to be a Jesus sympathizer…
The ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ posters could be going up all over Jerusalem!
The disciples sit in their darkened room, listening for the foot-fall of a soldiers march…

The disciples are boxed in by fear…
Locked in dread
Fear of the Romans…
The Liberation, the Freedom they had so longed for…
Was dead… in the tomb…
If the Jewish leaders did not come for them…
Perhaps the Legions would
And they would stand before Pilate
And suffer his lash…

The disciples are boxed in by fear…
Locked in dread
Maybe Jesus is alive…
And maybe he is angry…
Angry at their failure to follow him
Angry that they abandoned him.
They once saw Jesus in a fit of anger curse a fig tree and
Within a few hours it was dead!

The disciples are boxed in by fear…
Locked in dread…
What will their families say when they return defeated?
Peter and James abandoned family to follow Jesus
Left behind a family business and a community
To put their hopes in a man found guilty of treason and blasphemy.
Will their families take them back?
What will the towns-folk say?
Will they be mocked? Made fun-off?
Will they be considered a danger to the community and run off?
With nowhere to go, no place to hide or lay their heads?

Disciples, we today may find ourselves boxed in by fear or dread…
Fear that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday…
Dread that the sinking feeling that greeted us when we awoke will last the day…
Fear of the past which held addiction will continue to haunt us…
Dread of the voices from our past, that made us feel unworthy of love or respect,
Voices that proclaimed our worthlessness will echo in our minds today…
Fear of paying the bills, that we will run out of energy,
Dread of getting laid off,
The list of our fears and that which causes us dread could probably go on
For some time this morning…

I hope you are getting this image…
The disciples crouching, cowering in fear…
Trapped by these external forces so far out of their control
By their own emotions, guilt, pain, mourning…

And if you are not in that space right now, that you at least recall a time when you too were
Trapped and frightened and in hiding…

Because that is when some strange and amazing happens in today’s story…

Jesus appears
And
Well
Breathes on them
Odd isn’t it?
I have to admit that was the first thing that struck me was how odd it would be to have someone, even Jesus, just walk up and breathe on me.
I had this image stuck in my head of Lance and Isaac.
They will go upstairs to brush their teeth and sometimes I’ll do these random tests to see if they actually do brush their teeth and make them breathe in my face and check for minty!
I know this sounds irreverent but I just couldn’t get that out of my head…
Jesus walking around and puffing in the disciples faces…

Now here is what is going on…
The greek in John is emphusao…
To puff, to blow at or on…

But Jesus is doing this to remind the disciples of another bible story, actually three…
Take a guess…
What is Jesus re-enacting…

Ge 1:1-2
1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Spirit… Ruach…
It can mean spirit, life, anger, air… and breath
So one possible way of understanding the creation of the world
Is that God breathed on the chaotic waters and life began…
The breath of God brings life…
Jesus is re-enacting the creation story in our story from John today
Jesus breathes on the chaos caused by the crucifixion and creates life.

The same theme of breath and life follows in
Ge 2:7
7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Breath of life… ruach again…

The final story, for this morning anyway…
Eze 37:1-6
37:1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"

I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.'"

Israel is once again enslaved…
This time in Babylon…
It isn’t the same kind of slavery…
They aren’t in camps, forced to do manual labor…
But they too are boxed in by fear and dread…
For they have witnessed the destruction of their city Jerusalem
Their homes, the Temple…
Everything has been destroyed…

God takes Ezekiel to a battle field strewn with corpses and says…
Preach to these bones
I will make breath… ruach, enter you…

Just when life seems hopeless
And despair sets in…
And we cannot catch our breath
God breathes for us…

Because I live, you also shall live… Jesus said the disciples before the crucifixion…
And he appears to them today to remind them of life
Remember, you are alive…

And I couldn’t help it as I was thinking about this story
Imagining it in my mind…
I couldn’t help but think that maybe Jesus didn’t just breath on them
Maybe he blew in their ears…
A playful teasing way of shocking them back into the joy of life…
These are difficult and troubling times…
Around the world we hear stories… Haiti and Chile
In our own nation we mourn for the loss of life in West Virginian

The poverty in our own state, in our own community…
Which we devote so much time and energy and effort too…
Wondering if any good will come of it…
If any change will result from our efforts
Which seem meager in comparison to the problems…
Not to mention the personal trauma’s
Loosing loved one’s
Paying off debts
Caring for sick children or aging parents

Jesus blows into our ears to remind us not to give up in hoping.
Ezekiel preached life before any life was apparent…

This story reminds us to not stop imagining life
Even if the evidence is contrary…

But it also reminds us…
And this is the main point I have today…
It reminds us to Remember that we are alive…
To savor and delight in the life that surrounds us…

I’m not saying that we ignore the suffering and the struggle
Pretend that these things don’t exist…
But that we not let the struggle be the only thing we see…
Remember, you are alive…
Because I live, you also shall live…
So take time to savor in and delight in life…
Take time to savor one another and delight in one another…
We work so hard together
And are so faithful to the call of Christ to serve
That I sometimes think we forget to enjoy life together also…
Remember that you are alive!
Make time to celebrate the life that Christ has breathed into you, into us together…

You Shall Not Kill; Say Yes to Life...

God at the Center: You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery. Or, one yes leads to a thousand no’s
The Bad News: Saying Yes to God also means saying no to the violent and selfish ways we have maintained control and stayed ‘safe’ in the world and in life.
The Good News: Saying Yes to God opens a new possibility for peace in our lives and in the world.
Intro:
There has recently been a controversy at Goshen College In Goshen Indiana. Goshen College is a small liberal arts school that is affiliated with the Mennonite Church. Now the Mennonite Church is an historical peace church. A church of non-violence, a church of pacifists. So for its long history, Goshen College has not played the national anthem at sporting events. Recently this was made known to the larger public through the local media. The college started to get letters and phone calls of complaint, and so the leadership of the college changed their tradition, that had stood for well over 100 years, and will start playing the national anthem. Many alumni of the school are upset. But to be fair there are some who don’t see the big deal, and some students are happy.
Now, the reason I mention this is because I think it illustrates the challenge of the first of our commandments today, You shall not kill. This commandment lies at the heart of the reason why Goshen College did not play the national anthem and why Mennonites are pacifists, at least as I understand the issue. You see, from the traditional Mennonite perspective, and I really shouldn’t be trying to explain this, because I’m not Mennonite, so this is my best approximation really, but from the Mennonite perspective, the National Anthem is a song whose lyrics celebrate violence.
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Thro’ the perilous fight… rockets’ red glare, bombs bursting in air..

Here is why I mention this however. The Mennonite Church is a tradition that places high priority on imagining, through Jesus example, a Godly life in the world. What would a Godly life in the world look like… the answer being… Jesus…
We recall that Jesus, when arrested, would not allow his disciples to offer armed resistance on his behalf.
That is the Godly life on earth…
imagine it…
live it.
For Mennonites, the national anthem does NOT imagine God’s way in the world…
It rehearses and restates the world’s fallen and sinful way… violence.
I heard Rob Bell say in a sermon recently, A Yes leads to a thousand No’s. In this case, for some of these Mennonites, a Yes to this commandment is a NO to violence under any circumstance.

The Mennonite’s perspective is not the only one.
And the debate about whether Christians should serve in the military is really an open debate, perhaps more open than we would like to admit. There is a strong tradition in the history of the church, within the New Testament, that suggests that violence under any circumstance, should not be an option for those who follow Christ. That isn’t the only side of the debate…
And we don’t have time to work it all out here this morning…

My point is that this commandment, you shall not murder/kill, is another than can be easily passed over. None of us has killed anyone. So we may be tempted to pass this commandment by fairly quickly. I think this story illustrates how inconvenient an interruption this commandment may be to our lives and to issues that we feel we already have made up our minds on…

It may interrupt us regarding other issues too… Abortion, Euthenasia, Capital Punishment.
I’m not saying that this commandment is THE answer to any of these topics…
But it does deserve a voice in how we think about these issues…
And that makes this commandment VERY relevant for our times
Very relevant for our lives, even if we haven’t ever
Been tempted to commit murder…

The commandment against killing/murder is much closer than we want to admit…
But look at close Jesus brings it to our lives…Mt 5:21-22

21 "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca ,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Now that really cuts close to the bone doesn’t it?
I mean, we can make an argument that military service, even in times of war
Doesn’t violate this commandment… and so keep it at a distance…
We could make medical and human rights arguments about abortion and euthanasia and reserve this commandment for only very specific situations, limits is applicability to just a few circumstances…
But the way Jesus reads this commandment and then applies it…
That hits all of us, except for a slim few…

Even the words we use, can kill…
Not literally, that goes without needing explanation
But our words can do violence to the spirit, the soul of a person
Angry words, Jesus says, are every bit as violent
And dangerous as fists and weapons…
And who among us can say we haven’t ever used angry, bitter, words…

I mention this because what the commandment, You shall not murder, is encouraging us to do is imagine a life where we are not governed, controlled or influenced by our fears.

The commandment not to murder/kill is a commandment to imagine a new way in the world free of fear.

Are we a people of fear?

I remember driving in my car, what is it, nine years ago now? After 9/11 and hearing a young woman on a talk radio station say that she was now so afraid of the violence in the world that she could not dream anymore of having children, because it would be cruel to bring them into such a violent world.


Do we live in fear? Walter Brueggeman once wrote

In these days, fear is deep and broad in the land and in the church. Fear does strange things to people. It makes us withdraw from our brothers and sisters and live in a crouch. It makes us attracted to a fetal position. It makes us say things and do things that do not honor us. It makes us hurt one another – all because we fear the world is falling apart…Thus, I must protect what little order I have, scramble to make more, and keep people from intruding on my order or my mystery of my goodies
'Peace' pg. 161 . . .

Fear, as Brueggeman says, is deep and broad…
It may not be as apparent as the fear we felt after 9/11
Fear can be a subtle thing…
Something that we carry with unknowingly
Fear we were taught by an abusive or uncaring parent
Fear we were taught by a family that would not speak of hurt or pain
Or a family that dealt with difference with angry words or sullen silences
Fear we were taught through the cruel words of others
Because we live or love ‘differently’
Or perhaps the way we look, not big or small enough
Not the right size or shape
Fear because a spouse was unfaithful
Fear because we grew up in poverty
The list of fears that we may carry is a long list
A list that perhaps we don’t even think of consciously
Just a few chapters in Exodus, before the gift of the commandments we hear a story of fear…

Ex 16:11-12

11 The LORD said to Moses, 12 "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, 'At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.'"
NIV

Ex 16:15-20

Moses said to them, "It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. 16 This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.'"

17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed.

19 Then Moses said to them, "No one is to keep any of it until morning."

20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

No wonder they were afraid…
For generations living as slaves…
Worked for hours we cannot perhaps imagine
Only fed enough for their subsistence
Enough to keep them working and little more…
No wonder they are afraid…
And this story shows that they carry this fear in them…
Fear does not leave because the geography changes…
And perhaps it is just a flight of fancy,
My imagination…
But I see them grasping for manna,
Fighting for manna
Clawing and pushing and shoving and even striking out
For manna,
But this is not too much too imagine is it…
Because we see fights for much less than manna every Christmas
Fights over toys and flatscreen TV’s
Fights, based on fear…
That our child may not know our love if we do not get the toy
Or that we may not know their love…


How would you make this commandment a positive?

As I was thinking about that question I remembered this from
Lk 21:12-19

12 "But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 This will result in your being witnesses to them. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 All men will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By standing firm you will gain life .

It is cynicism and fear that freezes life; it is faith that thaws it out, releases it, sets it free. Harry Emerson Fosdick

This commandment reminds us that we have said yes to life,
And the verses from Luke remind us that we have said yes to life
Free of fear…
Which doesn’t mean that we won’t feel fear
But we have said yes to not living in that fear…
Fear does not have to be the guiding factor of our lives
That which compels us…
That is what the commandment reminds us
You are free now, from being driven by fear

Very soon now we will begin to re-tell the story of Jesus arrest and torture at
The hands of the Romans
Fear will fill this story.
Jesus will pray in the garden that the cup (which means his suffering and his crucifixion) will pass from him… that he won’t have to suffer… he is afraid…
Up all night praying…
and who among us doesn’t know about sleepless nights…
The disciples who promised their love and loyalty will run in the shadows of the night… afraid…
The story of jesus arrest and crucifixion is the story of our fears…

But it is also the story of the one who would not be controlled by fear…
The story of the one who was life, according to the gospel of John
Who chose to trust in life instead of yielding to fear…

Who spent his whole life resisting fear
By calling the people that society feared to be his family he resisted fear
And created life
By speaking with Samaritan’s and women, he resisted fear
And created life
Feeding the hungry, healing the sick
He was resisting fear and creating life

And that end of that story is that not even the fear of death could hold him
We need not fear because Jesus entered our fears
Faced them for us
Lived through every one
These fears killed him
But they could not hold him in death
And on the third day he rose to new life…

That is the question you see
That this commandment You shall not Kill really drives us to ask ourselves
How am I creating life? How am I living in resurrection… offering resurrection
Hope for a new tomorrow, for myself and for others.

Because that is the invitation…
It began in Genesis when Adam was given the task of
Working and caring for the garden…
Serve and protect creation..
Join God and participate in the mystery of creating life
That was the invitation to Abraham
And the challenged to Moses
To follow God and find life
Lead the people into new life

And that invitation to serve and protect life
And so continue to participate in creation with God
That invitation still stands today…
You and I have received that invitation
We are the ones who inherited the stories of Jesus
That show us what true life is

This is where real peace-making begins
When we begin to see ourselves as inheritors of Jesus life
Entrusted with his life…

We shall go out with the hope of resurrection,
We shall go out, from strength to strength go on,
We shall go out and tell our stories boldly,
Tales of a love that will not let us go.
We’ll sing our song of wrongs that can be righted.
We’ll dream our dream of hurts that can be healed,
We’ll weave a cloth of all the world united
Within a vision of a Christ who sets us free.
We’ll give a voice to those who have not spoken,,
We’ll find the words for those whose lips are sealed
We’ll make the tunes for those who sing no longer,
Vibrating love alive in every heart.
We’ll share our joy with those who are still weeping,
Chant hymns of strength for hearts that break in grief,
We’ll leap and dance the resurrection story
Including all within the circles of our love.
June Boyce-Tillman, in Reflecting Praise