IN today’s scriptures, Paul continues to widen our concept of life in the spirit. Before, we are told that life in the Spirit of Life resides in us, and therefor we are no longer subject to Sin and Death. Paul’s concept of Sin is more about a dominating power in the world, not bad behavior. Paul speaking of life “in the flesh” is a metaphor for a life that is ignorant of our true life within God’s Kingdom, working to make that Kingdom more apparent to the world. This is life “in the Spirit.”
When we see a tree struggling to survive, leaning toward the sun, gnarled and weathered, it is possible for the eyes of faith to see nature leaning toward its redemption.
It is true of our present experience, that we can easily be overwhelmed by the frustrations of this imperfect moment. Struggling with indwelling sin and the sense of our separation from Christ, is part of a disciple's lot as we yearn for the dawning of the new age, for peace and joy. It may help us in our frustration, if we realize that the whole of the created order, the whole of the cosmos, is caught up in the devastation wrought by human rebellion and so groans, as we groan, for release, for freedom.
For the present, we hope for the dawning of eternity and we taste it in the gentle renewal of our beings through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Yet, in this present moment we are bound by the imperfection of this age. Perseverance must be our rule. It is God's will that we be "conformed to the likeness of his Son," and through his indwelling Spirit interacting with the troubles of life, be daily transformed into the image of Christ. We must be patient as we are daily shaped, never losing sight of the glory to come. We must fix our eyes upon it, such that the "now" is transformed by the "not yet."
Likewise in the parable, Jesus asks us to see beyond the small, insignificant seed to what it contains. The mustard seed—the smallest of seeds, contains something quite great. When I lived in California, one of my favorite places Lara and I visited was Sequoia National Park. When I was last there, I was walking in the midst of these gigantic trees, gawking at their sheer size and age. In the “Giant Forest” at 6000 feet in the southern range of the Sierra Nevadas, I was walking amidst trees that towered 250 feet over my head, that were as big around as half of this sanctuary. I can remember standing in the middle of a cluster of three of these glorious trees and looking up. The cinnamon red of the bark extending into the sky, seemingly holding up the sky—and then I looked down. At my feet was a tiny cone, closed tight to protect the seeds. There being no other species of trees around, I was left to ponder the seemingly ridiculous thought—does this massive tree come out of this tiny cone? I looked around and noticed the forest floor littered with the same cones. Is this possible? This cone was smaller than the pinecones you’d find in the Ouachitas being produced by much smaller trees. Yet it was true! The “now” was thoroughly transformed in that moment by the “not yet!”
Another “personal parable” given me by this natural sanctuary that seems to connect with today’s epistle lesson. These tiny cones that are closed so tightly---do you know what is required for them to burst open and release their seed? Fire! The existing tree’s foliage is so high that the flames rarely reach to ignite them, and the bark of the Sequoia is so thick that fire cannot pierce them. So that which we would assume detrimental to the forest is actually life giving. It is necessary! Paul writes that “the difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs!” Though it may be tempting for us to focus on the fire, though we may get caught up in the trials and tribulations of life—we are called to see beyond. To wait with joyful anticipation.
I can tell you that I’m glad I’ve never had to experience the excruciating pangs of labor. Though I sense that it is a very deepening experience, I don’t know that I’d be cut out for that sort of thing if I were a woman! For the life of me, I do not know how and why the concept that men are “tougher” than women ever made its way into the collective conscious of humanity. After watching my wife give birth back in March, it is a mystery to me! Perhaps we men have for ages told ourselves that we’re tougher to assuage the real fear and dread that we would ever be subject to such a throttling pain that we see women go through in birth! Paul does not discount the hardships of our present state—but he re-aligns the way we think about the difficulties of life and death and pain and suffering by pointing us beyond. The pain and heartache of today does not compare to the joy and glory of what’s to come! If we can only project our minds through the present moment to expose the utterly mind blowing liberation that we are leaning on! That doesn’t numb us to what is going on in the here and now—Paul’s intention is not to drug us up with some pie in the sky hope for the sweet hereafter. It instead give us a crystal clear vision of where we are now so that we can perceive the “not yet” within the now! It is as if we are Sequoia cones laying on the forest floor enduring the scorching heat of the fire. And instead of just laying there concentrating on what we are going through, God’s gift to us as little Sequoia cones is to have the ability to look up and see the towering canopies of our potential! We still burn and explode, but we do so with God’s vision for us planted deeply in our little Sequoia cone hearts!
Perhaps it is a comfort for us to know that we are not some suffering strangers in a cold, lifeless world. Paul tells us that all of creation groans for redemption. We are in the same boat with the entire created order. God plants in us a unique vision for the world, and creates in us as humans the unique ability to do something creative and intelligent about our predicament. And yet, we squander that ability when we use our power to destroy instead of create. Instead of inspiring others with God’s vision for the future—which we find in the Gospel—we are content to let the world groan. Instead of pointing beyond the birth pangs to the joyful expectancy of new birth, we keep silent, and thereby add to the lamentation. Why? It is easier to join in the chorus than it is to cut through the noise with a new song. It is easier to fall into line and bite our tongue when we see the oppressed, when we see war and injustice, when we see tears and sorrow. Getting involved in the labor is a messy ordeal.
Paul’s words of comfort are that our resurrection life is a life of joyful anticipation. Our resurrection life is the kind of life in which we see the mystery of the Divine as clearly and lovingly as we see a caring father. In the text, Paul refers to God as Jesus did throughout his ministry—as Abba. Not “Heavenly Father” or some other language to remove us from God, but instead the word is translated best as “Daddy, or Pappa.” When we live with such joyful anticipation as Paul was leading us toward, when we look at a Sequoia cone and can see the largest tree in the world, when we attune our ears to the groaning of creation for redemption, and are willing to live as children of God, that is when the veil between the Kingdom to come and the Kingdom in our midst is as thin as sheer lace.
To return to the Sequoia Forest analogy once more, one other amazing thing about the Sequoia trees is this. Not only do they spring from a tiny cone like this. Not only do they derive life from something we would assume would endanger it. Sequoia trees are also a model for the Kingdom of God because they work cooperatively to achieve their height and size. The Sequoias grow at about 6000 feet in the Sierra Nevadas, where the soil is a shallow 7 or 8 feet deep. Now if you took this Oak outside our church here, If you could yank it out of the ground without damaging the roots, you’d see that the roots go about as deep into the ground as the tree is tall. But the Sequoias live another way. Because the soil is not deep enough for the trees to sink roots deep enough to keep the tree standing, they instead send their roots out to the side and grasp the roots of other Sequoia trees. By the interlocking of roots, the forest begins to act as one large organism, and the trees are of mutual benefit to one another! Likewise, in the Kingdom life, we as aspects of God’s creation will begin to comprehend our interdependence with one another, and with all other aspects of God’s creation. In the Resurrection Life, in the Kingdom Life, there will be no fooling ourselves with lines of boundary between “us and them.” We will open our hearts and mind to the other just as we would to our friends and family. There will be no dichotomy between human creation and non-human creation, because we will see the entire Web of Creation as an interconnected, interdependent organism. No longer will we trample the roots that bind us together and keep us all standing tall and proud. Instead we will acknowledge these connections and nurture them. In doing so, we will magnify God’s name. As the Holy Spirit, the Holy Wind of God gives voice to the forest, as Isaiah writes “the trees clapping their hands” we, like a Sequoia forest whistling in the wind, will break out in a song completely guided by the Holy Breath of God. This is the New Song, borne of the groaning of Creation for redemption. This is the Song of the Gospel, and Christ is teaching us the tune.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Sunday, July 10, 2005
4th Sermon, July 10
Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23 and Romans 8: 1-11
Dirt. When it comes down to it, we’re made of dirt, and we’ll return to dirt. And in the meantime, we can help God’s kingdom depending on what kind of dirt we are. God’s vision for us is like a seed. God doesn’t make us do one thing or another, God simply plants a seed in us and waits for us to help bring that seed to fruition. What is this seed? In the book of Genesis at the creation story, God took that human made out of clay and dirt and blew into its nostrils the Breath of Life. The mud human was animated then with a soul, a spirit, and became an instrument of the Living God. The Breath of Life is another name for the Holy Spirit. So in a very real way, the seed that is sown is life itself.
Now hold on a minute preacher, you may say. Jesus tells us what the sower is sowing right there in the explanation to the parable--It says right there that the seeds represent the “Word of the Kingdom.” This is true—but I’d like to lift up something a little more basic today. What is that word carried on? What does it take to annunciate the Word of the Kingdom? When we are speaking, we move our breath out of our lungs and through our voice box, and then we shape it with our tongue and lips. We create a voice with the vital, life-giving Breath. In the same way, the Word of the Kingdom is carried on the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath or Life Breath. If you translate into Trinitarian doctrine, you wind up with the classical notion that the Creator creates with the Word and the Breath, because it takes the Breath to give the Word any life. What is the Word of the Kingdom? Well, John tells us that the Word of God is made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ; therefore, the Word of God must have something to do with what Jesus was saying. I don’t think it is one word, but it has a certain sound to it-- LIVE! LOVE! GIVE! MOVE! The Word of the Kingdom is the word of Life. It is that which makes our lives meaningful—it is a “living Word!”
We’re going to be hearing much about the Kingdom in the next few weeks as the lectionary takes us through the “Kingdom Parables” of Matthew’s gospel. In fact, if we had the church paraments, you’d see that the liturgical color right now is green. We call this season of the church calendar “Kingdomtide.” The green represents the living quality of the Church. As all around us is green and vibrant, the Church in God’s Kingdom is fresh and living.
Let me tell you something I believe about the Kingdom of God. It is not coming with signs that can be observed. No one will say, Look here it comes, or, oops there it goes. Instead, it is right here in our midst, and we must open our eyes to it! It is like a seed, and we’re like the soil. It can’t sprout without our nourishment, and we can’t sprout anything worthwhile without its presence. When the Kingdom does sprout in the rich soil of an open heart and mind, it produces quite a bumper crop!
Yes, the Spirit of Life pulls us towards life abundant. Notice the extravagance of the seed’s production in the parable. 60 fold, 30 fold, 100 fold! Our translation today simplified this to “beyond the gardener’s wildest dreams.” Can you imagine planting a tomato plant and it yielding 100 tomatoes?
This is the only part of the parable that might have upset the expectations of Jesus' original hearers, and we need to pay attention to it because the upsetting of expectations is what the parables are all about. As Jesus told them, they were not just charming little stories to illustrate a point. They were rhetorical tools he used, in the way a builder might use a wrecking ball or a bulldozer, to level his hearers' expectations and clear the ground for the new understanding he wanted to put in place.
A good example is the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector from the Gospel of Luke. When Jesus told his hearers that two men went up to the temple to pray and that one of them was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector, they knew from the beginning how the story was going to turn out. God didn't hear the prayers of sinners, they believed, which meant he definitely wasn't going to hear the prayer of this tax collector-they were no more popular then than they are now. But the tax collector prays a very unusual prayer. Unlike that of the Pharisee, his is simple and direct-a prayer in which he confesses his sins and asks forgiveness. In the end, says Jesus, it was the tax collector who went home justified and not the Pharisee.
Now, that would have come as a shock to people who assumed the Pharisees had God all figured out. Maybe he wasn't who they said he was after all. Maybe they would have to start thinking about him in a whole new way, which is precisely the point of the story! "Why do you speak in parables?" Jesus' disciples asked. "Because these people have become a bunch of religious know-it-alls," he answers. "They think they know everything about who God is and how he works. Their minds have become so clouded by their misperception that they can't perceive what's going on right in front of them. They have shut their eyes, stopped up their ears. I'm speaking in parables in an effort to break up the hard ground of their wrong-headed expectations, to loosen the soil for the seed of the Gospel. But you," he says, looking fondly at his disciples, "you didn't have any expectations in the first place. Your eyes and ears have been wide open to see and hear the wonderful works of God." In other words, the last people you would have expected to get it are the ones who get it-- Which says something about how we ought to go about our own ministry.
What is required for us to live as good soil? Jesus talks about two things, understanding and bearing fruit. If we don’t understand the Word right now, that doesn’t mean we should put ourselves in the “rocky path” column of seed habitat—let’s not forget about how many times the disciples of Jesus misunderstood him or just plain didn’t get it. Yet how many of us would call Peter or James or John anything but “fertile soil?” Jesus didn’t go to the philosophy schools to find disciples who could “understand” the secrets of the Kingdom. He went out to the pastures, out to the fishing villages. Understanding is not about finding some code or secret meaning of the Gospel: “Understanding” simply means recognizing the relationship we are being offered by God. This understanding is what happens when we let go of our incessant need to have God “all figured out.” God loves surprises after all—this is why the seed is sown all over the place. The gardener has no expectations about what will happen.
The epistle lesson this morning is about the same relationship. We are being asked to recognize our life as more than a life of the flesh—more than just our self-concerns. Our relationship with God is a chance to live “in the Spirit” and for the “Spirit of Christ” to live in us! It is not so much a relationship between “us and God,” it is more about claiming our identity. We are in the Spirit and the Spirit is in us! AS we recognize the reality of our place in the equation, it becomes harder to ignore our mission as Kingdom makers. It is harder because we realize that it is with us that God plans to build God’s kingdom, and it is with us that Christ seeks to minister to the world.
A mystic from the 14th century, St. Theresa of Avilla, said it best I think,
God has no hands but our hands to do his work today;
God has no feet but our feet to lead others in his way;
God has no voice but our voice to tell others how he died;
and, God has no help but our help to lead them to his side."
Life in the Spirit is a radical re-envisioning of life. It is living with the Kingdom as our primary focus. Life in the flesh is an ignorance of this real purpose of our lives. God has is here among us in the Holy Spirit—and God is actively, indiscriminately pouring the Holy Spirit into all of us just like the reckless sower in the parable tosses seeds in all directions, even on the stony path where no plant could sprout. God is seeking a good place for his Kingdom to take root, and he’s throwing seed in our direction!
Today I am incorporating a special celebration into this sermon. Our church symbol for the life in the Spirit is Baptism. Many of us have been baptized and are not physically able to remember it. I myself was baptized as an infant, and cannot remember the event. Though I do not cognitively remember my Baptism, my Soul remembers that Baptism—it is still wet from the Baptism if that Baptism is alive in my life. Some of you were no doubt baptized at a later date, and have both a cognitive and a spiritual awareness of that important celebration. Some of you have not been baptized, but nonetheless are on the path of the life of the Spirit. Today I call you to remember your baptism; by splashing some of this water in your direction-- some of the drops will hit you. As those drops of water hit you, let it be a refreshing of your memory. The waters represent the actual presence of the Holy Spirit. In the Bible, the Spirit is described as the “Wellsprings of Life,” as the “refreshing rain on the ground,” and at Jesus’ Baptism, we are told that the Spirit descended like a dove from the sky as the voice of God showered affection on his Son. You may envision the water drops as seeds that the Gardener is casting on your soil.
How does the Holy Spirit grow in your life? Do you feel that it has not taken deep root and instead has been scorched by the sun? Has the seed failed to grow in your life because you are overly concerned about the temporary things of your life and have these weeds choked out the flower that is God’s Word and Breath made manifest in you? We are baptized into the life of the Spirit of God! A life lived in the awareness of this relationship is fertile ground for the seed of God’s purpose for our lives. That seed is the waters of our Baptism. If you have not been baptized, then you should picture that seed as God’s grace and love that has been pouring into creation since the beginning of time. The baptism is a symbol of that.
God does in us with the Holy Spirit what we could have least expected. The fruit that we bear when we are fertile soil gives life to new seeds, new opportunities for the seed the Kingdom to take root in new places. Let us prepare our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit! Let us walk in the life of God! Let us nurture the roots of God’s kingdom in our lives!
Dirt. When it comes down to it, we’re made of dirt, and we’ll return to dirt. And in the meantime, we can help God’s kingdom depending on what kind of dirt we are. God’s vision for us is like a seed. God doesn’t make us do one thing or another, God simply plants a seed in us and waits for us to help bring that seed to fruition. What is this seed? In the book of Genesis at the creation story, God took that human made out of clay and dirt and blew into its nostrils the Breath of Life. The mud human was animated then with a soul, a spirit, and became an instrument of the Living God. The Breath of Life is another name for the Holy Spirit. So in a very real way, the seed that is sown is life itself.
Now hold on a minute preacher, you may say. Jesus tells us what the sower is sowing right there in the explanation to the parable--It says right there that the seeds represent the “Word of the Kingdom.” This is true—but I’d like to lift up something a little more basic today. What is that word carried on? What does it take to annunciate the Word of the Kingdom? When we are speaking, we move our breath out of our lungs and through our voice box, and then we shape it with our tongue and lips. We create a voice with the vital, life-giving Breath. In the same way, the Word of the Kingdom is carried on the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath or Life Breath. If you translate into Trinitarian doctrine, you wind up with the classical notion that the Creator creates with the Word and the Breath, because it takes the Breath to give the Word any life. What is the Word of the Kingdom? Well, John tells us that the Word of God is made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ; therefore, the Word of God must have something to do with what Jesus was saying. I don’t think it is one word, but it has a certain sound to it-- LIVE! LOVE! GIVE! MOVE! The Word of the Kingdom is the word of Life. It is that which makes our lives meaningful—it is a “living Word!”
We’re going to be hearing much about the Kingdom in the next few weeks as the lectionary takes us through the “Kingdom Parables” of Matthew’s gospel. In fact, if we had the church paraments, you’d see that the liturgical color right now is green. We call this season of the church calendar “Kingdomtide.” The green represents the living quality of the Church. As all around us is green and vibrant, the Church in God’s Kingdom is fresh and living.
Let me tell you something I believe about the Kingdom of God. It is not coming with signs that can be observed. No one will say, Look here it comes, or, oops there it goes. Instead, it is right here in our midst, and we must open our eyes to it! It is like a seed, and we’re like the soil. It can’t sprout without our nourishment, and we can’t sprout anything worthwhile without its presence. When the Kingdom does sprout in the rich soil of an open heart and mind, it produces quite a bumper crop!
Yes, the Spirit of Life pulls us towards life abundant. Notice the extravagance of the seed’s production in the parable. 60 fold, 30 fold, 100 fold! Our translation today simplified this to “beyond the gardener’s wildest dreams.” Can you imagine planting a tomato plant and it yielding 100 tomatoes?
This is the only part of the parable that might have upset the expectations of Jesus' original hearers, and we need to pay attention to it because the upsetting of expectations is what the parables are all about. As Jesus told them, they were not just charming little stories to illustrate a point. They were rhetorical tools he used, in the way a builder might use a wrecking ball or a bulldozer, to level his hearers' expectations and clear the ground for the new understanding he wanted to put in place.
A good example is the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector from the Gospel of Luke. When Jesus told his hearers that two men went up to the temple to pray and that one of them was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector, they knew from the beginning how the story was going to turn out. God didn't hear the prayers of sinners, they believed, which meant he definitely wasn't going to hear the prayer of this tax collector-they were no more popular then than they are now. But the tax collector prays a very unusual prayer. Unlike that of the Pharisee, his is simple and direct-a prayer in which he confesses his sins and asks forgiveness. In the end, says Jesus, it was the tax collector who went home justified and not the Pharisee.
Now, that would have come as a shock to people who assumed the Pharisees had God all figured out. Maybe he wasn't who they said he was after all. Maybe they would have to start thinking about him in a whole new way, which is precisely the point of the story! "Why do you speak in parables?" Jesus' disciples asked. "Because these people have become a bunch of religious know-it-alls," he answers. "They think they know everything about who God is and how he works. Their minds have become so clouded by their misperception that they can't perceive what's going on right in front of them. They have shut their eyes, stopped up their ears. I'm speaking in parables in an effort to break up the hard ground of their wrong-headed expectations, to loosen the soil for the seed of the Gospel. But you," he says, looking fondly at his disciples, "you didn't have any expectations in the first place. Your eyes and ears have been wide open to see and hear the wonderful works of God." In other words, the last people you would have expected to get it are the ones who get it-- Which says something about how we ought to go about our own ministry.
What is required for us to live as good soil? Jesus talks about two things, understanding and bearing fruit. If we don’t understand the Word right now, that doesn’t mean we should put ourselves in the “rocky path” column of seed habitat—let’s not forget about how many times the disciples of Jesus misunderstood him or just plain didn’t get it. Yet how many of us would call Peter or James or John anything but “fertile soil?” Jesus didn’t go to the philosophy schools to find disciples who could “understand” the secrets of the Kingdom. He went out to the pastures, out to the fishing villages. Understanding is not about finding some code or secret meaning of the Gospel: “Understanding” simply means recognizing the relationship we are being offered by God. This understanding is what happens when we let go of our incessant need to have God “all figured out.” God loves surprises after all—this is why the seed is sown all over the place. The gardener has no expectations about what will happen.
The epistle lesson this morning is about the same relationship. We are being asked to recognize our life as more than a life of the flesh—more than just our self-concerns. Our relationship with God is a chance to live “in the Spirit” and for the “Spirit of Christ” to live in us! It is not so much a relationship between “us and God,” it is more about claiming our identity. We are in the Spirit and the Spirit is in us! AS we recognize the reality of our place in the equation, it becomes harder to ignore our mission as Kingdom makers. It is harder because we realize that it is with us that God plans to build God’s kingdom, and it is with us that Christ seeks to minister to the world.
A mystic from the 14th century, St. Theresa of Avilla, said it best I think,
God has no hands but our hands to do his work today;
God has no feet but our feet to lead others in his way;
God has no voice but our voice to tell others how he died;
and, God has no help but our help to lead them to his side."
Life in the Spirit is a radical re-envisioning of life. It is living with the Kingdom as our primary focus. Life in the flesh is an ignorance of this real purpose of our lives. God has is here among us in the Holy Spirit—and God is actively, indiscriminately pouring the Holy Spirit into all of us just like the reckless sower in the parable tosses seeds in all directions, even on the stony path where no plant could sprout. God is seeking a good place for his Kingdom to take root, and he’s throwing seed in our direction!
Today I am incorporating a special celebration into this sermon. Our church symbol for the life in the Spirit is Baptism. Many of us have been baptized and are not physically able to remember it. I myself was baptized as an infant, and cannot remember the event. Though I do not cognitively remember my Baptism, my Soul remembers that Baptism—it is still wet from the Baptism if that Baptism is alive in my life. Some of you were no doubt baptized at a later date, and have both a cognitive and a spiritual awareness of that important celebration. Some of you have not been baptized, but nonetheless are on the path of the life of the Spirit. Today I call you to remember your baptism; by splashing some of this water in your direction-- some of the drops will hit you. As those drops of water hit you, let it be a refreshing of your memory. The waters represent the actual presence of the Holy Spirit. In the Bible, the Spirit is described as the “Wellsprings of Life,” as the “refreshing rain on the ground,” and at Jesus’ Baptism, we are told that the Spirit descended like a dove from the sky as the voice of God showered affection on his Son. You may envision the water drops as seeds that the Gardener is casting on your soil.
How does the Holy Spirit grow in your life? Do you feel that it has not taken deep root and instead has been scorched by the sun? Has the seed failed to grow in your life because you are overly concerned about the temporary things of your life and have these weeds choked out the flower that is God’s Word and Breath made manifest in you? We are baptized into the life of the Spirit of God! A life lived in the awareness of this relationship is fertile ground for the seed of God’s purpose for our lives. That seed is the waters of our Baptism. If you have not been baptized, then you should picture that seed as God’s grace and love that has been pouring into creation since the beginning of time. The baptism is a symbol of that.
God does in us with the Holy Spirit what we could have least expected. The fruit that we bear when we are fertile soil gives life to new seeds, new opportunities for the seed the Kingdom to take root in new places. Let us prepare our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit! Let us walk in the life of God! Let us nurture the roots of God’s kingdom in our lives!
3rd Sermon (1st Communion sunday) July 3
Matthew 11:25-30
25 At that time Jesus said, "I thank F85 you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. F86 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
From the moment of birth and through our young childhood, we are in a right relationship with God without doing a thing about it. Christ says in the 25th verse of this selection “I thank you father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” Jesus once again flips our preconceptions about what it takes to be a follower of him.
Jesus is constantly praising the spiritual wakefulness of children. A popular image of Jesus is that of him sitting on a stone, or in the grass with children in his lap, smiling, gazing, sharing with them the secrets of God, which they seem to already grasp. Jesus commends children as the bearers of the kingdom of God. If you want to make Jesus indignant, one of the few things you can do is to keep the children at arms length, like his disciples try to do in Mark 10. He tells them, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” Sometimes it seems Jesus has more in common with the children than with his “grown up” disciples. Take for instance the boy who volunteers his 5 loaves and 2 fishes to feed the thousands of people who have come to hear Jesus. I can just picture the insider’s wink Jesus shared with the boy who gave the fish and bread despite the disbelief and worry-some demeanor of Jesus’ disciples.
In Mark 10, Jesus says to his disciples when children are being brought to him to bless, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” What is it that the children GET that grown people just don’t get? How do they know how to enter into the kingdom and we don’t? I think the answer is communicated in the same passage, which is unique to Matthew. “Come to me all that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Children understand that our burden is light—they have not yet succumbed to the heavy burdens that we put on ourselves as we grow older. We are a race of self inflicted beasts of burden. When we are children, we have not yet been yoked to our future drivers. Children are just naïve, we say to ourselves. As they grow older, they begin to care about what kind of shoes they are wearing and who gets picked first and last to play this or that game. Soon these concerns mutate into what kind of car they are driving and how “cool” their friends are. Then as we become adults, we begin to be concerned about how our salaries compare to others, and who has the largest house in the best parts of town, and how well we can “provide” for our families. In our adult years, we have heavy burdens because though it is our soul’s disposition to travel toward God, our minds and bodies are yoked to burdens which pull us in the opposite direction.
Many of us are yoked to the burdens of materialism, self-centeredness, laziness, and prejudice. What is your load? Christ’s call to us is to come to him, and he will give us rest. Christ wants us to come to him so he can show us that we are gripping the reigns and pulling these burdens purely of our own volition—of our own free will. When we turn around and examine our load—we expect to see someone at the top of our heap of troubles cracking the whip. Who is cracking the whip for your load? When we look in our own hands, we see the whip. We are prodding ourselves along imagining there is someone else driving us, someone else at fault, but it is just a figment of our poor, tired imaginations. When we have this heavy burden, our master is self-gratification. Yes, children are naïve to this master—and Jesus is naïve too. Webster defines naïve by saying that it “implies a genuine, innocent simplicity or lack of artificiality but sometimes connotes an almost foolish lack of worldly wisdom. This is what makes children and Jesus so beautiful. If “worldly wisdom” is wrapped up in “self-gratification,” I think it is safe to say that the Kingdom of God is closely affiliated with naivety.
When I envisioned Jesus speaking about this yoke and lightness of burden, I saw myself at the beach. When I have before gone to the beach, there is something I first always do. I go out into the ocean, about waist high, and I lay back on my back. I let my feet drift up until I am entirely supported by the salty water. It is if in the lapping of the waves, the ocean is speaking to me. It says, I who span the globe, support all the life in my bosom, the largest life on earth, not to mention all man-made vessels, continents, I who give and sustain life through the cycles of precipitation, evaporation, condensation,again and again and again. The Ocean says, All that begins in me ends in me, I who have been here before people, animals, plants, land, day, night, time. I who have been and who will always be, I who have the power to nourish you and cool you, I also have the power to destroy you, Yet….I have the strength to support you as well. Lay there, do not fight my support, If you do, you will sink. I am so large I can keep you and all you carry. In my domain the things you carry become lighter. They become……weightless. I believe that the ocean represents the Christ quite well. Christ wants us to experience the weightless support of his awesome power and love. I see this ocean of Christ the same way as I see Jesus wrapping his arms around children who are brought to him, as is told in the Gospels. ~Sundar Singh, an Indian itinerant preacher and holy man in the early 20th century said. “In comparison with this big world, the human heart is only a small thing. Though the world is so large, it is utterly unable to satisfy this tiny heart. The ever growing soul and its capacity can be satisfied only in the infinite God. As water is restless until it reaches its level, so the soul has not peace until it rests in God.” Though our minds may “grow up” and become accustomed to and satisfied by the ways of the world, our hearts and souls remain children. As the children long to sit in the lap of Jesus of Nazareth, our souls long to be in communion with the Christ.
Jesus the man carried tremendous burdens—oppression from Rome, mistrust and disbelief among his own people, homelessness, family fracturing. Jesus carried many of the same burdens we do, but there is one burden he carried that we do not carry. He carried the weight of all the sin of all humankind from beginning to end. He was yoked to humanity. There has never been a heavier burden….yet in this passage he tells us that “his yoke is easy, and his burden light” //////////What gives??????????????////
When we give up our burdens, the weighty burdens of pride, self-centeredness, materialism, and prejudice—those things that pull us away from our destination --When we go down into the water for refreshment--When we trust God’s hand to hold us up as we trust the water’s density to keep us afloat, this is when we hear our intended burden. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” Christ asks us to walk out of the water. We are to be those who help other people carry their burdens to the beach. We are to find those miles away from the beach. We are called to encourage them, to assist them, and to offer them backs to carry their labors. Better yet, we are to help them realize that the only master they are pulling for is self-gratification, and they can put down their load. When we leave the water to go back out into the world, we are indeed carrying a new burden, but this is why Jesus, with the heaviest burden of all exclaims that it is light and easy. Because when we leave the water in search for those who are weary, we are propelled by God. Now we have a purpose to our burden we carry, and this burden is weightless.
I’ve heard a Rabbinical saying, "My burden has become my song." It is not that the burden is easy to carry; but it is laid on us in love; it is meant to be carried in love; and love makes even the heaviest burden light. When we remember the love of God, when we know that our burden is to love God and to love creation, then the burden becomes a song. There is an old story which tells how a man came upon a little boy carrying a still smaller boy, who was lame, upon his back. "That's a heavy burden for you to carry," said the man. "That's no burden," came the answer. "That's my wee brother." The burden which is given in love and carried in love is always light.
Is a full heart heavy or light? /////// When we take up the yoke of the Savior, our hearts are full, and I believe this lightens the weight of what we must do in the world. I think Jesus describes his yoke as easy and his burden as light not because they are free of challenge, but because they generate justice and cultivate community. A yoke, after all, is still a yoke, and a burden, however light, is still a burden. The followers of Jesus are called to carry a load that makes life better, that heals brokenness and restores relationship. The yoke we are asked to put around our necks is a yoke of forgiveness, of grace and of mercy. Sometimes forgiving someone isn’t easy, but it does ease the weight of anger, and it does ease the pain of brokenness. The burden we are asked to carry is the burden of justice-building and peace-forging. I wouldn’t call working for peace and justice a light burden, but it does lighten the weight of oppression and violence on the backs of the marginalized and victimized.
Jesus calls us to practice disciplines of joy – to take seriously the regular discipline of generating the deep joy that comes from knowing God and from struggling along God’s side for justice. Taking up this burden is a joy for those of us who know and experience God’s love. Wearing this yoke is a joy for those of us who believe in a just God, whose main desire is for us all to live together in peaceful community. As Christians, our call is to be vigorous in our happiness, relentless in our pleasure. And to model for others, through our own unending love for each other, the love of God found in Jesus Christ. The easy yoke around our neck is joy. The light burden we carry is love. If we are like children, we will remember that these things come naturally to us. Young children don’t see rich or poor, black or white, intelligent or dull—they see people. Children have to be taught to distinguish these things. It is in this teaching that we are yoked to the burdens of the world.
I call you today to do the hardest thing in the world to do. It is the hardest thing for us to accept because we have built our identity around the worldly burden we carry. We do not see that we are our own driver. We think we are working in the grand design---((((Ironicly))))) God means for us to worry about money, how we appear to others, or whom we associate with. We convince ourselves of this despite Jesus recognizing these flaws, and telling us point blank—do not worry about what you will wear or who will feed you, look at the flowers in the field, they do not tarry with such things, and the Lord provides for them. The Christ is in perfect company with children and flowers, but he wants us to be with him too, he wants us to take his mission, to find those who need fulfillment and rest and to point them to the beach. He wants us first to do the hardest thing in our lives to do, put down our worldly yokes. We will not disappear when we stop wasting our time with such things, we will finally appear. We will finally be real, we will be empowered, as promised in the New Testament, and we will be propelled by the Holy Spirit to show others to the Grand Cosmic Ocean of God, who has enough strength to carry us all.
Today we celebrate the communion—a holy meal that gives us a tangible expression of this burden we are to carry. As you approach the chancel today to take communion, if you feel led to do so, I invite you to write a burden that you feel encumbered by on the slips of paper I have laid out on the pews. As you kneel to receive communion, leave that slip of paper on the chancel, and open your hands to take instead the burden of joy—which is symbolized by the communion elements. Take your time at the chancel—this is the central ritual of our church. Pray for God’s grace to help you put down that heavy burden in your life and instead shoulder the joyfully light burden of kingdom making. I pray that God gives you a sense of lightness in the feet as you return to your pew.
25 At that time Jesus said, "I thank F85 you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. F86 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
From the moment of birth and through our young childhood, we are in a right relationship with God without doing a thing about it. Christ says in the 25th verse of this selection “I thank you father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” Jesus once again flips our preconceptions about what it takes to be a follower of him.
Jesus is constantly praising the spiritual wakefulness of children. A popular image of Jesus is that of him sitting on a stone, or in the grass with children in his lap, smiling, gazing, sharing with them the secrets of God, which they seem to already grasp. Jesus commends children as the bearers of the kingdom of God. If you want to make Jesus indignant, one of the few things you can do is to keep the children at arms length, like his disciples try to do in Mark 10. He tells them, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” Sometimes it seems Jesus has more in common with the children than with his “grown up” disciples. Take for instance the boy who volunteers his 5 loaves and 2 fishes to feed the thousands of people who have come to hear Jesus. I can just picture the insider’s wink Jesus shared with the boy who gave the fish and bread despite the disbelief and worry-some demeanor of Jesus’ disciples.
In Mark 10, Jesus says to his disciples when children are being brought to him to bless, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” What is it that the children GET that grown people just don’t get? How do they know how to enter into the kingdom and we don’t? I think the answer is communicated in the same passage, which is unique to Matthew. “Come to me all that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Children understand that our burden is light—they have not yet succumbed to the heavy burdens that we put on ourselves as we grow older. We are a race of self inflicted beasts of burden. When we are children, we have not yet been yoked to our future drivers. Children are just naïve, we say to ourselves. As they grow older, they begin to care about what kind of shoes they are wearing and who gets picked first and last to play this or that game. Soon these concerns mutate into what kind of car they are driving and how “cool” their friends are. Then as we become adults, we begin to be concerned about how our salaries compare to others, and who has the largest house in the best parts of town, and how well we can “provide” for our families. In our adult years, we have heavy burdens because though it is our soul’s disposition to travel toward God, our minds and bodies are yoked to burdens which pull us in the opposite direction.
Many of us are yoked to the burdens of materialism, self-centeredness, laziness, and prejudice. What is your load? Christ’s call to us is to come to him, and he will give us rest. Christ wants us to come to him so he can show us that we are gripping the reigns and pulling these burdens purely of our own volition—of our own free will. When we turn around and examine our load—we expect to see someone at the top of our heap of troubles cracking the whip. Who is cracking the whip for your load? When we look in our own hands, we see the whip. We are prodding ourselves along imagining there is someone else driving us, someone else at fault, but it is just a figment of our poor, tired imaginations. When we have this heavy burden, our master is self-gratification. Yes, children are naïve to this master—and Jesus is naïve too. Webster defines naïve by saying that it “implies a genuine, innocent simplicity or lack of artificiality but sometimes connotes an almost foolish lack of worldly wisdom. This is what makes children and Jesus so beautiful. If “worldly wisdom” is wrapped up in “self-gratification,” I think it is safe to say that the Kingdom of God is closely affiliated with naivety.
When I envisioned Jesus speaking about this yoke and lightness of burden, I saw myself at the beach. When I have before gone to the beach, there is something I first always do. I go out into the ocean, about waist high, and I lay back on my back. I let my feet drift up until I am entirely supported by the salty water. It is if in the lapping of the waves, the ocean is speaking to me. It says, I who span the globe, support all the life in my bosom, the largest life on earth, not to mention all man-made vessels, continents, I who give and sustain life through the cycles of precipitation, evaporation, condensation,again and again and again. The Ocean says, All that begins in me ends in me, I who have been here before people, animals, plants, land, day, night, time. I who have been and who will always be, I who have the power to nourish you and cool you, I also have the power to destroy you, Yet….I have the strength to support you as well. Lay there, do not fight my support, If you do, you will sink. I am so large I can keep you and all you carry. In my domain the things you carry become lighter. They become……weightless. I believe that the ocean represents the Christ quite well. Christ wants us to experience the weightless support of his awesome power and love. I see this ocean of Christ the same way as I see Jesus wrapping his arms around children who are brought to him, as is told in the Gospels. ~Sundar Singh, an Indian itinerant preacher and holy man in the early 20th century said. “In comparison with this big world, the human heart is only a small thing. Though the world is so large, it is utterly unable to satisfy this tiny heart. The ever growing soul and its capacity can be satisfied only in the infinite God. As water is restless until it reaches its level, so the soul has not peace until it rests in God.” Though our minds may “grow up” and become accustomed to and satisfied by the ways of the world, our hearts and souls remain children. As the children long to sit in the lap of Jesus of Nazareth, our souls long to be in communion with the Christ.
Jesus the man carried tremendous burdens—oppression from Rome, mistrust and disbelief among his own people, homelessness, family fracturing. Jesus carried many of the same burdens we do, but there is one burden he carried that we do not carry. He carried the weight of all the sin of all humankind from beginning to end. He was yoked to humanity. There has never been a heavier burden….yet in this passage he tells us that “his yoke is easy, and his burden light” //////////What gives??????????????////
When we give up our burdens, the weighty burdens of pride, self-centeredness, materialism, and prejudice—those things that pull us away from our destination --When we go down into the water for refreshment--When we trust God’s hand to hold us up as we trust the water’s density to keep us afloat, this is when we hear our intended burden. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” Christ asks us to walk out of the water. We are to be those who help other people carry their burdens to the beach. We are to find those miles away from the beach. We are called to encourage them, to assist them, and to offer them backs to carry their labors. Better yet, we are to help them realize that the only master they are pulling for is self-gratification, and they can put down their load. When we leave the water to go back out into the world, we are indeed carrying a new burden, but this is why Jesus, with the heaviest burden of all exclaims that it is light and easy. Because when we leave the water in search for those who are weary, we are propelled by God. Now we have a purpose to our burden we carry, and this burden is weightless.
I’ve heard a Rabbinical saying, "My burden has become my song." It is not that the burden is easy to carry; but it is laid on us in love; it is meant to be carried in love; and love makes even the heaviest burden light. When we remember the love of God, when we know that our burden is to love God and to love creation, then the burden becomes a song. There is an old story which tells how a man came upon a little boy carrying a still smaller boy, who was lame, upon his back. "That's a heavy burden for you to carry," said the man. "That's no burden," came the answer. "That's my wee brother." The burden which is given in love and carried in love is always light.
Is a full heart heavy or light? /////// When we take up the yoke of the Savior, our hearts are full, and I believe this lightens the weight of what we must do in the world. I think Jesus describes his yoke as easy and his burden as light not because they are free of challenge, but because they generate justice and cultivate community. A yoke, after all, is still a yoke, and a burden, however light, is still a burden. The followers of Jesus are called to carry a load that makes life better, that heals brokenness and restores relationship. The yoke we are asked to put around our necks is a yoke of forgiveness, of grace and of mercy. Sometimes forgiving someone isn’t easy, but it does ease the weight of anger, and it does ease the pain of brokenness. The burden we are asked to carry is the burden of justice-building and peace-forging. I wouldn’t call working for peace and justice a light burden, but it does lighten the weight of oppression and violence on the backs of the marginalized and victimized.
Jesus calls us to practice disciplines of joy – to take seriously the regular discipline of generating the deep joy that comes from knowing God and from struggling along God’s side for justice. Taking up this burden is a joy for those of us who know and experience God’s love. Wearing this yoke is a joy for those of us who believe in a just God, whose main desire is for us all to live together in peaceful community. As Christians, our call is to be vigorous in our happiness, relentless in our pleasure. And to model for others, through our own unending love for each other, the love of God found in Jesus Christ. The easy yoke around our neck is joy. The light burden we carry is love. If we are like children, we will remember that these things come naturally to us. Young children don’t see rich or poor, black or white, intelligent or dull—they see people. Children have to be taught to distinguish these things. It is in this teaching that we are yoked to the burdens of the world.
I call you today to do the hardest thing in the world to do. It is the hardest thing for us to accept because we have built our identity around the worldly burden we carry. We do not see that we are our own driver. We think we are working in the grand design---((((Ironicly))))) God means for us to worry about money, how we appear to others, or whom we associate with. We convince ourselves of this despite Jesus recognizing these flaws, and telling us point blank—do not worry about what you will wear or who will feed you, look at the flowers in the field, they do not tarry with such things, and the Lord provides for them. The Christ is in perfect company with children and flowers, but he wants us to be with him too, he wants us to take his mission, to find those who need fulfillment and rest and to point them to the beach. He wants us first to do the hardest thing in our lives to do, put down our worldly yokes. We will not disappear when we stop wasting our time with such things, we will finally appear. We will finally be real, we will be empowered, as promised in the New Testament, and we will be propelled by the Holy Spirit to show others to the Grand Cosmic Ocean of God, who has enough strength to carry us all.
Today we celebrate the communion—a holy meal that gives us a tangible expression of this burden we are to carry. As you approach the chancel today to take communion, if you feel led to do so, I invite you to write a burden that you feel encumbered by on the slips of paper I have laid out on the pews. As you kneel to receive communion, leave that slip of paper on the chancel, and open your hands to take instead the burden of joy—which is symbolized by the communion elements. Take your time at the chancel—this is the central ritual of our church. Pray for God’s grace to help you put down that heavy burden in your life and instead shoulder the joyfully light burden of kingdom making. I pray that God gives you a sense of lightness in the feet as you return to your pew.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Diary of a Country Priest
Well, I won't even attempt to unload everything that has happened in the past month. We just got high speed internet at our new home in Arkansas, and blogging has been kind of low on the totem pole as I have been getting used to a new town and a new job. I don't think I've managed to steer the ship too far off course--I've made some changes in the worship service, including a children's sermon that I have found no objections to. However, I've been told that the small changes that I have put into place have caused some unrest. Oh well.
The inevitable culture shock hasn't set in yet...Probably because we've been busy here at the house getting everything in place. Our cats seem to like all the space, and as I write this, Sid is behind me rolling around on the floor as if there were a patch of catnip growing there.
My sermons have seemed to be sufficient, and attendance has increased from my first to second Sunday. We also have a group of girls that have joined us from a nearby correctional facility work camp type of thing. It is great to have them in the service--they all sit together in their bright orange shirts. It is a great opportunity for my congregation to get to know them and minister to them and with them. We had an ice cream social the afternoon after this past Sunday service, and the girls apparently were excited about it when we made the announcement and asked their chaperones if they could come back, so they did. When a church member suggested they go first in the line, one of the girls looked astounded and said "Us?!" IT was genuinely heartbreaking, and evocative of "the last shall be first."
Well, that's enough for now, I'll delve more into this later. Also good news about our church food pantry--Maybe I can take a picture and have it available to post next time with a story.
IN case you'd like to read my first and second sermons, I'll post them too
The inevitable culture shock hasn't set in yet...Probably because we've been busy here at the house getting everything in place. Our cats seem to like all the space, and as I write this, Sid is behind me rolling around on the floor as if there were a patch of catnip growing there.
My sermons have seemed to be sufficient, and attendance has increased from my first to second Sunday. We also have a group of girls that have joined us from a nearby correctional facility work camp type of thing. It is great to have them in the service--they all sit together in their bright orange shirts. It is a great opportunity for my congregation to get to know them and minister to them and with them. We had an ice cream social the afternoon after this past Sunday service, and the girls apparently were excited about it when we made the announcement and asked their chaperones if they could come back, so they did. When a church member suggested they go first in the line, one of the girls looked astounded and said "Us?!" IT was genuinely heartbreaking, and evocative of "the last shall be first."
Well, that's enough for now, I'll delve more into this later. Also good news about our church food pantry--Maybe I can take a picture and have it available to post next time with a story.
IN case you'd like to read my first and second sermons, I'll post them too
Waldron Second Sermon
In case you want to know the texts, I preach from the lectionary. This one is Matthew 10: 40-42, the other one is Matthew 10: 1-8 I think. I'm tired
During the past couple weeks, Lara and I have been encountered numerous times with hospitality. Our refrigerator was stocked with some delicious food when we arrived at the parsonage, someone dropped by a flower arrangement for our dining room table, our yard was mowed for us while I was gone to annual conference, a welcome mat was placed on our doorstep, a churchmember babysat our nephew while the movers came to unload our stuff from the truck…the list goes on and on. What a blessing it is to be made to feel so welcome!
As I shook each of your hands and met you all this past Sunday, I experienced the “open hearts and minds” that also contribute to my sense of the great hospitality of this church. I thank God that I was appointed to a body of believers who are so adept at showing hospitality to their new pastor, and I encourage us all to direct the same outpouring of welcome into our community.
Read green highlighted #1
Hospitality is a time honored expression of our religion, and is written about fairly extensively in our Holy Scriptures. In the stories of our patriarchs and matriarchs, in the prophets, in the books of poetry and wisdom, in the Gospels, and letters, hospitality is celebrated as an activity worthy of God’s name.
In this passage, Jesus tells his disciples, “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
Now in this day and age, many of us probably take cold water for granted most of the time. All I have to do to get a cold cup of water is to walk to my fridge and push a cup into the water spout on the door. I don’t even have to open the fridge! Furthermore, my house and workplace are so cool that I rarely feel the dry, cracking sensation in the back of my throat. If we transport our imaginations to the arid hills of Palestine though, we might be able to get a handle on how precious this gift potentially is. It is not a ladle of water, it is not tepid water, it is a glass of cold water! And to a “little one” no less! The high regard that this expression of hospitality conveys echoes very well the love and refreshment that God has in store for us!
What is this reward that Jesus is speaking about? In the Genesis reading, we heard about Abraham and Sarah hosting the 3 strangers, who turn out to be either angels of God, or an expression of the Trinity. Shortly after the three show up on Abraham’s doorstep, he is anxiously running around preparing a meal for them. After the hospitality was shown, the guests reveal an intended surprise—Sarah, even in her old age, will soon give birth to a son.
What a reward! Sarah responds as many of us would—she breaks out into a fit of laughter. Though the visitors don’t quite know why she’s laughing—we all do. Sarah is in her 90s or so, quite beyond childbearing years. This reward sounds pretty odd—it is not exactly something the two are expecting. In fact, it reorients their plans quite a bit—perhaps a bit of a white elephant. How many 90 year old couples are prepared to have a child after all! The reward is that God will use these two according two in the way that God has in mind. The hospitality shown by Abraham and Sarah proved to God that they are willing to act in a selfless way. Though the reward of a son will be a great joy to the two, the real reward is the opportunity to be utilized by God!
It has been my experience that hospitality is not just “open doors,” (to borrow 1/3 or our United Methodist motto). It also involves “open hearts” and “open minds” as well. To be sufficient catalysts for God’s energy, we must be completely at the will of our master, through our actions, through our thoughts, and through our emotions.
Another instance of hospitality occurs on the road to Emmaus in Luke’s Gospel. Two disciples are walking along a road after Jesus has died, and a fellow traveler joins them for a while, and joins in their conversation. They tell this fellow traveler about their master, and what he had meant to them. When they arrived at their destination, the traveler bids them farewell, but they invite him into their home. As they sit down to eat together, after the whole day of carrying on vigorous converstion with one another, they recognize the man as Jesus. What a reward! The scriptures say that Jesus was known to them “in the breaking of the bread—their eyes were opened—and then the man disappeared from their sight.
The two said to one another, “Wasn’t it like a fire burning in us when he talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?”
Whoever gives a cup of cold water will not lose their reward! As the three sat down with one another, the two disciples had open hearts and open minds toward their guest. They had shared in conversation those things that were most important to them, and the master rewarded them by opening their eyes.
………..Here read highlighted #2…………..
Creating peace on earth is a task that we commit ourselves to, but rarely know what to do to have any real impact in this regard. Here is something we can do—showing hospitality in this way, we create peace in our small corner of the world. This contributes to the overall achievement of peace in the whole world. What a reward for the people of God!
In what ways are we welcoming our fellow travelers on the journey of faith into this house? How are we bringing the peace and fellowship of hospitality to this community? I can assure you that in the short time that I’ve been here, I have noticed our open doors. We welcome all sorts of community groups into this beautiful facility next door that we built for that specific purpose. This is truly a cold glass of water for our community! We have extended invitations to youth groups from other churches to utilize our basement with its pool table, air hockey, and phooseball. What a cold glass of water for our community! Through our food pantry, we have helped provide for around 15 people in the week that I’ve been in the office. What a cold glass of water for our community! (by the way, This cold glass of water that needs to be refilled!!!) We have welcomed neighborhood youth onto our parking lot for a game of basketball. What a cold glass of water for our community! We are planning a Vacation Bible School that will be open to our entire community, whether or not the kid’s parents want to join the church. Now, when it comes to our worship of the most high---how can we better offer a refreshing glass of water to this community? Are we friendly and inviting to visitors that come through these doors? Are we flexible in our worship culture and social customs that are particular to this congregation, while being true to the body of believers who have established this place? Do we really want to open the doors of hospitality, knowing that the people we invite in may eventually influence change in this house of worship?
I believe we do! Based on the sincere welcome that my family has received, I would be willing to bring a weary fellow traveler to this house of worship for a meal. To put ourselves out on a limb by offering hospitality means that we are willing to be conduits for God’s action. God’s actions may surprise us, we may laugh, or our eyes might be opened to a new truth, but we can rest assured that the words of Christ will not fail us.
During the past couple weeks, Lara and I have been encountered numerous times with hospitality. Our refrigerator was stocked with some delicious food when we arrived at the parsonage, someone dropped by a flower arrangement for our dining room table, our yard was mowed for us while I was gone to annual conference, a welcome mat was placed on our doorstep, a churchmember babysat our nephew while the movers came to unload our stuff from the truck…the list goes on and on. What a blessing it is to be made to feel so welcome!
As I shook each of your hands and met you all this past Sunday, I experienced the “open hearts and minds” that also contribute to my sense of the great hospitality of this church. I thank God that I was appointed to a body of believers who are so adept at showing hospitality to their new pastor, and I encourage us all to direct the same outpouring of welcome into our community.
Read green highlighted #1
Hospitality is a time honored expression of our religion, and is written about fairly extensively in our Holy Scriptures. In the stories of our patriarchs and matriarchs, in the prophets, in the books of poetry and wisdom, in the Gospels, and letters, hospitality is celebrated as an activity worthy of God’s name.
In this passage, Jesus tells his disciples, “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
Now in this day and age, many of us probably take cold water for granted most of the time. All I have to do to get a cold cup of water is to walk to my fridge and push a cup into the water spout on the door. I don’t even have to open the fridge! Furthermore, my house and workplace are so cool that I rarely feel the dry, cracking sensation in the back of my throat. If we transport our imaginations to the arid hills of Palestine though, we might be able to get a handle on how precious this gift potentially is. It is not a ladle of water, it is not tepid water, it is a glass of cold water! And to a “little one” no less! The high regard that this expression of hospitality conveys echoes very well the love and refreshment that God has in store for us!
What is this reward that Jesus is speaking about? In the Genesis reading, we heard about Abraham and Sarah hosting the 3 strangers, who turn out to be either angels of God, or an expression of the Trinity. Shortly after the three show up on Abraham’s doorstep, he is anxiously running around preparing a meal for them. After the hospitality was shown, the guests reveal an intended surprise—Sarah, even in her old age, will soon give birth to a son.
What a reward! Sarah responds as many of us would—she breaks out into a fit of laughter. Though the visitors don’t quite know why she’s laughing—we all do. Sarah is in her 90s or so, quite beyond childbearing years. This reward sounds pretty odd—it is not exactly something the two are expecting. In fact, it reorients their plans quite a bit—perhaps a bit of a white elephant. How many 90 year old couples are prepared to have a child after all! The reward is that God will use these two according two in the way that God has in mind. The hospitality shown by Abraham and Sarah proved to God that they are willing to act in a selfless way. Though the reward of a son will be a great joy to the two, the real reward is the opportunity to be utilized by God!
It has been my experience that hospitality is not just “open doors,” (to borrow 1/3 or our United Methodist motto). It also involves “open hearts” and “open minds” as well. To be sufficient catalysts for God’s energy, we must be completely at the will of our master, through our actions, through our thoughts, and through our emotions.
Another instance of hospitality occurs on the road to Emmaus in Luke’s Gospel. Two disciples are walking along a road after Jesus has died, and a fellow traveler joins them for a while, and joins in their conversation. They tell this fellow traveler about their master, and what he had meant to them. When they arrived at their destination, the traveler bids them farewell, but they invite him into their home. As they sit down to eat together, after the whole day of carrying on vigorous converstion with one another, they recognize the man as Jesus. What a reward! The scriptures say that Jesus was known to them “in the breaking of the bread—their eyes were opened—and then the man disappeared from their sight.
The two said to one another, “Wasn’t it like a fire burning in us when he talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?”
Whoever gives a cup of cold water will not lose their reward! As the three sat down with one another, the two disciples had open hearts and open minds toward their guest. They had shared in conversation those things that were most important to them, and the master rewarded them by opening their eyes.
………..Here read highlighted #2…………..
Creating peace on earth is a task that we commit ourselves to, but rarely know what to do to have any real impact in this regard. Here is something we can do—showing hospitality in this way, we create peace in our small corner of the world. This contributes to the overall achievement of peace in the whole world. What a reward for the people of God!
In what ways are we welcoming our fellow travelers on the journey of faith into this house? How are we bringing the peace and fellowship of hospitality to this community? I can assure you that in the short time that I’ve been here, I have noticed our open doors. We welcome all sorts of community groups into this beautiful facility next door that we built for that specific purpose. This is truly a cold glass of water for our community! We have extended invitations to youth groups from other churches to utilize our basement with its pool table, air hockey, and phooseball. What a cold glass of water for our community! Through our food pantry, we have helped provide for around 15 people in the week that I’ve been in the office. What a cold glass of water for our community! (by the way, This cold glass of water that needs to be refilled!!!) We have welcomed neighborhood youth onto our parking lot for a game of basketball. What a cold glass of water for our community! We are planning a Vacation Bible School that will be open to our entire community, whether or not the kid’s parents want to join the church. Now, when it comes to our worship of the most high---how can we better offer a refreshing glass of water to this community? Are we friendly and inviting to visitors that come through these doors? Are we flexible in our worship culture and social customs that are particular to this congregation, while being true to the body of believers who have established this place? Do we really want to open the doors of hospitality, knowing that the people we invite in may eventually influence change in this house of worship?
I believe we do! Based on the sincere welcome that my family has received, I would be willing to bring a weary fellow traveler to this house of worship for a meal. To put ourselves out on a limb by offering hospitality means that we are willing to be conduits for God’s action. God’s actions may surprise us, we may laugh, or our eyes might be opened to a new truth, but we can rest assured that the words of Christ will not fail us.
1st Sermon at Waldron
Happy Father’s Day, Indeed!
Today’s lectionary scripture is not exactly my ideal for a first sermon, especially on a Father’s Day like today—my first Father’s day. The themes are obviously difficult, and I’d rather not start out my ministry preaching on the idea that Christ brings a sword instead of peace, or that we are expected to love Christ “more than” we love our family. These topics are tough to digest—However, I believe in working with the lectionary. I have found it to be a tool that allows for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now, certain scriptures are lacking from the lectionary (and it is somewhat surprising that today’s scripture is not lacking from the lectionary.) To be quite frank—this piece of our Gospel—what we call the “Good News” doesn’t sound very “good” at all, does it? Jesus sounds a little hard edged doesn’t he? Eugene Peterson, who has translated the Bible into modern English writes, “I have not come to make life cozy, I have come to cut. Make a sharp knife cut between son and father, mother and daughter, bride and mother and law. Cut through those cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God.” Now I know what you’re thinking. For all those who claim that Jesus was a married man, this is a perfect foil to their claims—who else but a single man would call the bond between a bride and mother in law a “cozy domestic arrangement?” Well,
This passage disturbs me to some extent. It goes against our cultural norms. Many in the Christian faith believe the guiding expression of our religion is “family values.” You hear this phrase quite a bit. I believe in family values too—as you can see, I have a very newly expanded family, and I value those two people with my own life. If you’re like me when you hear this passage, you may say to yourself, as I did, you may say “Come on now—I’m supposed to love some man who lived 2000 years ago who I wouldn’t even be able to speak with if I had a chance to meet him—I’m supposed to love this man more than I love my own son or this woman who I’ve chosen to spend my life with? Look here Jesus, just because you didn’t get a chance to have a wife and children doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for the rest of us!” What do I make of this commandment, and why does it sound so unlike the Jesus I know and love? Here he is, the prince of peace, telling us he hasn’t come to bring Peace to the world, but instead the sword.
As one of my professors in seminary liked to say, “Lets walk around in the ambiguity of this for a while.” It’s okay—we practice a paradoxical faith. Perhaps we can celebrate the grayness of our place in the world and be honest about it instead of trying to convince ourselves there is always a right or wrong. Easy answers in a black and white universe may be the most pleasant way to convince ourselves that we’re AOK with the world and with God, but I believe it is a distraction from the truth. If we’re lulled to sleep by our own faith, we will miss the mark every time. I don’t think that is what you are asking for either. I believe this church is accustomed to living in the tensions, living in this gray world of ours. I think this honesty about our place in the world is much more conducive to a genuine faith than the viewpoint that we can be absolutely right about something.
What is it that we are supposed to harvest from this vine in this day and age? It was no doubt written by a Christian community that faced a lot more strife and adversity because of their faith than we do in this day and time. Matthew remembers Jesus giving this speech during what some call the “missional” commissioning of the disciples. Jesus has unfolded the “fishers of men and women” invitation to the point that he is starting to forecast some pretty difficult obstacles to the emerging church. Christ knows that this love he is preaching about is dangerous to the world. It is not simply a fluffy, heartwarming experience—it is a radical inclusiveness that may feel like pinpricks on our spine. The message that we carry may indeed put us on the outs with our family, our community, and so on.
As a Danish philosopher from the 19th century named Sooren Kierkegaard observed, the moment Christianity starts becoming comfortable in society, that is the moment it needs revitalization. Christ’s message is one of forgiveness, of compassion, of the real abundance of simplicity. The message that we find so often in this culture is one of retribution, of distancing ourselves from the afflicted, and of the hollow abundance of consumerism. Indeed Christ brings a sword. Christ will not stand by while we amuse ourselves to death by affluenza. If peace is a satisfaction with the status quo, then Matthew is correct in saying Christ does not bring peace but a sword.
Paul picks up on the absurdity of our faith walk in his treatise on death to Sin and Aliveness to Christ. In Romans, Paul demonstrates that everybody is under the power of Sin. Yet, generally in Romans, when Paul mentions Sin, he is not talking so much about sin as an individual act of disobedience or bad behavior. He is talking about Sin as a cosmic power.
In other words, he is talking about Sin with a capital "S." Sin, as a cosmic force, is a tyrant that rules over the believer like a despotic monarch. Sin with a capital "S" is what creates sin with a little "s."
Eugene Peterson communicates this idea by speaking of our death to Sin and aliveness to Christ in terms of leaving one land and starting a new life in another land.
Instead of being alive to this tyrant, in Baptism we are dead to it. Being dead to this ruler, we are instead Alive in Christ to God. Instead of being wanted Dead or alive, like the posters in the Old West, We are wanted Dead and Alive by God! Can there be anything more black and white than “dead or alive” These are mutually exclusive terms aren’t they? However, Paul sees a need for us to live in the gray area—We are to be dead and alive.
Unfortunately, Sin has left its mark on every life. Sin’s signature is death. But the Good News of Romans is that there is a way to break the curse of Sin, and ironically, it is through death.
In other words, we must fight fire with fire. Sin rules over us like a tyrant, and it brings death. The only way to break free from the death of sin is through death— dying not in the natural realm, but in the spiritual realm. Dying in the spiritual realm for Paul is represented by baptism. Baptism is a powerful symbol of dying to Sin. Romans 6 is Paul’s reflection on the ethical implications of baptism. Baptism equals death.
Listen to Paul in Romans 6:3: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" In Romans 6, Paul reminds his hearers of the significance of their baptism.
To be baptized by the Spirit into fellowship with Christ is like a spiritual Fourth of July. Baptism into Christ is Independence Day. Baptism into Christ is understood as that moment when we break free from the hostile power of Sin, no longer being held captive by its seductive power.
Paul says that after we have been buried with Christ by baptism into his death, we are dead to Sin. Now, I want to be crystal clear on a point. To be dead to Sin does not mean that we never again transgress. It should, however, mean that we will not be dominated by Sin. As long as we are in the flesh, we are prone to making mistakes— mistakes for which we can sincerely seek pardon. However, once we have been baptized into Christ, Sin no longer should have dominion over us. Sin should no longer rule over us because now we have divinely-bestowed authority.
As we mature in Christ, stumbling blocks after a while should start becoming stepping stones for us to move up in Christ. But in order for this to happen, we must be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. As Paul says in verse 4, when we are alive to God in Christ, we will walk in the newness of life. When we are dead and alive, life is definitely new in us, because in the Christ’s country, life is completely different.
Christians who are dead to Sin and alive to Christ don’t live like they did in the old land. There are new customs in the this new country. As Peterson translates, “When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace--a new life in a new land!” As the old hymn goes"What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought, since Jesus came into my heart."
If we take seriously Paul’s words in Romans 6, every day there should be a funeral in the life of the Christian. None of us have been completely conformed to the image of God, but every day, we ought to lay to rest something that is not like God, which hinders us from having a closer walk with God. Paul says, “Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to us…and God speaks our mother tongue, and we hang on every word.”
Paul knows being crucified with Christ sometimes tears you away from those comfortable places we know and love. Christ comes to cut like a surgeon. The cancerous infection of Sin is removed from our lives, and our lives become truly alive. As this sword divides us from the old tyrant of Sin and death, our lives are cut loose and freed for God. Freed to open our eyes to God’s kingdom, which is all around us as Jesus says in Luke 17:21. In our newly minted lives in Christ, we have the capability to not only see this kingdom, but to share it—Not only to hope for it but to enact it. As we witness to the beauty of this new life in the shining presence of the Light—it emerges within us for the world of Sin. I believe this church knows what it means to be a beacon to the old world. Through our food pantry, through our hospitality to several community groups who show exploration, hope, and recovery to our community, through our interest in being a reinvigorated ministry for our neighbors through the igniting ministries project, through our Bible studies and prayer circles, we are in the process of refracting the light of the kingdom of God onto this beautiful area of land we call Waldron Arkansas. Christ called it a sword, but it sure looks like light to me.
Now into all this amb, God injects a bit of surety. I say a bit of surety, but this small truth is big enough to stake our whole lives on. In the midst of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar’s shifting sands of a crumbling family, God injects some bedrock or God’s provides some bedrock. It says in the Scrip that God heard the cry in the wilderness and God said, “do not worry. I will create a great nation for Ishmael.” In Jesus’s frightening missional speech which warms us of the perils of discipleship, and flips our conceptions of his purpose like he flipped those tables in the temp. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” In the confusion of Paul’s revelation of our death and life (look at scriptures – You are alive in Christ??), the perfect simple truth that gives us meaning in the midst of a life of grey is this: God loves us! Though we do not fool ourselves with the notion that life in this world as a Christian is black and white, we have a real, tangible proof for the existence of our hope in the Kingdom to come. God loves us and God loves the world. Sometimes this love is like the lap of Jesus for the children, and sometimes this love is like a drawn sword to our idolatries. What is sure is that it is love.
Today’s lectionary scripture is not exactly my ideal for a first sermon, especially on a Father’s Day like today—my first Father’s day. The themes are obviously difficult, and I’d rather not start out my ministry preaching on the idea that Christ brings a sword instead of peace, or that we are expected to love Christ “more than” we love our family. These topics are tough to digest—However, I believe in working with the lectionary. I have found it to be a tool that allows for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now, certain scriptures are lacking from the lectionary (and it is somewhat surprising that today’s scripture is not lacking from the lectionary.) To be quite frank—this piece of our Gospel—what we call the “Good News” doesn’t sound very “good” at all, does it? Jesus sounds a little hard edged doesn’t he? Eugene Peterson, who has translated the Bible into modern English writes, “I have not come to make life cozy, I have come to cut. Make a sharp knife cut between son and father, mother and daughter, bride and mother and law. Cut through those cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God.” Now I know what you’re thinking. For all those who claim that Jesus was a married man, this is a perfect foil to their claims—who else but a single man would call the bond between a bride and mother in law a “cozy domestic arrangement?” Well,
This passage disturbs me to some extent. It goes against our cultural norms. Many in the Christian faith believe the guiding expression of our religion is “family values.” You hear this phrase quite a bit. I believe in family values too—as you can see, I have a very newly expanded family, and I value those two people with my own life. If you’re like me when you hear this passage, you may say to yourself, as I did, you may say “Come on now—I’m supposed to love some man who lived 2000 years ago who I wouldn’t even be able to speak with if I had a chance to meet him—I’m supposed to love this man more than I love my own son or this woman who I’ve chosen to spend my life with? Look here Jesus, just because you didn’t get a chance to have a wife and children doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for the rest of us!” What do I make of this commandment, and why does it sound so unlike the Jesus I know and love? Here he is, the prince of peace, telling us he hasn’t come to bring Peace to the world, but instead the sword.
As one of my professors in seminary liked to say, “Lets walk around in the ambiguity of this for a while.” It’s okay—we practice a paradoxical faith. Perhaps we can celebrate the grayness of our place in the world and be honest about it instead of trying to convince ourselves there is always a right or wrong. Easy answers in a black and white universe may be the most pleasant way to convince ourselves that we’re AOK with the world and with God, but I believe it is a distraction from the truth. If we’re lulled to sleep by our own faith, we will miss the mark every time. I don’t think that is what you are asking for either. I believe this church is accustomed to living in the tensions, living in this gray world of ours. I think this honesty about our place in the world is much more conducive to a genuine faith than the viewpoint that we can be absolutely right about something.
What is it that we are supposed to harvest from this vine in this day and age? It was no doubt written by a Christian community that faced a lot more strife and adversity because of their faith than we do in this day and time. Matthew remembers Jesus giving this speech during what some call the “missional” commissioning of the disciples. Jesus has unfolded the “fishers of men and women” invitation to the point that he is starting to forecast some pretty difficult obstacles to the emerging church. Christ knows that this love he is preaching about is dangerous to the world. It is not simply a fluffy, heartwarming experience—it is a radical inclusiveness that may feel like pinpricks on our spine. The message that we carry may indeed put us on the outs with our family, our community, and so on.
As a Danish philosopher from the 19th century named Sooren Kierkegaard observed, the moment Christianity starts becoming comfortable in society, that is the moment it needs revitalization. Christ’s message is one of forgiveness, of compassion, of the real abundance of simplicity. The message that we find so often in this culture is one of retribution, of distancing ourselves from the afflicted, and of the hollow abundance of consumerism. Indeed Christ brings a sword. Christ will not stand by while we amuse ourselves to death by affluenza. If peace is a satisfaction with the status quo, then Matthew is correct in saying Christ does not bring peace but a sword.
Paul picks up on the absurdity of our faith walk in his treatise on death to Sin and Aliveness to Christ. In Romans, Paul demonstrates that everybody is under the power of Sin. Yet, generally in Romans, when Paul mentions Sin, he is not talking so much about sin as an individual act of disobedience or bad behavior. He is talking about Sin as a cosmic power.
In other words, he is talking about Sin with a capital "S." Sin, as a cosmic force, is a tyrant that rules over the believer like a despotic monarch. Sin with a capital "S" is what creates sin with a little "s."
Eugene Peterson communicates this idea by speaking of our death to Sin and aliveness to Christ in terms of leaving one land and starting a new life in another land.
Instead of being alive to this tyrant, in Baptism we are dead to it. Being dead to this ruler, we are instead Alive in Christ to God. Instead of being wanted Dead or alive, like the posters in the Old West, We are wanted Dead and Alive by God! Can there be anything more black and white than “dead or alive” These are mutually exclusive terms aren’t they? However, Paul sees a need for us to live in the gray area—We are to be dead and alive.
Unfortunately, Sin has left its mark on every life. Sin’s signature is death. But the Good News of Romans is that there is a way to break the curse of Sin, and ironically, it is through death.
In other words, we must fight fire with fire. Sin rules over us like a tyrant, and it brings death. The only way to break free from the death of sin is through death— dying not in the natural realm, but in the spiritual realm. Dying in the spiritual realm for Paul is represented by baptism. Baptism is a powerful symbol of dying to Sin. Romans 6 is Paul’s reflection on the ethical implications of baptism. Baptism equals death.
Listen to Paul in Romans 6:3: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" In Romans 6, Paul reminds his hearers of the significance of their baptism.
To be baptized by the Spirit into fellowship with Christ is like a spiritual Fourth of July. Baptism into Christ is Independence Day. Baptism into Christ is understood as that moment when we break free from the hostile power of Sin, no longer being held captive by its seductive power.
Paul says that after we have been buried with Christ by baptism into his death, we are dead to Sin. Now, I want to be crystal clear on a point. To be dead to Sin does not mean that we never again transgress. It should, however, mean that we will not be dominated by Sin. As long as we are in the flesh, we are prone to making mistakes— mistakes for which we can sincerely seek pardon. However, once we have been baptized into Christ, Sin no longer should have dominion over us. Sin should no longer rule over us because now we have divinely-bestowed authority.
As we mature in Christ, stumbling blocks after a while should start becoming stepping stones for us to move up in Christ. But in order for this to happen, we must be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. As Paul says in verse 4, when we are alive to God in Christ, we will walk in the newness of life. When we are dead and alive, life is definitely new in us, because in the Christ’s country, life is completely different.
Christians who are dead to Sin and alive to Christ don’t live like they did in the old land. There are new customs in the this new country. As Peterson translates, “When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace--a new life in a new land!” As the old hymn goes"What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought, since Jesus came into my heart."
If we take seriously Paul’s words in Romans 6, every day there should be a funeral in the life of the Christian. None of us have been completely conformed to the image of God, but every day, we ought to lay to rest something that is not like God, which hinders us from having a closer walk with God. Paul says, “Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to us…and God speaks our mother tongue, and we hang on every word.”
Paul knows being crucified with Christ sometimes tears you away from those comfortable places we know and love. Christ comes to cut like a surgeon. The cancerous infection of Sin is removed from our lives, and our lives become truly alive. As this sword divides us from the old tyrant of Sin and death, our lives are cut loose and freed for God. Freed to open our eyes to God’s kingdom, which is all around us as Jesus says in Luke 17:21. In our newly minted lives in Christ, we have the capability to not only see this kingdom, but to share it—Not only to hope for it but to enact it. As we witness to the beauty of this new life in the shining presence of the Light—it emerges within us for the world of Sin. I believe this church knows what it means to be a beacon to the old world. Through our food pantry, through our hospitality to several community groups who show exploration, hope, and recovery to our community, through our interest in being a reinvigorated ministry for our neighbors through the igniting ministries project, through our Bible studies and prayer circles, we are in the process of refracting the light of the kingdom of God onto this beautiful area of land we call Waldron Arkansas. Christ called it a sword, but it sure looks like light to me.
Now into all this amb, God injects a bit of surety. I say a bit of surety, but this small truth is big enough to stake our whole lives on. In the midst of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar’s shifting sands of a crumbling family, God injects some bedrock or God’s provides some bedrock. It says in the Scrip that God heard the cry in the wilderness and God said, “do not worry. I will create a great nation for Ishmael.” In Jesus’s frightening missional speech which warms us of the perils of discipleship, and flips our conceptions of his purpose like he flipped those tables in the temp. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” In the confusion of Paul’s revelation of our death and life (look at scriptures – You are alive in Christ??), the perfect simple truth that gives us meaning in the midst of a life of grey is this: God loves us! Though we do not fool ourselves with the notion that life in this world as a Christian is black and white, we have a real, tangible proof for the existence of our hope in the Kingdom to come. God loves us and God loves the world. Sometimes this love is like the lap of Jesus for the children, and sometimes this love is like a drawn sword to our idolatries. What is sure is that it is love.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
The pack up and the smack down
My house is in boxes. Not exactly the greatest setting to try and concentrate to write a sermon. Especially my first sermon in Waldron. Today I've put a lot of effort into sermon writing. I've put together a few loose thoughts on the lectionary readings for June 19. Matt. 10: 24-39 and Romans 6: 1-11. IT's between those two, I know it. Anyway, after I struggled to find something coherant and inspired, I read thru some of the commentaries, etc. on The Text this Week : a helpful tool. Of course, then I read a sermon that was completely perfect, and it made my ambling thoughts seem all the more pitifully uninspired. Braxton's speech was streamlined, convincing, articulate, and hooking. It was constructed around one theme, while my roundabout way of getting to the point usually creates several points--something I think may be good for certain circumstances, but not for my first Sunday in a new congregation where I don't want to be perceived as a windbag. All my preaching profs lauded the great skill of conciseness. I'm not trying to give the church my entire seminary education in one sermon, but to tell you the truth, I don't know what to write about this text right now, and I need something on paper! Comparing the two sermon ideas was like comparing a Corvette to a boxcar.
So my idea was, to put this little frustration on the shelf and let it cool for a while. Welcome to my shelf. Getting it out of my mind and onto the magic superhighway of the cyberworld, I thought maybe the worry would take the wrong exit and wind up far away from here. Also, oddly enough I don't feel much pressure to have anything really coherant on the blog, and the process of writing I thought might spark something. If it did, it has yet to light up in front of my face. Perhaps I'm just too tired. IF you have any suggestions or inspirations about bringing not peace but the sword, or the Romans text, give me a shout.
So my idea was, to put this little frustration on the shelf and let it cool for a while. Welcome to my shelf. Getting it out of my mind and onto the magic superhighway of the cyberworld, I thought maybe the worry would take the wrong exit and wind up far away from here. Also, oddly enough I don't feel much pressure to have anything really coherant on the blog, and the process of writing I thought might spark something. If it did, it has yet to light up in front of my face. Perhaps I'm just too tired. IF you have any suggestions or inspirations about bringing not peace but the sword, or the Romans text, give me a shout.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Eyes rolling
I have such an inquisitive little boy. Lately, I've been fortunate enough to have cared for him during the day while his mom is at work. One thing that is funny about his demeanor is that he really fights going to sleep sometimes. He is perfectly happy sitting in the crook of my arm face outwards so he can look at the world, but if you put him in the stroller when there is something to be observing--he'll let you know about it. Just now he was trying not to fall asleep after eating a bottle. He closed his eyes to little slits, but kept them open. Then slowly his eyes drooped back in the back of his head. Pretty freaky. Now he's finally conked, but he didn't go without a fight!
One thing I've noticed is that women I encounter don't seem to give me much credit for fatherhood. I know new parents get comments all the time, but no one has said anything to Lara, and I've gotten quite a few people telling me what to do. The check out woman at the grocery was incredulous that Wes didn't have socks on. "You need to get some socks on that boy! [Wesley peeps] See, He's saying, 'You should know better than that dad!'" If you were imagining a jovial, friendly tone--you got it wrong. She was dressing me down right there as she scanned the food I was buying. I just rolled my eyes at her and sighed. I won't offend my female readers by posing the question of "reverse sexism," but instead offer a piece of advice for my own. Ladies, don't treat men who are caring for their children like bumbling idiots who must just be out for an occasional stroll with their kid--you could be offering advice to a person like me who has been caring for their child full time, and it is a little demeaning.
One thing I've noticed is that women I encounter don't seem to give me much credit for fatherhood. I know new parents get comments all the time, but no one has said anything to Lara, and I've gotten quite a few people telling me what to do. The check out woman at the grocery was incredulous that Wes didn't have socks on. "You need to get some socks on that boy! [Wesley peeps] See, He's saying, 'You should know better than that dad!'" If you were imagining a jovial, friendly tone--you got it wrong. She was dressing me down right there as she scanned the food I was buying. I just rolled my eyes at her and sighed. I won't offend my female readers by posing the question of "reverse sexism," but instead offer a piece of advice for my own. Ladies, don't treat men who are caring for their children like bumbling idiots who must just be out for an occasional stroll with their kid--you could be offering advice to a person like me who has been caring for their child full time, and it is a little demeaning.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Online Labyrinth with some good meditations
If you click "Do it" You'll be taken to an online labyrinth that is actually really cool. enjoy
http://www.labyrinth.org.uk/
http://www.labyrinth.org.uk/
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
One to save face
At the behest of some of my blogger buddies, who've disappointedly checked my blog over the past month to find something new--here's a shot. I'll try to muster up something....Well, perhaps this little entry could be about the challenge of finding some energy to write something worth reading, and not just some kind of diary entry. (I don't do diaries either, so what makes me think I'd be a good blogger?)
To tell the truth, the final weeks of seminary as well as caring for a new baby have been quite a plate full--but I guess there's always going to be something. I don't think I'm the only person in the world who faces this kind of pull--the desire to be creative and intentional, but the hesitancy to sit down in front of a computer screen or a sketch pad and feel that light empty feeling inside my head. It's kind of like a helium balloon--the meaningful thoughts feel lighter than air, and they just rise right above my consciousness. Usually the remedy is to go to the couch, turn on the tube, and feel the empty space with CNN or music videos or the Discovery channel. (By the way, has anyone noticed that TLC, Discovery, etc. have lost some of the weight? I used to be able to turn on the Discovery channel and actually be inspired by some program about ancient civilizations, architecture, or something like that, but these days all they seem to have is home fix ups and men fixing motorcycles, and wedding stories. What a drag) Anywhoo. My cat craves attention, and is currently lounging on the left side of my keyboard on top of my fingers so at least she can simulate a good ear rubbing, I've got student loan consolidation crap all over the coffee table, and a laundry basket full of clutter that we just wanted to get out of our eyesight sitting in the corner waiting to be sorted out. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
These days while Wesley is so young are full of little inspirations, but when it comes to recording them, something else comes up. My patience is worn thin and sometimes I snap at Lara when I don't really want to. I see why parenthood is considered challenging. I have some guilt as these words come off the keyboard and onto the screen b/c it might seem to the reader that I resent my fortune of being a parent, which is not the case at all. I just resent there only being 24 hours in a day. I was only doing marginally well when those 24 hours were all mine, but now quite a few of them belong to my son. Its not that I would rather be doing something else with my time when I'm laying with him under his little jungle gym thing or rocking with him in the rocking chair, or even trying to calm him down from a big crying spell. Every second is a treasure. It is simply that I wish there was more time for things like blogging, writing, painting, and reading. I am disappointed with myself that I more quickly turn to mind filling stuff like TV rather than mind expressing stuff like creativity. Perhaps this little post has been something "heart expressing" though, and to tell you the truth it feels a little better now.
thanks for listening
To tell the truth, the final weeks of seminary as well as caring for a new baby have been quite a plate full--but I guess there's always going to be something. I don't think I'm the only person in the world who faces this kind of pull--the desire to be creative and intentional, but the hesitancy to sit down in front of a computer screen or a sketch pad and feel that light empty feeling inside my head. It's kind of like a helium balloon--the meaningful thoughts feel lighter than air, and they just rise right above my consciousness. Usually the remedy is to go to the couch, turn on the tube, and feel the empty space with CNN or music videos or the Discovery channel. (By the way, has anyone noticed that TLC, Discovery, etc. have lost some of the weight? I used to be able to turn on the Discovery channel and actually be inspired by some program about ancient civilizations, architecture, or something like that, but these days all they seem to have is home fix ups and men fixing motorcycles, and wedding stories. What a drag) Anywhoo. My cat craves attention, and is currently lounging on the left side of my keyboard on top of my fingers so at least she can simulate a good ear rubbing, I've got student loan consolidation crap all over the coffee table, and a laundry basket full of clutter that we just wanted to get out of our eyesight sitting in the corner waiting to be sorted out. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
These days while Wesley is so young are full of little inspirations, but when it comes to recording them, something else comes up. My patience is worn thin and sometimes I snap at Lara when I don't really want to. I see why parenthood is considered challenging. I have some guilt as these words come off the keyboard and onto the screen b/c it might seem to the reader that I resent my fortune of being a parent, which is not the case at all. I just resent there only being 24 hours in a day. I was only doing marginally well when those 24 hours were all mine, but now quite a few of them belong to my son. Its not that I would rather be doing something else with my time when I'm laying with him under his little jungle gym thing or rocking with him in the rocking chair, or even trying to calm him down from a big crying spell. Every second is a treasure. It is simply that I wish there was more time for things like blogging, writing, painting, and reading. I am disappointed with myself that I more quickly turn to mind filling stuff like TV rather than mind expressing stuff like creativity. Perhaps this little post has been something "heart expressing" though, and to tell you the truth it feels a little better now.
thanks for listening
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
National Geographic Genographic project, Resurgence, and Atom Films
Here's a sight I wish i could spend more time on. Perhaps you do--
Also, this is one of my favorite sights to get Ecological/Artistic/Political/Spiritual/Literary stuff all on the subject of living in a good way in the world. Resurgence Magazine
And here's where I go when I want to watch a quick short film: Atom Films
You'd do well with a fast connection though.
Peace out
Also, this is one of my favorite sights to get Ecological/Artistic/Political/Spiritual/Literary stuff all on the subject of living in a good way in the world. Resurgence Magazine
And here's where I go when I want to watch a quick short film: Atom Films
You'd do well with a fast connection though.
Peace out
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
What do you do when Yahoo Mail goes down and you can't check your email?
Well that's the first time that has happend, so I'll go ahead and follow through on the inspiration from Katherine's recent blog about unconventional (or wonderfully conventional) things that have happened to her by re-creating her own creativity with my own stuff. (ON a seperate webpage, I'm checking up on Matt Jone's prospects in the upcoming NFL draft--he made waves at the NFL combine when he ran a 4.37 40. We knew you could do it Matt!) I suppose this exercise is a bit of stream of consciousness--with a time limit, b/c I have 15 minutes to get out of the computer lab.
1. As you can see from that, I'm a Arkansas Razorback football fan. I don't know of many progressive Christians who are football fans except for Katherine--she's a Browns fan. Being a Hogs fan is an Arkansas version of being a Browns fan. Why don't many progressive Xians like football?
2. I've had a verbal exchange with Bruce Springsteen. I told him that my girlfriend at the time (who was standing next to me) had a crush on him. He said, "Well...I think I've got a crush on her too!" She had idolized the Boss since age 5 or so, so it made her life.
3. I tried surfing in Santa Barbara but couldn't really get up on a wave very well. But I have an intense desire to try again, especially after seeing Step into Liquid.
4. One time as a boy scout I boiled a frog and ate it on a "Wilderness survival" merit badge camp out. Actually, a group of us boiled it and I only had a bite off its leg. Turns out, the scout leaders had gotten a birthday cake for one of the scouts and had it for us that night, so it wasn't like I was going to starve or anything.
5. I've played golf on a really nice golf course on the Isle of Palms in South Carolina.
6. I visited NYC in August of 2001 and wanted to go up in the WTC, but we didn't have time. My wife said, "Don't worry, we'll go next time we're in NYC." I guess not.
7. I think Cool Hand Luke is one of the most beautiful movies in the world. And Paul Newman is devilishly handsome. I wish I were as handsome as Paul Newman.
8. There's nothing like the sound of frogs and crickets singing through an open screen window as you're falling asleep. That's something I haven't heard in 3 years, and soon I'll hear them again.
9. I'm reading Ecclesiastes, and have used the phrase in the past week, "There's nothing new under the sun." I'm writing my term paper on the "Silver Cord." It's mysterious.
1. As you can see from that, I'm a Arkansas Razorback football fan. I don't know of many progressive Christians who are football fans except for Katherine--she's a Browns fan. Being a Hogs fan is an Arkansas version of being a Browns fan. Why don't many progressive Xians like football?
2. I've had a verbal exchange with Bruce Springsteen. I told him that my girlfriend at the time (who was standing next to me) had a crush on him. He said, "Well...I think I've got a crush on her too!" She had idolized the Boss since age 5 or so, so it made her life.
3. I tried surfing in Santa Barbara but couldn't really get up on a wave very well. But I have an intense desire to try again, especially after seeing Step into Liquid.
4. One time as a boy scout I boiled a frog and ate it on a "Wilderness survival" merit badge camp out. Actually, a group of us boiled it and I only had a bite off its leg. Turns out, the scout leaders had gotten a birthday cake for one of the scouts and had it for us that night, so it wasn't like I was going to starve or anything.
5. I've played golf on a really nice golf course on the Isle of Palms in South Carolina.
6. I visited NYC in August of 2001 and wanted to go up in the WTC, but we didn't have time. My wife said, "Don't worry, we'll go next time we're in NYC." I guess not.
7. I think Cool Hand Luke is one of the most beautiful movies in the world. And Paul Newman is devilishly handsome. I wish I were as handsome as Paul Newman.
8. There's nothing like the sound of frogs and crickets singing through an open screen window as you're falling asleep. That's something I haven't heard in 3 years, and soon I'll hear them again.
9. I'm reading Ecclesiastes, and have used the phrase in the past week, "There's nothing new under the sun." I'm writing my term paper on the "Silver Cord." It's mysterious.
Everything is new
As some have commented, I haven't posted in a while. Though I just erased the pictures of my son(b/c they were messing up my sidebar), I'll add some when I get back to my home comp. and you'll see why it is I haven't been writing--I've got a newborn son! Wesley Garrett is a beautiful spark of life. Sometimes he and I sit and stare at each other. Babies are great b/c they haven't been told by anyone that looking deeply into someone's eyes should make you uncomfortable, so they just sit there and pierce your soul with a gaze for how ever long their attention span can take. When I sit there and look into his eyes, I see a life that is frail and dependent, but also wise and God like. His life is so fresh in the world that he hasn't let go of God's hand quite yet...he hasn't been tantalized by the things in this world that we put in the place of God. What a wise and centered expression of humanity! True, he cries sometimes when he is confused and cranky when he is hungry, but cut him some slack--my wife likes to say that for 9 months or however long he has been aware of himself, he hasn't had to do anything to get food, because it just comes right into through his umbilical cord. Now he's got a new challenge in that he feels hungry, and he doesn't know how or why! And when he does eat--sometimes it makes him poop, and this is a new and somewhat unpleasant thing as well--especially because he has to sit in his poop after he gets done making it! I'd cry too if I were met with such a momentous shift of paradigm. Well, all this to say--being a father is such a tremendous adventure. When people ask, how do you like being a dad, and I answer "It's great!" this is one of the many things I mean.
Also, since I last checked in I have found out about my appointment in the Arkansas conference of the UMC. I'll be serving the Methodist church in Waldron, Arkansas. Waldron is a town of about 4,000 people and the church has 250 members and an average attendance of 60-70. I suppose a degree of culture shock is a possibility considering the fact that Los Angeles is home right now. One of my friends moved to Nashville from LA recently and talked about the need to slow the pace by about 70 times or so. If that's true, I suppose a slowing of the pace by about 7000 is in order. I do have some experience living in a small town, but this will be the smallest town I've ever lived in. Actually, I've never considered life to be extremely fast paced in LA--everyone is always late to everything, so how can it be that fast paced? Well, there certainly won't be as many Lamborginis and cosmetic surgery, but life is varied--so roll with it, that's what I always say.
Being an info hound, I looked up Waldron on wikipedia.com and www.epodunk.org and found out all the stats. It's the county seat of Scott county in the middle of the Ouchita mts. My dad pointed out that the 4 highest peaks are within 20 miles of Waldron, so its really up in the mountains (for AR standards anyway.) The community is mostly white, with some smatterings of Native Americans and an influx of Hispanics. There's a chicken processing plant, and what I've heard is the world's largest dehydrator where the dehydrate pig ears for dog treats! Lara and I called the local Wal-mart, and it seems to be open 24 hours. Our parsonage is in the middle of town close to the church and right down the street from the movie theater and post office. I've been thinking about it a lot, and am excited to be heading there. The church seems focused on Christian education and providing services to the community. I hope to be able to employ some of the ideas I've gained from "alternative worship" land into worship life of the congregation. I'm thinking of a movement based worship experience on some evening (like a stations of the cross type thing--reference www.alternativeworship.org). I'd call it "Movements of the Spirit" or perhaps "Pneumena." What do you think? Well.
I've spent enough time on this, I've got other things to do. And you do to, so peace out.
Also, since I last checked in I have found out about my appointment in the Arkansas conference of the UMC. I'll be serving the Methodist church in Waldron, Arkansas. Waldron is a town of about 4,000 people and the church has 250 members and an average attendance of 60-70. I suppose a degree of culture shock is a possibility considering the fact that Los Angeles is home right now. One of my friends moved to Nashville from LA recently and talked about the need to slow the pace by about 70 times or so. If that's true, I suppose a slowing of the pace by about 7000 is in order. I do have some experience living in a small town, but this will be the smallest town I've ever lived in. Actually, I've never considered life to be extremely fast paced in LA--everyone is always late to everything, so how can it be that fast paced? Well, there certainly won't be as many Lamborginis and cosmetic surgery, but life is varied--so roll with it, that's what I always say.
Being an info hound, I looked up Waldron on wikipedia.com and www.epodunk.org and found out all the stats. It's the county seat of Scott county in the middle of the Ouchita mts. My dad pointed out that the 4 highest peaks are within 20 miles of Waldron, so its really up in the mountains (for AR standards anyway.) The community is mostly white, with some smatterings of Native Americans and an influx of Hispanics. There's a chicken processing plant, and what I've heard is the world's largest dehydrator where the dehydrate pig ears for dog treats! Lara and I called the local Wal-mart, and it seems to be open 24 hours. Our parsonage is in the middle of town close to the church and right down the street from the movie theater and post office. I've been thinking about it a lot, and am excited to be heading there. The church seems focused on Christian education and providing services to the community. I hope to be able to employ some of the ideas I've gained from "alternative worship" land into worship life of the congregation. I'm thinking of a movement based worship experience on some evening (like a stations of the cross type thing--reference www.alternativeworship.org). I'd call it "Movements of the Spirit" or perhaps "Pneumena." What do you think? Well.
I've spent enough time on this, I've got other things to do. And you do to, so peace out.
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