Sermon for Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Inside Out"

Sermon 9/2/12

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Inside Out

Many of you know that my youngest brother Todd is a professional actor. Near Christmas, you’ll probably have the opportunity to see him do a bit of acting during worship, as I usually recruit him to help bring to life some of the nativity story. But you might not know that I have a passion for theatre myself. I actually used to have an incredible fear of public speaking as a child. I would hyperventilate if I had to give an oral report in school. But I always wanted to be in plays, and I auditioned for a part in Cinderella when I was in fourth grade. I got cast – everybody got cast. But I got cast as a mouse, which was one of the parts that went to, well, the less talented performers. And I watched with envy as the bolder kids got to play more interesting roles with more interesting songs to sing. After that, I had an epiphany: If I wanted a more interesting part, I would at least have to talk loud enough for people to hear me on stage! I never went on to have starring roles, but I became confident enough to get some small parts, and I fell in love with theatre. I definitely credit my theatre background with helping me prepare for being a preacher, being at ease up front in a space like this. In college, I was already preparing for seminary, majoring in pre-theology, but my minor was theatre, and almost all of my free time was spent at the theatre.

Recently, I’ve been lamenting that since becoming a pastor, I haven’t had much time to work on any shows. Well, as I was lamenting, someone was listening. Chris, briefly our organist, was here long enough to hear my lament, and invite me to play violin in the pit band for the show he’s musical directing: Fiddler on the Roof. I explained to Chris that my schedule isn’t always cooperative, and that I hadn’t done any serious violin playing in quite some time, and Chris promised me a very brief commitment to rehearsals, and a violin part that would be supporting the more experienced players. How could I refuse? Fiddler, here I come!

Are you all familiar with the story and music from Fiddler on the Roof?  In the opening scene, Tevye, the lead character, a poor milk man, asks the question and gives the answer that frames the whole story: “How do we retain this fragile balance in life?” He can tell you the answer in just one word: Tradition! Throughout the musical, three of Tevye’s daughters marry in turn, but each match poses a challenge to Tevye’s sense of tradition and how things are meant to be done. His oldest daughter, Tzeitel, asks her father to be let out of the arranged match for her, so that she can marry the man she truly loves, Motel, the tailor. Tevye groans and complains, but finally agrees that they can marry for love. Then his second daughter, Hodel, wants to marry revolutionary Perchik. When they approach Tevye, they tell him they are not asking for permission, only for his blessing. Again, Tevye refuses at first, but finally gives in. And then finally his youngest daughter Chava falls in love with a Christian man, Fyedka. She, too, seeks to change her father’s heart about her match, but Tevye says “enough” – he has bent enough and let go of too much tradition. Near the end of the story, he does, at least, pray God’s blessing on Chava and Fyedka, even if he cannot fully come to terms with the marriage.

As enjoyable as Fiddler is as a musical, as lighthearted as it is at times, the questions asked are serious ones, important ones. How far should you change traditions to meet the demands of an ever-changing world? How far is too far to bend? When do the traditions hold us to what is good and important, and when do they keep us from moving forward, from growing and changing in healthy ways? What traditions are based on simple habits that have extended over generations, and when to they represent the unchanging truth?

            Today we lay aside our journey with Ephesians and take up the gospel of Mark, as we look in on a conversation between Jesus and a group of scribes and Pharisees. If you are at all familiar with the Bible, I think it is easy to come to a scripture text and see the Pharisees and think: “Aha! The bad guys!” whenever you encounter these religious leaders. But the Pharisees, of course, didn’t view themselves as bad or faithless or villains. They were, in fact, religious leaders, devout Jews, who tried very hard to follow the law of Moses carefully and interpret it for daily living. They emphasized upholding the rituals, the traditions. They insisted on using oral tradition as well as written tradition, and in that way were viewed as quite liberal by other Jewish sects. For example, they added qualifications to laws like "an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" so that executions took place in less situations. On the other hand, however, their additions to the law through oral code sometimes added many new requirements for people to follow, like around issues of observing Sabbath, for instance. And their learning and education began to set them apart from the rest of the people, making them their own aristocracy. (1) These kinds of practices, all these additional rules and looking down on those who didn’t follow them all, these were the practices of the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus most often criticized.

            The Pharisees have noticed that some of the disciples of Jesus are eating without washing their hands. Their concerns weren’t about hygiene, but about ritual cleanness – an act of spiritual purification before eating. Mark notes for us that the Pharisees have elaborate washing rituals that they engage in before eating, traditions handed to them by the elders. They question Jesus: “Why aren’t your disciples following the tradition of the elders?” And Jesus responds with very pointed words: He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.” You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’ And then, to the crowds he says, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’ For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.” Jesus indicates that somewhere along the way, the Pharisees stopped being concerned with carefully explaining God’s law, and started being concerned with doing things a certain way because that’s how they’d always been done. Somewhere in there, actually following God’s commandments got lost, in favor of human tradition. But what matters to God is the shape of our hearts, the state of our souls, not the nitty-gritty of these outside practices we adopt to practice our faith.

If you think about your traditions – your faith traditions, your family traditions – do you know where they all came from? Can you remember their origin? This week I was talking with Eric Holmes, one of our LIFE youth group leaders, about change. I told him about a young person named Al, who was part of the Conference Youth program, who liked to offer prayer during worship. He was eloquent, and the other youth recognized his gift for moving prayer, and whenever I would ask for someone to pray, the kids would say, “Al!” and call his name. Only, eventually, Al graduated. And for the year after he graduated, when I would ask for someone to pray, the kids would still yell, “Al!” But of course, Al wasn’t there to pray. I told the kids: “If you keep doing this, eventually, I will be asking for someone to pray, and everyone will yell, “Al,” but no one will have any idea who Al is or what you are talking about.” We were in the process of creating a tradition, a ritual, but I was worried that it was only leading us away from the main point: praying during worship!  

Other times, I’ve noticed that traditions that make perfect sense to those on the inside make no sense at all to people on the outside. For example, in my first church, we also made regular mission trips to Redbird, a mission site in rural Kentucky, like you do here. But we got in the habit of talking about Redbird all the time without adding any more descriptions. Bulletin announcements would refer to a meeting to plan for Redbird, but if you were a new visitor to the church, you would have no idea what this Redbird thing was all about. Have you ever had someone who is looking in at what you do from an outsider’s perspective, and they’re just able to really make you look at your own situation in a whole new way? One of the most important days in my life so far, most meaningful days, was the day I was ordained. I found it incredibly moving. And walking in with my clergy colleagues at the start of the service, with that community of pastors I was joining, was something I found very significant. But I talked with my older brother Jim, after the ordination, and found that what was so meaningful to me just didn’t make sense to him. He said it reminded him of the Imperial Guard in the Star Wars movies, a comparison I’m afraid I will never be able to get out of my head.

Jesus says that the Pharisees – and since he’s talking to religious leaders, we can assume he’s speaking to us, too – he says that we add so much stuff to the list of what we have to do to be a good Christian, and then get so worried about doing this little stuff, that we miss the main point, the core stuff, that Jesus asked us – commanded us – to do in the first place. And when we start worrying more about the stuff we’ve added on, then the stuff Jesus told us to do, all that extra stuff becomes a form of idolatry, which is anything we make more important to us than God.

            Did you know that the ability to tell that when I’m pointing my finger, it means I want you to look at what I’m pointing at, rather than at my pointed finger, is a sign of our developed human brains? Only a few other species get this concept: elephants, dolphins, apes, some birds. But as smart as I think my cat is, if I point my finger, she’s going to look at my finger. I think that’s what happens when we spend more energy on the trappings of our faith than on deepening our faith. Our purpose as a community of faith is to point others and ourselves to the gospel, the good news of Jesus. But sometimes we get so caught up in how we do that, and doing it just right, that we end up gazing at our own pointed finger, instead of at Jesus. That’s idolatry. And that’s why Jesus speaks with such passion, warning us not to confuse our human traditions with God’s purpose and call.

            At Ohio Wesleyan, where I went to college, there was a big rock outside the main dining hall, and different groups on campus would make a bonding activity of painting the rock, a practice allowed by administrators, I might add. Different groups would either sign their names in paint, or paint it in school colors, or do something creative, like make it into a giant ice cream cone. But I’ve always been curious: how big is that rock, really? I’m not sure how long the tradition of painting the rock has been around. But it’s been a long time. And if you peeled away all the layers, chipped away all the paint, would that rock be so small you could actually just carry it with you?

            Jesus told us to love God with our whole selves, and to love one another. Have we added so many layers to these tasks, that we’ve made them into boulders that no one can carry with them?

            Let me be clear. The way we do things isn’t unimportant. Having traditions isn’t bad. I love the traditions my family shares, and despite what my brother says, I still love the ordination service! Jesus himself participated in the traditions of his time and place and culture. But the methods and practices we use to carry out our mission, following God, can never become the most important thing. We always have to remember to point to the gospel, and not get stuck gazing at our fingers. Jesus reminds us that it is not the things outside ourselves that make us who we are. Who we are is what is inside of us, and God hopes that what is inside of us is a heart that is seeking after the way of Jesus. Amen.

Sermon for Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, "Making the Most of It," Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon 8/19/12

Ephesians 5:15-20

Making the Most of It

            I have a friend who, every day for the past 8 months or so, has posted a number, counting down, at the end of the day as his facebook status. We’re at 124 right now. What happens at the end of the countdown? Well, according to some people, it will be the end of the world, December 21^st, 2012, at least according to some very modern interpretations of a very ancient Mayan calendar. I expect, nearer to December, we’ll see a thousand news stories about the Mayan calendar and people who are preparing for the end of the world, just as we did when Harold Camp was predicting the world’s end last year, or when the Y2K thing was all we could talk about, or any number of other times people have been convinced they knew how it was all going to play out. And I suspect, on December 22^nd, we’ll see some small news article acknowledging that we’re keeping on keeping on as a human race. I’m not sure what you all think about all these end of the world predictions. But for me, while I don’t consider myself a biblical literalist, I find it hard to interpret Jesus’ words about the end times in very many different ways. He says: about that day, the end of the world as we know – about that day, no one knows. No one knows the time or hour, not even him. That seems pretty clear.

            So I wonder why it is that we seem to be so fascinated, we humans, with the end? After all, maybe you aren’t stockpiling canned goods in your basement so that you can survive the apocalypse in a few months, but many of us have to admit to at least having watched any number of “end of the world” movies, be it 2012, or Independence Day or Armageddon or Terminator or so on. We seem fascinated with the concept of our own imminent doom. Why is that, do you think? Why are we so fascinated?

            If I look at what happens in the plots of these movies, I see a pattern. People realize that the world is about to end, and they suddenly start marking changes in their lives. Suddenly, they ditch the job that they never really got anything out of, or they mend relationships with family or friends that have been broken, or they make sure to tell people they love them, that they have been too scared or too busy or too whatever to tell in the past. Knowing that it might be the end, all these movie characters are spurred to action, suddenly reprioritizing things. Then, of course, when the world doesn’t end after all in the film, or they are one of a small handful of people who survives, they so on with their lives with a new perspective and focus, changed people who won’t take things for granted anymore.                                                    

So why are we so fascinated with the end of the world? I think we wish we knew when the end was coming, so we know how much time we have to start doing what we really already think and know we should be doing. We’d like to be spurred to action, and suddenly reprioritize. We’d like healing for our broken relationships, to make our life’s work something that has meaning to us, to tell people we love them. And we’ll get around to all that, real soon. Really. Soon. Any day now, right? If the end was coming, we’d make sure to get our lives into the shape we keep meaning to get them into anyway.

Today, we return again to “Paul’s” letter to the Ephesians with a short little segment. “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Paul” and his contemporaries lived in a time when they strongly believed that they were experiencing the end days. They weren’t trying to predict the end. They just assumed Jesus’ return was imminent. You know that we mortals always have a different understanding of time than God! So “Paul’s” letters are always filled with urgency, and here “Paul” says that we should be wise, careful how we live, so that we are “making the most of the time.” Rather than whiling away our time numbing our senses, “Paul” recommends being Spirit-filled, worshipful, and above all, spending time giving thanks to God at all times and for all things. “Making the most of the time.” Are you making the most of your time? Your life?

            As I mentioned before, Jesus was pretty explicit in his teaching about us not being able to know the day or hour when our end might come. But at the same time, Jesus did spend a lot of time talking about the signs of the times. Because we don’t know the day and hour of our end, we should always be prepared, Jesus taught. Since we don’t know, rather than be caught off guard and scrambling to do and live as we’ve meant to live all along, Jesus calls us to live as prepared people, ready, all of the time. At first glance, this can feel exhausting. Frankly, it sounds to me like having your house clean enough all the time so that it is ready for guests to drop by at any moment. Maybe this something that’s easy for you to achieve. But it has never been one of my skills! But I don’t think Jesus meant for us to live in a state of constant alert, stress, and panic. No, I think what Jesus meant was something like this: “Be careful how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time.”

Are you making the most of your time? Your life? As you look over the years of your live, and as you look forward to what may lay ahead, are you making the most of it? Are you being wise? Is your life centered in thanksgiving to God your Maker for everything, at all times? If your time was limited, how drastic would the changes need to be in your life for you to start living like you’ve always meant to be living?  

            Time is one of our most precious commodities. We think about money a lot – having it or not, spending it, saving it. But when it comes to time, we’re all on a pretty level playing field. None of us know how much we have of it, and all of us have the same amount of it to spend at a time. Are you making the most of it? I encourage you, this week, to track how you spend your time. I don’t want you to change your patterns – yet. You can do that at the end of the week if you aren’t happy with your results. But I want you to write down how you spend your time. Be honest, even if you don’t like what you have to write! But try to write down how you spend each half-hour, or hour, for one week. Then, if you feel like it, share it with me or Aaron, and let us know what you thought about how you’ve spent your time. Or share it on our church facebook page. Or if you’re really brave, you can share your record in print and I’ll put it up on my bulletin board. Next to my own, of course! But more than your report, I want to know what you think: Are you spending your time like you mean to? And if not, why not? What on earth are we waiting for?

            I’ve been spending a lot of time unpacking these last few weeks. Some boxes you can unpack in about 5 minutes – tossing books onto bookshelves, for example. But others take forever to unpack, like when I came to the box of my photo albums and yearbooks. I looked through my yearbook from my senior year in high-school and I read all of the entries from all of my friends, and I have to tell you, I don’t even know what some of it means anymore. Some of the inside jokes that we referred to, some of the phrases and memories we allude to – I honestly don’t remember all of them anymore. I am sure, when my friends and I were signing those yearbooks, we could never imagine a time when we wouldn’t remember it all anymore. But I was struck by the drive we all seemed to share to make the most of our time. Young people are pretty skilled at that. There are so many changes you go through so quickly, that young people often have an acute awareness of appreciating the short time that any one situation exists for them. Sometimes adults are frustrated with the occasionally less-than-careful ways young people choose to make the most of their time. But as adults, I think we could learn from the young people around us about trying to soak all the life out of every moment God gives us. Giving thanks at all time and in all places by making the most of it. Somewhere along the way, we become more hesitant, less willing to risk.   

Friends, our end is coming. It may mean our individual end in this life that we know, or our collective end, or something we can’t even imagine. But when and how it will all play out – well, that isn’t even the most important thing. As followers of Jesus, we’re to be prepared, by making the most of the gifts we’ve been given already, the gifts that we too often leave unused, unopened. Are you making the most of it? Are you living the life you want to be living? Are you spending your time how you want to be spending it? What are you waiting for? If you’re smart, you’ll make the most of it.

Amen.

Moving

I've been doing a lot of moving lately - a new church, a new home. But this post is about moving my website. For years, I've had my blog, bethquick.blogspot.com, and my website, bethquick.com. But for the last couple years, I really haven't been updating bethquick.com. I don't want to ditch the domain name, of course, but the blogspot format just works so much better for my notes and sermons. So, I've decided to auto-forward bethquick.com here, to the blog. Over time, I will slowly repost my old sermons in the archives here, but for now, I will work on keeping up to date with posting new sermons and updated lectionary notes. If you have any trouble finding anything, please let me know!

Sermon for Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, "Building Up," Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Sermon 8/12/12

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Ephesians: Building Up

            This week I was finishing up my homework for my latest Doctor of Ministry class, which was titled “Preaching and Change,” taught by retired Bishop (and real role model of mine) Judy Craig. Our final assignment was to write about our Five Tenets for Preaching – in other words, our five main themes, main points that we strive to hold to in our sermon preparation. We talked in class about which tenets we might use, and then had to write about them in detail for our final paper. My five ended up being: 1) Be yourself when you preach, rather than trying to preach like anybody else. 2) Let the scripture text speak to you before you try to tell it what it says. 3) Preaching is about relationships, relationships, relationships. Our relationship with God, our relationship as pastor and congregation, our relationships with the community and one another. 4) Tell the truth. Sounds easy, but in practice, is sometimes harder than we think. And 5) Don’t shortchange the process of sermon preparation.

            I share these tenets of preaching with you first because I want you to know what I’m doing when I’m off at my classes, or what Aaron is doing when he’s working on his DMin project, because I want you to know that this whole back-to-school thing is, above all else, a way to better equip ourselves to serve in ministry. If what we were doing didn’t have anything to do with the places we were serving, we wouldn’t be spending our time doing it! But more specifically, I’ve shared my whole assignment with you because as I was reading over and over our text from Ephesians for today, I couldn’t stop thinking about how similar the text and my preaching tenets were! I started wondering if the tenets I chose, with maybe some modification, weren’t really some good discipleship guidelines, beyond good guidelines for preaching. Be yourself. Let God’s Word speak to you, instead of you trying to make it fit your life. It’s about relationships, relationships, relationships. Tell the truth. And be prepared. Not a bad list, right?

            In our lesson from Ephesians, “Paul” seems to be giving out several snippets of advice for how to live in community with one another. Put away falsehood, and speak truth, because we are members of one another. Be angry, sure, but don’t let your anger cause you to sin: resolve your anger before the sun sets. Everyone should work hard, in order to be able to serve the needy. Don’t let evil words come out of your mouth, but make sure everything you say is about building up, so that your words are grace to your hearers. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, a word which literally means to be knotted up in your stomach with care for each other, and forgive, just like God forgives you. Imitate God, and live in love, like Christ loves us – sacrificially. I love this vision of community. “Paul’s” words seem so simple and straightforward. But I suspect we all find them challenging to follow. Confession time: how many of you have avoided speaking the truth, not to deceive, necessarily, but perhaps because the truth was hard to hear? How many of you have found yourselves holding on to anger over a situation for a very long time? How many have let words exit our mouths that caused hurt, and not grace, to the ones who hear us?

            “Paul,” I think, tries to give us a clear foundation for this way of being with one another. I don’t think he thinks it is easy. But he thinks it is necessary for the Body of Christ to be just that – the representative of Christ in the world. We are meant to speak truth to one another because we are members of one another, part of each other in Christ, so a lack of honesty is a lack of honesty with ourselves and with God. We’re called to speak with love because our words are carriers of the good news of Jesus – or not – depending on how we speak to one another. Your words are the gospel that others hear. We’re meant to live with kindness and tenderness because God has forgiven us, and we, created in God’s image, show that best when we imitate God, our Creator.   

            We are still just weeks into our time together as pastors and congregation. Aaron and I are so excited about the possibilities we see, ready to unfold in our midst. Everywhere we turn, things are happening, people are dreaming and hoping and planning for our future. We are going to have a lot going on here, and we have potential just oozing out of every nook and cranny of this congregation, waiting to be acted on. As we embark on this adventure together, we have the opportunity to see things go very well, or to see things go very poorly! We’ve got a lot of folks here working in ministry together. And if there are four hundred plus of you who are regularly active and involved in what is happening here at Liverpool First, then there are four hundred plus opinions and plans for how things should be done. So, it is absolutely essential that we are on the same page when it comes to our purpose, our mission, and our vision. We will have many different expressions of purpose, and mission, and vision, but our foundation must be solid, and must be the place where we all stand, where we all start from.

            We have to agree to tell the truth, because we are members of one another. As I said before, it isn’t always easy to tell the truth. One of the major reasons that Jesus was always getting into trouble with the religious leaders is that he was just telling the truth. When he saw injustice taking place, when he saw religious folks putting more energy into being religious than into being faithful, Jesus said so. Do you know the story of the Emperor who had no clothes? The leader of the people ended up parading down the street without clothes because no one was willing to speak the truth, until finally a child broke the silence. We have to agree to tell each other the truth. Yes, we can speak the truth with kindness, with gentleness. But a foundation of our life together must be truth telling, because we are a part of one another, and for the whole body to be healthy, we have to speak truthfully.

            We have to speak in ways that build each other up, so that our words give grace to those who hear them. I remember as a child attending our church camps, a camp rule was that there were “no put downs.” And if you did put someone down, you had to apologize by giving “two put ups and a hug.” In other words, you had to find two ways to build the person back up that you had just knocked down. I think you will agree with me that you can find places to be put down and knocked down about everywhere you turn in this world. Lately, you’ve probably heard a lot about anti-bullying campaigns, because it seems like young people bullying, harassing, ridiculing, hurting one another online and in schools has developed into a huge problem. But this culture of tearing each other down doesn’t come from our young people. It’s being modeled for them by the adults they see in politics, in entertainment, in the media, and yes, in their communities, homes, and churches too. How do you speak to and about one another? How often do the words you speak act in a way that builds another person up? In my preaching class last week, after we preached for each other, we spent some time providing feedback to each other. After some wrestling with it, Bishop Craig decided she only wanted us to share with each other positive feedback. We didn’t have to say anything that we didn’t believe. But she wanted us to highlight for each other the areas where we really had strength. What could have been a very competitive, critical process was turned into an affirming process that still helped us to grow, to experiment, to risk, and to learn about our preaching process. “Paul” says what we say to each other is so powerful that when we build up, we give the gift of grace to one another. How can we withhold such a precious gift by tearing each other down? Our foundation must be building up and up.

            We have to act with forgiveness, as we are forgiven by God. We know we are not perfect. We will try and sometimes fail, sometimes struggle, sometimes still hurt one another. Part of our foundation must be knowing what to do when that happens. “Paul” says, “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, ³²and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” We cannot accept the gifts that God wants to place in our hands if we are holding onto hurts and grievances and wrongs. Forgiveness involves repentance and reconciliation, but if you have been wronged, you don’t have to wait for an apology to be ready with forgiveness. God certainly offers it to us without waiting for our apologies, knowing that forgiveness is more likely to change hearts than bitterness and resentment.

            Speak the truth in love. Build each other up. Forgive, as we’re forgiven by God. These are “Paul’s” tenets, you could say, for laying the foundation for a community that is seeking to be imitators of God, no small goal. What are your tenets, your guidelines? As we set about this journey together, as we dream together, as we act with purpose, mission, vision, what would you put at the root of our work? I’d really like to hear from you, and know that as we set out, we set out together. Friends, beloved children of God, let us live in love, as Christ loved us. Amen.  

Sermon for Ninth Sunday after Pentecost,"Year B, "HxWxL"

Sermon 7/29/12

Ephesians 3:14-21

HxWxL

“She’s finally set down roots.” I’ve never had so much feedback on a post I made on facebook as I did this week, when I posted words that were music to my own ears: “I am officially a homeowner!” Many of you know that I’ve been in the process of buying a home in Liverpool, and if you’ve been through the process yourself, you know that it is an arduous process! By the end of it, I wasn’t sure whether I was more excited to be a homeowner, or simply be done with submitting document after document to verify that I would be able to handle buying a home! But I was definitely touched and cheered by an outpouring of congratulatory posts of my facebook announcement. And that one stood out to me: “She’s finally set down roots.” I would definitely describe myself as a grounded person, but these last several years have involved a lot of moving around for me. I spent a short time serving a church in New Jersey, but longed to come back to my friends and family and home in Central New York. I rented an apartment for a year, and then moved into a parsonage belonging to another church that didn’t need it right then, and now, I’m packing up and ready to move my boxes into my own home in Liverpool. There’ve been a lot of transitions in my life. During the home-buying process, my realtor kept emphasizing that I would want to make sure my home would have a good resale value. But all I could think at the time was: resale? I’m just buying the house! I don’t want to think about selling it already! I know his advice makes good financial sense. He’s looking out for my future. But I’m looking forward to putting down some roots. I remain covenanted to the appointment process of The United Methodist Church, but I also feel like God has got some big plans for us right here, right now, and I hope very much to set down roots in Liverpool.

We’ve been working our way through the book of Ephesians, and last week, we heard Aaron talk about how the work of Christ breaks down the walls that we put up to separate us from one another, so that because of Christ, there’s no longer “them,” no longer “those people.” Today, we hear a spontaneous prayer, plopped right into the middle of this letter to the congregation at Ephesus, where “Paul” expresses his hopes for the young faith community, and it’s as if he has so much hope, so much anticipation about what they can be, that he just can’t contain his prayer any longer, can’t wait until the benediction, to offer these words to God. He writes, “I pray that . . . [God] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

“Paul” wants the Ephesians to understand, to know the incomprehensible: how much they are loved by Christ, so that they can be filled up with God. He knows it’s a tall order. He knows it “surpasses” our knowledge. But he wants us to have a sense of it. Have you ever talked to a child about how much they are loved? How much do you love me? Do you love me this much? No, I love you THIS much! We know our words are inadequate to express the depths of our love. But “Paul” tries to give voice to his hopes – that the Ephesians know the vast and endless dimensions of God’s love.

Do we “get it?” Do we understand that we are loved by God? I think, unfortunately, that it can be pretty hard to convince someone that you love them, truly, as unconditionally as we humans are capable of loving. It can be hard to be convinced that you are that loved! We hurt one another. We act carelessly. We break trust, break promises. And thus, we make it challenging to believe that we can be loved with all the length and height and depth “Paul” is telling us about. I think it is easy to say that we believe we are loved by God. We know we’re supposed to say that. After all, Jesus loves me is probably one of the first songs of faith we learn as a child. But do we believe it? We spend a lot of time and energy acting like we are still trying to earn God’s love, earn something that is offered to us as a free gift. If we think God offers love because we’re good enough, because we’ve completed some checklist, we really don’t understand what love is. “Paul’s” earnest prayer is that we would be able to have a glimpse of the marvelous truth that is too awesome for us to really know: We are loved, we are loved, we are loved.

So is “Paul’s” prayer of hope actually hopeless? If God’s love is just too good to be true for us to believe in, if we are too hurt and suspicious to believe it, is there anything to be done? “Paul’s” prayer actually gives voice to the way we can begin to touch on the mystery of God’s love for us. “I pray that . . . you may be strengthened in your inner being . . . and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”

Rooted and grounded in love. My grandfather, Millard Mudge, was a gardener. Half of my childhood memories of my grandpa are of him working in a garden that seemed enormous to me. And for many reasons, but especially out of our love for him, many members of my family have given gardening a go at one time or another. But I’m afraid none of us have had the same success he had. My older brother has been engaged in a prolonged battle with squirrels and rabbits. No matter what kind of fence he erects around his garden, they seem to eat his veggies mere hours before planned harvesting. My seedlings, so carefully nurtured this spring, withered almost immediately when I tried to move them outside this scorching summer. One summer my brother forgot what he planted where, and was caught trying to shell green beans, convinced they were peas. But one of my favorite stories comes from my mother’s garden. Mom had a nice row of corn growing, doing really well, when suddenly, the corn stopped growing, and started turning yellow. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Finally, she discovered that a certain brother, who certainly is not here today, was helping her by watering her garden – with water from the swimming pool. All that chlorine in the water permeated the soil, and was soaked up into the plants, and bleached the corn into a lovely shade of yellow. Sorry – that was supposed to be a family secret! Turns out, what the corn is planted in, the source of its nourishment, is pretty important for the plant to thrive.

How do we come to know and trust in God’s love? We get rooted in it. We plant ourselves in it. We sink our feet into it until we are filled up with it, immersed in it, made of it, from our toes to the top of our head. If Christ dwells within us, if we are rooted in and grounded in Christ, how could we doubt that we are loved? But what exactly, then, does that mean – to be rooted and grounded in Christ? To have Christ within us?

Thursday night we gathered for a social for Vacation Bible School – all of the teachers and helpers got together for a question and answer time, but especially for fellowship, prayer, and worship, a time to prepare spiritually for the week ahead just as so many hours have being spent preparing our space physically for vacation bible school. We talked and prayed about, among other things, what we hope happens at Vacation Bible School. One of the main purposes of VBS is to help children (and the adults who are helping) but to help the children experience the love of God. I think we’ve seen, in the planning and preparation for Vacation Bible School, some of the excitement and urgency that “Paul” felt for others to make sure they start to know the height and depth and length of God’s love. I’ve watched the fellowship hall be transformed into a space that makes me wish I was a child again, and I’ve watched a group of teens and adults try to outdo their previous year’s themes with such energy and excitement, because they want these children to have an awesome, life-changing experience this week, where they learn about God and God’s love, and having that love in their own lives.

What does it mean to be rooted in Christ? We do what Jesus did, as best as we can imitate, follow after him, let his life fill us up and permeate our own lives. And Jesus spent most of his time seeking out people who desperately needed to know it and making them feel worth it, valued, loved. The best way to know love, it turns out, is to let ourselves love. Love with abandon, excitement, urgency. The urgency of “Paul” who bursts into prayer in the middle of teaching, filled with hope for Ephesians. The urgency of vision the creates Promise Island in Fellowship Hall for kids to encounter love this week. The urgency of Jesus, willing to give of himself and give his life so that we might know how much, how deeply we are loved by our Creator, how deeply our Creator desires us to live in love with one another. If we are rooted and planted in Christ, in the ways of Jesus, we’ll begin to understand just how much we’re loved. And that kind of love – God’s love – that’s a power that will change lives, and change the world.

Dear Friends, “I pray that . . . [God] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Amen.

Sermon for Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - Non-lectionary, "This is Different," John 10:1-10

Sermon 7/1/12

John 10:1-10

This is Different!

            Perhaps all of you feel a little bit like I do today. When I first found out I was being appointed to Liverpool First, it was early February. July 1^st seemed like something off in the distance, a long way away. But of course, these last months have been busy and full, and time has flown by, and here we are, at the beginning of this new stage in our faith journey – new for you, new for me and Aaron, new for Nancy and Chris, new things for Penny, new things for Russ and Irene. This is an extremely significant time of transition for all of us, and we are all wondering what the future will hold. It’s a lot to take in!

            Aaron and I are so excited to be here with you today, to be joining you, as we seek, together, to hear God’s call and respond in faithful action. We have been planning and preparing and dreaming, and we are ready to get started! There is a lot that is new and different for Aaron and me in this appointment. We are both co-pastoring for the first time. We don’t know what that will look like yet. We plan to watch and listen and get to know you as we figure out how best to use our time and gifts and talents here. Fortunately, Aaron and I have the benefit of knowing each other for many years, and although we’ve never worked together in this way before, we have spent years talking to each other about ministry and discipleship, and I feel we have a strong foundation for beginning our work together.

            Today we want to introduce ourselves to you, tell you a bit about what has brought us to this place and this time. I grew up in Westernville and then Rome, NY. I have a large extended family, almost all of whom live in Central New York, which is such a blessing to me. My Mom and one brother live in Rome still. My oldest brother and his wife and five year old son Sam, who you will hear a lot about, live in Minoa. My youngest brother Todd is a professional actor who lives with me between acting jobs that take him here and there. I hope you will get to see a bit of him here (although, ok, probably never at the 8am service!)

            I think God was always luring me towards being a pastor. I come from a family of pastors – two uncles, and two great uncles were United Methodist pastors. And I grew up in a small country church that had a lot of female pastors – I never knew some people found female pastors unusual – it was just how it was in my young experience! My mother instilled in my brothers and me a deep sense that we are all called by God for some purpose – and it is our life’s work to figure out what that call is and how we can respond to it. So I was in the practice of listening for God’s voice, God’s direction, at a young age. I grew up attending one of our church camps, Camp Aldersgate, every summer, and for a while, I believed I was called into camping ministry, because that was where I felt closest to God. But I have always needed to feel “settled” with decisions, at peace with them, to know that I heard God as accurately as I can. And I knew I hadn’t found the right spot yet. I started to become involved with youth ministry. Of course, I was a youth myself at the time, but I loved planning and preparing youth events, and I felt like maybe I had found my calling this time. But still, God was nudging me. Somewhere between applying for and beginning college, I realized God was calling me to pastoral ministry, thanks in large part to my childhood pastor, Rev. Bruce Webster, now a colleague and friend, and mentor to me still. I can’t pinpoint a specific date or time when I knew for sure, just God’s persistent tugging at me until I got the picture.

            I attended Ohio Wesleyan for my undergraduate work in pre-theology, and then went to seminary at Drew Theological School in New Jersey, where I was apartment-mates with Aaron’s mom, Beth. I was commissioned in 2003 and ordained in 2006, in the same class as both Aaron, and our friend, Heather Williams. Small world! I’ve remained passionate about my early loves – I still stay involved with camping ministries, and have spent nine years now working with our Conference Council on Youth Ministries, CCYM. I have a love for social justice ministry – mission and outreach and service to those in the greatest need, those on the fringes, those who Jesus was always bringing to the center. I love theatre and music, and have been grateful for how God has allowed me to use these gifts in my ministry. Right now, I’m working on a Doctor of Ministry degree at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio in the area of Leadership for Transformation Change. Each July and January, I spend one week in Ohio completing coursework, and I hope to complete my degree a year from May. God is still calling, always calling, and I continue to listen for God’s voice. I’ve served congregations in Oneida, in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, and in East Syracuse, and now, God has called us together in this place. That’s a bit about my path.

            In the weeks and months ahead, we will want to hear about your path – your personal journey, your family, the path this congregation has taken. You should be proud of the reputation that Liverpool First has in the community and in our Annual Conference. You have been engaged in ministries and missions that have been well-spoken of by those who have only heard about what you’ve been up to. For example, you have a reputation in the conference of being a place of hospitality, that opens its doors to people, since you have been so gracious in inviting conference teams and meetings to take place here so often. Your LIFE youth program is well-known by other youth programs in the conference – you have a commitment to young people and young people who are committed to serving God that has caught the attention of other faith communities who want what you have! I’ve been excited to just begin to hear about Beautiful Mess Productions, to see this new vision from some of your own, and imagine how we can support and nurture and send out this new thing. You have a music program that has been exceptional – I have heard so much about Joyful Noise, about Amahl and the Night Visitors, and so on, and I am excited to work with Nancy and Chris. These are just a few things, and for every ministry that is known beyond the community, I know there are five more that might be quieter, but are just as committed to serving God and changing the world by transforming lives in Christ.

            Today, I chose John 10:1-10, one of my favorite passages of scripture, to share with you. I love this whole chapter of scripture, but my favorite verse is John 10:10: Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” This verse caught my eye when I was in tenth grade, and reading the scriptures, and it just stuck with me. In a world that often paints Christianity as a list of thou-shalt-nots, when we Christians often let ourselves be boiled down to things you shouldn’t be doing, I was just fascinated that what Jesus said he wanted for us was abundant life. Abundance! Life that is full and rich and meaningful and complete, not a life where we feel restricted and limited and deprived. What God has in mind for us is that we find that our lives are overflowing with goodness and promise, that we have so much that we can’t begin to run out of ways to use and serve and love with the gifts we’ve been given. God wants us to have it all! Abundant life.

In challenging times, it is so easy for us to focus on what we don’t have, what we think we don’t have enough of. And it is so easy to try to fill up our lives with our own efforts, trying to fill an emptiness with a lot of stuff that has nothing much to do with God. We don’t need to. Jesus promises us all the abundance we could desire. God wants us to have it all. The catch? Of course, God wants us to give it all too. We get abundant life. God always gives us more. And as much as we have been following God, on the various paths we have taken to arrive here today, God is always going to call us further down the path. God is always read to give more and ask more.

Friends, my hope is that we will learn to look in our hands, look in our lives, look in this congregation and community and recognize all the abundant life God has poured out on us. And then, I hope we will listen. God is calling us still, farther on. Let’s go together, and find out what God has in store.

Amen.  

Sermon for Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Changed from Glory into Glory: To Be Continued..."

Sermon 6/10/12

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

Changed from Glory into Glory: To Be Continued…

            Have you ever been watching a movie or TV program, and you are to that really awesome, intense part, and things are getting just so good – and then the screen turns to black, and up pop three words: to be continued. Groan! How frustrating is a “to be continued,” when you really want to know how something will end right now? I will confess to you that I am a person who usually flips to the end of the book and reads the last few pages of a novel, to see how it ends. Of course, I still read the whole book anyway, and I have never thought of it as something that ruins the book for me – I love to read! But I like to know where I’m headed – I like to know where the story is going. And so I just take a bit of a peak at the ending. But with some book series, and with tv or movies, I can’t skip to the end. Sometimes, I might even have to wait years for the next one to come out. I might want to know where we’re going, but I just have to wait and see how things will unfold.

            I’ve shared with some of you before my own call story, my call to become a pastor. The process for ordination for United Methodist elders is rather long. I started the process officially when I was 18, and I was finally ordained when I was 27 years old. I literally spent a third of my life at the time in “the process.” But as I was finally nearing ordination, I had to remind myself, that just because I was about to achieve a particular goal, even one I had worked for so long and so hard, it didn’t mean that I could just be finished with responding to God’s call. When it comes to God’s call on our lives, there is always another chapter, always a to be continued, and as far as I can tell with life, there is just no way to skip ahead and read pages we haven’t gotten to yet so we know where we’re going.

            In our epistle lesson from 2 Corinthians, Paul is writing about faith that perseveres through incredible difficulty. In the section right before our reading from today, Paul says, “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.” Paul sees his suffering as a way that Jesus can be made more visible to others. That’s the theme that our text continues with today. Paul writes, “Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.” Everything Paul does is in hopes that God’s grace, God’s unconditional love, is experienced in all its fullness by more people.

            Over the last three years, I hope you have heard me talk about a few things. First, I hope you have heard me ask you lots of questions. I received a card from one of you this last week that said something like, “Thank you for letting me ask all those questions, and thank you for your responses. Well, you really just asked me more questions in return, but thank you for making me think.” I think asking questions is a way we explore the breadth and depth of our faith. And the biggest question we can ask is the one that we start asking as children: Why? Why? Why? Why? As a congregation, the “why” I’ve wanted you to ask is this: Why do we do this thing? Why church? Why bother? Why, when things are so challenging, do we keep at it? When we face struggles, why not just call it a day, close up shop, and go off to other congregations and communities of faith where things are not such a challenge? Why? How would you answer that question? Paul answers that it is worth preserving through everything so that the number of people who can experience God’s grace, which is always available to us, but which we don’t always reach for, just increases and increases.

            Second, I hope you have heard me say a little bit about how I would answer the “why” question, at least one answer. We have tried, during the last few years, and will always try to be answering questions about how we understand God’s vision for our work. What is your vision? What is our vision? What is God’s vision for us? And my answer has been and is this: I want this church to be a place where people’s lives change because they’ve encountered the living Christ. I want our experiences of God to turn our lives upside down. If you come here to praise God, and you praise God with your whole heart, and if you find that your life is changed by knowing God more, then why wouldn’t you want to share your experience with others? My vision for this congregation is that it is a community of faith where being a part of God’s family is so meaningful that you can’t help but want to talk about it with others. I hope you are so grounded in your faith that it is simply a part of how you live and move and exist in the world, so that is it part of every decision you make. You feed the hungry because you were deeply moved by Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 and can’t stand to see more people starving in the midst of abundance. You care for children because you understand that children have the easiest time seeing God, and you want to see through their eyes. You visit shut-in members because you understand what the apostle Paul means when he talks about us being essential parts of the body of Christ. If your life has meaning it didn’t have before, if you have purpose, and if you have this unfailing love of God – how can you not share that, share your life with others? I want your life to be your witness in the world.

            My hope for you is that like Paul, you find that God’s grace is so worth sharing that you see your struggles not as obstacles, but as one more way, one more opportunity, one more avenue that will help you make it easier to share God’s grace with people who are already hurt and struggling, people who are already lost and lonely, who are just waiting for someone to reach out and extend to them the invitation to God’s kingdom.

            Friends, these three years have been just one chapter in God’s unfolding story. My story, your story, the story of First United, and beyond that, the story of God and God’s people. God invites us to be co-authors, writing together the story of Jesus and his love, a story that is for all times, all places, and all people, a story that is always to be continued. Thanks be to God. Amen.