Sermon for September 30th, 2012, "Room at the Table: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" Acts 11:1-18

Sermon 9/30/12

Acts 11:1-18

Room at the Table: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

            My older brother Jim is six years older than me, and when I was little, I idolized him, and wanted to be around him constantly. I wanted to dress like him, play with the toys he played with, and do what he did. But naturally, a 12 year old boy does not always want his 6 year old sister following him around everywhere, and sometimes there would be a bit of conflict between me and Jim. Sometimes, I might do something, like follow Jim around when I was instructed to leave him alone for a while, that would result in Jim taking the dreaded action: he would tell on me. “I’m telling!” Powerful words between siblings, aren’t they? Apparently, I started trying my own version of a preemptive strike, by running to my parents and saying, “Jim is gonna tell on me!” I guess I figured Jim would get in trouble if I could somehow tell on him first. But I couldn’t foresee the logical conclusion of my action, which would be for my parents to ask, “And why is Jim going to tell on you?” “Um…”

            My nephew Sam is an only child, so maybe you would think he would be exempt from this whole “telling on” phenomenon. No such luck. I remember when Sam was maybe three at the most, and my mom was babysitting him, somehow, she broke one of the blinds on the front window. Sam asked her, “What do you think Mom’s gonna say to you when she gets home?” And no sooner had my sister-in-law Jen arrived at home than Sam ratted out my mom: “Grandma broke the blinds!” When Sam started pre-K last fall, he started telling on his classmates rather a lot. His teachers cleverly instructed Sam that when he felt like he needed to tell on a classmate, he had to go speak to the giant toy frog in their classroom, and tell on his peers to the frog. That way, his teachers didn’t have to hear Sam’s complaints anymore. Jim and Jen tell me Sam spent a lot of time talking to that frog.

            Of course, you can get a pretty bad reputation for telling on people all the time. Tattle-tale is a name my brothers and I would call each other, in an effort to not get in trouble, hoping the bad name would make the tattler think twice before turning us in to our parents. We’d like to think that we’ve all grown up since our days of telling on one another, but I suspect we all find ourselves engaging in the time-honored tradition of tattle-taleing now and then. Sometimes I joke with friends and family that if everyone would just do what I told them to, their lives would be so much better. I like to tease with these words, wishing they would follow my good advice for them. But I also realize there is some truth to my words, in that they express a feeling I think many of us have at one time or another. We can look at other people’s lives and it is so clear to us what they should be doing that they aren’t, or what they shouldn’t be doing that they are. It is so easy to know what would be best for someone else, isn’t it? Hold that thought for a bit.

            Today, we turn to the Acts of the Apostles, a book of the Bible that recounts the actions of the disciples and other followers of Jesus when Jesus returned to God’s home after the resurrection. For those of you in Pastor Aaron’s Bible Study on Acts, you get a little sneak peak today of Chapter 11. As I’ve mentioned before, Jesus and his disciples were often at odds with the religious leaders of the day over appropriate rules about who to eat with, but in the early church, the apostles were actually at odds with each other over rules about sharing meals. Our text for today is part of this ongoing conflict.

The whole passage is sort of a flashback, and you can read about the events Peter describes here in the previous chapter, chapter 10. Peter, apparently, has eaten with some Gentiles – and the food the Gentiles ate was forbidden to Peter by Jewish law, laws that had very detailed dietary restrictions, laws that centered on purity and impurity, cleanliness and uncleanliness. So some of the circumcised believers, the ones who are following Jewish purity codes, want to know why Peter has eaten with these people. And so Peter must explain himself, “step by step,” we read, and that is where he flashes back to describe what has caused this strange behavior in him. He’s had a vision, he says. A large sheet, maybe like a giant tablecloth, was lowered from heaven by its corners. On the cloth were various kinds of animals, representing animals that Peter would not be allowed to eat according to Jewish laws, kosher laws. Surprising to him, he hears God’s voice telling him to get up and eat these forbidden foods. Peter refuses, insisting he would not eat anything unclean. But God responds, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This sequence Peter saw repeated in his vision a total of three times, which tells us and Peter’s audience that there was no mistake – he heard God in the vision correctly.

Right after this happens, three men appear who are Gentiles, and Peter feels the Spirit telling him “not to make a distinction” between himself and these men. So he goes with them and fellowships with them, eats with them. In his heart, Peter finally understands his vision. He tells the questioning apostles, “I remembered the word of God . . . ‘John baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that God gave us when we believed in . . . Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” And the apostles get it too, finally, after hearing Peter’s story: They praise God and say, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life!”

What, you might be asking, is it that they all seem to understand now from Peter’s strange vision? Well, as we encounter in this text and other texts in Acts and the epistles of Paul, Peter and the rest of the ‘original’ disciples and Paul and Barnabbas and the apostles working with them approached their ministry very differently. Paul, certainly a devout Jew, spent most of his ministry reaching out to those who were not Jewish – reaching out to the Gentiles. Paul had a complete conversion on the road to Damascus, and he was ready and willing to let go of all the old things in his life – so he felt free to tell others becoming Christians that they didn’t need to adopt all the commandments of Jewish life – they were new creations in Christ. But Peter and company didn’t see things Paul’s way: Peter and the rest of the Twelve focused their outreach and evangelism primarily on those who were already Jews, viewing God’s message in Jesus as directed only or at least mostly for the chosen people of Israel. He thought that those who were not Jews who wanted to follow Christ should at least convert first to the Jewish faith, and then become Christians. The two sides spent a lot of time disagreeing over this topic, and ultimately agreed that each would focus on their own special area of ministry. But here, here is Peter’s own conversion experience. Peter has already converted his life to be a follower of Jesus Christ – here he has a conversion of a different nature, when his mind is opened and he sees the radically inclusive and all-reaching nature of God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ. In his vision, he’s told essentially that only God decides what is clean and unclean, and that what God has made clean, we humans have no right to reject.

            Last week, we talked about the kingdom of God being God’s party, and we reminded ourselves that it is God, not us, who creates the guest list. I think this scripture passage in Acts builds on those themes. Somewhere, Peter crossed the line from trying to be faithful to the laws of Judaism that had guided is whole life, to actually withholding the good news about Jesus – the very news that had changed his whole life – withholding that from others so that he didn’t have to break rules about who to eat with. And suddenly, Peter is acting in the same way as the Pharisees Jesus was always criticizing. Peter was deciding who should and shouldn’t get to hear the good news, and deciding that only people who agreed to follow the rules he followed would be able to hear about Jesus. How quickly Peter messed up one of the main things Jesus taught and lived – God’s love is for everyone – and how quickly he started behaving in ways that added qualifiers to who got to hear the good news.

            And how quickly do we do the same thing as Peter! We started today by talking about telling on each other, being tattle-tales. Sometimes I think that our favorite person to tattle-tale to is God. If we are truly honest with ourselves, how much time do we spend tattling to God in our minds and hearts about what others are doing? What rules of ours we think they are breaking or ignoring altogether? Now we can dress up our tattling to God in fancy packages. We can pretend we are only looking out for one another, making sure someone isn’t going “astray.” But just like my parents almost always knew what was happening with us kids without the aid of any tattling on our parts, so our God certainly knows the hearts of each precious person made in God’s very image. When Jesus gave the Great Commission, sending his disciples out in mission and ministry, he didn’t say, “Go out and make sure everyone is behaving in the right way.” No, Jesus sent us out to share good news – God is with us always, and loves us always, so come, and follow.

            The rest, friends, just isn’t our responsibility. It just isn’t. Whether someone believes exactly the same thing as you do, or has the right understanding of a passage, or is acting in the right way: God does not ask us to monitor one another. We can help each other. We can work together to grow in faith, when we mutually try to live as disciples, certainly. But we can free ourselves of worrying about being the judge of right and wrong. God’s got it covered. It’s a task we can cross right off our list. Because when we, faulty as we are, try to decide what’s best for others, we end up building dividing walls, creating strife and hostility, and worse, like Peter almost did, holding back on sharing the good news of God because we never let ourselves build enough of a relationship with someone to do so.

Peter had a vision, one that God made sure Peter got, showing it to him again and again, that Peter was trying to be so right that he was actually getting in God’s way. And the last thing we want to do is become an obstacle between someone and God. Peter summed it up with a perfect line: “Who was I, that I could hinder God?” Who are we, to get in the way of God’s work, God’s mission, God’s love, God’s party? We’re God’s children. We’re beloved. And God is breaking down walls and boundaries left and right in our world, so that we will sit down together, all of us, at God’s table.

Your homework this week? Easy, and hard. Don’t hinder God. Serve God. Listen to God. Love like God loves. And praise God – for God has offered to all of us the way that leads to life. Amen. 

Sermon for 9/23/12, "Room at the Table: RSVP," Luke 14:12-24

Sermon 9/23/12

Luke 14:12-24

Room at the Table: RSVP

            This past week I got a text from my younger brother Tim. “Are you going to Elise and Kevin’s wedding?” Elise is a family friend, who went to school with my younger brothers. I responded that Yes, I was. We’ve all been planning to attend this wedding for practically a year. I’ve had it on my calendar for a long time. “Are Todd and Andrea going?” he asked. My brother and his girlfriend. “Yes, I think so,” I said. “Did you send in your RSVP?” “Yes.” “Did Todd send in his?” “I think yes.” “Well, Elise hasn’t received them yet, and she’s freaking out.” Apparently, the RSVP deadline for the wedding was approaching, and the bride was getting a bit anxious. She was anxious because although she had sent invitations months before the event, many people had not yet responded. If you’ve ever been part of planning a wedding, you know that having a pretty accurate idea of the number of guests is important, because you need to know how many people you will have at the reception, how much seating to have, how much food to have, how many favors to have, and so on. At even the most casual weddings, people like to know how many people to prepare for.

             I don’t know about you, but I’m not always good at RSVPing to events when I’m supposed to. I was impressed with myself that I’d sent out my RSVP to Elise’s wedding ahead of the deadline. I’m usually ok with email RSVPs or facebook invitations, but I’m especially bad at calling people, if that’s the only option, to let them know whether or not I will attend. I should be better at it, if only because I understand how hard it is to try to plan an event without knowing how many to be ready for! For example, I am the coordinator of our conference young clergy group, and we hold retreats twice a year. I find it is like pulling teeth to get my colleagues to respond – yes OR no – to my emails about the retreat. I find myself sending increasingly frantic and emphatic emails, practically begging for an answer. Then, when it comes to the actual event, I can almost guarantee that at least a third of the pastors who said they would come actually don’t show up when it comes down to it. Which is worse, do you think: when people don’t RSVP at all, RSVP no, but then show up anyway, or RSVP yes, but then don’t show up when the time comes?  

            It seems like good party etiquette is at the center of our text today, from the gospel of Luke. Just before our text begins, Jesus has traveled to the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees for a meal on the Sabbath. When a diseased man presents himself, Jesus heals him, and a debate about healing on the Sabbath ensues. And then Jesus begins to notice how the guests for the meal all try to sit in the places of highest honor. He speaks against their behavior, telling them that the exalted will be humbled, and the humble will be exalted. That’s where our passage for today picks up.

Jesus starts by telling those gathered for the meal that when they’re having a dinner, they shouldn’t invite friends, or relatives, or rich neighbors, because all of those could invite you in return, and you’d be repaid. Instead, Jesus says, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then you’ll be blessed in the kingdom of God, because you couldn’t be repaid on earth. In Jewish thought, doing acts of kindness that can’t be repaid still is considered one of the highest mitzvot, or commandments. One of the guests at the meal hears Jesus and seems to catch some understanding. “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God,” he says. And then Jesus responds with the parable. Someone gives a great banquet and invites many people. But when he calls them to come for the big event, they all give their excuses – they have land to inspect, oxen to test, weddings to celebrate. The party-thrower becomes angry, and sends his servant out into the streets, telling him to bring in the crippled, blind, and lame. The slave does so, but there is still room for more. So the master sends him out yet again, sending him farther out of town. He instructs the slave to compel people to come, so that the house is filled. And he concludes with the promise: “I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.”

At first read, it seems like this is a great parable that teaches us about how to be welcoming and hospitable. We’re to invite and invite and invite to God’s banquet table. And if at first we don’t succeed, Jesus reminds us to also invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Surely, we’re not great at that – inviting outside of our comfort zones. But we get the point, right? The trouble is, such an interpretation of this text skips over some important details of the parable.

Let’s look again. Jesus, in telling the parable, mentions that the slave goes out to call the guests when the banquet is ready. But this isn’t the first time they’re getting the invitation. In Jesus’ day, the invitation would have happened in two parts. “(1) the initial invitation some time ahead [of the event], and (2) the actual summons to the meal when it is ready.” You can think of it as the invite to dinner, and then the host actually telling you, “Dinner’s ready,” so that you come sit at the table. The guests the slave summons would have already been invited and RSVPed ‘yes’ to this banquet some time before the summons that takes place in our passage. So their excuses now represent a sudden, last minute change in plans. And their behavior, then, as now, would be considered impolite. “Not to come to a banquet where one had previously indicated acceptance was a grave breach of social etiquette. It was an insult to the host. [And] in a society where one's social standing was determined by peer approval -who is invited to whose dinners - this was an act of social insult as well." (2) For all those people to not show up would result in bringing shame on the host.

The excuses the guests give aren’t very sound, either. The tract of land purchased already would have been examined before this time. The oxen would have been tested. The new groom would have known about the wedding when he was first invited and could have refused then. The guests, one after the other, give excuses, and their excuses, coming at the last minute, after they’d already said they were coming, represent a great insult to the host, and a very weak attempt on the part of the guests to cover their own rude, neglectful behavior.

So the master sends the slave out to invite more guests – the same group of ‘unwanted’ community members that Jesus mentions before he begins telling this parable – the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And then he sends them out even of the town limits to bring people in. “Inside the town would be the poor, the beggars, the indigent. But outside the town would be the vagabonds and sojourners, those who were shunned and unwelcome in the towns.” These people would be considered ritually unclean, socially unacceptable. These people, the master invites into his home, and the parable closes with a sentence that certainly has a sense of threat and warning: “I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.”

            The kingdom of God is God’s party. God is the party-thrower, the inviter, the one inviting us to the feast. You’ve heard us say that before: it’s God’s table. We’re guests. We’re invited. But we’re guests at God’s party. It’s not our party. Not our guest list. When we come together as this body called Liverpool First United Methodist, we offer ourselves as one (of many) locations for God’s party to be held – not limited to this building, of course, but in this community of faith. But as soon as we try to take over as hosts, I tell you, God will find a different way to throw the party.

            So we’re guests, invited by God. What does that mean for us? You’ll notice, in the life of the congregation, when we are trying to do something new, we give you a million ways to respond. You can call the office.  You can email the office. You can call or email a pastor. You can send us a message on facebook. You can text us. You can sign up on the bulletin board. In case you didn’t get it, we’re saying Respond, respond, please respond! We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate in the mission and ministry of the church.

            God is doing the same thing with us, inviting us into the kingdom. I think God is giving us a million ways to respond. Giving us good things we don’t expect or deserve in our lives. Putting special people in our path. Offering us opportunities that are just what we’ve been thinking about doing. All these invitations, in all these different forms, all ways of God saying to us:  Respond, respond, please respond!

             Why don’t we? Why don’t we respond to God? Or, like those in the parable, have we said yes to God, but not really been showing up at God’s party? I was curious whether it was just my perception that we are, culturally, are less likely to RSVP these days, or whether things really have changed. And so I googled “the Lost Art of the RSVP” – and found over a million results. Here’s a snippet from a one:  

1) I followed up [on my invitation] after a few days with gentle reminder emails, as the event was less than a week away. The responses I received varied from “I have some other options that same day” to “I’m waiting to hear about something else” to “I’m so busy with other parties that day.” It seems as though the standard regretting due to a previous engagement has also been left by the wayside, probably dumped in the same trash bin as the original R.S.V.P. . . . Now, hosts get to hear from their potential guests that their event is part of a pecking order of importance when compared to others that might be going on at that same time. (2)

Is this what we’re doing with our invitation to serve God? To follow Jesus? Are we waiting for a better offer? Maybe one that doesn’t involve this whole humbling-ourselves thing? One that doesn’t involve that cross to take up and carry? Are we letting our lips RSVP yes to God’s kingdom, while meaning for our actions, our lives, to remain unchanged? Do we think that if we are not ready to come, or if we don’t like the guest list, God’s party gets rescheduled? Cancelled? If we can’t be the host, do we just not want to come at all? In the parable, the “second-tier” guests, and “third-tier” guests, those who get invited on the day of the party, they get what an awesome invitation they’ve received! Do you get it?

Friends, we need to RSVP. And then, we need to show up! Because God’s party is taking place no matter what. No matter what! Don’t miss the party. Don’t miss the opportunity to invite friends. Don’t miss the opportunity as a church for this to be a location of the party! Because if we won’t make room for God’s party here, God will make church wherever God takes the party. Please, RSVP. And then, show up! Show up to God’s kingdom. It’s right here, right now, and it’s the best party in town.

This week, friends, my homework assignment for you is fairly simple: I want you to respond – yes, or no – to all the invitations you receive this week, via text, facebook, email, or old fashioned pen and paper. And then, of course, if you say yes, I want you to actually show up! And in so doing, in being aware of how and when and by whom you are invited, I hope you will also be thinking about the many invitations God extends to you. And maybe, maybe, you can start carrying some of the invitations God sends, delivering them to those you know, and to those in the town, and to those in the streets. And when you show up to God’s party, you can show up with friends new and old.

You’re invited. Respond, if you please. Amen.

(1)   http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/14_12-24.htm

(2)   http://www.womanaroundtown.com/sections/living-around/the-lost-art-of-the-r-s-v-p

Sermon for September 9th, 2012, "Room at the Table: Enough Room," John 6:1-15

Sermon 9/9/12

John 6:1-15

Room at the Table:

            Friday night, the adult leaders of LIFE, our youth program, met at Eric and Jen Holmes’s house to talk about our kickoff this Friday night. As we were making our plans for Friday, one of the things we talked about was what food we would have available at the LIFE Café. This wasn’t just a detail to discuss and check off our list. We actually think a lot about it, because some of our youth, with their busy schedules, will come and spend so much of their evening with us after a full day at school and after-school activities that they won’t have had a chance to eat. So we want to be able to provide a little more than chips and soda. Plus, honestly, people are always more likely to attend an event when there’s good food than when there’s not, right? I shared with Jen that during seminary, if we wanted to have people attend a meeting for this group or that group, we would always make sure to offer free lunch, because regardless of the meeting topic, broke seminary students will attend if there’s a free lunch involved that can make your dollars stretch. Maybe not if you build it they will come, but rather, if you feed them, they will come!  

            Sure, in our culture of excess you can’t go anywhere or do anything, it seems, without food being involved, and probably too much, too processed, too not-so-good-for-you food at that. But food and hospitality have gone hand-in-hand forever, and certainly make up a rich part of our scriptures, with stories sprinkled throughout the Old and New Testaments that deal with welcoming one another and sharing food. If you had a chance to read my column in our September newsletter, you read about how Jesus was frequently and particularly in trouble for who he chose to share meals with. I encouraged you to think about who you share meals with. Think about it. Although you may be in mission, ministry, and service to people of all different types, it is much more unusual to actually sit down and share a meal with people who are unlike us. Most often, we eat with the people we know the best, are most familiar with, because sharing a meal is an intimate act – an act that implies familial connections, and act that implies closeness, common ground, and relationships. That’s why food and hospitality have always gone hand in hand. Inviting someone to share food with you, inviting someone to your table is an act that invites someone into relationship with you, beyond the polite exchanges that happen between strangers or acquaintances.

            Today, this day of beginnings, we are starting a new focus in worship for the next several weeks: Room at the Table. We’ll be exploring the rich themes in the Bible about food, hospitality, and welcome, as we consider what it means to know that we all have a place at God’s table. This morning, we’re beginning by looking at a story from the gospels that may be familiar to many of you – the Feeding of the 5000. We find ourselves in the gospel of John, where, following a time of teaching, Jesus has crossed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and the crowd has just followed right along. They’ve seen the signs Jesus has been doing, the healing that he’s been doing, and they want it for themselves, or want more, or just want to be around him. Jesus asks Philip, a disciple, where they will get bread for this big crowd to eat. John tells us that Jesus had a plan, but was interested to see how his disciple would answer. Philip suggests they don’t have enough money – it would cost half a year’s wages just to get everyone a little bit of bread. Andrew, Peter’s brother, mentions that one boy has five loaves and two fish, but wonders what difference they can make among so many. Jesus has everyone sit down. He gives thanks to God, and hands it out. We read that people had “as much as they wanted” and ate “until they were satisfied,” and that still, there were twelve baskets of food left over. Seeing what has taken place, the people say that Jesus is “indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” And Jesus realizing that they are so excited by this man who can feed them with five loaves and two fish that they’re going to make him king on the spot, withdraws from the crowds to the mountain to be by himself.

            Biblical scholars have debated the details of the Feeding of the 5000 for centuries. What exactly took place? Did Jesus miraculously make the bread and fish multiply? Did people just start sharing stuff they had with them, once they saw what was happening? Is the miracle that Jesus moved people to give what they had by showing them how to trust in God? But as I read this text, those questions don’t really get at the main point of the passage. If you look at the interaction between Jesus and Philip, the recurring question is whether or not there is enough. Is there enough food? Is there enough for everyone, or should people be sent home? Is there enough money? Do the disciples have enough faith to guess what God is about to do in their midst? And everywhere in this story, we get the answer: There’s enough room at God’s table. More than enough room. And we’re all invited.

            You are invited to this table, God’s table, and it doesn’t even matter why you came. Did all 5000 people come to see Jesus because they were looking for a deep relationship with God? I doubt it! But Jesus makes them welcome anyway. We knew in seminary that sometimes people were coming to meetings only because of the free lunch, and not because of the meeting topic. But our theory was that they were just going to get more than they bargained for, and end up receiving the information we wanted to share too. There are many reasons why you might be here today. Maybe you came because that’s what you’ve always done. Maybe you’ve come because someone has been inviting you, and you finally said yes. Maybe you’re here because someone, like a parent, or a spouse, required your presence! Maybe you’re looking for something you can’t even describe. Maybe you are looking for answers to questions that keep coming up. There are many reasons why you might be coming to God’s table today. Whyever you are here, you’re invited, there’s a place for you, and God welcomes you.  

            You are invited to this table, God’s table, and there’s enough for you, and for everyone. We can be a part of the welcoming committee. We can offer invitations to the table on God’s behalf. But God has all the supplies covered. The first church I served in Oneida had a lot of potluck suppers, and I was always amazed at the amount of food that people brought. There was just so much food. When I mentioned this, I found out that once upon a time, at a potluck long, long ago, there hadn’t been enough food. The food ran out before people were done going through the serving line. And everyone was so horrified by this event, that they never, ever would let that happen again. Since then, there’s always been way too much food at a potluck in Oneida. Friends, when it comes to God’s table, there’s no running out of room. There’s no running out of food. There’s always so much that there will be baskets-full left over. That’s because we’re not the suppliers of what is needed. God supplies the love and the grace. We’re the stewards. We can co-host with God. But we’re the only ones worried about there not being enough to go around. There’s enough at this table God invites you to, more than enough.

            You are invited to this table, God’s table, and you’ll be fed – you won’t go home empty, but filled up. When people shared in this meal that Jesus offered, John tells us that they ate as much as they wanted to, until they were filled up. That’s exactly what God wants to happen in our journey of discipleship. How close do you want to get to God? How deep a faith do you desire? How much of your life are you willing to hand over to God? Because however much you want, God is ready for you, ready to shake you up and stretch you and give you meaning, give you purpose and hope. God invites you to be filled up to overflowing with blessing and challenge. How much do you want?

            You are invited to this table, God’s table, and miracles will happen here. As I mentioned before, what exactly happened when Jesus started passing out bread isn’t all spelled out for us in this passage. But did a miracle happen? Well, 5000 people came together, had more than enough to share, were filled up, and had baskets overflowing at the end, when they thought they only had five loaves and two fish. That seems pretty miraculous to me. Maybe we can’t exactly plan on miracles. They’re a gift from God, and they come in shapes and forms we won’t anticipate. But I believe that we can expect God to act in miraculous ways, especially when, in turn with God making room for us, we make room for God. We’re invited to this table, God’s table. Will you invite God into your life? Have you made enough room for God’s miracles? Do we have room here at Liverpool First for God to do miracles among us?

            In the weeks ahead, we’re going to be exploring many ways that God makes room, and we can help make room, at the table. We’ll be thinking practically – how do we welcome one another in this building, this space of worship, this community? We’ll think spiritually – what does it mean to accept God’s invitation to the table? And I hope we’ll begin to get a feel for what kind of place, what kind of community, what kind of place of welcome we want this particular community of faith to be. As we prepare to ask these questions, I have another homework assignment for you. You know I’m fond of homework assignments. This one should be easy – for now. At every meal you eat this week, I want you to make note of who you are eating with. Who is at the table with you? Make a list. And I’d love for you to share it with me, or Pastor Aaron or Pastor Penny. And if you’re really brave, there’s still that space on my bulletin board, where I’d be glad to hang it up. Who is at the table with you? This week, pay close attention.

            You’re invited, friends, to God’s table. There’s room for us no matter why we’re here. There’s enough for everyone – more than enough. In fact, God plans to fill your life to overflowing. You’re invited to be inviting! You’re invited to make room for miracles. You’re invited to make room for God. Enough room for miracles to take place. Come to the table. There’s enough room for everyone, and then some. Amen.

           

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.