My First Sermon - Luke 12:13-21, "All That You Have is Your Soul"

This week is the 15th anniversary of the first time I ever preached. The lectionary texts are up this week. Here it is, my first ever sermon (back when I tried to combine all the lectionary texts into one sermon. What was I thinking?!)

Sermon  8/2/98

All that you have is your soul

            This year at school, I was fortunate enough to become involved with an exciting and fulfilling group on campus, the United Methodist Student Movement.  We met once a week to plan, fellowship, work, or worship.  One particular evening we were joined by the university chaplain, and he led us in a worship service to help us center and focus for the exams and papers that were coming in the week ahead.  With the lights out and candles lit, we sat in a circle on the floor, and the chaplain shared with us an early Methodist tradition.  John Wesley, in the first years of the Methodist Movement, developed many instructions and disciplines for spiritual growth among his followers. One of these practices was to open each meeting of the gathered Christians with the following question: is it well with your soul? In other words, how are you doing - are things right in your heart?  This inquiry would set the tone for the rest of the meeting.  After relating this to us, the chaplain asked each of us that same question - ‘Is it well with your soul?’  For the next two hours students shared tears, smiles, laughter, and quiet reflections in answering the question for themselves. As each of us thought of our gains, and losses of the past weeks, it became clear that those had nothing to do with the question at all. What mattered, what determined our personal answer to the question was the shape that our relationship with God was in right then.  Nothing else had so great an impact on the state of our souls. One student could have aced all his midterms; another might have been accepted at the grad school of her choice - these accomplishments couldn’t do a thing for their soul when push came to shove.  Likewise, the student who was having roommate problems, or the one who couldn’t make ends meet financially - these hard times had little to do with the students’ standing with God.  This morning I ask us to struggle with this question too - how is it with our soul?  Where do we stand? Does God have claim on our possessions - our time, our talents, our accomplishments, our resources? Does God have claim on our very soul? In this morning’s reading from Ecclesiastes, we get a taste of the frustration felt by one who realizes the vanity of working for the gain of possessions.  The man, identified as a preacher, poses this soul-searching question: ‘What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun?’  Quite a difficult question to answer. This preacher was led to despair because he felt that all his hard work was for nothing.  He knew that he couldn’t take his success with him beyond his days on earth, and he despaired in the thought of some one else enjoying the fruits of his labor. Seeing no solution to these problems, only futile human actions, this man was left hopeless. We, however, do not have to settle for hopelessness.  As Christians, we are raised up with Christ in a new life.  We are a people of hope. God requires of us only one thing - our soul.  Amidst all of our other possessions and priorities that we have in our lives, it would seem that giving our soul is a small sacrifice in the scheme of things. After all, what is a soul in comparison with leisure time?  With paychecks?  With popularity? With success? With power?

Jesus alludes to a deeper meaning for us.  Consider his words: ‘for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions’.  Jesus does, however, promise us abundance of a different kind. In the gospel of John we hear his message: ‘I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly.’  If our life is not abundant with possessions, exactly what is Jesus offering? How about an abundance of soul? Loving our enemy, serving our neighbor, opening our heart to God; these tasks are more easily done with the gift of an abundant soul.  Our soul can handle more that we can possibly imagine. The man in the parable was content with his store of possessions and felt secure and easy about his future.  His prosperity, he thought, made good food for his soul.  God, on the other hand, thought the man quite foolish. God knew that all the man’s labors for his own gain couldn’t be taken with him - only his soul did God require, and the man found that his soul was not so merry as he had intended.  Jesus concludes this story with a poignant statement: ‘So is the one who lays up treasure for one’s self, and is not rich toward God.’  Perhaps we do not often think of how we can be rich toward God. After all, what could we give to God, who is the Creator of everything that we know? Again and again Jesus gives us the answer. We can give God what should be our greatest treasure - ourselves, our souls.  How could we be more rich toward God than by returning all that God has blessed us with possessing? All that we have to give is our soul - a treasure which God earnestly awaits receiving. Unfortunately, it seems that we are more intent on laying up treasures for ourselves, hoping in vain that our pursuits will fill our souls.  The folly of this, Jesus tells us, is that we begin to lose the distinction between what we have gained and who we have become. When we equate what we have with who we are, our souls become lost in the jumble.  In a workshop that I attended a few years ago, I was given a worksheet on setting priorities that were in line with God’s will. The worksheet listed the average amount of time that a person aged 70 will have spent on each activity. The figures are a little unsettling. The average 70 year old has spent 20 years sleeping, 16 years, working, 7 years playing, 6 years eating, 5 years dressing, 3 years waiting for someone, and 1 year on the telephone.  This accounts for 57 years out of 70 passed.  It certainly makes one think.  Of the thirteen years remaining, how much time is spent on one’s relationship with God? One year? Two? How much time is spent on preparing one’s soul through prayer, study, worship, and service? Three years? Is this enough?  The man in the parable found that he had spent a little too much time preparing for his own pleasure and not quite enough time preparing his soul.  Jesus warns us not to make the same mistake. ‘Take heed’ he says, and his words echo in our hearts today.  Recently, I came across a song, written by musician Tracy Chapman, and I would like to share some of the lyrics with you this morning. The song is entitled ‘All that you have is your soul’, and the words go like this: ‘oh, my momma told me that she said she learned the hard way. She wants to spare the children. Don’t ever give or sell your soul away cause all that you have is your soul.  Don’t be tempted by the shiny apple. Don’t you eat of the bitter fruit. Hunger only for a taste of justice. Hunger only for a world of truth cause all that you have is your soul. Well I had dreams, I had high hopes, but what I high price I paid.  Why was I such a young fool? Thought I’d make it straight, thought I’d make something that could be mine forever. Found out the hard way that you can’t possess another cause all that you have is your soul.  Well I thought that I could find a way to beat the system, make a deal, and have no debts to pay. Take it all, take it all and run away, leaving myself first class and first rate. Here I am I’m waiting for a better day. A second chance, a little luck to come my way. A hope to dream, hope that I can sleep again, and wake up with a clean conscience and clean hands cause all that you have is your soul. So don’t be tempted by the shiny apple. Don’t you eat of the bitter fruit. Hunger only for a taste of justice. Hunger only for a world of truth cause all that you have is your soul.’ The woman portrayed in this song thought that she could somehow earn happiness and peace of mind.  She sought only to bring herself comfort.  She learned the hard way that her soul was all she truly possessed - and that justice and truth were the rewards of a clean conscience and clean hands. Do we all have to learn this reality the hard way? What price are we willing to pay? Christ came to plead with us to mend our ways before it is too late. It was too late for the man wanting larger barns. It was too late for the woman who wanted to be first class and first rate. It is not too late for us.  All that we have is our souls, and as Christians, we are instructed to nourish these souls, to fill them with truth and justice. Our reading from Colossians is filled with imagery that speaks of keeping our souls focused on the pure and good.  We are encouraged to reject those earthly things which stand between ourselves and God.  ‘If then, you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above’. All that you have is your soul. ‘Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth’. All that you have is your soul. ‘When Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory’. All that you have is your soul. ‘Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry’. All that you have is your soul. ‘On account of these the wrath of God is coming’. All that you have is your soul.  ‘In these you once walked, when you lived in them, but now, put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth’. All that you have is your soul.  Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator’. All that you have is your soul. ‘Christ is all and in all’. Is it well with your soul? It is all that we have. Fortunately, it is all that is required of us. Are you ready to give your soul to God?

Please pray with me: Awesome God, we know that we can never truly experience contentment outside of your will and your love.  Help us to be prepared to give you our all - our very souls  - that we might know real happiness in the safety of your loving arms. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Sermon, "Sermon on the Mount: Blessed," Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon 7/14/13

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon on the Mount: Blessed

            If you’ve ever received an email from me, or a letter, or seen my default signature on my newsletter articles, you’ll notice I usually sign things, “Blessings, Beth.” I can’t remember exactly when I started doing that. I don’t think I gave it any great thought at the time, other than wanting a way to sign things that I could use consistently, that seemed to work for all people in all situations, no matter who I was talking to, and blessings seemed to fit. My grandmother used it almost as a nickname for me. “Beth, you are a blessing” was something she said to me often, something special to me. What I mean by it is, “I hope you find your day, your life, to be full of blessings.” But what are blessings? What do we mean when we bless someone, or we ask God to bless someone?

            I’ve been thinking a lot about the word blessings this week, and the practice of blessing one another. We have lots of them, actually, practices of blessing. We say “God bless you,” or at least “Bless you,” when someone sneezes. This specific practice actually developed during the Middle Ages, when fear of the Bubonic Plague was rampant. Sneezing might be a first sign of the plague, and so when you asked God’s blessings on someone who sneezed, it was really a way of saying, “Gosh, I really hope you aren’t sick, and please stay away from me.” When we say a prayer before a meal we usually call it saying “grace” or saying “the blessing,” as we ask God to bless our food and our mealtime and the people eating said food. Even though we are asking God to bless things, we also consider the speaker of the prayer to be “doing the blessing.” God blesses, but we bless by invoking God’s blessing. We do lots of blessing in our worship life together. Usually we call the words that conclude our worship service the benediction – literally “the good word,” but sometimes this is also called a “blessing,” and often marriage ceremonies or funeral liturgies or baptismal services are concluded with words that are meant to be a blessing. When Pastor Aaron and I consecrate communion elements, this practice is sometimes referred to as “blessing” the elements, and when we pray over the baptismal waters someone is about to receive, the prayer is the “blessing over the water.”

            Of course, if we can give blessings, offer blessings, we can also withhold them. Sometimes we talk about blessings in this way – something we give almost as a permission, sometimes a permission we are reluctant to give. Sometimes when a person wants to get married, that person will ask for the parents’ blessing to make the proposal. Parents may willingly give or be reluctant to give their blessing, their permission. I can’t help but think of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, and his reluctant blessing of the marriages of his daughters.

            The scriptures are full of blessings, and some of them were formulaic, expected blessings, and many times people pointed to wealth and success and material stability as signs of God’s favor and blessing. The firstborn son in a family would receive special blessings and inheritance just for being that – firstborn. We might not think that is a practice we continue today, but I think we can compare it to handing down a particular heirloom piece of jewelry or something similar. In some families, there is only one ring that can be handed down, and it might go to the firstborn. Or we might name someone after a parent – Johnny Jr., for example – and that name is typically something handed to the firstborn. The most famous Bible story about blessings and birth order is the story of twins Jacob and Esau. Esau is the elder twin – every minute counts – but his younger brother Jacob, with the help of his mother Rebekah, tricks his father Isaac into giving him the firstborn blessing. You get the sense that there is only enough blessing for one, or only one really “good” blessing – and Jacob uses it up. Maybe blessings aren’t as simple as they seem.     

            We’re beginning a new sermon series today that will take us through the summer, based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is a series of teachings that appear in the gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7. It’s the longest chunk of uninterrupted teaching from Jesus in the gospels. Pastor Aaron and I will hit most of the major sections this summer, but we won’t be able to cover every verse, so I really encourage you, as we start out, to spend a little time reading these three chapters. Jesus has been interacting with the crowds, healing and teaching, when he withdraws up the mountain with his disciples. When he begins teaching, it seems he is alone with them, but by the end of these three chapters, it seems he is with crowds of people again. I suspect, as usual, people were simply following after Jesus whenever they could figure out where he was, and so what starts out as teaching to his disciples expands quickly into teaching the crowds.

            So Jesus heads up the mountain, takes a seat, and starts teaching. And the first thing out of his mouth are these blessings. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Blessed are those who are reviled and persecuted. Jesus goes on to say a whole lot more, some hard teachings, challenging. Some new ways of thinking about things. But he starts with blessings. And that word, blessings, is the same word that can be translated as “happy” – “happy are those who are poor in spirit,” or even a sense of “congratulations.” “Congratulations to you who are poor in spirit.” In some ways, I think this passage seems almost too simple. It’s pretty, poetic language, these blessings. Who wouldn’t want to receive a blessing, and from Jesus? But slowly the questions come. Why does Jesus bless these particular groups? For example, why are people blessed when they are mourning? We’ve probably all experienced grief, and it doesn’t often feel like a blessing, does it? And does this passage mean that we are supposed to try to be like the groups listed, in order to get the blessings? Are we supposed to strive to be meek and pure in heart and all that? Is this a list of goals for characteristics we should have?

            The Christ we follow is a lover of reversals, of flipping the picture we see upside down, of moving and acting in unexpected ways. When Jesus describes this strange group of people – the meek, the poor in spirit, the mourning, the persecuted, and calls them blessed, Jesus isn’t saying, by any means, that these are the best things you can be. Instead, Jesus is speaking into a culture, a world, that had, has trouble in seeing happiness outside of health, wealth, and prosperity. People long believed, and some still do, that troubled times, bad situations, suffering and loss were signs of God’s punishment for sinful behavior. But Jesus makes it clear – even in the midst of those things – not because of those situations, but in the midst of them – God is blessings us.

Most importantly, I think that Jesus reminds us repeatedly in this passage of something he knows we can’t quite believe: God wants to and will and is blessing us. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be attending school for my final Doctor of Ministry class before I begin the project phase of my program. One of the books I had to read for this next class was about congregational trends, basically reporting on the results of a survey of beliefs, practices, and attitudes of worshippers in the US. One question asked about how worshippers view “God’s nature.” Survey participants could choose between four responses: I view God as 1) an authoritarian God who is angry and involved in worldly affairs 2) a benevolent God who is involved in the world but not angry 3) a critical God who is angry but not involved in worldly affairs or 4) a distant God who is not angry and not involved in worldly affairs. (1) I was glad to see that most respondents chose one of the two options where God is “involved” in the world, rather than distant, but I was surprised that over half of respondents chose that they viewed God as “authoritarian and angry,” compared to just under a quarter who viewed God as benevolent. What would you choose? How do you see God? Reflecting on this passage, Rev. David Lose writes, “Maybe it's more that we have a hard time believing God wants to bless us in the first place. It may be that our picture of God is distorted, that we can only imagine God as a stern, demanding law-giver, and so it seems out of character for God to bless without requirement. This isn't the primary picture of God in the Bible, but it may be the one that we were taught and have a hard time letting go.” (2) Maybe we look at our lives and find it hard to believe that God wants to bless what we’ve done with the life we’ve been given. But Jesus describes a God who is blessing us left and right. God blesses you, wants to continue heaping blessings you, always.

I think we look at the beatitudes and start to read them as a to-do list, items we can check off so that we can claim God’s blessings. But we are reading something in the text that isn’t there. I think we read them like this sometimes: “If you are meek, then God will let you inherit the earth because of your meekness.” “If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, then God will fill you up, because of your hungering and thirsting for righteousness.” But instead, the beatitudes read as a state of already-existing blessings. You are blessed already. Blessed are you. God is blessing you. I think, sometimes, rather than a checklist to complete before God will bless us, God blesses us into living like the blessed people we are. Rev. Lose shares another story, writing, “When I was in graduate school, one of my teachers . . . would regularly address me as "Dr. Lose." Eventually it made me uncomfortable enough that I said to him, "But Dr. LaRue, I haven't earned my doctorate yet. I don't think you should call me that." "Dr. Lose," he patiently responded, "in the African-American church we are not content to call you what you are, but instead call you what we believe you will be!" God blesses us by showing us and claiming us for what God knows we yet can be. That’s what we celebrate in baptisms: we pray blessings on children for all that we know God intends them to be, and we celebrate because we know with God it can be.

As God blesses us so freely, let’s not hold back, and pray blessings on others only on special occasions, at baptisms and weddings and other liturgical events. Jesus blesses us. Let us bless others. What if you imagined a blessing on everyone you met this week. What if, when you looked into the eyes of your children, or your friends, or your neighbors, or your enemies, or those whose eyes you don’t normally even meet – what if you looked at them this week, and imagined an outpouring of God’s blessings into their lives. Friends, may God’s many blessings be made manifest in your life, and may you be a blessing to everyone you meet. Amen.

(1) Woolever, Cynthia, Field Guide to US Congregations.

(2) http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1542

Sermon, "How to Pack for Summer Vacation: On the Road," Mark 10:17-31

Sermon 6/30/13

Mark 10:17-31

How to Pack for Summer Vacation: On the Road

            Last Sunday, we went with Jesus to the beach, as he called disciples to follow him. We talked about the immediate nature of Jesus’ call, and how we listen, and respond, and hear his voice. Today, we’re on the road with Jesus, and we encounter another of Jesus’ more challenging teachings: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for some­one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Of course, this verse comes in the context of a whole story, but this one sentence is so dramatic that it is hard for us to focus on anything else. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for some­one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Some months ago I talked to you about that fancy biblical term “hermeneutics,” which means the lens through which we look at and interpret scripture. I told you that it was ok to have different lenses from each other, as long as we were consistent with our own lens – we don’t interpret passages differently suddenly when we don’t like what they say. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for some­one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” This if one of those passages that seems to test our hermeneutical lens. As I shared with our Mark Bible Study a couple weeks ago, this is a passage that has produced 1000 interpretations where you can make the passage not say what it says.

A man came to see Jesus just as Jesus was about to set out on a journey. He knelt before Jesus, the action of a slave before a master, and called Jesus, “Good Rabbi,” a description – goodness – reserved for God alone. His actions express his commitment to getting some answers from Jesus. He’s serious. He really wants some guidance, really wants to do what God wants. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds by listing several of what we call the Ten Commandments – specifically, all the ones relating to how we treat one another. “These I’ve kept since childhood,” the man responds.

Jesus looks at him and loves him. Loves him enough to say some hard things: “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The man is shocked, and leaves, grieving, because he had many possessions. The man was great at keeping all the commandments that had to do with how we treat neighbors. But those ones about our relationship with God: About there being just one God, and about putting nothing else before God – it seems Jesus got to the heart of the matter and pinpointed the very thing that would come between this man and God, between this man’s desire to follow Jesus, and his commitment to actually doing it.

We’re not told what the man did when he left Jesus, only that he was shocked, and left grieving. He would be grieving either way. He could decide that discipleship had too high a price, and grieve because he couldn’t do what Jesus asked. But he could also grieve because he was about to give up what he so carefully had accumulated for himself. His possessions. His stuff. The work of his hands. Jesus tells the disciples that it is harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God than it is for a camel to make it through the eye of a needle. But when the disciples wonder if there is any hope, Jesus, we read, “looks at them,” a phrase I think add Jesus’ emphasis to his words, and says, “For mortals, it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” We end in that hopeful place. But we have to get through that eye of the needle verse first.

As soon as Jesus says it, we try to unsay it for him. Here are some of the interpretations I’ve heard. One pastor aptly writes, “Nearly irresistible is the urge to soften this passage’s demands.” [2] Another [3] writes that he had come across two ways to interpret the metaphor of the camel and the eye of the needle that might make Jesus’ metaphor more bearable. First, he shares, “some interpreters of the Bible suggest that apart from the large gates into Jerusalem, there may have also been one small gate. This narrow gate, [easier to use than opening the big city gates, and] just high enough for human entry, was called the “Needle’s Eye.” Maybe a camel might be able to squeeze through if the beast hobbled in on its knees. As you can see,” he explains, “this tames the words of Jesus a little, and would suggest that a rich [person] humbly on [his or her] knees might be able to enter the kingdom of God.” However, there’s simply no evidence for the existence of such a gate. It’s totally speculation.

So he shares a second possible interpretation: “A second interpretation hangs on the undisputed fact that in the Greek of the New Testament the words for camel and thick rope cable are similar. Camel is “camelos” and rope cable is “camilos”. Maybe the later copiers of the New Testament got the words mixed up. This is a plausible theory. But it does once more blunt the words of Jesus.” Of course, a thick rope cable might be easier to fit through a needle eye than a camel – but I guarantee that that thick rope cable isn’t going to actually make it through either.

Even if we take Jesus’ words at face value, some of us still don’t feel worried by this text, because we figure Jesus isn’t talking to us. He’s talking to someone else – someone who is tied to their possessions. Someone rich. We’re not rich are we? I’ve served four very different congregations now, and I have yet to run into anyone who actually considers themselves rich. The way I figure, as long as we know of someone who has more than we do, we figure that they may be rich, but we sure aren’t. It’s understandable. It’s hard to think of ourselves as rich if we occasionally – or often – struggle to make ends meet. But consider this – in my family, between me, my three brothers, my mother, my sister-in-law, and my nephew – that’s 7 people – we have 6 televisions, 5 computers, 6 telephones, 6 cars, three houses with 9 bedrooms total, a swimming pool, probably 1000 DVDs and 3000 CDs, thousands of dollars’ worth of musical instruments including guitars, a piano, violins, and drums, some gaming systems, 2 well-fed and pampered pets, at least a hundred stuffed animals, and at least 25 bins of “storage.” This comes from a family of workers that would consider themselves thoroughly middle class. But if we’re not rich, what’s rich? What’s the standard?

A good rule to follow when reading the scriptures is this: If Jesus is talking, he’s talking to us – to you, and to me. He’s not talking to someone else, about someone else. He’s talking about us. Jesus was really emphatic about tending to your own struggles rather than pointing out the sins of others. So if he’s talking, he’s talking to us. Somehow, in the end, we have to come to terms with that – Jesus is talking to us. We don’t have to like it. We don’t have to follow him, to listen to him. But if we do decide to follow, then Jesus is talking to us.

So what is Jesus telling us? Are we all supposed to leave here and sell all our stuff and give it to the poor and become nomadic disciples, preaching on the street corners? Well, maybe. I won’t rule it out. But as I watch the man who approaches Jesus, I go back to this: I think God, who created us and loves, also can look into our hearts and pinpoint the very thing that is getting in between us and God, between our desire to follow after God, and our commitment to actually doing it. Maybe for you, it is indeed your comfortable lifestyle. I think we all need to take a hard look at that before we dismiss that possibility. But maybe it is your need to be in control rather than letting God be in control. Maybe it is holding a certain position of prestige or status or your own ambition to succeed. Maybe it is worrying about what other people think of you. But whatever is between us and God is an idol. Something that we’ve made, in essence, more important than God. And any idol, no matter how shiny and bright, or no matter how seemingly benign and innocuous – any idol is something that puts distance in between God and us. What is the thing in your life that Jesus would pinpoint, would tell you to give up, let go of, the thing that would cause you to walk away grieving, trying to decide if you could give it up or not? Be honest with yourself, with God. What is getting in your way of following Jesus with everything you’ve got?

            Jesus says it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. It is harder for you to enter the kingdom when you won’t move things out of the way of your path to God than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. No wonder the disciples ask, distress in their voice, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus knows, friends, that a camel can never make it through the eye of a needle. Not by human efforts. And by our own efforts, by our own hard work, by our own devices, we’ll never make it either. Jesus reminds us, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” Alone, we’re in trouble. With God, we have grace, unconditional love, unlimited second chances. We spend too much time hoping God will lower the expectations placed on us. In doing so, we diminish the perfection of what God offers us. Instead of lowering the standards so we can meet them, God offers grace and forgiveness, and the help to do what we never dreamed we could. So let’s admit to whatever Jesus is really asking of us, whatever obstacles in our path he’s pointing out. And despite the difficult road ahead, we can give thanks: With God, it’s possible to change our lives, change the world, and to fit a camel through the eye of the needle. Thanks be to God! Amen.

[2] Skinner, Matthew.

[3] Prewer, Bruce. http://www.alphalink.com.au/~nigel/doc/20031012.htm

Sermon, "How to Pack for Summer Vacation: At the Beach," Mark 1:14-20, 2:13-14

Sermon 6/23/13

Mark 1:41-20, 2:13-14

How to Pack for Summer Vacation: At the Beach

            This spring several of us have been reading the Gospel of Mark together in our Saturday morning Bible Study. One of the things we’ve talked a lot about is Mark’s sense of urgency. His gospel is the shortest – 16 chapters – and he never seems to spend more verses or words on something when he can say it more succinctly. He seems to want to get straight to the point and communicate only the facts that seem absolutely necessary. In line with this, Mark uses the word immediately with great frequency in his gospel – almost 30 times, and more than all of the other gospels combined. When things happen in Mark’s account, they happen immediately.

            Today’s scripture lesson is a perfect example. We get some seaside stories, where Jesus, seeming to just be out for a stroll on the beach, encounters first some fishermen, and then a tax collector, all of whom he calls to follow him. We read in Mark that Jesus comes to Galilee after John the Baptist has been arrested. He comes announcing good news of God, which Mark describes as this: “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near. Repent, and believe in the good news.” Over the years, people have come to use the phrase good news – which is what “gospel” means, actually – to mean, “Jesus Christ died for our sins so that we might have eternal life.” But both Mark, in his narration, and Jesus, in his preaching and teaching say that the good news is that God’s kingdom is near, at hand, arrived. Instead of waiting for some distant time and place to experience being part of God’s kingdom, instead of something you experience just in life eternal, Jesus’ good news is that God’s kingdom is for us to live into right now, when we repent, believe, and follow him. As he is sharing this message, travelling along the sea, he passes by Simon and Andrew, who are fishing. He says to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” We read, “And immediately, they left their nets and followed him.” Then he encounters James and John, sons of Zebedee. And “immediately,” says the text, he calls them. And they lay down their nets, leave the work in care of their father and the hired men, and follow. A crowds gathers around Jesus as he teaches and travels by the sea, and next he happens on Levi, son of Alphaeus, a tax collector. Jesus tells him, “Follow me.” And Levi gets up, and follows.

            There’s not much content to these stories, and yet what happens in them is so significant. Disciples are called. Lives are changed. People who become the leaders of what we call church are selected from hard-labor jobs like fishing, and unsavory jobs like tax collecting. Yet, what struck us in our Bible Study was how little conversation we see. Does Mark leave things out? Are we missing the Question and Answer session between Jesus and the soon-to-be disciples where they ask him what he means by catching people, how long they’ll be gone for, where he’s going, what they can bring, when they’ll be back, so on? Or do they really just go immediately? It is so hard for us to imagine. We could barely even agree to go on an overnight trip immediately, much less change the course of our lives in a snap.

[[Recently I’ve been reading – or rereading, I guess, since I read these books many years ago when I was a child – Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series. (Let me mention that they are a particular favorite of our own Rachel Bouwens.) One of the things I’m finding particularly fascinating is the descriptions of how each item in their household is made – things we take for granted in finished-product form only. You read as the family makes cheese, makes their beds, makes a rocking chair, digs a well, builds a house, sews clothing. All of these tasks take such time and effort and care. There’s nothing immediate about them. And reading these books in our world of unrelenting speed, I can’t help but find the pace of life awfully appealing. They worked very hard. But their lives also seem to exude a deep restfulness that I long for.

Have you ever found yourself wishing that the microwave wasn’t taking so long? Don’t those two or three minutes seem to last forever sometimes? Have you found yourself frustrated that your smartphone isn’t loading pages quickly enough, or your computer isn’t downloading something fast enough for you? Have you been exasperated by the amount of time it takes to travel to someplace on the opposite side of the country? How long it takes for a piece of mail to be delivered to someplace thousands of miles away? Part of us longs for restfulness, to be able to take our time, and enjoy every second as it passes. But I’m also frequently amused by the “time-saving” products that flood our markets. You can buy cheese “crumbles”, so you don’t have to do the laborious task of crumbling your own cheese. First, cookie dough started appearing in tubes, so you could have the joy of fresh-baked cookies without the time of preparing the cookies to bake, and then, the dough started appearing in pre-cut shapes. You just break apart the dough, pop it on a tray, put it in the oven. Lest you think I’m criticizing you, I’ve certainly purchased products like this myself. My point is: we certainly have the capability, and the ability, apparently, to sometimes take immediate action, to want things to happen quickly, immediately. So when do and don’t we choose to respond immediately? Why? What’s right?]] What’s all the hurry about? Why does Mark have us in such a rush?

            Over our year together, Pastor Aaron and I have shared with you a bit about our calls into ministry. For both of us, there were points of deciding, choosing direction throughout our journeys into ministry. But mostly, discerning and following God’s call has been just that – a journey, rather than an immediate choice. Listening for God’s voice, trying to figure out what God is saying, testing and refining and settling into what I believe God is calling me to do. And then, starting all over again as God leads me into new places. I’ve rarely experienced God’s call in my life to feel immediate. And indeed, even when we are clear about our call, our ordination process makes sure we take our time confirming that call. It took me nine years, start to finish, to become a fully ordained pastor, and I did things pretty quickly. The process encourages some time for reflection, for waiting, for being sure before taking action.              

            And yet, sometimes the cry for immediate action, our immediate response, is so compelling. One of my favorite writings from Martin Luther King, Jr. is his Letter from Birmingham Jail. In it, King particularly expresses his frustration with white leaders, especially white church leaders, who kept trying to convince him that he was rushing with his calls for desegregation and racial justice, that his timing wasn’t right and he needed to wait. King wrote, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!"… This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."” King understood that the message that all were equal in the sight of God was not a message meant for waiting. It was meant to be shared – and put into action – immediately.

We seem to live in this paradoxical place between “hurry up” and “wait.” Waiting, slowing down, taking time, not rushing – sometimes this is just the right thing. Every year, we celebrate the season of Advent as a season of waiting, on purpose, intentionally, for the coming of the Christ child. We try hard to be better at waiting when the world wants to skip ahead straight to Christmas. The scriptures talk about the holy practice of waiting: “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength,” we read.

            And yet, Mark is clear about his desired tempo: Immediate. Immediately Jesus calls. Immediately new disciples follow. Mark’s whole gospel seems to be in a rush. He seems so intent on sharing the good news that he can barely stay at his desk long enough to write the detailed gospel account we long for. He wants to get the word out as quickly as he can, with only the facts you really need to know. And maybe he uses the word “immediately” the most, but he’s not alone. The Bible is as full of immediate action as it is of long times of waiting. Over and over we read of God showing up and people immediately changing the course of their lives to follow God. So which is right? Wait on God? Or drop your nets and get going? How do we know, if we are always between, as people of faith, the hurry up and the wait? When do we wait on the Lord, and when do we drop our nets right now so we can follow? I don’t have any simple answers to this question, but here’s what I’m figuring out.

            First, I think the message of Jesus is always immediate. When we find ourselves in a situation that is begging for the good news that God’s kingdom is already here, we should never wait on that, never withhold that. When I listen to the frustration in Martin Luther King’s writings about being told to “wait” in the face of injustice, that’s what I get: someone who knows the message of Jesus is immediate. The good news is that we are already one in Christ Jesus, and so systems of racism, of oppression, are in stark contrast to that good news and they have to stop – right now. That kind of stuff shouldn’t wait. Immediate.

            And of course, I also think we shouldn’t wait when it is clear to us that Jesus is calling us to do something. Sometimes we’re trying to figure out God’s call, but when we get it, when we understand what God wants, it is time to follow. With the disciples at the beach, it was pretty clear, wasn’t it? Jesus said “follow me.” They could have asked Jesus to come back later, when they were ready. But there was no mistaking what Jesus wanted, and so Peter, Andrew, James, John, Levi, and more after them – they responded, immediately.

            Then, finally, what do we do when we are trying to figure out what God is asking us to do and to be? What then? When the message isn’t so clear? I think that while we don’t know everything, and while we need to wait on God for answers about some things, things that we come to God in prayer about, things that we’re struggling with, things that God has yet to reveal to us, while we’re waiting, we should be acting on what we do know. Maybe we don’t know everything, but we almost always know something about what God wants us to do, or how God wants us to live. And that is the stuff that we should be doing immediately, while we wait on the other stuff. Not sure what God is calling you to do next year? Be in prayer about it. Listen for God’s voice. Enlist the aid of your trusted friends and mentors to help you figure it out. But in the meantime, right now, do what you know: work on feeding the hungry, loving your neighbor, advocating for justice, practicing peace, being a servant to all, sharing the good news that God is here. Follow after the heart of Jesus in these things, and I believe, truly, that the waiting will be very fruitful.

            Immediately he called them, and immediately, they left their nets, and followed him. In our life with Jesus, it’s just a day at the beach. Amen.

           

Sermon, "How to Pack for Summer Vacation: Travelling Abroad," Mark 7:24-37

Sermon 6/16/13

Mark 7:24-37

How to Pack for Summer Vacation: Travelling Abroad

            This Sunday we’re continuing with our theme that Pastor Aaron started us out on last Sunday, our series titled, “How to Pack for Summer Vacation.” I don’t know about you, but I have a list of places that I’d eventually like to get to see. This summer, I’ll be driving through some states I haven’t been to yet. Ireland is on my list of places I’d just love to visit, along with New Zealand and the Holy Land. What’s on your list? Most of us, I suspect, imagine going places where we suspect we’ll have a good time, right? We imagine travelling to places that we will find relaxing or exciting. We might want to accomplish some particular task – hiking up a certain mountain, or sailing a certain body of water, something that is challenging.

            But I wonder, how often do you intentionally visit places where you plan on feeling uncomfortable and out of place? How often do your travels take you out of your comfort zone? I remember when I was serving in East Syracuse – I started out living in Fayetteville, but after a year, I had the opportunity to rent a vacant parsonage that was much bigger than my apartment while also being much cheaper! I couldn’t pass up the good deal. But when I shared with my congregation that I would be living in the city of Syracuse, several folks responded with a degree of alarm. They hated having to go into the city, and they were sure I wouldn’t like living there. East Syracuse might be minutes from Syracuse, but some of the folks never really crossed that line. We started then, as a congregation, volunteering at the Syracuse Rescue Mission. I took a long time, building up from one or two willing companions volunteering in the mailroom to getting a big group to go serve at the soup kitchen. It took a lot, but finally some folks were willing to go out of their comfort zones.

            I’ve shared with you my introverted nature. I’m pretty shy, and I often feel like I’m outside of my comfort zone, anytime I’m visiting a place where I don’t know many people, or I’m a newcomer. These days many seminaries require a cross-cultural immersion experience as part of your degree program, and so I travelled to Ghana, in West Africa, for a few weeks after my first year of seminary. We stayed with host families for one week of our trip, and without the comforting present of my professors and classmates, I felt very much out of my comfort zone, despite the incredible hospitality of my host family. As a white American, I rarely have to experience what many people of color experience every single day – being visibly different than almost everyone around them. It was a new experience to know that every person who saw me was noticing the color of my skin, and making assumptions about me because of what I looked like and where I was from. I learned a lot from my experience, and at the same time felt like I was just hitting the tip of the iceberg, thinking about how people are included and excluded, who’s in and who is out, how we define what is normal and what doesn’t fit. How often do you travel outside your comfort zones? How often do you cross boundaries into places where you no longer get to represent the normal, the typical?

Jesus is on the move in our text today too, crossing boundaries, as usual. We find that Jesus has set out for the region of Tyre. Tyre was a region that was primarily inhabited by Gentiles – by non-Jews. We’re told that he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there. But, as usual, “he could not escape notice,” and a woman comes to him with a “little” daughter who has an unclean spirit. She comes to him because, we read, she “immediately” heard about him when he came into town. She falls on her knees before Jesus and begs him to heal her child. Jesus’ response? “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” he says. Meaning has changed somewhat over time, but calling a woman a dog – even, in this situation, something like a ‘puppy-dog’, wasn’t exactly a compliment either. Jesus seems to be saying that she doesn’t count as one of the children he’s trying to feed, but is like a puppy begging for human food at the table. But the woman has her own snappy comeback for Jesus – “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” This somehow suits what Jesus was looking for apparently, because he says to her, “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.” After this healing, Jesus takes an awkward route by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee. Here, a man who is deaf and who has a speech impediment is brought to Jesus. Jesus heals with a command – “Ephphatha – be opened.” Jesus tries to keep the healing quiet, but of course the news spreads quickly. People say of him, “he has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

What to make of this text? Why does Jesus speak the way he does to this woman? What does it mean? When I’m confused about the meaning of passages in the Bible, it often helps me to check the immediate context – what happens right before and right after this passage. Knowing where the story falls in the overall scheme of things can help point us to what the story means, instead of trying to take a passage out of context as a stand-alone teaching. In context, we can ask: Why is the story here? Does it illustrate a point made in an earlier scene? Is it setting the stage for what comes next? If we look at the ‘before’ to today’s passage, we find that Jesus was teaching the scribes and Pharisees, the disciples and crowds, about what is clean and unclean. Jesus reminds them that it is what is inside a person that can make them clean or unclean, not what is outside, external, what goes in. It is not the superficial that makes us unclean or clean, but the contents of our hearts. Jesus then reprimands the religious leaders for holding onto human traditions so tightly that they miss the point of the commandments of God to love.

So, it is just after this that we see Jesus interacting with a woman who was, well, a woman, and a foreign woman, a Gentile woman, a woman of a different race, a woman with an unclean, demon-possessed daughter, a woman begging on her knees, strike after strike against her, according to ritual, custom, tradition, practice – where is this story leading us? If Jesus had been teaching about what really defiles a person, and how people weren’t unclean for the superficial reasons the Pharisees insisted on, and then he went from there directly to a region where the majority of people were foreigners, unclean under purity laws, for no apparent reason, what can we suspect about Jesus’ intentions with the woman? Despite appearance to the contrary, it seems Jesus must have gone to Tyre on purpose to interact with non-Jews. He must have at least anticipated a non-Jew coming to him for healing. And though his first words to her are at first confusing or hard to hear, what strongly held belief against healing her could be so easily overthrown after a one sentence exchange? I must believe, given the positioning of these two passages, that Jesus’ trip to Tyre is an illustration, a demonstration of his point about what – who – is clean and unclean, unaccepted and accepted in God’s terms over human terms.

What, then, is the point for us? What do take away? Sure, we can conclude: Jesus has declared everyone to be clean, to belong, to be worth his time. So we aren’t supposed to think of anyone as unclean either. But I think it is more than that. I think Jesus calls us to be intentional about crossing boundaries, breaking out of our own comfort zones, forging relationships that communicate more than our words to about what we believe about who’s in God’s circle. What makes us clean or unclean? Are we Christians missing out if the only people we spend time with are other Christians? If we only spend time with people who share the same believes and practices we do? In safe places? With people who are polite and behaved and proper? With people who look just like us, live in homes like us, work in jobs like us, watch the same TV shows, listen to the same music? Or does keeping to our safe, clean comfort zones result in us missing out on God’s adventure?

Over and over, Jesus raises the hackles of the religious folk of his day because they don’t like where he’s spending his time, who he is spending time with. They’re pretty sure who is clean and who is not. But Jesus seems pretty sure too. And he’s travelling abroad. Crossing the false boundaries we set up all over the place. Stepping out of our comfort zones, and beckoning for us to follow. Where are you going for summer vacation? Jesus’ plans are clear. He’s boundary crossing. He’s telling us: Be opened – let your heart be opened. He has done everything well. So let us go and do likewise. Amen.     

My Unpreached Sermon(!) for 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, "Pentecost Aftermath: Paul," Acts 9:1-20

Sunday I was sick, sick, sick. Thankfully, my co-pastor was able to lead worship for me. But here's the sermon that was all ready to go...

Sermon 6/2/13

Acts 9:1-20

Pentecost Aftermath: Paul

            “I want to do it myself!” Any of you that have experience with young children probably know that small children reach a point in their development where they are experimenting with and pushing the boundaries of their independence. My nephew Sam just turned six – he’s a big boy now. But when he was about three or four, he went through this period when no matter what the task was, Sam would refuse help of any kind. If he was trying to get dressed, he didn’t want your help, even though it took him forever to get his clothing on the right direction the right side out. Particularly frustrating was his desire to get in and out of his car seat in the car on his own – it would take him several minutes, when you, the parent or aunt or grandma knew that you could just pick him up and put him in the seat in five seconds. Sam has grown past this particular stage now, but I can still perfectly hear his voice and tone and picture his expression, “I just want to do it myself!”

            Of course, adults aren’t much better, are they? Many of you know that my mom, who is slowly becoming a bionic woman, has been through many surgeries – rotator-cuff, knee replacement, two ankle fusions. The ankle fusion, a surgery that failed the first time and had to be repeated, was particularly hard, as my mom was in a non-weight bearing cast for months, and with her previous shoulder injury, she also couldn’t use crutches. That meant she worked with a walker and a wheelchair. My mom, a nurse for 30 years, is a horrible patient, as folks who work in the medical field generally are in my experience! She wouldn’t let anyone help her up the stairs when she got home from the hospital, resulting in several of us hovering around her uselessly while she scooted up the stairs, sweating profusely with the effort. She fell in the bathroom the first morning after being home, because she was trying to do a little rearranging in one of the bathroom cupboards while balancing on one foot. And when I took her out to a craft show, and tried to push her through the crowd in a wheelchair, I realized it wasn’t working because she couldn’t stop trying to steer. Two people trying to steer one object works just about as well as it sounds. It doesn’t work. Mom, not unlike Sam, just wanted to do it herself.           

Last week we heard a small mention in the scripture of our main focus for today; as we read about the stoning of Stephen, we heard that those who were putting him to death threw their cloaks at the feet of a man named Saul. Today, we turn our focus to Saul, and our passage opens telling us that Saul has been “breathing threats and murder” against the followers of the way of Jesus. Saul is not content to just strongly disagree with the disciples he encounters. No, he is specifically seeking more authority and ability to have the followers of the way arrested and brought to trial for punishment, like Stephen was. He’s on a journey to Damascus, and he wants to be able to look for Jesus-followers on his journey. Instead, his journey turns out very differently than planned. As he’s travelling, a light flashes around him, he falls to the ground, and he hears a voice: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you?” Paul wonders. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” the voice responds. Saul follows Jesus’ instructions to head to the city to wait for someone to tell him what to do. He’s been temporarily blinded by his encounter with Jesus.

Once in Damascus, he meets a man named Ananias, who was sent by Jesus to help Saul. I’m always amazed by Ananias. Jesus appeared to Ananias to send him to help Saul. But Ananias is skeptical. We read, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But Jesus responds, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” And the next sentence we read starts, “So Ananias went.” He trusted that Jesus knew better than he did! So Ananias lays hands on Saul and says, Jesus, who appeared to you, has sent me “so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Saul’s sight is immediately restored, and he gets up and is baptized, and over the next several days, he spends time with the very disciples he was intent on persecuting, and begins preaching: “Jesus is the Son of God.” Eventually, this Saul is known to us as Paul. He’s the only person to whom Jesus speaks in this way in the scriptures, in this ‘appearance’ of sorts after the resurrection. Paul’s conversion from a persecutor of the Way to a follower of the Way is certainly one of the most dramatic stories of conversion in the Bible.

I worry, though, that the dramatic nature of Paul’s conversion keeps us from finding ourselves in his story. Some of us may have stories of God at work in us in this way, but many of us may not see the beginnings of our relationship with God in such a crystalizing moment. For me, though, the key in the story is how our lives bloom when God is in control. And whether we realize that God is in control in a moment or over time, that’s a core part of our journey with Christ either way! I’m always amazed that we seem to love the image of God as potter so much – you are the Potter, God, I am the clay. Mold me and make me. And so on. But have you ever seen what a potter does with a lump of clay? Have you watched how a potter starts and restarts and works and reworks a lump of clay? The end result is so beautiful – but the process – well, to transform a lump of clay into a beautiful vessel means that clay has to go through a lot! But that biblical image of the God as the potter, us as they clay is just right. That’s exactly it. We have to be molded by God. As Pastor Aaron would say, we have to remember that God is God and we are not.

Several folks from our congregation spent the last three days at Annual Conference, the regional decision-making body for our denomination. Liverpool First was well represented – besides Aaron and myself we had lay delegates Kay Phillips and Pat Cupernall, youth delegate Elliott Lawrence, and two more of our own on conference staff – Martha Miller and Pat Toukatly. During one worship service, our Bishop, Mark Webb, shared this powerful video, set to the music that was our theme song for the event. [VIDEO] All around/ Hope is springing up from this old ground/ Out of chaos life is being found in You/ You make beautiful things/ You make beautiful things out of the dust/ You make beautiful things/ You make beautiful things out of us.

            We try to change our messed up lives over and over. Try to change and fail. Try to change and fail. We forget that it is God who transforms us, God who meets us on the road, God who redeems us. We try so hard to save ourselves. We’re like Sam, petulant children. We want to do it ourselves! But although by God we are nurtured and strengthened and can grow more deeply in discipleship, it is always God who redeems us, God who saves us, God who makes us new. Saul – Paul – he learned that in a dramatic way. Ananias, a disciple already, was continuing to learn that as he had to trust that Jesus knew what he was doing in calling Paul. Sometimes it takes us time to hand over control to God. Sometimes God helps us do it all at once. Sometimes we take baby-steps. But friends, with us, sometimes in spite of us, God is making beautiful things out of us, out of the dust of our lives. As it turns out, we can’t do it by ourselves. And so God gives us fellow journeyers on the way. God gives us supporters and mentors to walk beside us. God gives us people like Ananias, who trust God that we can change. And God gives us Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, to find us when we are on the wrong road, to make things right, and make something beautiful out of dusty paths. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

Sermon for Trinity Sunday, Year C, "Pentecost Aftermath - Stephen," Acts 6:8-15, 7:1-2a, 51-60

Sermon 5/26/13

Acts 6:8-15, 7:1-2a, 51-60

Pentecost Aftermath: Stephen

            Some of you know that I have a real interest in psychological personality types, specifically a model of understanding called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators. You might have taken this test yourself at some point, or at least be familiar with part of the system. You receive a four letter type – either an E or I – for extrovert/introvert – this is the part many of you many know about yourself already – then either N or S – are you intuiting or sensing? – T or F – thinking or feeling – and J or P – judging or perceiving. If you want to know more about my psyche, I can tell you that I am an INFJ. I usually have couples who are doing premarital counseling go through this personality typing process, because it helps me get to know them, and helps us have conversations about how they relate to each other, particularly in situations that are less than perfect. Sometimes workplaces have employees and bosses take these tests, so that all can work together to create a better workplace environment. I’ve read a resource that particularly talks about personality types among clergy, and what the strengths and struggles are for pastors of different types.

For all of the types, for example, the Myers-Briggs test will reveal something about how you handle conflict. You might already know this about yourself too. Are you a person who is confrontational? Do you love a good fight or debate? Do you keep quiet in an argument? Do you make sure you are not even around in a conflict? You all might have been amused to see, once upon a time, Pastor Aaron and I on a long road trip with your former associate, Pastor Heather. Aaron loves a good debate, and Heather can’t stay out of a debate if her buttons have been pushed, and I sat quietly in the back seat, occasionally offering up placating words to diffuse conflict! I could have told you before I ever took my own test that I tend to be a conflict-avoider. My official results say this: “INFJs are concerned for people's feelings, and try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone. They are very sensitive to conflict, and cannot tolerate it very well. Situations which are charged with conflict may drive the normally peaceful INFJ into a state of agitation or charged anger.” Of course, avoiding conflict isn’t really something that is possible if you want to interact with people, is it?! And in particular, avoiding conflict isn’t always helpful in the midst of a congregation of diverse people and opinions, particularly when you are a leader of those people! Over my years of ministry, handling conflict has been something I’ve had to work hard it, and sometimes I have more success than others!

Today we step into a major conflict in the book of Acts, one that ends in death, as we read the story of Stephen. Unlike the disciples like Peter and company, Stephen’s task in the community of Jesus-followers was not primarily as a preacher of the gospel at all – he wasn’t one of the apostles. Stephen was part of a group of servants who had a special task in the early church. People outside of the faith criticized that the fervor of the disciples for preaching the gospel had caused them to neglect other duties like feeding the widowed and the needy. Their criticism was a reason for them to reject the teachings of Jesus – the disciples didn’t really take care of those in need! Why believe their message of good news? But the twelve responded, “‘It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables. Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.’” So seven were chosen, one of whom was this man we read about today, Stephen. These seven looked on the needs of the least in their community, making sure that those who were without could receive food and be taken care of. In other words, Stephen wasn’t a preacher or a pastor, or an apostle – that wasn’t his vocation. He was a servant, a helper, a supporter in ministry. If Stephen were a 21st century believer, he might be any one of you – someone who stepped up to help meet the needs of the community.

It turns out though that Stephen, even though he wasn’t one of the apostles, was still a rowdy synagogue member. He wasn’t content to just go with the flow or keep quiet in his own community of faith. So Stephen and some of his fellow synagogue members were constantly debating and arguing about his involvement in this new faith. Eventually, his peers had enough, and began to plot against him. We read of their scheming in Acts: “But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which [Stephen] spoke. Then they secretly instigated some men to say, ‘We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.’ They stirred up the people as well as the elders and the scribes; then they suddenly confronted him, seized him, and brought him before the council. They set up false witnesses who said, ‘This man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us.’ And all who sat in the council looked intently at [Stephen], and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.”

The authorities ask Stephen to respond to these accusations. And he does, in a big way. Stephen says that through the ages people have rejected the prophets that God sent to reach them, and just so they rejected Jesus, God-come-to-earth to reach them. He doesn’t try to soften his words, and he doesn’t try to make friends. He doesn’t temper what he says, or recant any of his beliefs, even though he is clearly in trouble. Stephen just says what is on his heart. The synagogue leaders respond to Stephen’s testimony: “When they heard these things,” we read, “they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen.” Instead of being scared by the group, Stephen is fortified by the vision of Jesus he has. He tries to share his vision, but his words fall on unhearing ears. The men drag Stephen into the street, they throw their coats at the feet of a man named Saul, and they stone Stephen to death, literally pelting rocks at him until he dies. Stephen’s last words echo Jesus’ on the cross, as he pleads for forgiveness for those who are putting him to death. Stephen, not one of the twelve, not known for his preaching or leadership, was just someone who was trying to serve others, and he was unwilling to say or do otherwise, even with the cost being his own life.

            Yet, Stephen is known as the first Christian, the first Jesus-follower, who sacrifices his life for the movement. He’s the first martyr of this newly-birthed church. That word, martyr, comes from the Greek word marturia, and in Greek, that word means witness. Someone who is willing to martyr themselves is a witness for an issue or topic or person about whom they are passionate. Stephen was a witness for Jesus. But witness is one of those funny words that has a lot of baggage in the Christian church today, baggage that distracts us from understanding what the word means. We sometimes think of a witness as when someone goes door to door, like a Jehovah’s Witness adherent, witnessing, or proclaiming their faith, in an evangelistic sort of way. But I think we better understand witness if we think about a trial, and people who are called as witnesses in a trial. Witnesses in trials are called on to tell the truth about what they have seen and experienced related to a particular event. That’s actually just what Stephen does, isn’t it? He tells the truth about what he knows about Jesus Christ, what he’s experienced. What moves Stephen from being more than a witness, in today’s language, to being a martyr, is that he witnesses to the truth despite his circumstances, which were clearly dangerous to his life. When would you be willing to tell the truth about something, to witness, no matter what the costs were to yourself?

            What strikes me as so powerful about Stephen’s witness to us is that he didn’t have to do it. He could have, at some point, stopped debating with synagogue leaders, joined a different community, run away. He could have gone into hiding, left town. He didn’t have to have this fight. He chose to, because he was so committed to speaking the truth he believed about the life he was called to in Christ. What would you give your life for? When would you speak up, and when would you stay silent?

            We are the story-tellers, the ones, now, in whose hands and hearts the good news of the gospel resides. At what cost will we stay silent? Stephen wasn’t even silent with threat of death. But I worry that we sometimes can be silent even over our mild discomfort! You have probably heard this famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller, written in the wake of Nazism and the Holocaust. First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. We say actions speak louder than words, and if that is true, then inaction is a deafening silence. 

            Today is a day when we have honored and remembered loved ones we have lost, and particularly, for many, loved ones who felt so committed to their country and the values of their nation, that they were willing to put themselves in harm’s way in order to uphold these values for the good of the whole. What do you value so much that you will not fail to speak the truth about it, no matter what situation you encounter? I’ve told you how much I dislike conflict, but in my own life, I find I rarely have trouble speaking up if you are harming in word or deed a member of my family, a dear friend, a loved one. Then it is easy to speak. Or if I witness an act of injustice in progress, I find it much easier to speak. I’m guessing many of you feel the same way. But what about when the situation doesn’t involve someone you are close to. Would you still feel compelled to speak the truth? What about when you hear people speaking of others who are not present? Would you still speak up? What about when there would be immediate negative consequences in your life for witnessing to truth? I’ll be honest – I hope I’m never put in a situation where I have to choose whether or not to lay down my life – I’m pretty fond of it! But I don’t think we can read about Stephen without asking ourselves some hard questions. How much is telling the truth worth to us? How much do we value it? Our lives are witness – what we do, how we behave, how we act, when we speak, when we stay silent – they’re always testifying in some way. What is your life saying? Amen.