Lent 2 Sermon: All Hail the Holy Hen

Sermon Texts: Philippians and Luke 13

Sermon Notes

Rick Steves kind of sermon today. 

Dominus Flevit, description.  The church that commemorates this occasion we hear about today.  Jesus wept, the chapel is shaped like a tear. 

Window—Barbara Brown Taylor: Inside the chapel, the altar is centered before a high arched window that looks out over the city. Iron grillwork divides the view into sections, so that on a sunny day the effect is that of a stained-glass window. The difference is that this subject is alive. It is not some artist’s rendering of the holy city but the city itself, with the Dome of the Rock in the bottom left corner and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the middle. Two-thirds of the view is the cloudless sky above the city which the grillwork turns into a quilt of blue squares. Perhaps this is where the heavenly Jerusalem hovers over the earthly one, until the time comes for the two to meet?

Can you imagine Jesus looking out over a very different Jerusalem, perhaps with the view as clear as this window makes it for us that there is a new Jerusalem, a heavenly Jerusalem, waiting to join the earthly Jerusalem, and he knows he will be the one to usher in that new city? 

He is met by the Pharisees, who do him the favor of telling him he has a death threat against him, and he starts talking about animals. 

He calls Herod a fox, and then tells the Pharisees what to tell Herod, basically, I’m going to go about my business, and you mind your own! 

I used to enjoy imagining what kind of animal I’d be if I could be an animal.  I remember running around the playground when I was about Wesley’s age imagining I was a rhino.  I also enjoyed thinking I’d be a St. Bernard.  In fact, I wanted to change my name to Bernard as a kid, because I thought it would make me bigger.  Now that I think about it, a rhino is pretty big too, so maybe I had a thing with wanting to be bigger. 

You would think Jesus would have chosen a little better.  CS Lewis pictures the savior as a fierce Lion in the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and we certainly can see why.  The Bible talks a lot about the Messiah as the great Conquering Lion of Judah. 

But, if Jesus cared to venture into bird territory to find a good animal representation of himself, then certainly the Eagle of Deuteronomy 32:11 makes sense, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.   Yes indeed.  That’s strong, protective imagery.

But instead, Jesus chooses a hen.  A hen!  His choice is commemorated here in the Dominus Flevit chapel with this mosaic.  Though if you ask me, and even though I’m from Arkansas, I don’t know a lot about chickens mind you.  But, I thought that only roosters had those combs on their heads. 

Well, we can imagine why the artist has taken liberties, can’t we?  At least a rooster offers some form of defense.  He’s got those spikes on the back of his legs, and I can tell you from the experience of being the cause for alarm to a rooster, they can be awfully intimidating, can’t they?  They certainly think they are!  I remember thinking, surely I could just kick the thing in it’s head, couldn’t I?  But instead I just made a habit of taking a wide berth and kind of scooting across that rooster’s path pretty quickly when I was a visitor to a farm that had a rooster. 

Yes, at least a rooster is a little more like an eagle.  A little more formidable opponent to a fox, but Jesus very clearly likens himself to the female chicken, which   Barbara Brown Taylor said, "About all she can do is fluff herself up and sit on her chicks.  She can put herself between them and the fox, as ill-equipped as she is.  At the very least, she can hope that she satisfies his appetite so that the fox leaves her babies alone."

The medallion is rimmed with red words in Latin. Translated into English they read, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
and you were not willing!" The last phrase is set outside the circle, in a pool of red underneath the chicks’ feet: you were not willing.

My dad’s dad was a Pentecostal preacher, and every once in a while, my dad tells me about one of the gems that they’d sing in church.  One is, “The Devil is a sly old fox; if I could catch him, I’d put him in a box; I’d lock the door and throw away the key; for all those tricks he’s played on me!  I’m glad I got salvation, I’m glad I got salvation, I’m glad I got salvation, by the grace of God!” 

So, all Hail the Holy Hen, The one who takes away the sin of the world by offering himself as a holy and perfect sacrifice, perhaps praying that the “Sly old fox’s” appetite would be satisfied. 

The hen has already given her life for the chicks, and she calls out to all who will listen, come and gather under my wings!  Are you not willing? 

hymn and singing study readings for 2/28/10

You can find the study guide at this link, and the songs that are referenced there here. Also, we will not only discuss new hymns, but our favorites. Come prepared to speak about your favorite 1 or 2 hymns and why you like them. You can get a hymnal from the church, or just look up the hymn on Cyberhymnal which allows you to search for the hymn by title, then has the story of the composer, then the lyrics. If you download the plugin in the left hand corner, it will play the hymn in a midi file.

Ash Wednesday Service: Feb. 17 at 6pm

We hope you join us in marking the first day of Lent this Wednesday. Be there at 6pm for a special service.

Readings for Hymn Study feb 21

We'll be focusing on Prophetic Music on Sunday the 21st. You're welcome to join us.
Click here and here

Transfiguration Sunday Sermon: More than Meets the Eye

Sermon Texts were from Exodus and Luke

Texts:
1 Corinthians and Luke

Today's sermon was a midrash, or an "imaginative retelling" of Luke 4 and 5. I imagined I was a resident of Capernaum who observed the call of Simon, James, and John.

A fishing story:
You want to hear a fish story?
I remember that day Simon, the bully of Bethsaida, took that wandering prophet out in his boat to let him preach from it.

He had come once before, and had been welcomed by Simon. Simon usually gathered the largest men and went out to meet any newcomers in town, in case they were zealots or soldiers. But this man had come alone, and Simon had heard of him. He was a healer and a prophet—so he invited him to stay at his own home, where his mother in law was suffering from a fever. That night, the man rebuked the fever, and it immediately went away.

As soon as word had gotten around about Simon’s mother-in-law, everyone brought their sick and ailing to see the man named Jesus. I remember how everyone crowded around Simon’s house, and his daughters tried to organize everyone into groups small enough not to overwhelm the saint. This went on through the night, and he healed all of them, and then slipped away at dawn to be alone in the wilderness. When a group of us found him, he told us that he was going on to preach in more places.

So when he returned one morning, just as the fishermen were cleaning their nets from an unsuccessful night on the lake, everyone gathered around and wanted to hear what he had to say. Sound echoes well over the water. Every fisherman knows you don’t speak with your partners about things you don’t want to get out while you are fishing. Voices just seem to carry over the water, don’t they?. This day, I didn’t have to listen closely for the words of that man. They danced out over the water, and the lake itself seemed to stop lapping at the shore and listen attentively.

The man spoke for awhile about how the Lord was not some far off and aloof God, but was right there with us. He said that God wanted to be known to all of us a child knows his father, and that God wanted to be trusted. Then he told Simon to row out to the deeper water. Seeing him tell Simon what to do made me chuckle to myself. I’d never seen anyone do that before! Usually, Simon stormed around town telling everyone else what to do! He was larger than all the other men in town, and he was persuasive in ways that go beyond words. But, Simon obeyed the strange man.

Then, even though he had already folded his nets and finished for the day, I saw him throwing out the nets again. I couldn’t believe my eyes when they hauled up a catch so big it seemed as though the nets were about to snap! James and John, who were known as the “sons of thunder” because they were also large and commanding young men whom Simon had chosen as partners and everyone thought as future sons-in-law, since Simon only had daughters, were standing on the shore, dumbstruck by the prophet’s words. When they saw the full net, they leaped into their boat and rowed out to help with the haul.

Two boatfuls of beautiful fish shining in a new day’s sunlight weighed down the two boats so low that water actually started seeping over the tops of them. Waterlogged, it took the boats three times as long to bring the boats to shore as usual. When they got the boats to shore, Simon was weeping. I had never seen him shed a tear! There wasn’t a single stray catfish in the haul. (We would have had to throw the catfish back, as we are prohibited by the Law from eating them.) All of them were beautiful tilapia, which after that day we started calling by the name “Simon’s Fish,” and then when Jesus gave him a new name, “Peter’s Fish.”

Simon stumbled out of the boat, and made a plea to everyone there, “forgive me for how I’ve wronged you. Forgive my impatience and my temper and my haughtiness. At these words, James and John fell to their knees as well and joined in the prayer. Jesus stood in the boat, with the fish flopping around at his feet. He said, “Today these men bring in plentiful fish, but I am going to make them fish for people. Care for their families while they are gone. They will return, and you will have the chance to follow too.” Then, he turned to Simon and his brother Andrew and James and John and said, “Come, follow me.”

And they did! They left the fish and the boats and their homes and followed him. I looked at Simon’s wife Ruth, expecting her to be frantic, but she was peaceful. Ever since he had healed her mother, Ruth had spoken of Jesus with reverence. She looked as serene and joyful that day on the beach as she’d been that night, laughing and darting around the room serving the guests with her newly rejuvenated mother.

I wondered what would become of Simon and our town. I wondered if I would go if Jesus had called me. I wondered all of these things, because later that man who seemed so glorious and powerful in that boat would be nailed up on a cross and left to hang and die. Simon Peter would tell everyone who listened that he had seen him in the flesh after his death, but I never saw him again. And so I wonder, because his voice still echoes in my ears, and he seemed to be speaking to me when he said, “Come, Follow me.” .

Readings for Hymn Study

This week, our focus is on the Psalms. Click here and here to find the readings.

Souper Bowl Luncheon

Have a bowl of soup and support our mission work this Sunday at 12 noon. Many soups and desserts will be available from the great cooks in our congregation. You can make a donation at the supper. All funds will be used for charitable benevolences.

Upcoming Workshop on Prayer

The First United Methodist Church of Owasso is hosting 2 special events on prayer. Our leader for these events is Dr. Tom Albin, Dean of the Chapel at the Upper Room in Nashville , Tennessee . Tom is a clergy member of the Oklahoma Conference and is excited to come back to Oklahoma for these events. He is a featured speaker at national events and is known for his insights on prayer, our Wesleyan heritage and the spiritual life of Christians.
The first event, “Teach Me to Pray” will be held on Saturday, February 20. This event is designed for anyone interested in developing their prayer life. We think it could enhance the prayer ministry of your church and hope that you and your lay people will attend. Registration is from 9:00-9:30 a.m. The day will end at about 3:30-4:00 p.m. The cost for the event is only $10 and includes lunch. Childcare is provided at no charge for those who register by February 15.
The second event “Praying in the Wesleyan Spirit”, will be held on Monday, February 22. This event is designed for clergy and staff to have a “day apart”. This day will be a good way to start the season of Lent. Registration will be held from 9:00-9:30 a.m. with the day ending at about 3:15 p.m. The cost will be $10 which includes lunch. Childcare will be provided if needed. Please let us know by February 15.
If you have any questions please call Chris Tiger at 272-5731. We look forward to hosting these events and hope you and your church can come.


Yours in Christ,
Chris Tiger

March 6 Potato Banquet and Bolivian singers in Muskogee

The following email came to the pastor's attention. It looks like a great evening if you are interested!

Save the date, Monday, March 8, 6:30 p.m., St. Paul UMC, Muskogee

Our Conference Covenant Agreement with the Evangelical Methodist Church in Bolivia is a rich one. We will be privileged to host three Bolilvians in the singing group AYNI-Bolilvia on the above date.

The purpose of this Potato Banquet and Concert is to raise funds for the construction of the Nuevo Canaan Methodist Church in El Alto , Bolivia . Bishop Hayes has visited that church.

1. WHY A POTATO BANQUET? The potato originated in the Andes Mountains. It is the staple food of those in high altitudes because it is about all they can raise in the cold.
2. WHY BUILD A METHODIST CHURCH IN EL ALTO? For over a hundred years the UMC has had a missionary presence in the Altiplano. The native people respect Methodism because we have not been paternalistic. We have provided for education of the indigenous peoples when the government frowned upon their improvement. We have trained Bolivian pastors. The Methodist presence is strong in the Altiplano.
At the present time, indigenous peoples are moving from the country to El Alto, which now has about 2,000,000 inhabitants. This city has sprung up in the last twenty years. Since the people have an affinity for Methodism, they look for Methodist Churches. The Bolivian Methodist Church is building churches as fast as they can. We can help with this critical construction.

Please bring a group from your church to this event. Our support can go a long way to helping build this church which will spread the Gospel to many persons. More information will be coming.

You can You Tube a video presentation of the group AYNI-Bolivia. The videos show both musicians and dancers. We will host only the musicians due to the cost of travel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v-BC5mjWbsWZs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Deii1DbOg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofIT6gUYxX4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D76Dn_ggYo

See you March 8th.

God’s best,
Pastor Rusty Williams, Chairperson
Muskogee District Committee on Missions

Jan. 31 Sermon: An Answer to our Inadequacies

Texts:
Jeremiah and 1 Corinthians

Story about not being fully understood. Razorback to the shower.

I am fully understood by God. Jeremiah: I am known even in the womb. We can’t know fully as God knows in this life. Perhaps this is a blessing.

……..I’ve heard it said that education, (that instruction in knowledge and understanding) is like kindling a flame, not like filling a vessel. This is true—and the fire that is stoked can either be the pure light of wisdom and reason, or it can be the destructive glow of the atom bomb. Knowledge and Understanding can be corrupted……..

God does give us the ability to love fully though.

Jeremiah feels inadequate. He says he is just a boy. Perhaps he doesn’t feel like he knows enough. God tells him, “don’t say ‘I’m just a boy.’ I’ll put my words in your mouth.

……….If we’re willing to love God and we communicate our love of God by trusting him fully, we will be adequate……….

Matthew gives us a picture of Jesus making a similar point when he declares: "Not every one who says, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my father who is in heaven" (7:21) and continues by pointing out that in the end people will report their wonderful deeds, miracles, prophecy and the like, only to be told they have no real relationship with Jesus at all. Similarly in the parable of the sheep and the goats, Matthew reports that the sheep are those who exercised compassion in their lives (25:31-48). That is ultimately what counts.

Paul puts the other gifts in their place in the Cor. Chapter. Everthing is hollow and pointless without love. Love is how we align ourselves with the will of God. Epperly, “To acknowledge that we “prophesy in part” is the first step in honest spiritual leadership and the primary antidote to religious idolatry, intolerance, and fanaticism.

Socrates said, “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.”

Tillich: Shaking of the Foundations “And now let us consider our existence, and the knowledge that we possess. Paul says that all our present knowledge is like the perception of things in a mirror, that it therefore concerns enigmas and riddles. This is only another way of expressing the fragmentary character of our knowledge. For fragments out of the context of the whole are only riddles to us. We may surmise the nature of the whole; we may approach the whole indirectly; but we do not see the whole itself; we do not grasp it directly face to face. A little light and much darkness; a few fragments and never the whole; many problems and never a solution; only reflections in the mirrors of our souls, without the source of truth itself: that is the situation of our knowledge.”

Story of mice and elephant.

Our knowledge of others is incomplete. We can’t substantiate it. I can’t go into your head and see life as you see it. There’s a great, strange movie called “Being John Malkovich” that taps into this question. Cameron Diaz and John Cusack find a strange small door in his office building, and it leads into the body of John Malkovich. They walk around looking out through his eyes, but they still retain their own selves, and so they keep getting flushed out and landing in a ditch on the New Jersey turnpike.

Have you ever thought about this before? What does green look like to the person sitting next to you? Even if our brains all have a common interpretation for the color green, we have different experiences tied up in the color which flood our minds when we see that color too. Those experiences are unique.

And so, we see the tip of the iceberg as to why “knowledge is incomplete, and why we cannot possibly know the other. As Epperly says, the ultimate Other is God, who we believe experiences His entire Creation. Every life, every pulsing star, everything!

This is why Paul says we see like this image you see on your bulletin cover. We see as though through a foggy mirror. We can make out the shape of God, perhaps. We know certain things about God.
One thing we can be sure of, because God gives us this gift of being able to fully comprehend God’s love toward us and toward His Creation, is that God’s Love is somehow united with the identity of God.

Though our knowledge and understanding fall short of comprehending God—we can comprehend God when we become vessels of his Love. We can love completely as we are completely loved. We can reciprocate in this way only. And it is by this path only because any other path leads perilously close to self-idolatry and self-worship.

The time is coming when faith will be replaced by knowledge, and when hope will find its realization. But in the new age love will not be superseded, for God is love.

This is why we believe that faith, which is best expressed by love, can have room for doubts and intellectual hesitation. Article in Christian Century, “When author Madeleine L’Engle was asked, “Do you believe in God without any doubts?” she replied, I believe in God with all my doubts.” We see in a mirror dimly, but what we see is important. We have treasures in our congregational traditions and doctrinal understandings, but they are mediated through earthen vessels.

Sermon Jan 24, We are Ecumenical

This sermon is focused on 1 Corinthians 12 and on the subject of ecumenism.


Notes:

I remember my confirmation—My dad was my pastor, as you probably know. One thing I remember, and that it seems is a common “strongest memory” for many people who go through confirmation is the opportunity to go and visit different faith groups

An experience that I treasure—one for which the value to me and my own walk of faith outweighs its proportion in time and space—is the few days I spent with Brother Aidan, a Greek Orthodox hermit monk living in the hills between Wales and England.

I had met Aidan at a lecture he was giving on iconography at a college in Oxford, and things fell into place for me to be able to go stay in a little guest cottage built over a creek on the grounds of the hermitage (which he had been commissioned to build and to turn into a monastery).

As I stayed there and enjoyed conversations and meals and work and worship, it struck me how different all the trappings of the Orthodox church were from my own experience of Christianity.

We would wake up at 4:30 or so in the morning, and begin the day with worship, Aidan would let me read some of the liturgies, and we’d stand in the chapel (there were no pews) surrounded by beautiful frescoed saints on the walls (Aidan was an iconographer) and incense candles burning a mysterious and inspiring scent. It felt delightfully different to worship in this way. It seemed exotic and enchanting, and yet it was my own tradition too. It was a Christian bridge into the culture and philosophy of the East that had first captured my attention when I started college and took classes in Chinese History and Buddhism, Hinduism, and

And yet, I also had a connection with this monk because we were both interested in how our faith values shape how we value the natural world. Aidan was re-foresting the hills that had been stripped bare by the mining exploits of the Romans some 2000 years ago. One thing I did while at the monastery was help Aidan cut up a tree that had fallen over a barbed wire fence and was allowing the sheep in one area to get into a field where Aidan had planted a bunch of saplings and eat them. I’ll remember sawing up that tree while it snowed as much as anything else I experienced there.

We are ecumenical. What does that mean? To me, ecumenical means that you acknowledge and show interest and delight in the diversity of the church, but you also seek common ground where we can be put our efforts on behalf of Christ.

This is the week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Churches around the world are turning their attention to the fact that Christ’s body is bigger than one denomination. We pray for Christian unity because our task is larger than one denomination can accomplish alone.

And yet, we are different parts of the body. We have different strengths and weaknesses. This is something Paul makes clear in the Corinthians passage.
We are one body with many members. Each member has its functions. An ear can’t say to an eye, “because you can’t hear, you are of no use.”

Hearing about someone who had been denied the sacrament, and when she was able to take the sacrament here, it was the first time in years. It meant a lot to her.
One strength of our church is the open table—and we have it in part because our church is ecumenical.

The church is portrayed as a boat afloat on the sea of the world with the mast in the form of a cross. These early Christian symbols of the church embody faith and unity and carry the message of the ecumenical movement.
The symbol of the boat has its origins in the gospel story of the calling of the disciples by Jesus and the stilling of the storm on Lake Galilee.
The ecumenical symbol was in use even before the inauguration of the World Council of Churches (ecumenical organization to which the United Methodist Church belongs) in 1948, and has taken many variations since then.
Why the sea? Throughout the Bible, the sea represents chaos. The ecumenical movement is an acknowledgement that in this chaotic world, we are in the same boat with Christians of all kinds. We must conduct ourselves as sailors on a ship—we must be united in purpose, lest the stormy sea sink us.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied ni a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” We are in the same boat. If someone has a leak on their side of the boat, eventually the whole thing is going underwater.
We shouldn’t get bogged down in our differences when there is a task to do.

What should that purpose be?


Links:
Website of iconographer/hermit monk I stayed with, includes Photos of hermitage in shropshire under "Frescos":

If you're interested in more about Eastern Orthodoxy, OCCJ is hosting a Orthodox seminary professor to teach the basics this Sunday evening in Tulsa.

Links to study guide and reading for Hymns and Singing Study for Jan 31

Just click the links below. You really only need the first two pages of the first link:
http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/SingingOurLivesStudyGuide2.pdf

http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/SingingOurLivesArticleBolin.pdf
By the way, when you click on these, you'll be prompted to download adobe acrobat if you don't already have it. If your computer says that you should update it, trust the update (acrobat is updated fairly frequently).

Link to article for Hymn study Sunday

We'll begin our 5 week hymn study at church this Sunday (Jan. 24) at 5pm. Look over this article in preparation. If you'd like to have a copy of the study guide I'll be using, it is available here.

Sermon: Finger Pointing

texts:
Psalm 46
Luke 13: 1-9

New Hymns and Singing Sunday

Come at 5pm on the 24th of January and join us as we meaning and story of some of our favorite hymns, what hymns and singing mean to us as people of faith, and much more. You can access the study guides we will draw from (we won't necessarily strictly follow this guide, but it will be of use to us) at Christian Reflection.

50/50 Class enjoys the Nativity Story at Branson

Each year, our church's 50/50 class takes a trip to Branson to see a show. Last year it was Noah's Ark. This year, the Nativity Story. Don't they look like they had fun?

Dec. 27 Sermon, Christmas 1, Losing Jesus

Texts: Colossians and Luke

Story about losing Wesley in the house:
It was one of two 911 calls we’ve made here in Morris—the other being a time that a skunk came through our open garage and through our cat door into our house. But that’s another story. This time, we were calling 911 because Wesley had disappeared. We were at home. We had all our doorknob thingies that make it hard even for an adult to open a door from the inside of our house installed. But somehow, Wesley had disappeared. We searched high and low with increasing anxiety. We knew something had to be wrong because Wesley always knew when we meant business that when we called to him, he had to answer, “Here I am!” But this time nothing. We were frantic, looking in increasingly ridiculous places. I remember looking in one of our endtables, and thinking. “He couldn’t even fit his head in there!” We had looked out in the garage, in both cars, in our storage room, and we were on our 3rd or 4th sweep around the house, looking everywhere we’d already looked. Lara was on the phone with the police department trying to explain what had happened. I was beginning to question whether or not all those hippies we had met in Sedona, Arizona were on to something with all their talk about vortexes. Then I saw him, crouched in the storage room off the garage, under a table behind a bookshelf, clutching a red can of Coca-Cola in his hands, and literally looking like the cat that ate the canary.

It was a far cry from Jesus being in the Temple with the scholars, listening, learning, and teaching, but boy it’s what I think of when I hear Luke tell this one and only story of Jesus’ childhood. You can taste that acrid anxieity that Joseph and Mary feel in your mouth, especially if you’ve ever lost a child, can’t you?

My parents have a similar story of losing me in a mall, hearing me described over the intercom, and then going to the store where I had been discovered only to hear that I had already been picked up by another man, and then really flying into a frenzy only to find that it was my uncle that had picked me up. Oh, the days before cellphones.

This is the only story from the gospels about Jesus’ childhood, and it is one that paints him and his family in a very familiar and human light, doesn’t it. Luke follows the majestic scenery of the nativity, with all the angels ushering people around, with this story about two parents on a dusty road and seemingly no one to help them find their son. You’d think that if angels would point the way for shepherd strangers, they’d at least give mom and dad a hand, huh?

I’ve always loved this story—and I particularly loved it as a teenager. Mom and dad come storming in, and Mary lays into him. And then he gives this answer that they can’t even understand. I totally heard this story from Jesus’ perspective until I became a parent and had the experience of losing a child.

The Bible is always like that. It sheds different light depending on where you are standing when you read it. I wonder what those children who have been lost to their parents because their parents have neglected them hear this story? They probably wonder what it must be like to have parents who drop everything and journey to go find them.

Today, you have an opportunity to contribute to our children’s home, which takes these children and gives them a home where they know they are loved and sought—if not by earthly parents, then for certain by their heavenly parent.

Perhaps during this holiday season, it has seemed to you as if Jesus has been “lost in the shuffle.” Perhaps you are at a point in your own life where you feel like you’ve lost sight of Jesus. You’ve been travelling along, and you didn’t even realize it, but Jesus just doesn’t seem to be alongside you anymore. You search around in all the customary places, you check with your caravan, but no-one seems to know where he is.

If that is true, then do as Mary and Joseph do and go back. Mary and Joseph and Jesus were in Jerusalem observing the sacred day of Passover and participating in what the Lord had commanded.

Think back to the last time that you experienced with certainty that Jesus was with you, and retrace your steps from that point. As Jesus says to his mother and father when they find him in the temple. “Why were you searching? Did you not know that I would be in my father’s house?” If you’re having trouble finding Jesus, then you should search a little more deeply here, at his father’s house.

Jesus’ presence here in his father’s house is not contingent upon me or my sermons, whether they are uplifting to you or not. His presence isn’t contingent upon how well the choir sings or how well Patsy plays. His presence doesn’t depend on how active our youth group is, or how many pot-lucks we have. IN short, Jesus Christ’s presence here at this church does not depend upon how you FEEL about being here at church.

Twice, Joseph and Mary are said to be "seeking" Jesus. This puts Jesus' parents, Joseph and Mary, in the same position as the rest of us. Later, "multitudes" also seek Jesus (6:19). Later, Jesus will also say that those who "seek" will find (11:9) and that we are to "seek" the kingdom of God, or the reign of God on earth (12:31).

Christ’s presence is partially about you seeking Christ. It is partially about how open your heart is to the possibility of finding Jesus. Jesus presence here in this place is a birthright. It is a gift given to us by God. You may question it all you want, but that does not negate the FACT that he is here. It is because of God’s grace that Jesus can and will be found here in this place, among you. He may be listening to you or he may be giving astonishing answers for you, but he is here, just like that 12 year old boy sitting in the temple.

Did you know that Luke bookends his story of Jesus with two stories of people on a journey who loved Jesus and grappling with their anxiety about losing him. These two stories are only found in Luke, and in both stories the time between Jesus and finding him again is specified as 3 days. In the second story, Jesus actually joins the travelers on their way, even though they don’t know it is him. In their grief, they tell Jesus, “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. [20] The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; [21] but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. [22] In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning [23] but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. [24] Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."

When they invite Jesus into their home, and he joins them for a meal, they recognize him in the breaking of the bread.

Dec. 20 Sermon, Let it Be

Texts:
MIcah and Luke

Notes
What is Christmas about? If we were to rely on a sampling on the street we may hear a number of things. We should probably excuse a child for latching onto the excitement surrounding Santa and presents under the tree. It wouldn’t surprise me if my own son, despite a steady diet of hearing about the “true meaning of Christmas” and playing with nativities, said that Christmas is “about” Santa Clause.

That doesn’t bother me coming from a four year old. I can understand, can’t you. After all, Christmas—what we call Christmas, is perhaps MORE about Santa than it is about the Christ child born in a stable.

I don’t have a problem with pop-culture Christmas. I love it. I love “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and “Here we go a wassailing.” I enjoy seeing Christmas lights and Dept. 56 Christmas villages of all sorts. I sort of enjoy finding new presents for my family and trying to think of something I’d like to receive. I’m no Grinch.

Soapbox
I’m not bothered by people saying “X-mas” or saying “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas, and may I suggest that if that is the deepest source of your “ire” about some kind of secular culture hijacking the holiday, you might do better to dig a little deeper. For one thing, the X in Xmas is merely a conflation of Greek and English, and no, it’s not an “X” indicating some kind of meaningless, non-defined integer, such as x=y/z X stands for the greek letter Chi, which is where we get the letter X and looks like an X, and in Greek is the first letter to Christ. Secondly, Happy Holidays does not deny that the days are holy, but instead it affirms it. A Holiday is a holy day. And if you’re bothered by the plural of “holiday” referring to anything other than Christmas, there are other faiths’ holy days at this time of year, but still, if that fact bothers you and you want to pretend that you live in a “Christian Nation,” (which the USA is most certainly NOT, by virtue of our Constitution) then you can just think to yourself that those people wishing you “Happy Holidays” are simply referring to the 12 days of the Christmas Season. If you fail to grasp that there are 12 days to Christmas, then you are probably confusing pop-secular-Christmas with the Holy season known as Christmas.
/Soapbox

So, those things don’t bother me. I’m fine with Santa and Jesus. And I hope you are too. But, if we did want to be the Grinch, and strip everything away from the season, as he does in Dr. Seus’s wonderful Christmas special. After we pulled all the Christmas trees up chimneys and took down the garland and lights, What would be left? Would we “whos” be standing in a circle around some glowing light singing

Welcome, welcome, fahoo ramus
Welcome, welcome, dahoo damus
Christmas Day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp

Well, maybe Christmas, after all, doesn’t come from store.
Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

And here’s something perhaps a little more difficult: As we reconstructed Christmas around the simple notion of Love breaking into the world, as the Who’s helped the Grinch do, how soon would Mary’s first Christmas Carol find it’s way into our celebration with its jarring speech about a world turned upside down? We must remember that this season is about the hope of the poor and oppressed. Love is like water, it first fills those places that are most empty. And it has to wear away at those places that are “high things in its way.”

If we are already full, we will not stomach anymore. If we have already filled our lives with all the things we think make us rich, then there will be no room for the actual “good things.” We will find, in time, that “riches” are really “emptiness.”

The bigger the ego, the more solid the false notion of security in our own victories and our own fleeting material possessions, the longer the waters must erode. But make no mistake, water is stronger than rock. Water will crumble rock.

Mary did not set out to tackle the principalities and the powers. She agreed to have a baby. In the words of the Beatles, she did not “say she wanted a revolution.” She said “let it be” with me according to your word.

Mary believed that God could change the world through the child that she was asked to bring into the world, but she certainly believed there would be more to it than her simply having a child. It’s not that having a child and being shunned by her community was a small thing, but it was what she could do.

God didn’t ask any more of her than she was capable of. If God had said, “one day this son of yours will leave home and never come back. In fact—when you see him, he will say, “you are not my mother.” And then, shortly thereafter, you will watch as he is nailed on a cross and raised up for all to see and mock.” Would Mary have said “Let it be?”

Mary agreed to follow God’s path for her and trust that the path would be shown to her as she walked it. She trusted God enough NOT to ask those questions about what would become of this son of hers. She sang the song of the Messiah, and she had heard what the prophets had said about the Messiah. She sang out in a prophetic hope about what this child would accomplish. But she had probably heard Isaiah’s prophecy of a suffering servant as well. She’d probably heard these words: Isaiah 53: 2-5
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
So, Mary’s faith was one of trusting that God can use what she was willing and able to do, and she didn’t need to know the outcome.

So, perhaps Christmas is all about the gifts after all. It is about the gift that we give to God: an open heart, willing to “Let it be with me according to your will.” And when that gift is given, we receive the greater gift: the chance to live life to the fullest—the joy of being part of God’s grace, which shines across the universe.

Dec. 13 Sermon, John the Baptist: Hatchet Man or Burier of the Hatchet

Sermon Texts: Zephaniah,

Philippians, and Luke


John begins the passage by speaking about a severing of identity. The people of Israel had grown so accustomed of being God’s people, they had grown lazy and unappreciative.

Have you ever had that experience of realizing how incredibly lucky you are? I was raised in a great family. I had support and encouragement and discipline and all my physical needs were met.

I never feared for scarcity. I never doubted my parents’ love. I never felt out of place. When I meet others who have experienced these things, I sometimes feel an intense insight into my own fortune.

Israel hadn’t remembered their fortune. They had stopped living like it meant anything to be the children of the Living God. They weren’t bearing fruit. They had nothing to show for their connection to the tree.

he speaks about the axe at the root of the tree. Israel is threatening her own rootedness in God. They are in danger of forgetting who they are. Without that connection to God, they will certainly bear no fruit.)

The youth camp curriculum this past year was very good. It was called “Rooted” and it focused on our life in God’s family. I was in charge of worship design, and so

John spoke about rocks. He assured the people who had come to be baptized and reborn as children of God that God could raise up the rocks into children if they failed to start acting like God’s children.

So, the Gospel writers tell us about God finally sending his own child to live among them and show them how to bear fruit.

John gave them the jumping off points.


John answers questions from tax collectors and soldiers and crowds. Gives them practical advice. Live an upright life. Jesus will come and minister to tax collectors and soldiers, who are mentioned in the scriptures and even join Jesus as disciples.

Tax collectors and Soldiers, both have prominent places in the story. Think about what they represented to the first hearers of this story. Think about how despised both of these groups were in that society.

It would be akin to us hearing about Jesus attracting and making his disciples out of pimps and gangsters.

Would you follow a man who healed a pimp’s prostitute or hung out with gangsters based on the truth that he spoke?

This is the kind of man John is, and it’s the kind of man Jesus is. He embraces the despised

John gives practical advice, and then Jesus comes and shows them the spiritual path. It involves the same kind of practical advice that John gives. It’s something akin to what John Wesley called the “three simple rules: Do good, Do no harm, and stay in love with God.” (Actually Wesley says, “attend upon all the ordinances of God.”—but that takes some explaining.)
But it involves more than practical rules of conduct. It also involves a spiritual opening.

It involves that kind of feeling of gratitude that I mentioned earlier. I take caution here, because we all “feel” differently and have a variety of connections to our emotional and spiritual lives.

John hopes for a refiners fire. My children love it lately when I take them out of the bath and get them dried off as quick as I can and then hold them under the heating vent, which dries them off completely. They’re ready to step out into the cold-feeling house.

Perhaps this is a good way for us to think about the work of the Spirit, which Jesus comes to baptize with. It makes us ready to go out into the cold-feeling house and live as children of God, bringing warmth and light of the Christ child.

The youth camp curriculum this past year was very good. It was called “Rooted” and it focused on our life in God’s family. I was in charge of worship design, and so over the course of the camp, our worship area included a large king sized sheet that on the first night, the youth stamped their hand in green paint, and then stamped them on that sheet. That night they spoke about identity. The next night they heard about Christ as the "vine" that gives our identity meaning and Real Life by showing us the Way of Grace. The Way directed us to the Ground of all Being, God our Maker. That night, the youth watched as their handprints were connected by small twigs and then larger branches to a great full trunk. Christ is the Tree Trunk. The next day's theme spoke about being rooted, and we oriented small group discussions and that night's "Catacomb worship" service around the sacraments, which we believe root us in the God who gives them to us for that purpose. At worship that night, I'd painted in some roots that wove together and spelled "Rooted." The following day we spoke about the practices of faith as being the fruit that we are told to bear. The youth cut out what kind of “fruit they were” and wrote why on the back of the fruit. Then they positioned that fruit around where they had stamped their hand.