texts:
1 Thessalonians 5: 11-22
1 Chronicles 16: 7-14, 28-36
Hmm, I must've accidentally deleted the recording this week--notes only!
Met with the finance committee this past week. Two part series, First on Thanks and Second on Giving. Hahah! You’re stuck coming for the Giving sermon b/c you don’t want to miss the Thanksgiving pot luck!
Thanks:Taking? A response to what we have received , or a regular posture of gratitude in all things? Paul’s words for the Thessalonians is that we should be thankful “in all things.”
Hand getting tired from writing so many thank you notes.
Courtney would say this on the football field after we’d pair up doing our receiver’s drills. What is it about receivers that causes them to be so boisterous?
We were taught various methods of blocking, but perhaps the easiest way to block when we had someone covering us “man on man” was to just run off toward the endzone. If the cornerback failed to block us, then we could potentially be thrown the ball and then we would be able shout him down with “You betta recognize!”
Of course, this didn’t work as effectively with me. An observant cornerback would probably note that I was never really thrown the ball, and so there would be nothing to cover. Instead, I’d have to work for my blocks, because there was nothing to “recognize” with me.
There’s something I noticed about the hymns and professions of praise and thanks in the scriptures. They all go something like this. 23Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Tell of his salvation from day to day. 24Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. In other words, “you betta recognize!”
There’s something about praise and thanksgiving that is connected intricately to the notion of spreading the word.
I know sometimes when someone has done something wonderful for me, I know they don’t want to feel put on the spotlight, and so a simple heartfelt expression of gratitude is the route I go.
God, on the other hand, loves the spotlight. God wants us to put Him in the spotlight in our lives, because that’s how other people will see God.
That’s one constant thread throughout all the scriptures of praise throughout the Bible. The call to Thank God for this or that is always followed by “tell everyone how great God is.”
I thought today’s theme of Thanks also applied to the civic holiday we recognized this past week in Veteran’s day too, don’t you think?
Most veterans I know, including my grandfather, don’t talk much about their service. They don’t necessarily want to be put on display for the great sacrifices they have made for all of us, but I can guarantee you that they probably sense our true thankfulness for their efforts on our behalf when we tell other people, when we teach our children about what a great privilege it is to live in this free country, and how that great privilege, purchased with the lives of our veterans, demands great responsibility.
If we simply accept the good without giving thanks, amnesia sets in and we begin to believe in another God. We begin to believe in the God who says we deserve what we have because we have worked for it. We begin to serve that God by taking without gratitude, by spending without thought of others, by living the “looking out for #1” life.
When we forget to live thanks, we forget that God is God and that we are not. God saves us from that trap by commanding us to remember—to remember who we were and the journey we have taken as a people. To remember that the bounty we share is a gift from God. IN the sharing of thanks, we remind each other of our gift.
As Paul says in the second letter to the Corinthians, “the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” The more thanks we sow, the more thanks we will reap. If we live with a joyful and thankful heart, we will continue to live in joy. The generosity which is an outpouring of gratitude will multiply our gratitude. If we don’t feel thankful, then we probably need to give more.
It’s kind of like that odd fact that scientists have found that if you smile more, then you will be happier. Even if you just fake it—even if you’re not happy, if you smile more and often, the face muscles signal to our brains that things are going swimmingly, and research shows, our mood improves.
Gray skies are gonna clear up,
Put on a happy face;
Brush off the clouds and cheer up,
Put on a happy face.
Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy,
It's not your style;
You'll look so good that you'll be glad
Ya' decide to smile!
Pick out a pleasant outlook,
Stick out that noble chin;
Wipe off that "full of doubt" look,
Slap on a happy grin!
And spread sunshine all over the place,
Just put on a happy face!
ThanksLiving is making this openness to God our lifestyle, our permanent dwelling place. Thanks-Living is making our heart an altar, and bringing the light of Christ to that altar. Have you noticed that oftentimes, it is easier to generate a sense of collective victimization than collective joyfulness? When we get together with people we may not know, sometimes we bridge the gap of unfamiliarity by gathering around the things we despise. We pump ourselves up on our shared troubles or worries or whatever it is that unites us negatively.
. Yes, it is our temptation to rally around our shared dislikes, complaints, and feelings of victimization. What would it be like to identify with one another by our thankfulness? What if, instead of uniting around our shared dislikes, we instead found a common bond in our shared gratitude?
This, I think is the community we are called to form under the banner, “Christianity.” When we live with thankfulness in our hearts and share that thankfulness with others, the things we have to be thankful for seem to multiply. Let’s take a moment to experiment with this. We’re a community of believers, and I would hope that we have a lot to be thankful for.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Monday, November 08, 2010
All Saints Day Sermon: To See with Blinding Sight
Romans 6: 3-11
I always love the first day after daylight savings time. Doesn’t everyone feel rested!? I went to bed last night at 11:00 ! And I look forward to waking up on school days and it being light outside. I was starting to get really weary with this dark as the kids were getting ready for school thing. Bad idea to move daylight savings time back a few years ago.
But, one thing about it is that tonight, it’ll be dark at what, 5:45 ? As the night comes sooner and the days continue to get shorter, it has always been a time of year when our ancestors contemplated life and death. On the winter solstice, just a few days before Christmas each year, there were always celebrations of new life as the shortest day of the year also signaled getting over the hump and knowing that the days would be growing longer again instead of shorter.
Is Death a friend or a foe?
A very complex question for which there is no easy answer, I think. Our faith tradition sends us mixed messages. On one hand, we downplay it or embrace it as the necessary passage between this life and the next. Emphasis is put on the next life as the “eternal life,” the life that will never end, and so sometimes death is romanticized, and we picture for ourselves what comes after it as a reminder that death won’t be the end. Talk about Mrs. Hunter’s Happy Death.
At the same time, we have scriptures that seem to shake their fist at death, and it’s definitely seen as the enemy over which Christ gains victory. But in order for Christ to gain that victory, he had to fall to its clutches.
Through that gift, through that sacrifice, says the scriptures, the light of God shines into a world darkened and corrupted by sin. The light that shines though our lives is beautiful and unique, like the colors coming through our stained glass windows, and that light continues to shine in a way even after we have gone on. We are aware of that light that shines from the “cloud of witnesses” when we take time to remember those who have departed, as we do today. We remember the dead, and we live with the comfort and the hope that we will be remembered after we have “shuffled off this mortal coil” to quote another great poet. “Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” (Tagore)
Carl and Tim recently fixed the porch light right on the outside of the prayer chapel door. It’s on a timer, and when I look over at the church in the early evening hours, I can see this single window fully illuminated. It’s the window that represents our baptism, and so it is a reminder of my baptism, and the fact that I, that we, are claimed by God. That we’re welcomed into God’s family. But right next to it, more faintly illuminated just because of the angle at which I’m looking at the sanctuary, is this window, the window that symbolizes the resurrection. The event, the victory that makes the new life possible. As Paul writes to the Romans in today’s scripture (brilliantly re-conceived by Eugene Peterson)
1-3So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!
3-5That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country. 6-11Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.
:
From the Ephesians text for All Saint’s Day, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.” I love these words and how they resonate with the poem that Duane read.
I think that it is with these “eyes of our hearts” that we can “see with blinding sight” the hope that we are given. It is because of this hope that we should live life as a precious gift and “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Dylan Thomas felt the urge in humanity to not accept death, to rage against it. To relish anything, whether a curse or a blessing from his own father, if it meant he was struggling against death. It is what we are made to do.
Paul writes in 1 Cor. 15 with kind of a gloating “smack talk” attitude toward death, “So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55O death, where isthy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
We don’t rage so much against the dying of the individual light so much as we rage against the dying of the light “which illumines everyone” in this world. And the truth is that that light is not dying at all, but instead that we are drawing the sheet over our heads “because we loved the darkness rather than the light.” So, when we say “rage, rage against the dying of the light,” we’re not doing battle with an inevitable truth but instead combating a lie.
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” (Norman Cousins)
What is it that “dies inside us while we live?” I think Jesus spoke of it when he said, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
When I was planning the children’s sermon, I had the memory of being in PE as a kid and loving the “parachute days.” Did anyone ever do “parachute day” in PE? We’d take this big multicolored parachute,
When I was a kid I remember we used to take a parachute and stand on its edge, then everyone at once would lift up their hands and then bring it down behind us and then sit on the edge. It was good for teaching us coordinated action, I suppose, but it was also good for just filling us with wonder.
That’s something you can only do with a group. We are in eternal community. You can’t get under a parachute and make a little bubble world of your own. You can live in a bubble, but it is usually a false bubble that sooner or later gets burst by reality. But, I think what was instigated in me by that little parachute bubble is something that will last my whole lifetime. Every once in a while I come across something that stokes the fires of wonder in me. And I feel like my eyes are “ablaze like meteors and gay.”
If you don’t like people now, you might be pretty unhappy when you die!
That’s one reason we need to figure out how to love our neighbor, b/c the witness of scripture is that we are never going to escape it!
Dylan Thomas poem.
Living a life of light. Peaceful, quiet death is what we hope for, but Thomas lifts up another ideal. Being a beacon of life.
Nothing puts us more in touch with our frailties and our failures than the prospect of dying, as Dylan Thomas points out. But death also halts those who live life to the fullest. Those who “caught and sang the sun in flight, and learned to late they grieved it on its way.” It seems like we are bound to fail in some way in this life. This is what we must all come to terms with. We are imperfect, but we strive for perfection.
And so, we “rage, rage, against the dying of the light” by living our life unto Christ. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Our lives are cherished and held together by God even after we die, and we participate in Christ’s resurrection. Through it, we can be a light in the darkness, and we won’t die at all.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Oct. 31 Sermon: It's Not a Costume!
Sermon Texts:
Psalm 139: 1-12
Ephesians 6: 10-20
Can you remember the costumes you wore as a kid on Halloween? Perhaps you still enjoy dressing up? Many were here last night at our annual Trunk or Treat. You kind of made a costume for your automobiles, and many of you were dressed up too!
It’s always fun to put on a costume, isn’t it. We can pretend we’re something we’re not for a while.
Halloween is a very old holiday, and probably the most enduring aspect of Halloween was there from the beginning, dressing up as ghouls and ghosts.
In pre-Christian England, the people celebrated Samhain on Oct. 31. Nov. 1st was the new year in the pre-Christian society, and on the night between the old year and the new year, spirits were thought to have free reign on the earth. The “veil was thin.”
So, people would dress up like spirits and other creatures that people couldn’t fully understand, in an attempt to “blend in” and not be bothered by the evil spirits.
I remember some of my favorite memories of Halloween was going trick or treating with my best friend Matthew as a pair of nerds. Steve Urkel was pretty popular at the time, and his rise to fame as a suspender wearing, oversized glasses on the tip of his nose, mega-geek gave hope to people like me.
We’d watch his show every week on TGIF while eating chicken sticks and French fries at the Mattox house. My sister and I would bump into things in imitation of the great Urkel, and would do our best impressions of his “eheheh, Did IIIIIIIII do thaaaaaaat?”
I think Urkel must be alive and well somewhere on TV, b/c on Friday when I was taking Wesley to school, a boy hopped out his car, and Damien said, “Look, he came as Urkel!” I almost fell off my bike.
So anyway, one of the problems you run into as a nerdy little kid deciding to dress up as a “nerd” for Halloween is that you will inevitably hear from some other kid, “Hey Nathan, where’s your costume?”
What can you say to that? Where’s the little quip that equalize the embarrassment? There is none.
In today’s passage, Paul is speaking to the Ephesians about “dressing up” too, but instead of talking about things we hope we aren’t, Paul is talking about the qualities that can define us in a struggle against the darkness.
“Put on the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
That’s quite a costume, isn’t it! But that’s the thing—It’s not a costume. It’s not putting on something that is making fun of what we aren’t, it is putting on something that magnifies who we are.
Instead of utilizing the age-old principle employed by the ancient Celts, who dressed up like the demons and spirits to try and “blend in,” Paul had something very different in mind—stand out! Put on your armor and prepare for the onslaught!
Instead of skulking back into the shadows, Paul wanted the people of Christ to “stand their ground.” He says it three times in three different ways, Stand your ground, after you have done everything, to stand. And Stand firm!”
And what is Paul wanting us to stand firm against? Not the flesh and the blood, in other words, not our temporary struggles with vice or worldliness. If that is what defines our Christian faith—that it is some kind of safeguard against loose morality, then Paul has something to say to us.
There is a menace against which we must stand firm—it is the rulers and powers and authorities that propagate evil in the world. It is the darkness that seeks to defeat the church, and you know how that darkness is weaving it’s way into our lives in the most insidious and destructive way?
“By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction” William Osler
Apathy born of fatalism, and a lie that we deserve everything we want.
Do you see Paul’s Armor of Faith as a costume or your baptismal gown?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Oct. 24 Sermon: The Highlight Reel
Texts:
1 Cor. 13: 1-3
Luke 18: 9-14
Sermon Notes:
Instead of watching the whole Razorback game yesterday, I just watched the highlight reel, because I couldn’t get the espn3 player to rewind while the game was in progress, and the game was in progress for quite a while since there was a rain delay.
The frustrating thing about highlight reels though is that, while it shows you the big plays of 20 yards or so, (of which Arkansas has quite a few) or big defensive plays like fumble recoveries or big sacks, it doesn’t give you the story of the in-between does it.
I remember seeing one highlight of us on the 20 yard line or so, and thinking, “well, how’d we get there in the first place?”
Watching the game this way reminded me of today’s scripture, with the way the Pharisee prayed to God, what looked more like a highlight reel than an honest to God prayer.
Jesus plays a little trick on us with this parable. In the story, the Pharisee points out the tax collector in his prayer. In contrast to the wretched tax collector, the Pharisee does all the right things. He’s a faithful tither, he
But, with his pride and arrogance, he certainly turns the listener off, doesn’t he? No doubt, we all say to ourselves, “well, thank God I’m not like THAT!
But that’s the rub. Just like the Pharisee would be better off if he recognized that he was a lot more like the tax collector than unalike-that is a sinner of God’s own redeeming—we would all no doubt do better to understand that we are a lot more like the Pharisee than we’d care to admit.
How often do our prayers look more like a highlight reel than an honest relationship with God?
Diane Bergant writes in a 2004 article in "America"
"We probably all have long lists of things we would never do. I would never rob a bank, or attack a helpless person, or run off with the pool man. It is beneath my dignity to cheat on a test or purchase clothing I intend to wear only once and then return for refund. God, am I good! But then, I have never been financially hopeless; I have never been under attack myself; and I have never had a pool man. I have never been desperate enough to feel the need to cheat or to finagle clothing. God, am I good? Or have I just been sheltered from some of the hardships that many others face?
How might I act if I were in their difficult situations?We would all benefit from reflecting on whether we are indeed as “righteous” as we claim. Are we genuinely virtuous, or have we been preserved from circumstances that might bring out the worst in us? Is our goodness tried and true, or is it simply the habitual behavior expected of “people like us”?"
The Jesus prayer, petition to God, that some who endeavor to live a life of “unceasing” prayer repeat over and over and over again. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Kyrie Eleison, Mr. Mister song. Loved it as a kid. Lord Have Mercy.
Today we are visiting a Benedictine monastery in Shawnee, where no doubt some of the monks there are formed by prayers like the Jesus prayer. The Jesus prayer in particular comes out of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, but the sentiment is the same in the rosary, which many western monks like the Benedictines use for their own prayer life.
Wouldn’t you think that if any Christians had a right to brag to God, it would be those who devote their entire lives to prayer and service—who live in a way that is so outside the normal culture that they seem like a novelty?
And yet, I’ve never met a monk who at all fits the description that Jesus gives of the Pharisee, the “holy man” of his day. All the monks I have ever met are humble and cheerful and the first to admit their weaknesses or sinfulness. It must be that spending every hour of the day in Christian community must put one into very close touch with our need for Grace.
Instead of taking such a presumptuous attitude with God in our prayer life, thinking that somehow God missed out on things, so we have to give him a highlight reel, we should understand that our whole lives will be “under further review” on the day of judgment, and the only thing we can stand on is God’s ever abundant grace.
There was once a dervish devotee who believed that it was his task to reproach those who did evil things and to enjoin upon them spiritual thoughts, so that they might find the right path. [The dervish singled out a compulsive gambler, and each day the dervish placed a stone near the entrance of the house, to remind the gambler of his sin. The devotee enjoyed the pleasure of his 'Godliness' in recording the sins of his neighbor. This went on for twenty years.
Each day the gambler thought,] 'Would that I understand goodness! How that saintly man works for my redemption! Would that I could repent, let alone become like him, for he is sure of a place among the elect when the time of requital arrives!'
And so it happened that, through a natural catastrophe, both men died at the same time. An angel came to take the soul of the gambler, and said to him gently, 'You are to come with me to paradise.'
[The gambler protested, saying that the angel must have mixed up his instructions, for he learned that the devotee is destined for roasting on the fiery pit in hell.]
'Not so,' said the angel, 'as I shall explain to you. It is thuswise: the devotee has been indulging himself for twenty years with feelings of superiority and merit. Now it is his turn to redress the balance. He really put those stones on that pile for himself, not for you. … You are to be rewarded because, every time you passed the dervish, you thought first of goodness and secondly of the dervish. It is goodness, not man, which is rewarding you for your fidelity.'
-Idries Shah 1924-1996
Wisdom of the Idiots
Monday, October 25, 2010
Oct. 17 Sermon: Keep on Keepin' on. The Persistent widow
Practice Makes Perfect
“Will he find faith in the world?” Faith is exemplified by persistence.
What is persistence, really? It is keeping what matters in front of our attention—so prioritized that we act on what is most important every day. What if the son of man came on a day that you were taking “off” from your life of faith. Not really doing anything to exhibit your faith to the world. Maybe it’s just being on your own.
The widow has an every day reminder that she is in need of protection—she was alone. She had no one to depend on. So she went the judge, even though he was corrupt and unjust, and she wore him down. God is contrasted with that unjust, uncaring judge. God is the one who “chooses” us. We are his adopted children.
We should be intentional about that relationship. If Jesus walked into our daily lives, would he find faith there? Would he be able to see it in your life if he could not ask you what you thought. Keep in mind that none of us would be able to understand what Jesus said if he walked into our world as he did 2000 years ago. So, would he be able to see his teachings in the way you lived your life? Would he see works of justice and mercy, of worship and devotion?
Faith takes persistence. It takes intentionality. It takes keeping what is most important in our full view, not in the periphery. ((((((((((((Elucidate on periphery))))))))))
You know one way we can keep our relationship with God in our full vision? You know how we can focus on it? We can pay attention to the relationships we have between us and others. Do we really know each other? I have the privilege of visiting you in your homes. I have the privilege speaking with you about your spiritual lives, about your greatest fears and hopes.
That privileged relationship is not just an aspect of the pastoral call, it is an aspect of the Christian call. We are given the mandate on the most important day of Jesus’ life, that last night he spent with his disciples. He told them, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Jesus paid attention to people, didn’t he? He wasn’t an unjust and uncaring judge. He was and is the judge who calls you child.
God doesn’t just relate to us through other people. He relates to us in the natural world and in all of creation, as I alluded to last week. What’s one way we can be attentive to the relationship with God in the natural world? What is one thing that sustains a relationship between people? A commitment to listen is paramount.
I laid down on the cot on the porch for a few minutes to think about what I was going to say one morning this week, and as a few cars passed on the highway, it fell silent. Then, like a hum in the back of my ear I could hear the crickets singing. It was a new revelation for me. I thought that crickets only sang at night for some reason. I see that’s just when it gets quiet enough to hear them.
Quiet enough to hear them………….
We all know the difference when we are being listened to and when we are just being heard. The unjust judge hears the widow’s pleas, but he’s not listening. It isn’t changing him. He remains unmoved and simply acts out of his own annoyance with the sound of the lady’s voice. By contrast, the judge who is our redeemer and friend also listens to us.
Shouldn’t we devote the time to really listen to him? To be intentional about it, as if what God said really does matter? Paul diagnoses a problem that Timothy should be wary that he will find among God’s people. Oftentimes we don’t intentionally listen for God’s voice. Instead we just listen to whatever is convenient, perhaps what makes us feel good, perhaps what dresses up and looks like Christianity—what poses as sound doctrine and teaching but is really just a veil for what makes us feel comfortable.
Nothing makes me feel more comfortable than thinking that someone else was going to get the heat. In my childhood experience of getting sent to the principal’s office (and I have a pretty good pool to draw from) I always felt a little more at ease if I was going with someone else, especially if that someone else, in my view, was more “guilty” than I was. I imagined that the principal might have more ire for the other person. I could always stand over to the side and say “I didn’t do it!”
That didn’t always work with principals, but it certainly won’t work with our judge. Did you love your neighbor as you loved yourself? “I didn’t do it!” Did you look for Christ in the least of my neighbors? “I didn’t do it!” Did you pay attention to your relationship with me? “I didn’t do it!” Well then, what did you do?
1 John, you must love one another
James: faith without works is dead
Do you give like the son of man is coming again? Do you forgive like the son of man is coming again? Do you live like the son of man is coming again? We are rescued from the dead by a God who loves us and calls us children. And as the song goes, “Jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity, interpreted by love!”
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Oct. 10 Sermon, Peaceable Kingdom
Texts:
Genesis 1: 20-25
Isaiah 11: 6-10
St. Francis Feast day this past week.
Reminded of that, b/c of our wonderful visitors from the zoo.
Always been inspired by St. Francis. Great books I’ve read.
Who was he and why should we care:
Known for preaching to the birds, brokering a peace accord between a wolf and a village, and founding a monastic order devoted to poverty and preaching, living within a community.
In case you think of him as kind of hippy-dippy head in the clouds kind of guy, he also was an ambassador. Travelled to the heart of the Muslim empire in Egypt to persuade a great warrior, Saladin, to make peace with the Crusaders who had attempted to take land that he protected.
He also persuaded a pope to accept practices that had earned excommunication in earlier spiritual leaders.
But, he remains for us the patron saint of animals and nature. Many churches have a blessing of the animals.
Always remember this argument in childhood, and maybe it’s something of a contentious issue in adulthood. “Do all dogs go to heaven?”
Of course they do. God created them, and God’s heaven is coming to earth to redeem “all creation, which is groaning out for redemption.”
I have heard the counter-arguments:, well, animals don’t have souls, so they can’t go to heaven. Show me where it says that in the Bible in a place that does not also speak of the same fate for humanity.
Ecclesiastes3 . I also thought, "As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath [b] ; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal [c] goes down into the earth?"
As Ecclesiastes and Psalm ? say, God’s Spirit, God’s Breath, gives all things life.
Instead, scripture frequently speak of animals being involved in the New heaven and the New Earth. Isaiah speaks of the animals laying down with one another as they once had in Eden.
According to scripture, we’re the reason that animals too are subject to death. It is mankind that caused the fall from grace.
The good news for us, is that God redeems us (and the animals.) Why would God redeem the creatures who caused all this mess and leave all the innocent animals behind. The animals didn’t eat the forbidden fruit, the people did.
John Wesley had this same outlook on the animal kingdom. In fact, it played into his decision to refrain from eating meat. The only reason he, after years of being a vegetarian, resumed eating meat was because his bishop was suspicious that he may be turning into a radical, and Wesley wanted to prove that he wasn’t one.
Wesley’s conundrum echoes today for us. It is easy to think of our pets as having souls, perhaps even wild animals as having souls, but then livestock comes into play.
Does believing an animal have a soul get in the way of my diet? This is an area where the “school of thought” prevalent at my seminary, Process Theology, gives me some tools to live.
In this system, creatures with greater comprehension of the world around them have a greater amount of input from God. In a sense, humans have a “bigger” soul than a wasp or a fish. So, when we choose to slaughter an animal and eat it, it is less offensive to the giver of that life-breath if we take care to “minimize the loss.”
Cows and chickens have a relatively low comprehension of the relational world. Horses seem to have a greater awareness, don’t they? Perhaps this is the reason we bristle at the idea of eating a horse or a dog.
They are more aware of our company, they seem to care for us more than a cow or a chicken.
I think the practice you find in many of the records about native Americans of offering a prayer of thanksgiving before taking the life of an animal is commendable.
It is a way to acknowledge the presence of God in the world around us that strengthens our own understanding of the relationship between God and us.
That’s why we bless the animals. Because the animals are a blessing to us. It’s not really us giving some kind of perk to the animals that they don’t already have—it’s simply us acknowledging God’s blessing in relationship and in all life.
I’m sure most of us have had relationships with animals. Perhaps it’s a cat who likes to snuggle up over your bare feet because she knows you like it. Perhaps it’s a dog who was protective of you as a child. Maybe it’s a horse who carries you on his back and communicates with you in an unspoken language.
In all things, we find God’s desire for a relationship with us. And if we’re patient and observant, we might be blessed to see the relationship that God has with those animals and wildlife as well.
Oct. 3 Sermon, World Communion Sunday Sermon,
Sermon Text
Today is World Communion Sunday. It is a yearly celebration of what we hold in common with Christians of all denominations around the globe. The denominations of Christianity are very different, yet we all confess one God, we all find God incarnate in Jesus Christ, and we all believe the Holy Spirit is present with us, especially in the act of Holy Communion, which we all celebrate. Some of us celebrate more often than others, but it is the common meal that we recognize together, at least on one day out of the year.
World communion Sunday began in the 1930’s by the Presbyterian church as a testament to the times. As Nazi power grew in Europe and that continent was embroiled in the birth of another war that would eventually engulf the whole world, Christian denominations came together to provide an alternative vision for the world. During the 40’s, World Communion Sunday was adopted by the Methodist church and by other denominations involved in the Ecumenical movement as a symbol of solidarity amidst our worldly divisions. Gathering around the table as Christians, instead of as Methodists, or Baptists, or Episcopalians, became a hope for the future—a hope that we one day will be enfolded back into the family of Christ that knows no boundaries or divisions.
In this day and age, with the Ecumenical movement on a budgetary respirator of sorts, and with its influence waning in favor of more divisive Christian voices, what does World Communion mean to us today? How many other churches in Morris are observing World Communion Sunday? Do you know? I don’t! Our community doesn’t have a ministerial alliance that would plan a community wide celebration like this. We now have a cross-denominational youth partnership, and we have worked with other churches on projects in the community, but we are certainly in a different mindset than what might have been envisioned by the pioneers of the World Communion Sunday movement.
Today’s scriptures focus us on two similar accounts of the power of God manifested in those whom the “in-crowd” considered “unworthy.” The same kind of situation happens with Jesus’ crew. While Jesus is up on a mountain, his disciples are trying to heal people and are unsuccessful. Jesus comes down and, much like Moses, complains to God—“How much longer am I going to be stuck down here among these faithless people!” After Jesus heals those people that the disciples were trying in vain to heal, John comes back to camp with his chest stuck out—“Jesus, I saw some people casting out demons in your name, and I told them to stop because they weren’t one of us!”
The disciples had seen a man casting out demons in Jesus' name; and because he did not follow them, they tried to stop him. More about this strange exorcist is not told us. It may even be that the name "Jesus" was nothing more to him than a magical formula that worked miracles. But if so, it doesn't seem to have been this that the disciples objected to. The problem, in their eyes, was simply that he wasn't one of them, and they were jealous for their rights and privileges.
You may remember that, as the story has come down to us, the disciples had just been debating that most momentous of all theological questions: Which of us is the greatest? They had rank, privilege and exclusive rights on their minds.
High fives are passed among the disciples. “John, you laid the smack down!” his brother James exclaims. “Wait just a minute,” comes a voice from the corner. Jesus has moved outside the circle of self-congratulations. “If they are using my name to cast out demons, they’re not speaking ill of me! Whoever is not against us is for us!”
Jesus, in this story at least, is speaking of an inclusiveness that his disciples don’t understand quite yet. This passage is in marked contrast to what later comes from Jesus’ mouth in Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11:23: “He who is not with me is against me.” George Bush picked up on this last saying when he was speaking about attacking Afghanistan in November of 2001. I wonder what the world would look like if we adopted Mark’s version of the saying.
Luke actually makes room for both sayings in his Gospel. Also in Luke 9:49-50. Most commentaries point out the seemingly obvious contradiction between these two lines of thinking: but I read one article that seems more compelling to me. B.A. Gerrish, a scholar at Union Seminary in Richmond, VA writes that “The first, "Whoever is not against us is for us," calls for generosity in our estimate of others; the second, "Whoever is not with me is against me," calls for honesty in testing ourselves. By the one, we accept the profession of others; by the other, we try our own profession. One says, "Judge not"; the other says, "Examine yourself."
Gerrish continues, “Why was it, in particular, that the disciples wanted to stop that other man? Not, apparently, because they were greatly worried about his loyalty to their Master, but because he wasn't one of them. And if that is so, then was it his profession of Christ's name that was in question, or theirs?
John told the Master, perhaps expecting to be praised, that he and his friends had stopped the man from casting out demons in Jesus' name; and Jesus replied, "Whoever is not against us is for us." But he might just as well have said: John, are you really with me? Or is there something you value more than loyalty to me? Are you more concerned for your group than for my name? He said: "whoever is not against us is for us." Might he not just as well have said, "John, whoever is not with me is against me"?
And so world communion Sunday reminds us how futile and perhaps how dangerous it is to take the words of Jesus, “either you are with me or you are against me,” and apply it to anything other than our own commitment to Christ. It is not a measuring rod to hold up to others. Christ gave us a different saying for that—“if you are not against us, then you are for us.” With how the world has changed since 2001 as well, I would venture to say that it is also not a good statement of foreign policy. I believe Jesus would have agreed much more with Abraham Lincoln’s question of national self-examination when he said, “I do not pray that God is on our side, but that we are on God’s side.”
When we gather around this table to have fellowship together in remembrance of Jesus’ life and love for us, we can be assured we are on God’s side. When we confess our sins together and forgive one another, we can be assured that we are on God’s side. When we accept God’s work in the outsider—the person on the margins: we can be assured that we are on God’s side. If we draw a boundary line between “us” and “them,” we draw a boundary between “us” and God.
Gerrish concluded his article by writing, “As one of my favorite theologians, Friedrich Schleiermacher, wrote more than a century and a half ago: "All who start from the living word of the Saviour, and from living faith in him, stand on the same ground with us; and there can never be a reason for us to withdraw from fellowship with them." It has taken Christians a very long time to learn that lesson. And perhaps now we can take a second look at our many traditions and ask, not "Which of us is right?" but, "Have they seen something in their encounter with the Lord which we have missed in ours, or not seen so clearly?"
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
September 26 sermon: The High Life
Texts: Jeremiah and Timothy
Pink Floyd song from Dark Side of the Moon. Always loved it. “Money, So they say, is the root of all evil today.”
We get pretty impressed with money don’t we? I remember when we used to live in LA, there were a lot more opporunities to be impressed with wealth than there are in most places in the world. Every once in a while I’d be at a stop light, and a bright colored Lamborgini would roll up next to me. Wow! I’d think to myself.
Sometimes Lara and I would for a cheap date just go driving around in Bel Aire or the Hollywood Hills and go looking at all the spectacular and beautiful multi-million dollar homes. We’d pretend that we had to choose one to live in on each twisty street we’d drive down. .
Money is really easy to love. If you acquire enough of it, you can trade it for things like Lamborginis and houses in Bel-Aire. We see on shows like “Cribs” and on commercial for the latest and greatest cars that these are the things we should really be spending our time and effort trying to figure out how to get. But, as Admrial Ackbar says, “It’s a trap!”
Experience in FPU over the past few weeks. Learned about how the love of money is a societal ill that infects most of us and leads us to pretty irrational and bizarre behavior.
I’ve never been rich, but I’ve tasted what is was like to be rich. I spent a summer with a friend from Colombia who was very wealthy—I’m talking about multiple homes all over the country that we went to and from accompanied by bodyguards with machine guns and caravans of BMWs. But, every corner we rounded brought reminders of the disparity between wealth and poverty. In Columbia, like most of the world, there is not much of a middle class. There is simply the rich and the poor.
I thought I was living the “High Life” for sure. But Paul puts it this way to Timothy—don’t go after wealth thinking that is the High Life. There is a higher life that we are called to, and anyone who’s willing to give their life can have a piece of it. You don’t have to be rich or powerful. You don’t have to be cultured or of good “stock.” In fact, all of these things make it harder. Money is tough to part with.
Our anonymous English parable says it—A fool and his money are quickly parted. So, hang on to it for dear life, right? I don’t think so. I think the parable is true—we foolishly throw our money at all kinds of things: but perhaps the most foolish things we throw our money at are the things that can’t be bought.
We try to buy respect. We try to buy admiration. We try to buy a sense of accomplishment. We try to buy happiness…love. This doesn’t work. We know it doesn’t work, and yet we do it.
When I was in seminary in Los Angeles, I worked at a bookstore called “The Bodhi Tree.” It was a bookstore that specialized in books and materials from a variety of religions, gurus, and the like. We sold all kinds of ridiculous contraptions that were supposed to give you more mental balance. (and trust me, some of the customers who frequented our store could use all the help they could get.) But one particular evening while I was at the cash register, a lady started piling up books and incense and crystals and all sorts of things for me to ring up.
About $400 later, I came to the last item she unabashedly placed on the counter. I looked at her face to see if there was any trace of irony there—there wasn’t, and so I rang up the $1.50 bumper sticker that said “Simplify.” And there wasn’t one, but two of those stickers. I tried not to laugh, and offered to help her to her car with all the merchandise. She refused, and I noticed that a driver had been waiting at the door who hurried to pick up her bags.
Yes, we even try to buy simplicity, don’t we? I’ve noticed that the magazine “Real Simple” touts simplifying your life, but when I look in it, I just see a bunch of stuff you can buy that has clean lines and looks really modern. There is a lot of white stuff in “Real Simple.” What I have learned from owning a white leather couch is how “Not Simple” owning one of those actually is.
Paul talks about another route to simplicity. It’s called “being content with what you have.” I knew a girl in college who thought that “being content” was a negative thing. She was a driven person who equated “contentment” with “settling for second best.” The problem for her is that she, as the U2 song goes, “Still hasn’t found what she’s looking for.”
But, Paul commends contentment. He says that there is a “great gain of godliness combined with contentment.” What is it like to be content? My experience of it has never felt like “settling.” Instead, it feels like being in on a secret. Have you ever had those flashing moments of insight when you notice the intricate beauty of something quite simple and perhaps even overlooked? I think that is the kind of contentment that draws us closer to God.
See, God is there. God dwells in those moments. Remember the story of Elijah going up to a cave and listening for God. The hailfire comes down from the sky, but God is not in the hailfire, and the earth shakes, but God is not in the earthquake, and then a breeze. And God speaks to Elijah through the breeze in a “still small voice.”
Jesus calls his disciples to the upper room and they share a meal as they must have done countless times before. Except at that meal, he pointed to a simple loaf of bread and a cup of wine and said—this is my body and my blood. I am in this meal. Turn your attention to it, and remember me when you do this.
Paul lifting up contentment as a virtue has something to do with our possessions possessing us. He remarks to Timothy that we are penniless when we come into the world, and we will be penniless when we leave it. In other words, you never seen a hearse pulling a Uhaul.
Instead of getting bogged down in the ties that bind us to the earth, we should seek the ties that will bind us to heaven. Paul says, very memorably, that he “love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” We grow into one of those stubborn weeds that just won’t come up. We’re too occupied with grasping the tangled and expansive underground web of roots that wealth connects us to.
Since we can take nothing with us, we should invest in hope in this life through the grasping of eternal life. Paul says, “shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” Now that’s the high life. If we’re too busy grasping and grabbing, our hands aren’t free to take hold of the promise.
In our Old Testament reading today from Jeremiah, we hear the account of what would seem to be a stupid real estate decision by our prophet. In 588 B.C. during the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, Jeremiah found himself imprisoned in the royal palace of King Zedekiah of Judah. He had been charged with desertion and treason and insurrection. And on some level, the charges had merit. Jeremiah had been forcefully pleading for Israel to turn from their ways. He saw the gathering storm of Babylon coming from the north. He spoke God's word of judgment and divine condemnation of social injustice and idolatry. So, King Zedekiah had good reason to lock Jeremiah up in the palace. Jeremiah simply didn't tow the royal line.
But then in Jeremiah 32, with war raging and despair undoubtedly growing, Jeremiah gets a new word from God. And this word is different. This word is in regard to some family business. A plot of family-owned land needs to be purchased. And by the right of redemption, a law found in Leviticus 25 which prevents the loss of family property, Jeremiah's cousin, Hanamel, asks the prophet to buy the family field in Anathoth. It is an absurd request. It is not the time to invest in real estate. It is not the time to invest in the future. It is a time to panic about the present. War is raging. Terror is threatened on all sides. Exile is coming. For Israel the future looks bleak.
But Jeremiah doesn't watch the cable news. Jeremiah doesn't listen to the prophets of doom on talk radio. Jeremiah knows that neither King Zedekiah, nor Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, nor corporate executives or Pentagon officials, none of these really run the world. Jeremiah knows that it is God who runs the world. It is God who gets the final word and God's final word is not destruction. God's final word is never destruction. God's final word is renewal. God's final word is always renewal.
The new Covenant, articulated only a chapter earlier, lays it out clearly:
"The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah." (Jeremiah 31: 31).
It won't be like the old one, says God. They didn't get that one. They didn't understand. This time...
"I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people...for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more." (Jeremiah 31: 33, 34b)
So, in the spirit and the promise of the future, Jeremiah buys the land; land where houses and fields and vineyards will, yet again, flourish. Jeremiah invests in hope. He displays God’s plans for his people by the way he uses his money.
How would your spending habits change if that was your primary objective? If the money you spent had the potential to communicate God’s great love and redemption for the world, wouldn’t you make these dumb kind of investments too? If your decisions with money really did have that kind of effect on the world? Don’t you think? Look at the front of your bulletin. Would things be different if you were reminded of Jesus every time you opened your wallet?
Okay, so not many people use cash anymore? Well, think if your Mastercard weren’t your Master but instead was a tool of your real eternal master? You know, “There’s some things money can’t buy, and for everything else” your Master will provide. What if your Visa card really was everywhere you wanted to be—except the most important one? And you know, “it pays to Discover” the real life that Christ offers to us. You really shouldn’t leave home without it.
One of the most memorable lessons from my high school Sunday school teachers was when my high school Sunday school teacher handed everyone in class a $100 bill. He did it when were talking about money and it’s grip on us. He challenged us to think beyond ourselves by trusting us to do something great—like give it away. I remember the look in his eyes. He was investing in hope. When I looked at Benjamin Franklin on the front of that bill, it was as if Jesus was staring at me. I took the $100 bill to church with me, and I thank God that through my teacher’s lesson in receiving a gift, I learned a lot about giving that day.
The head of the camping program reported to us this past month at our DMT meeting—Karen was there too. He told the story about Camp Cavett, a camp that our church provides for children with special needs, some of whom can’t walk or get around very well. Usually, these kids who are so physically disabled only get to watch their friends go up in the ropes course and cheer them on, but our camps director has always been planning an addition that would even give an opportunity to those with the most crippling conditions.
He told the story about two young girls who were carried up the stairs inside the climbing tower, and then strapped on to this new swing they’d had installed just this past year. They would hook them in with harnesses, and then they’d get to go sailing out over the trees. Randy recalled seeing one girl sailing through the air with her arms outstretched and reported to us that she felt free of her disability for the first time.
Experience of the High Life—this past week at Bishops’ retreat. Rapelling and Swing. Thrilling! It most likely took some expense to build—and we give it away because that’s what Jesus calls us to do.
Don’t set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Become rich in good works, “so that we may take hold of the life that really is life.”
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