What is My Calling?

June 15, 2008 The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost Text: Matthew 9: 35 - 10:8 (9-23) Sermon: What Is My Calling? It's Father's Day, a day to recognize the "calling" of fathers to their vocation to be present for their children and families, and to be models of living and teaching the faith to their children. Chris Gardiner who wrote The Pursuit of Happiness says that what he remembers most from his experience of his single dad struggling in the early 1980s was not the ability of his dad to provide financial security. He said, what he remembers most, is that whenever he looked up, his dad was there. It wasn't the size of the bank account, it was his dad's presence. The dad who is constant and loving is the dad he remembers. (Newsweek , June 2, 2008, p 19, "A Father has his Say") A wonderful way to begin our Father's day remembrance! Today we come thankful for our fathers, those living and those who have passed from this life into life eternal. Not all of us here this morning have had the experience of the good earthly father, a father loving, present and generous with time and mercy. Yet, we can all affirm the love of our eternal Father, and the desire for us to be embraced by this loving Father-God in all our life. We can expect the teaching of scripture to turn us toward what it means to be a loving father (or parent) and always a person who lives out the call to be a disciple in word and deed. When I think of a good father, I remember my own wonderful father (Paul Rigney Rogers) and my husband, Bill, who is a terrific father. Bill was one to tell stories to our children. He'd spin a wonderful adventure and they would look forward to the next episode. In addition to spinning tales, he liked to read them their favorite stories. One story came to mind as I read our scripture and thought of its application today. Remember Wally Piper's story of The Little Engine That Could? It is an inspirational story of motivation and the power of positive thinking. In this well-loved classic, a little train carrying oodles of toys to all of the good boys and girls, is confronted with a towering, seemingly impassable mountain. As nicely as they ask, the toys cannot convince the Shiny New Engine or the Big Strong Engine--far too impressed with themselves--to say anything but "I can not. I can not." It is left up to the Little Blue Engine to overcome insurmountable odds and pull the train to the other side. The Little Engine That Could rallies with the mantra "I think I can--I think I can" and then moves into a joyful, "I know I can, I know I can." In Christian terms, we may interpret the story to have the positive encouragement we need to be the "little blue engine that could." With God's power helping us to climb the hills of life, as fathers, mothers, graduates, disciples of Christ, we can be more than just "thinkers" and people with good intentions. We can realize it is not on our own strength that we climb the mountains of life. God will help us with whatever circumstance we have to climb and pass through the trails of life. God will help us so we can help others. That is what the commission to be Christ's disciples is about. Jesus' call was to ordinary people of his day (fathers, mothers, sons and daughters) to share something of the compassion of God in whatever way they could. Jesus took a common occurrence in life and showed how that could happen in an extra-ordinary way. For Jesus, it was about a renewal and recall of God's promise. Therefore, Jesus' call was to a renewal movement within Judaism. First century Judaism spoke primarily of the holiness of God but Jesus redirected their thinking to focus upon the compassion of God. You hear it all through scripture. Matthew 9:35-38: "Jesus went about, saw the crowds, and had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Do we need a renewal movement within Christianity today? Do we need to focus less on judgment and more on compassion? As Christians, my understanding from reading the text, is that our starting place is not to be in judgment of others, or be satisfied with our "right belief." Our starting place, our reason for being, is to have the identity as compassionate people in Christ's service. Honestly, we don't always know where this will lead. We proclaim we are people gifted by the grace of God with blessings not earned but bestowed by a gracious Creator. How are we telling God we are grateful? What opportunities do we have to speak a word for God, to make choice that would reflect God's view, or share a life that will demonstrate God's intention for humanity. Friends it starts right where we are. It starts in our families, in our congregations, in our schools, in our workplaces. We are commissioned to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons just as the early disciples were. It is a great compliment, isn't it that we are included in God's own ongoing mission? Do we have a personal call to do the same? Yes, as fathers, you have that call. As graduates, you have that call. As church members who value the name Christian, we have that call. Think of the blessings you have been given; the choices you have to give back in some way. Many years have passed since a man named Clarence Jordan lived out his call to give back. Jordan received his degree in agriculture from the University of Georgia and wanted to use his knowledge of scientific farming "to seek to conserve the soil, God's holy earth." (Website, A Brief History of Koinonia) He was known as a farmer and as a brilliant teacher and preacher. He received his doctorate in New Testament Greek from Southern Seminary in Louisville Kentucky. It is said that he penned his translations of the New Testament gospels from the original Greek (like the passage we read this morning) into the Georgia vernacular in a small wooden building nestled in one of the farms' pecan orchards in the building known as " Clarence's Shack." What is significant for us is what Clarence and his wife Florence and another couple, Martin and Mabel England, did with this call of Christ to share life in rural Georgia in the 1940s. The vision was to offer training to African American ministers living in the area. What developed was an interracial community where blacks and whites could live and work together in a spirit of partnership. There's lot of talk these days about race in our United States and current attitudes post Civil Rights Days. Our history helps us be glad we have made steps toward more understanding and support of our desire to live in a spirit of partnership. Recently, in our own denomination, The United Church of Christ, we are asked to talk about our commitment to being brothers and sisters in Christ across the racial divides. Is it relevant that we do this so many years after the Civil Rights movement? We take inspiration from the movement long ago to live God's compassion. Go to the Koinonia web site and you'll read: Koinonia is a Christian farm community founded in 1942 by Clarence & Florence Jordan and Martin & Mabel England. Home of the Cotton Patch Gospel, birthplace of Habitat for Humanity, Jubilee Partners, Prison Jail Project, Fuller Center for Housing and other ministries. Still growing pecans and peanuts, welcoming visitors, and living the "demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God". Friends, today we count it a great privilege that we are still called to live the "demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God"? It started with a belief that Christ calls us to discipleship; people at Koinonia would say, "radical discipleship." Jesus wanted his disciples to do what he had done: proclaim the nearness of the reign of heaven, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. The story of Koinonia Farms lives on. You can visit this place and see for yourself. Our story at Immanuel United Church of Christ lives on here, doesn't it? Our story lives in the lives of the members of this church, the fathers and mothers of this church, the confirmands who come through our doors, the graduates who stay and leave and become part of some congregation where they will find ties that bind. May that's right here for their lifetime. We know we must stay relevant and make difference. We must talk and pray and do and pray some more. Truly, wherever we are part of Christian community we pray we are part of a movement toward radical discipleship to transform some corner of our community. We don't have to go far to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to cleanse the lepers or to cast out demons. We do have to remember the message of Jesus. "You have received without payment; give without payment." I think that means it happens where we are. When Jesus saw the crowds he had compassion. When Jesus saw crowd, he saw faces. As we go forth to see faces in our families, in our local church and wider church, in our schools, in our workplaces and homes, may we remember our call to be Christ's compassionate disciples. May we go as St Francis of Assisi instructed: "At all times preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words." May we be called, again and again, to live on this "demonstration plot of the Kingdom of God." May God give us vision and hope. Amen. Pastoral Prayer Gracious Father, we begin our prayers of intercession today with gratitude for the gift of life. We thank you for your tender interest in everything about us-our health, our happiness, our behavior, our fulfillment as persons. We are grateful that your revelation to us is of the tender, loving father. Bless all fathers who are here today and we pray that you will grant them a sense of the importance in our lives and the lives of our children. We know that earthly fathers aren't as perfect as you...sometimes they ignore us or abuse us or behave shamelessly. Our hearts grieve for those who have not had the experience of a loving earthly father because of war, disease or poor choices. May they know your comfort and your care as a divine Heavenly Father, always present and always full of compassion. As we pray for fathers, our families, our loved ones, we remember those who are in need today. Many suffer losses from recent floods and disasters close to home. Be with those who are cleaning up and salvaging what they can to begin anew. We lift our prayers for all who suffer illness or anxiety of any kind; for those who endure hardship and privation; for those who struggle with hard decisions, for those caught in a web of violence and despair. Many today are hearing bad news in terms of a loss of job or financial security. Show your hope, your light, your wisdom and comfort, we pray. Finally, we ask you to bless our graduates...walk with them wherever they go and teach them to live reverently and joyfully, respecting the need of others and sharing with them the wealth of their backgrounds and abilities. Enable us all to pause with a sense of humility before the ever-moving river of time and to remember that you alone do not change but are always the God of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of mercy, in whom we live and move and have our being. Amen.

Keep Playing, May 4, 2008

May 4, 2008 May 4, 2008 Seventh Sunday of Easter Sermon: Keep Playing Texts: Acts 1: 6-14; John 17: 1-11 This morning our scriptures focus on what it means to be a community of believers, something like a family. The people who followed Jesus and believed his teaching, long after his death, remembered his words and experienced his presence when they were together. They tried to give voice to the mystery of Christ's real presence with them as people bound together like a family. What were they saying? Think about their daily lives. Throughout scripture we read of people, people living daily life in relationships and finding meaning in the day to day routines they share. As we anticipate next Sunday being Mother's day, we know there is a reason for recognizing those who have given much to help us through life; sometimes people are biological mothers, they are mothers who have adopted us as children and given us their full love and devotion, or they are mothers who have "spiritual" children because they have been our teachers, mentors, sponsors, guides. We celebrate people who are like our family, especially in the church. Immanuel is one of those churches where you'll meet lots of people related to one another; you can be witnesses to me about what that means from generation to generation. I know a little of what that is like because my parents tell me I'm related to everybody in Covington County, Mississippi, where they and their ancestors settled. But, I know my daughter, active in the Westwood Hills UCC Church in Westwood, CA, rarely meets people in her church related to one another except by church membership. Whoever is in our churches we like to understand ourselves as a sort of "family." But, family life and responsibility has its demands. You know some of the challenges from your own stories in family life. A pastor from North Baltimore, Ohio, said that the quickest way for a mother to get her children's attention was to sit down and look comfortable. (Holy Humor) Another bit of humor comes from The Family Circus cartoon depicting the older brother listening to his younger brother saying his evening prayers. The older brother responds upon listening, "I'm tellin' Mommy. You're goin' over her head." We, as sisters and brothers in the family of God, celebrate our call to be God's people and to find God through the wonders of family living! We are glad we can pray and go over Mommy's head. The popular disco song of the famous Sisters Sledge says, "We Are Family." We are those related by marriage or remarriage, blood or adoption. We are single persons, persons living alone, people living with those outside their kinship families. In celebrating families, we celebrate God's love and the way we know God's love through the human family. Jesus' prayer for us was a prayer for oneness "Holy Father, protect them in your name so that they may be one, as we are one." John 17:11 The prayer of Jesus is not just a sweet piece of liturgy for our emblem of our United Church of Christ; it is a radical prayer and asks for some radical thinking about how we become "family" across rigid lines that can potentially divide us. That's why we keep in front of us that image of Christ praying and we keep this prayer on our symbol of our denomination. Often in our church buildings we have that picture of Jesus kneeling to pray, many times his posture of prayer is of one looking up toward the heavens. Jesus is praying to God, his Father. Sometimes, we even say God, his mother. The image here is God as a loving mother or father; it is God as a loving parent. Maybe you did not grow up with a loving parent but I imagine that you know what a parent's love should be by God's standard, don't you? These are human terms to help us understand that the nature of God is love. The nature of life in the church should also be built around a relationship of mutual love and trust. Luke 15 is one of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible because the story of the lost son illustrates an image of God as a loving parent. Scripture presents images that are masculine and feminine to help us feel the closeness of God's love...like a parent God reaches out to embrace us; in the same way, God's divine Spirit is above, beyond, never bound to mere mortal language. That means, dear followers of the Christ here at Immanuel, we pay attention to the spiritual life and the opportunities we have to grow as God's family. Much in the news lately has been the criticism of a certain Christian layperson's relationship to his pastor. Some of you have asked me my thoughts on such matters. I think the place to begin in response to this question is from the point of view of those who are church family and how we view the dynamics of congregational life. Recently, Martin Marty, writing in his "M.E.M.O." Column in the May 6, 2008 issue of the Christian Century Magazine helps me express my view. He writes referring to some recent church controversy at Trinity UCC, Chicago, regarding retired pastor, Rev. Wright....... "the experts on the subject have been as far as I can tell, media personnel who never go to church, do not know what sermons are for, and have not experienced lively congregational participation; people who value fidelity very little and church hopping and sermon shopping very highly; those who have political stakes in their judgment; and people who pay no attention to the contexts of messages." The scripture from the Sermon on the Mount is pretty clear for me (Matthew 7: 1-5) "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged." The passage is about looking at ourselves honestly and openly before pointing to others who have problems. The reason we become members of the church, the family of God, is to help us with the nitty, gritty day to day needs that arise in our individual and collective spiritual lives and the needs of those who are crying out around us, near and far, for someone to care. We've had good counsel from our scripture from I Peter these last two Sundays on ways we can be a faith community that stays well and strong. Peter tells those who were part of his church family to be firm in their faith and depend upon God. He says, "Be sober, be watchful and God will restore, establish and strengthen you." In other words, Jesus may be saying to us, "draw closer and be my family, even with all your flaws!" God is the parent who encourages and prays we will not lose heart, whatever it is that comes our way. We will turn to God and to each other for help. We must remember, too, that people of the early centuries of the formation of the church lived in difficult times. These promises were for people who needed a word of hope for their struggling congregations just as we need a word of hope for ours. These promises were for people encountering oppression and facing little hope for survival in their interpretation of a radical call to love and accept, equally, all families. In first century, as today, the stereotypes and accepted cultural definitions of family could be oppressive and exclusive. The threats, the limits, the stress on people who wanted to express the Spirit's teaching were subject to constant ridicule. Christian communities were to be different according to Paul and other early Christian leaders. The gathering of Christians signifies a naming and claiming of the many forms of God's grace in daily life. (See In Search of Paul, Crossan and Reed) We think about this call to be one, Jesus' prayer, and ask how we are doing with our oneness. Does that song "we are family" apply to all of us? Is Jesus prayer for all people or just a few? It is important in the church, I believe, that we stay aware of the efforts being made on many fronts to address issues that we know our Lord would care about deeply for all of us to be a church family and a human family, addressing practical needs around health care, food production, education, access to clean water, and essential infrastructure to support impoverished towns and villages. We are still on the way through the 15 year United Nations Millennium Project aimed at cutting global poverty by 50 percent that started at the turn of the century, the year 2000. What will we look like in the year 2015? Unfortunately, the news is still not very good. Right here in Sheboygan County, just a few months ago, we were getting the news that the food pantries were in dire need of help. We know of the food shortages near and far away; we hear about them on news every day. What is going on? We must be attentive to what our efforts are to be the "human family" by caring about ways we can combat poverty, hunger, lack of education, high child and maternal mortality rates and HIV/AIDS? The insert in the bulletin (Global Ministries Mission Moment) helps us remember our own UCC /Disciples partners through Global Ministries as we read about the message of Nomvula Shale. I did not meet Nomvula when I visited South Africa as a Global Mission Volunteer in 2005, but I did meet others, pastors and church members, in Johannesburg churches tell me exactly what is printed in that story. We want to support our brothers and sisters who are communicating a very important message about HIV/AIDS in the need to be vocal and stay with the community for support and healing. Sub-Saharan Africa remains by far the worst affected region in our world. By being local family in the church here, we are helping our church family there. I have met these pastors and church members of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa. I know their pleas and so I pass it on to you. I have visited orphanages where most of the infants waiting for adoption, if they survive, are HIV positive in neighboring Lesotho. The call of Christ, the word of Christ, is a call for oneness. Last week, on May 1, our church calendars had us remember Ascension Day. The doctrine of the Ascension of Christ is about oneness. Traditionally we think of ascension in literal terms; Jesus lifted vertically into the clouds. It has been visualized in really great paintings and a fine casting of prayers and incense in services of worship. But what does the passage we read for Ascension Day, Ephesians 1:15-23, really mean? "God has put all things under his feet and has made him (Christ) the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." (Verses 22-23) What is the family of faith's understanding of the power of the risen Christ? Yes, Ascension Day, is to remind us to stop and become the people God wants us to be. The message from the reading about Ascension in Acts has a similar thrust. You will receive power, you will be my witnesses, and you will be one, like a family when you come together. We come this morning giving thanks for families and being aware of the challenges of our own personal connection to families and connection to the needs of our world family. The church is a place where we can come from a variety of backgrounds and know that there are human networks, there are church networks that support and sustain us and our desire to follow the teaching of the early church, "be sober, be watchful and God will restore, establish and strengthen you." The church is a place where our hearts, minds, dollars, and prayers are working! Thank you for all you do to be a family of faith in this place; thank you for your time, talents and treasure to support who we are and who we want to be. Thank you for your covenant to be a UCC family through your contributions to our wider church through our Our Church's Wider Mission. Thank you for the attitudes, desire and wonderful intentions I have experienced here to work together and never be ashamed of having this wonderful experience of being one, an answer to Jesus' prayer. I close with an illustration that is, for me, a way to express the dependence on God for whatever small efforts we make to be good Christians, good mothers and fathers, good examples for our youth and children, good friends to one another and a good family of faith....not always dependent on our own abilities but on what God can do with what we have. The great Polish concert pianist, Paderewski, was performing and a mother decided to take her young son to hear him play. Perhaps this would encourage him in his beginning efforts to learn the piano. After they had arrived in the great concert hall and had taken their seats, the mother spotted a friend and went over to say hello. Before long, the young boy was out of his seat exploring the fascinating environment of the concert hall. He eventually found his way to and through a door marked, "No Admittance." When the houselights dimmed, the mother made her way back to her seat only to discover that her son was nowhere to be found. As she frantically began her search, the hall went dark, the stage curtains parted and spotlights highlighted the elegant Steinway piano at center stage. And there, to her relief and horror, sat her son on the piano's bench, seemingly oblivious to his situation, completely absorbed in his effort to pick his way through "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Then, the great piano master made his grand entrance onto the stage. Instead of a burst of applause, there was the collective gasp and then silence...and the sound of a child plucking his way through "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." There was an awkward moment as he took in the scene. Then, without hesitation, he moved to the piano and took his seat beside the boy, who was still plucking away. Paderewski whispered to the boy, "Keep playing." The audience sat in stunned silence as Paderewski reached his left arm around behind the boy, reached out to his right and began playing behind and alongside, creating a masterpiece out of child's play. (Biblical Preaching Journal, May 8, 2005, p.20) Picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is sometimes all we can do in witness to what it means to be God's family. We fumble and do our best. But play we must. And play we will when we remember that we are not alone. There is One who has promised to come alongside us and who will never leave us. There is One who keeps playing and praying that we will be one. Thanks be to God for restoration, strength and the assurance of God's mercy. Jesus said, "I will be with you always, to the end of the age." Amen

Eat, Pray and Build

April 20,2008 The Fifth Sunday of Easter Sermon: Eat, Pray and Build Texts: I Peter 2: 2-10, John 14: 1-7 Today is a wonderful day for celebrating life with the baptism of Samuel Paul and all that is involved in the rhythms of life. We are aware that our Jewish friends celebrated the first night of Passover last night and for them it was a celebration of life and never forgetting that this blessing was gift from God, just as Samuel is a gift from God. Listen to this wonderful poem that begins to tell us what that might be about: A rabbi scattered hope like seeds beneath a desert sky; He knew in every waking plant a sacred force would rise to break the ground, to reach for life, to search with leaf and root, and draw the strength of earth and sky to bear the promised fruit. The rabbi saw the desert bloom, the Eden of his prayer: a garden ripe with hope and life and also ripe for care. "So come," he says, "my friends, with me to tend, to sing, to plod: the Earth cries out to celebrate the greening love of God." (by Michael Hudson, Episcopal Priest, Alive Now, Sept/Oct 2002, p 64) Greening is about process, rhythm, patience, fortitude, what else? It is about hope. If there is anything we learn from the letters of Peter, it is hope. If there is any message from the gospel reading, John 14, that resonates with all of the letters from the early church faith, it the hope and promise of Jesus to be with us and never leave us. The poem reminds us that a garden is blooming ripe with hope and life and the poem invites us to tend, to sing, to plod. It is invitation to be attentive to the rhythm of life; eat, pray and build around God's greening in your life. We are grateful for these encouraging letters from teachers of the early church and we ask what message is there for us in these letters. Let's start by remembering that the letters, Peter, James, John and Jude, are tractlike messages written to fellow Christians in their time. Today we have letters written from leaders in our churches that are similar. These letters, different from the letters Paul wrote that were more specifically addressed to individual churches are persons, were general and could have a message to all Christians. So, we find that the letter of James may address works, the letters of John address love, the letters of Jude address pure faith and the letters of Peter address hope. They all address our need to belong to Christ, for the church to be a spiritual temple, for the church to be God's people in word and deed. Aren't we glad we had people who wrote letters so long ago and some copies survived so we could learn about what the early church was like and the problems they had to cope with in their faith communities. Recently, I was going through some letters and files, getting them ready for my ongoing scrapbook projects, and I found a letter my Dad had written to my young son Paul when he was about five year old. We lived far away in Bangkok, Thailand, so we had to depend on written correspondence for most of our communication. No email for us at that time although we did lots of audio taping and sent tapes back and forth. The reason for this letter was that my mom and dad had just been to visit us in Thailand and my dad wanted to report to Paul that he had stopped smoking. He said, "Now I have stopped smoking Paul and remember our agreement. If I stopped smoking you would stop throwing temper tantrums." This letter brought back lots of emotions for me; I had forgotten my son threw temper tantrums and forgotten when my dad stopped smoking. Letters have a wonderful way of helping us to remember what has shaped us and made us the people we are. I've got to remember to share that letter with my 28 year old son n.....he'd really appreciate it knowing that his grandfather took time to write and give him words of wisdom. These words of I Peter can help us remember what shapes us and helps us to be the best Christian community we can be. Letters are treasures; they cross the boundaries of time and place like nothing else. The great Swiss Reformed Protestant theologian Karl Barth wrote letters to French Protestants during the Nazi occupation in France. They were messages of comfort, assurance, exhortation and sympathy that crossed battle lines and gave all Christians a sense of unity in their faith, hope, love and good works. (p 86, "I Peter" Interpreter's Bible Commentary) So, friends, if there is any message you take for your reading these general letters from Peter, take the word "hope." In our rhythm of life, our eating, praying, building, Christ is our hope. The greening of God within us means we are making something, working toward something, becoming something special. Whatever it is that keeps you away from God and God's church, let it go. Remember that if you are to grow, you must be fed. Yes, grace is a free gift of God, but as Peter tells us, it is also something we develop and grow. "Like newborn babies, long for pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation." Paul said it in a different way: Philippians 3:14, "Press on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Here in the poem I read earlier is the reminder of the "sacred force that rises to break the ground and reach for life." "A rabbi scattered hope like seeds beneath a desert sky; He knew in every waking plant a sacred force would rise to break the ground, to reach for life, to search with leaf and root, and draw the strength of earth and sky to bear the promised fruit." We know that our responsibility to each other is just this...planting seeds of hope. Why do we have programming, worship, opportunities at our church for all ages, not just for children? Because we want to provide the spiritual nurture and care that we all need to grow in Christ. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (for goodness, for the kindness of our Lord) for they shall be filled. Our families nurture this desire to taste the kindness of God. Parents pledge to bring their children into the life of the church. Why? To develop a rhythm, a routine, a commitment to growth in God's Spirit of being together and talking about things of the Spirit. They allow other Christians to teach their children and live with their children in the pathways of Christ. It is a great gift for parents to fulfill the pledges to their children they have made at baptism. It is not just about the ritual, the morals, the system of philosophy or the obligation, it is about coming to know the living God. That bring us to the second part of the teaching from our reading from I Peter. It is the teaching about the role of the church. Certainly, we know that the church is to be a genuine community of living disciples of Christ. Christianity comes to us through the Christian community. There is no disembodied Christianity. It is a social faith for it embodies itself in a unique and organic community of fellow believers. That's why it is important to be connected to the church if you are a Christian. As Peter describes, Christ is the living cornerstone and we are the living stones that build our lives around the person of Christ. Our covenant with God through Christ is the same as it was in Peter's day. Christians are not perfect but they people who strive to possess the qualities of the Christian life. We believe our spiritual house will be what God wants if we remember to focus on our faith in Christ, not just each other or the world in which we live. That means we constantly put emphasis on these things: Attitude, Prayers, Joy and Witness. That's another sermon but suffice it to say that when we claim "we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people," we mean that we are serious about the function of the church. We are serious about our growth and the greening of God within. From 1903-1908, German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young, would-be poet on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. We still read them today because they reflect what we feel we want for ourselves in our own relationship to the world, to the church, to God. In the first letter he says, "I want to advise you to keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer." (p 18, Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet) Surely, Christianity comes to us through the nurture of the Christian church that teaches us how to be the people of God. As we are reminded today, it starts with our parents, our sponsors, our family, the church, the people of God. Once a young student of Karl Barth asked him to sum up what was most important about his life's work and theology in just a few words. The question was posed with gasps from the audience. Is this possible, they were thinking? Barth just thought for a moment and then smiled, "Yes, in the words of a song my mother used to sing me, 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.'" The hope we share in our life together in Christian community is hope for the greening of God, for eating, praying, building a community rich in the Spirit of God to nurture each other. "The rabbi saw the desert bloom, the Eden of his prayer: a garden ripe with hope and life and also ripe for care. "So come," he says, "my friends, with me to tend, to sing, to plod: the Earth cries out to celebrate the greening love of God." May it be so, Amen.

Being a Disciple

March 16, 2008 Palm Sunday/Confirmation Sunday Sermon: Being a Disciple Texts: Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29, Matthew 21: 1-11 Today is Palm Sunday and we begin with the parade! There's a parade of welcome to Jesus as a pilgrim coming into the city of Jerusalem to worship. By Jesus' day, Psalm 118 was used as a standard greeting to pilgrims coming to Jerusalem for the festivals. "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord." It's like our greeters on Sunday morning welcoming people to church. Every Sunday we have a parade of sorts right here in our church. But, our parade on Palm Sunday is a little different. It's a special day that helps us to begin our journey toward recalling the events of Jesus' life and what we call Holy Week. Special parades still abound today that mark a time of the year or a time in your life that has led you to a deeper truth. Can you remember a parade that marked a time in your life? When I was very young, my parents took me to a parade in our small Southern Arizona town of Wilcox. It was big event when Rex Allen rode into town with his trusted side kick on their beautiful horses and wearing shiny leather saddles. My mother tells me that Rex Allen was born and raised in Wilcox desert and, although he became a star in his time, he never forgot where he came from. She said that Rex Allen never forgot that as a child he was helped by the local residents to go to Tucson to receive desperately needed eye surgery. When he returned to Wilcox there was a parade, a great barn dance, square dance, and a friendly Rex Allen who got off his horse to greet the home town people. That's about all I remember but the story is kept alive because of a parade. In the early 80's I had another day to remember, it was a parade of sorts. The setting was a local Roman Catholic Church near downtown Miami, Florida. In that time, I knew the city well. I was on staff of Central Baptist Church in Miami as the youth minister and I taught English to Speakers of Other Languages at the Miami Dade Community College across the street from the church. Like I said, I knew the downtown area and had seen a few parades there but nothing like this one. The sun was going down, the day becoming cooler and more tolerable, and the people were beginning to come out for life in the city. Many people on this day were flooding into the church. The pews were packed, there were people standing in the aisles and as the processional began, we all leaned toward the center aisle to get a glimpse of her. She was small, wrapped loosely in her white habit, and showed a serious but sincere demeanor. The people assisting her up the stairs moved around to find the wooden box for her stand on at the pulpit so we could see her. She seemed small and frail yet giant like in her ability to draw a crowd to her words and her person. Pilgrims had come from many corners downtown Miami to see and hear Mother Teresa of Calcutta talk to us about our commitment to Jesus. She was there to open a shelter for battered women and there were many people who supported her efforts. But, she was also there to ask people to look deeper into their reasons for welcoming her. She had some deeper truth to address in addition to the need to build and counsel and support battered women. She was intent on asking Christians to take seriously their commitment to Jesus. For me, Mother Teresa, even as a Catholic sister, was my role model. I followed her life and her teachings and in my home today are her words that guide my prayers. She said, "Never let anything so fill you with sorrow that you forget the joy of Christ Risen." There is much in life that fills us with sorrow. It was Mother Teresa who inspired me to be the best I could be in my role as a local minister in a Baptist Church, as a teacher at the Miami Dade Community College, as an activist in the in the National Organization for Women advocating for the passage of the equal rights amendment. Commitment to Jesus meant equal rights, fair treatment, and care for those oppressed. I don't think that has changed today. So, I advocate strongly for those who feel they must lobby for fair treatment and civil rights, whatever they are. My commitment to follow Jesus means I must speak out even when I'm told that I should be silent. What about you, has someone helped you to take your commitment to follow Jesus seriously? Has your commitment to follow Jesus helped you advocate for someone who needs you? When I have opportunity, I like to speak clearly about what commitment to Jesus means to me because, I believe, it must start with our personal words from a personal faith. We hope our youth who are confirmed today will understand the invitation to live a life committed to our Christian values and stand firm for what their faith teaches them. We hope they will feel that their faith call them to speak clearly about what commitment to Jesus means for their lives. For all of us who call ourselves "Christian," it is a time to commit ourselves to be voices for truth, justice, compassion and love for all people. We are not to be silent in our Christian churches. If we fall silent, we will miss the opportunity to speak as the Christ would insist we speak. The disciples on some occasions were guilty in the days of Jesus' suffering for not speaking out. How dismal was Peter when he denied commitment to Jesus not once but three times. Luke's gospel tells us that if the disciples were to fall silent, "the stones would shout out." God's truth needs our voices and our hearts to be committed to take action where we know we can take action. In 1932, a very tense year, Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught a group of fifty boys in the confirmation class of Zion Church in a slum section of Berlin, "Behind all the slogans and catchwords of ecclesiastical controversy, necessary though they are, there arises a more determined quest for him who is the sole object of it all, for Jesus Christ himself. What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? How can he help us to be good Christians in the modern world? In the last resort, what we want to know is not, what would this or that man, or this or that church, have of us, but what Jesus Christ himself wants of us." (The Steps of Bonhoeffer, Bailey and Gilbert, p. 47) Commitment to Jesus is sharing a vision of what we want the world to be. In Bonhoeffer's day it was a world of terror and destruction. The question of commitment to Jesus became a threatening question. How grateful we are to live in a country where we have the freedom of worship, of dissent, of expression. We value our church as a place to raise issues and struggle together with what we read in the newspaper and hear on nightly news. Coming together in the church is the place where we find others of like mind who know that primarily, wherever we stand on issues, that our hearts are given to Jesus. That's the whole point of Palm Sunday, my friends. Jesus came to challenge people about what they believed about God and how they followed through on making this truth part of their own. Jesus did not come to the world as a conquering hero, as a politician or a general. He did not come waving political flags, he did not come as a local revolutionary, a national freedom fighter, flashing a sword, swaggering in might and power. No, he came lowly and riding a donkey; he came as a suffering servant. He came to be God's Word made flesh, speaking peace, non-violence and a continual call to commitment be God's blessing to the world. At his last supper, Jesus wanted those around him who would carry on his name and accept his ministry as their own and take responsibility for it, risks and all. Did they take him seriously? No. Was he dismissed? Yes. Jesus will say to Pilate according to the Gospel of John (18:36), "My kingdom is not from this world." The people of Jesus' day misunderstood the true nature of Jesus' kingship. Friends, I hope we don't miss the nature of Jesus' kingship. Jesus is king but a king of peace, not war. Jesus is king when we take every ounce of who we are and let deeper truth permeate our being because we have been in God's presence. We will be better parents, spouses, community organizers, church members, and citizens when we let peace reign in our lives. I'm not talking about only about peace that relates to our national security. I'm talking about peace in our relationships and peace in our dealings with others. I'm talking about peace in the life of the church. Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of truth, compassion and mercy. Peace is working out our conflict with holy creativity and believing that God's Spirit guides, not toward separation, but toward unity of people in their worship and genuine positive regard for human, plant and animal life. Henri Nouwen, who taught us much about the spiritual life, wrote, "As I walk the long, painful journey toward the cross, I must pause on the way to wash my neighbors' feet. As I kneel before my brothers and sisters, wash their feet, and look into their eyes, I discover that it is because of my brothers and sisters who walk with me that I can make the journey at all." (Walk with Jesus , Henri J. M. Nouwen) Last week we heard our five youth who desire to be confirmed today give their statements of faith. Today, they promise before us to be a disciples of Christ. We pray that we will be their sisters and brothers on this journey, being disciples together in faithful love and service of the God in Christ we love and worship. May God journey with us this Palm Sunday toward the cross and may we be committed to being disciples with others who call upon the Christ to be with us in life and death. Truly, may we be Christ's forever and, daily, experience a deeper faith. Amen.

Emailing: Serm 2-10-08 A Window on the World

Hi Kari

Here's  that sermon that could be put on our web site. I'm trying to give at least one a month. Thanks 

Michele 

The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:
Serm 2-10-08  A Window on the World

Note: To protect against computer viruses, e-mail programs may prevent sending or receiving certain types of file attachments.  Check your e-mail security settings to determine how attachments are handled.

February 10, 2008 The First Sunday in Lent Sermon: A Window to the World Texts: Genesis 2: 15-17, 3: 1-7, Matthew 4: 1-11 This first Sunday in Lent is our opportunity to retell the story of God's love for us from the beginning. We do this with two themes. The first is creation. God, in God's wisdom, created the heavens and the earth and it was very good. The words of the first chapters of the Bible set the stage for our window to the world. The prologue to understanding God is appreciating God's goodness in giving us this earth with its majesty and miracles. I'll never forget the clear, warm, dark summer evenings when my mother insisted we haul out the blankets and quilts so we could lie on our backs on the front lawn to gaze up at the star studded nights. There was a great planetarium right outside our window and all we had to do was stop and look. Our hymn this morning, "Praise the Lord! Ye heavens adore Him" expresses this awe we feel when we look around us and appreciate the beauty of our natural world. We can't read this story of Adam and Eve without knowing that the story was written to transcend human time boundaries. The word Adam in Hebrew means human being and the word Eve means life. The ancient Hebrew story of creation was not just a story that took place long ago and far away. The story was not just in a Middle Eastern garden. The text is our context; it was written for here and now. It was written for those of us who walk the shores of the Great Lakes; plow the fields of Sheboygan County, or wake up to a few more inches of clean white snow on a brisk winter Wisconsin day. God created the heavens and the earth and it was very good. This brings me to the second point of the sermon. It is the subject of sin, the heart of the study today. We ponder our human condition in this Season of Lent so that we can ask why we have sinned. We ask why we would deliberately choose to follow a way of life that takes us away from God to that which can possess and destroy us. God has given us this good earth, placed us as care takers with God of all creation. Our work is sacred. Nature, God and humankind are in harmony in Genesis 1 and 2. In chapter 3 that which was very good gets spoiled and becomes that which is bad. The garden, Eden, the place of delight, became the wilderness. What went wrong? Well, there was this wily serpent with a slippery question, two bites from forbidden fruit and shame for eating that which God strictly forbade. There were these protests of "don't fence me in," "nobody tells me what to do," and "it's a free country, isn't it?" Fortunately or unfortunately we know the answer for why we are in the wilderness. Perhaps that is what Arthur Miller so wanted his readers and admirers to grasp in his writing. A few years ago, we remembered the great writer of the plays that influenced us over the years. Ed Siegel wrote in 2005, around February 10 when Arthur Miller died, "theatergoers have not turned to Mr. Miller as a historian of the American century but as a chronicler of the American soul: souls in torment (the brothers in "The Price") and souls on ice (Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman"), but mostly souls in conflict (the Proctors in "The Crucible"), trying to do the right thing while weighted down with all the forces that would have them do the practical thing." (Boston Globe, 2-12-05, B5) Arthur Miller captures some reality for us. We struggle with how we measure personal success and failure, we resonate with the difficulties that families have in their everyday life, we all hope in dismal situations that a ray of light will remain after darkness has closed in. Miller helped us hang on to the "ray of light" but let us be in touch with the personal struggles. The Creation story in Genesis is a pull back to all our personal struggles. Miller brought it out for us in ways that were compelling in his writing on World War II, the Holocaust, McCarthyism, and consumerism in our day. As Miller's plays had that glow of redemption we hope we find as much in the ancient texts from our faith. Do we hear this morning the Voice of God, our Maker, reminding us that paradise is freedom within God given limits? Do we hear the Voice of God reminding us that paradise is the blessing of co-partnering, co-creating with God? It is receiving life from God through "the window" of creation not looking at creation strictly from the consumer point of view. We have a responsibility, a part in the deciding how our lives will be shaped. The struggle for Jesus apart in the wilderness was how to deal with human temptation to privatize religion, to use salvation for a personal gain. The devil in Greek, is diabolos, "the one who separates" you for your purpose, who distracts you, who singles you out, either for failing in faithfulness or to tempt you into failure. Jesus recognized the temptations for what they were, things that would separate him from God. The temptations became his window to the world so that he could have God's wisdom to make the right choices. How grateful we are for that window to the world that helps us in our days of protest and struggle and obstinacies. I will always be grateful for the education I received many years ago by certain professors at my Southern Baptist seminary in Louisville Kentucky who taught me how to think about the church critically and the world progressively. Yes, I studied Hebrew, Greek, New Testament, the Hebrew Scripture, Pastoral Care and Counseling, Church Administration, Christian Education. All of these and the one that stands out for me this morning when I read Genesis and Matthew is the course in Christian ethics. My Christian Ethics professor was Glen Stassen. People knew him because his father was former governor of Minnesota, Harold Stassen. Glen Stassen established his own following by making his students uncomfortable. He knew we were students who did not just drop out of the sky into his classroom. We had our biased histories and so he required that we learn about the nuclear arms race, that we study Joseph Fletcher's lifeboat ethics, and we read the book For Whites Only to claim and examine our racist attitudes. He gave us a window to see the world as we had never done before. We went from naive goodness to responsibility and critical thinking about our faith. He taught us about a big world with many ways to think about the world. He taught us to ask how our Christian belief would translate into Christian practice. It was the best training any student could have had for leading churches to study, pray, think, and believe that our story is not about me or about you. Our story is a collective journey to see the world transformed the way we know God intends. In paradise, we recognize the God-given gift to nurture our children and give them their communal stories that will shape their church life and public life. In paradise the poor meet the privileged so there is connection and recognition. In paradise, the church in the world understands that the reign of God, like an early shoot from a hidden seed, like the glow of redemption at the rim of the pit, is breaking out in all the dark, anonymous corners of creation. We must start where we are with our particular histories and backgrounds. We do not drop down where we are into this place and time without a past, a reference point, a history. So we shall, as Martin Luther King, Jr., suggested, have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. Good people, people of God's good creation, let us remember that Lent can be a time when we are deeply formed in the image of Christ. Anticipate it; look forward to time away to look for that window to understand your world. Maggie Ross writes, "No one can take you into the desert. You must find the path yourself. Plunge into your loneliness, your hunger, your thirst. In the desert you will be purified and tempted; God will speak to your heart and angels will come and minister to you." (Seasons of Death and Life) As Thomas Merton said, "The cross, with which the ashes were traced upon us, is the sign of Christ's victory over death." We sing and celebrate all creation this day because it is our window to God; it is, indeed, God's kingdom not yet and even now. May it be so in our belonging to our eternal, loving God, our window on the world? Amen.

Letting Our Light Shine

January 13, 2008 First Sunday After Epiphany The Baptism of Christ Sermon: Letting Our Light Shine Texts: Isaiah 42: 1-9, Matthew 3: 13-17 A few years ago, I read a story of a pastor from an urban area taking her 11 year old son on a trip into the Grand Canyon. It is a grand story, an Epiphany story, a story that helps us prepare our hearts for the significance of Jesus' baptism and his invitation for discipleship. First Pastor Heidi (Transfiguration Lutheran Church, New York) talked about the documents she had to sign before they could even begin the descent into the Grand Canyon with her 20 year old mule, Blackjack At the orientation, warnings were repeated that were in the documents. "If you are afraid of heights, have recently had open heart surgery or are prone to whining-get out now and get your money back. If you are not willing to hit the thick-skinned mule with your crop in order to keep him within a yard of the next mule-get out now and get your money back. "If you are not willing to drink your water on command and get hosed down halfway through to prevent heat exhaustion and dehydration-get out now and get your money back. If the switchback turns, where you will find yourself hanging over a 6,000-foot drop, will make you dizzy or upset-get out now and get your money back." (Christian Century 12-12-01, p4 The mule ride that Pastor Heidi took gave her opportunity to speak about what it was like to ride a mule down into the Canyon. She was, of course, thinking of Mary riding to Bethlehem when she wrote her article. But, as I read it again, and pondered its meaning, I felt drawn to the parallels of the journey we begin with baptism in the Christian life. Do you think we really understand what is involved when we say "yes" to baptism and begin the journey of the Christian life? Do we understand the depth of our commitment when we are confirmed and become adult members of the church? Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism leads us to recognize the importance of the event of baptism in the life Jesus. When Jesus came to John at the Jordan it was not a spur of the moment impulse; he came in order to be baptized. It was his intention; it was planned; it was public. It was thought through because Jesus embraced the righteousness of God and believed it was God's purpose for all people. I believe that Jesus remembered the words of Isaiah and took seriously the scriptural role for Israel, the chosen people. The text said they were to be a light to the nations and the means through which God will redeem the world. For Jesus, being baptized was an act of faithfulness to the vision God had given through God's people. He took the words and promise of God to lead and do something new in his life seriously. It is our belief in the Christian tradition that baptism with water is a sign and symbol of God's grace and is a call to us to find an identity as God's beloved children. The moment of the naming in baptism, whether as an infant or an adult, is a holy moment. The moment is holy because we have made a commitment to be faithful to the will of God and act accordingly. This holy moment reminds us that, in a sense, none of us has a name, an identity until the church tells us who we are. In baptism, the church says, "you are someone to whom a name has been given-you belong to Christ." You are called to a higher righteousness, to God's goodness, to God's justice and to God's mercy and compassion. Sometimes I wonder if the Christian life is like Pastor Heidi's experience of riding the mule into the Grand Canyon. Do we wish we had stopped and studied the admonitions a little closer before embarking on this difficult, treacherous journey with numerous risks? We have high expectations for those who carry the name "Christian," don't we? This conversation makes me remember stories of those expectations. One of the stories is the account of the clergyman who reported, just after September 11, of a New Yorker who noticed his clerical collar and stopped and asked him on the street these questions, "Where is God in the death and devastation that struck on 9-11? Where is the church in these events?" Or, I remember visiting in a nursing home back in the Boston area a few years ago and being approached by an estranged church member who demanded an answer as to why God would punish the patients who were suffering from numerous physical and psychological conditions. "Where is God, where is the church in this suffering?" she asked. When these tough questions come to us, do we flee from the questions and join those who have lost sight of the mission of the church? Do we stand firm and try to respond the best we are able with the little "lights" we carry? I hope we are able to say that the church is where it has always been, witnessing to Jesus' message that God is love, feeding the hungry, giving sanctuary to the weary, tending to the sick, and comforting those who mourn. As those who have said "yes" to the journey to walk the Christian life, we say, as tough as this journey is through life, we witness to a crucified God who suffers with us all to the very end of our darkest, most desperate moments. The old spiritual says it all: "You Can't be a Beacon if Your Life Don't Shine." Christianity, perhaps more than any other religion, depends on the testimony of the people. Ours is a faith that relies on witnesses to tell speak the feelings deep in the heart that have arisen from the passion of the Spirit. For Martin Luther King, for Rosa Parks, for all those we can name today who have led the way for our communities to be transformed by the power of the non-violent gospel, it was about feeling God in the heart and knowing it's passion in life. We remember those who were active in the civil rights movement around this time of celebrating the birth of Martin Luther King because many took a treacherous journey. It is good to recall Dr. King's life and stories he told in his own words to give us an account of the risks. Out of school and pastoring the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, Martin Luther King, Jr., we learn that he was given a "crash course" in following the radical Jesus. It was a tired, 42 year old African-American seamstress named Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on the bus that hurled him right into the middle of what became the Montgomery bus boycott. The boycott had been in progress for more than a year and King, chosen to be its leader and principal spokesperson, was fearful, tired and frustrated. He knew he was called, he felt right about where he was and what he was doing but, oh, how his faith was being tried. One night while trying to sleep he received a telephone call which threatened his life and the lives of his family. Not wanting to wake or alarm his wife, Dr. King went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, thinking it would calm his nerves. When the coffee didn't ease the overwhelming feeling of helplessness, King fell down on his knees and prayed, "Lord, I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and.....I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone." (Strength to Love, pg 113) It was at that moment of loneliness, despair and hopelessness that Martin felt a response come back. He said he heard a voice on the inside say, "Martin, stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be at your side forever." (ibid.) We are called to be counted among the righteous who will not shy away from the mandate to do justice and to discuss the nature of justice. We are not to fear dialogue on important issues around homosexuality, stem cell research, or peaceful resolutions to difficult conflict in international affairs. And while on this treacherous, risky journey of Christian discipleship, we are to remember the promise of the guide. Jesus speaks to us, "I know this path. I have gone before you. Just listen to me. You'll make it." It's the words of the Psalmist (46), "God is our shelter and our strength, ever ready to help in time of trouble." (Jerusalem Bible) When Pastor Heidi concluded her Grand Canyon journey, she gave us these words of hope: "Midway on the journey we came to a plateau. Spring flowers studded the desert plain spread before us. There were yellow starbursts inside white primroses, magenta blooms of beavertail cactus, pale orange petals on the mariposa lilies fluttering in the wind, and ruddy stalks of Indian paintbrush---each one magnifying the Lord and echoing around the canyon walls." Our journey as disciples of Christ will take us to the desert plateau's that will help us remember that God's hope is in the lives we lead and the ways we carry the Christ light into the world. May our lives magnify the Lord, may they echo words of hope and light around the canyon walls. Amen.

Serm-12-9-07 The Return to Our Spiritual Roots

December 9, 2007 The Second Sunday of Advent Sermon: The Return to our Spiritual Roots Texts: Isaiah 11: 1-10, Matthew 3: 1-12 This morning as you got up and faced the day, obviously, you decided to be here in worship this morning. But, what were your thoughts and concerns for yourself, for your family, for your friends, your neighbors or for your church? If you try to explain your thoughts or experiences to me or someone else, they'll try to understand but never in the way that you know your own reality. Your "real" world and how you see things is uniquely your own. Several years ago, a delightful movie came out that was entitled "The gods must be crazy." Do you remember it? The story is about a village man living with others like him somewhere in an isolated, remote area just living life and minding his own business. Then, one day a bottle drops from the sky. What to do? He leaves his village on a mission. He has to go to what he knows as the edge of the world so he can return this "thing" (what we recognize as a coke bottle) to the crazy gods who dropped it. As he travels to what he thinks is the edge of the world where the gods reside, he meets some interesting but strange people along the way. He tries with sincerity and frustration to explain to them what he needs to do. But, of course, they don't understand the urgency of returning this bottle to the crazy gods who dropped it. The point is that we all have our own definitions of reality. We usually assume our view is "reality," without remembering that our reality is based upon the way our ethnic, economic, political, or "tribal" background has rendered our peculiar way of seeing reality. In other words, we all think about the world from "our" point of view. If you lived when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, your view of the world was deeply affected and your life was forever changed by this event. The view of the world for all of us since September 11 has been changed but particularly think about people who lived and witnessed the tragedies in New York City or Washington or rural Pennsylvania on September 11. When I visited the Gulf Shore of Mississippi in 2005 after Katrina, my understanding of the enormity of the recovery work was heightened. My great sadness was also increased as I viewed places I had played and visited as a child no longer recognizable. The reality of the devastation hit me hard because I knew this place well before the destruction. Some of you here this morning are fire fighters, you have served in the military and been in active duty, you have fought in terrible wars or you have been called on for emergencies in some capacity. You may know tragedy of some kind first hand. You know what it is like to have your world turned upside down, to see reality from a different side. Our cognition, our thinking and our behavior are determined by where we have been and what we see or expect to see. If you have returned from a tragedy, any war, you have a reality that others do not have and an understanding of suffering that many of us will never know first hand. You see the world differently and can help others be aware of the pain of suffering. This morning we meet the prophet of Advent, Isaiah, who calls people to return to a way to see the world as God would want us to see it. This prophecy of Isaiah, was composed at a time in which the dynasty of King David, the son of Jesse, has been reduced to a mere stump. The people of Israel are cowering in fear of the Assyrians, who are as cruel to God's people as the Egyptians had been. In the middle of the frightening and violent time, God promises to launch a new political initiative. Isaiah ecstatically speaks of a time when a shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, as he prophesies a new beginning for Israel. Out of an old, dead stump, new life sprouts. Metaphor is piled on top of metaphor as the prophet struggles to bring to speech the newness that breaks forth. "The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." (NRSV, vs6) We hear Isaiah's vivid description of God's new world and we say, flatly, it is not real. Everyone knows that in the real world, a lamb in a wolf's lair is lunch. Reason and reality assure us that a little child cannot lead a wolf or a lion by a leash without being a dead child. So, we listen and we want to hear these words but we want to be reasonable. We want to live in the real world and face facts. We listen but what reality do we hear? Are we like the village man who thought "the gods must be crazy." Before we dismiss as unrealistic and irrational Isaiah's peaceable kingdom of pacified wolves and lions and puerile leaders, consider that the prophet may be inviting you into a counter-rationality, another reality. Isaiah, the poet, teaches us to define people in terms of what they desire, that for which they long. Isaiah invites us to return (John the Baptist used the word "repent") to God's new world. That's right. Try to return to God's ideal, a world that is ruled, not by savvy politicians or tough generals, but by a little child. Imagine a world where all is at peace, where even our old enemy, the serpent, is soothed by the child. Envision a world where the longing is to sit down and hear, touch and see through the eyes of the innocent, the poor and the injured. What is life like for the Palestinian Arab family who has lost a son in a street battle? What is it like for a West Bank Jewish Settler in fear for his family's safety, an Afghan family living in a cold tent on the Pakistan border, a migrant worker in Florida, or a single mother on in Sheboygan with little money and lots of bills? What is it like to live daily with a debilitating illness or see a loved one suffer with an irreversible illness? What is it like to have a random shooting in a local mall destroy those most precious to you and the hope of a "normal" life. God's reality is a call to a wide imagination and an expansive intellect. It takes a large imagination for us to imagine a world as a place where God reigns. Imagine yourself as a peacemaker. What does that mean for you? God's reality calls us to return to notions of what can and cannot be in God's realm. It attempts to help us envision a world where God reigns. It speaks of a reality beyond our present realities, that time when God gets God's way with the world. It challenges us to see a discrepancy between God's ideal and our social reality. The poetry of Isaiah and the preaching of John the Baptist is a call to return to God's way with the world. It's that old call to repentance that John the Baptist gave so long ago. It is our call to return to our spiritual roots. It is a reality call to look for the new regime that comes from a bud, a sprout, a young leaf. Not from a warrior king or a conquering army. We know this shoot to be Jesus the Christ, the one born as a vulnerable baby in a manger of Bethlehem, the city of David. He doesn't come to us at Bethlehem as a Messiah with unlimited military might, even though legions of angels are at his disposal. Rather than scorching the earth with firepower, these angels are instead singing on Christmas night, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward all." The initial creation of the kingdom of God introduces the Prince of Peace, one who has "the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord." (vs 2) We are beckoned through our Advent texts to return to a reality that is of God's making. It is a world of a new heaven and a new earth. It is a world in which there is peace in a world at war, a war in which animals that normally devour one another love one another. Isaiah says this vision is "a signal to the people." (vs 10). Do we practice love instead of punishment? Do we speak the truth in love, especially to those who are hurting themselves and others? Do we show concern for the poor and oppressed of the earth by conservation of the earth's resources and less consumption of its riches? According to Gandhi, there are two kinds of power: One is obtained by threats of punishment. The other arises from acts of love. Which do you think is God's signal? Speaking of love and positive signals, when the Quakers broke the food blockade on Germany and Austria after World War I they were not motivated by emotional love toward individual Germans, but by a higher sense of what makes politics work. Thirty years later, Quaker relief groups, and they only, were allowed to rescue Jews inside Germany, even at the height of war. Why? Because they did not use threats of punishment but what Gandhi referred to as "acts of love." The impression they made on the mindset of the people gave them a power that helped save lives. Martin Luther admitted, "It is a ridiculous thing, that the one true God, the high Majesty, should be made human... Reason opposes this with all its might. Hear those wise thoughts with which our reason soars up towards heaven to see God the Majesty and to probe how God reigns there on high, are stripped from us. The goal is fixed elsewhere, so that I should run from all the corners of the world to Bethlehem, to that stable and that manger, where the babe lies....Yes, that subdues reason...there it comes down before my eyes, so that I can see the babe there in his Mother's lap....Where are the wise? Who could ever have conceived this or thought it out? Reason must bow and must confess her ignorance in that she wants to climb to heaven to fathom the Divine, while she cannot see what lies before her eyes in the manger." We, too, think that what we need are strong armies, lots of things for Christmas, and a back to normal 2007 economy. The only reality God offers, the only reason is a baby, a lamb, to help us think things through again and return us home. May we celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace and the call of Isaiah and Jesus to a peaceable kingdom. In this Advent season of preparation and the days beyond, may we return to graft our lives to the shoot that has emerged from the stump of Jesse and pray for God's peace to fill us and transform our world. Let us return to our spiritual roots to be God's people of peace, justice and vision. In this vision is our comfort in the return is our redemption. Amen.

Serm-11-4-07 To Be A Saint

November 4, 2007 The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost All Saints' Sunday Sermon: To Be a Saint Texts: Ephesians 1: 11-23; Luke 6:27-31 Today let's talk about the meaning we attach to this word, "saint," and how all Christians can be saints in their daily lives. Let's talk about the people who have influenced you to walk the way of Christ and how you want to continue to let them inspire you. Picture in your mind, Bob and Helen Parr, a seemingly normal suburban mom and pop who are really part of the government's Superhero Relocation Program. Picture teenage daughter Violet and their son Dash who seem like normal teens but can do amazing things like turn invisible and run at a lighting speed. This is the superhero turned normal suburban family. But, Bob is really Mr. Incredible and Helen is really Elastigirl. They have had to take on new identities because the general population just could not deal with their superhero powers. (Boston Globe, Section D-2, 11-5-04). This movie, The Incredibles, came out a few years ago. Why? We all love our superheroes. Superheroes fight dastardly villains and toss huge chunks of masonry around and they also are folks like you and me. You can easily identify with them and feel with them as they express emotions of despair, confidence, joy, envy and affection. Perhaps that's why we love those superheroes. The Harry Potter craze that began a few years ago is not a surprise---we love our young wizards who look so normal on the outside but have those special powers on the inside. What makes the Harry Potter books or films so popular is the same reason The Incredibles movie was hit: it is not what happens in the end that is surprising or interesting; it is how it happens and how the characters react. All Saints' Sunday is a time to remember that ordinary person are those extraordinary superheroes. Saints are not perfect people. They are people like you and me, people who have disappointments, doubts, unreal expectations or feelings of inadequacy. They are people with low days, high days, days of compromise and failure, days of success and joy. When Lesbia Scott wrote the hymn we sang earlier, "I Sing A Song of the Saints of God," she wrote it for her own three children. It was never intended to be published. It was meant to be used on saints' day as a reminder that sainthood is a possibility even in the context of our daily lives. (Hymn Profiles, New Century Companion, 359) What do you think? Is "sainthood" a possibility in our daily lives? Yes, if we honor the meaning of "All Saints Day" in the life of the church. Saints, according to the Apostle Paul, are all people who follow the way of Christ. Saints are people who try to live a life attentive to God's presence and have this Christ-like power on the inside. Saints are serious about the intention to live a life of holiness and devotion to God's ways. What are those ways? The lesson from the "Sermon on the Plain" in Luke's gospel tells us about a moral code turned upside down for those who follow in God's way. Superheroes, saints, are those who love the enemies as well as friends, who turn curses into blessings, who do not abuse prayer, who turn the other cheek for a second strike, and include a shirt as a bonus when a coat is taken. Listen to the way Eugene Peterson explains this in his paraphrase of the scripture (from The Message). "To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, gift wrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously." So, who are saints? They are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We must be careful never to underestimate the power of the ordinary person. Paul teaches the people in the congregation in Ephesus that they hold much power because of who they are as people of faith. These saints of God thought they had no power...who would listen to them? But, Paul reminded them that God's mighty power which raised Christ from the dead and placed him in authority above all others was at work in them. Sometimes, they simply missed this point. It is like the story of the bishop and the priest out in a row boat. A stiff wind came up and blew the cap off the bishop's head. The priest tried to reach it with a fishing pole but he couldn't. So, the bishop got up and got out of the boat, walked across the water and retrieved his cap. The story was covered in the local newspaper the next day. The headlines read, "Anglican Bishop Can't Swim." The newspaper headline shows how hard it can be to get recognition for a miracle in our midst. The miracle of ordinary people doing extraordinary things was the gift of God's power working in and through the common people. Theses people were deemed by Paul to be saints of God and that is why we refer to the Christians who have served the church as the "communion of saints." Those of long ago and those of recent past, can help us be encouraged to live the life Jesus' taught that would bring us closer to God's plan for the world. This is not easy. We are called to be saints; we are called to stewardship of all we are to God's greatness and criteria for seeing the world. It will not be the way others see the world. We will be tempted to have the reaction to our faith or even our church of "checking out," that is, withdrawing from the community. We may feel we are "giving out." We are tired and cannot deal with the bad news anymore. We believe we no longer make a difference. Social problems we face in our country are getting worse. Wars are still being waged and are raging. No matter what we say or do, nothing will change. We may not "check out" or "give out," we may just "freak out." That is, we get immobilized by fear. The last reaction I'll mention is one that is probably practiced often. We "zone out." We don't react at all. We just know it is part of life and we forge ahead. Maybe, we just go shopping. So how do we respond when the world is hurting and our collective lives or personal lives are on a collision course? Paul tells his people they are marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit. This means, God gave them the resources to let the work of Christ empower them to live their faith with boldness. In other words, as Luke said, you are blessed when you are hungry, when you are poor, when you weep. We are blessed when we can see the world through the eyes of God. Somehow we become saints when we, ordinary people, come to touch with the extraordinary powers that God has given to each of us to rise above the human response of apathy, pride, or self-sufficiency. If we have a hard time remembering how to do this, let's just call upon the "communion of saints," to help us out. Yes, the church is filled with a variety of people who have taught and led by example this path toward God's kingdom come, God's will be done. Many years ago, a Baptist teacher named Carlyle Marney, offered a beautiful way to celebrate the communion of saints and their help to us the living. Being a Southerner, he imagined a house that had a balcony made of white wrought iron with wicker rocking chairs. On the balcony, there are people in rocking chairs sipping iced tea or bourbon, depending on whether you are Baptist or Presbyterian, he would say. The people on your balcony are the strong, positive, influences in your life. They are your heroes, your models, your mentors. Your parents may be there or your grandparents. There may be some people up there you never met but they influenced and helped shape you. And there are some big names up there; people whose lives inspired you from afar and called deeper faith, courage, stamina, love and discipline out of you. The people on your balcony are your saints. They way to observe All Saints Sunday is to walk out of your house and look up and greet the saints. Call the roll. Name them. Wave to them. Your saints, the great ones and the small ones, are people who have managed to be more than a cranny through which the infinite peeps. Robert Frost wrote: "Two roads diverged in a wood and I---I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." As we part today, we give thanks for those who have served this church faithfully and served the church universal in their loving, their giving and their relentless pursuit of peace and justice and integrity for all God's creatures. Thanks be to God for the saints who have taken the "road less traveled by." Glory to the Creator who gives us life. Glory to Christ who shows us how to love. Glory to the Spirit who fill us with dreams and empowers us to move forward into the world. O Saints of God, dance with the God's Spirit wherever you go. Amen.

Don't Lose Heart

Texts: II Timothy 3:14-4:5, Luke 18: 1-8 In these past weeks we've been reading great parables and stories from the Gospel of Luke that have a theme: Don't lose heart. The theme is present in our scriptures and in our focus on the national observation of Children's Sabbath. To find ourselves relating to children, their needs and thoughts, let's hear some children speak about their perspectives on faith, related to views on angels. My dear friend in Massachusetts, a person I met while a missionary in Thailand, sent me these quotes: "Angels explained by children" "I only know the names of two angels. Hark and Harold." Gregory, age 5. "Everybody's got it all wrong. Angels don't wear halos anymore. I forget why, but scientists are working on it." Olive, age 9. "My guardian angel helps me with math, but he's not much good for science." Henry, age 8. "Angels don't eat, but they drink milk from Holy Cows!!!" Jack, age 6. "All angels are girls because they gotta wear dresses and boys didn't go for it." Antonio, age 9 "My angel is my grandma who died last year. She got a big head start on helping me while she was still down here on earth." Katelynn, age 9 "Some of the angels are in charge of helping heal sick animals and pets. And if they don't make the animals get better, they help the child get over it." Vicki, age 8 This morning we participate with faith communities all over this nation remembering the precious lives of our children and youth by observing Children's Sabbath. Don't we treasure their honesty, sincerity, and literal way of seeing the world. How can we let them suffer and become the victims of our greed? Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund says: "If every one of us looked at each child as a child of God, we wouldn't stand for the injustice that kids suffer." The facts tell us that every 10 seconds a high school student drops out. Every 35 seconds a child is abused or neglected. Every 40 seconds a baby is born into poverty. Every 51 seconds a baby is born without health insurance. We need the persistence of the widow in the parable to make sure that we are not lax in seeking the highest quality of care for our children in their early stages of development toward adulthood. What can we learn from scripture? The parable of widow is about persistence in prayer and relationship to God. It is about persistence with our human ways of dealing with layer upon layer of social problems that affect every level of family life. We are guided to be like the widow who badgers and persists an uncaring and corrupt judge to give her justice. She gets justice, because she just will not stop until she has the answer she's looking for. We are asked as followers of Christ to value this approach of the needy woman without power, position or money. Jesus used this parable to teach us about the great need of ongoing conversation with God and conversation with those who can help us "with the cup of cold water for the least of these my children." The tiny mustard seed of faith can move mountains. Every congregation's prayers, words, actions, matter. We are encouraged to be like the widow, persistent and determined in our prayer life and in our seeking of justice for those who are needy among us. A powerful book written by Marian Wright Edelman in the early 90s is about what her family gave her to take with her through life. She remembered at the funeral of her mother some of the wisdom she lived by and the wisdom she wants to pass on to her children. (Edelman, The Measure of our Success, c. 1992) Edelman writes, "The legacies that parents and church and teachers left to my generation of Black children were priceless but not material: a living faith reflected in daily service, the discipline of hard work and stick-to-it-ness, and a capacity to struggle in the face of adversity." "Give up and burn-out were not part of the language of my elders-you got up every morning and you did what you had to do and you got up every time you fell down and tried as many times as you had to to get it done right." She says about her family... "They had grit. They valued family life, family rituals, and tried to be and to expose us to good role models.....I have always believed that I could help change the world because I have been lucky to have adults around me who were good role models-in small and large ways." (pp 6, 7, 8 The Measure of Our Success) Who were your role models growing up as a child? What did they teach you that have helped you to be persistent and faithful as a Christian? Marian tells us in the 25th lesson of her 25 lessons for life, her roadmap for her children: "always remember that you are never alone." She tells her children that there is nothing they can ever say or do that can take away her love or God's love for them. She recalls a sermon her father gave in the 1950s' regarding home life and devotion to children "Parents for today's children must at all costs maintain a home, a center of love for their nurture and security. The pressure of our high-powered civilization is too much for a homeless and loveless child....nothing must separate parents from their duty to their children." (p 75 Ibid.) The emphasis in the parable is on God's love for us, God's children. God is reliable and cares for us. We are to never give up and always hold on to our prayers, not matter fragile they seem. This poem made me aware of how fragile our prayers are but how needed the urge to persist is in our prayer life. Let me share a poem with you that has helped me to be aware of the meaning of these persistent prayers... Wild Horses Prayers are not predictions. They are hardly contracts Binding gods and events To the tether of our will. They are wild horses. The cures to our pains and soothing our losses graze with unconcern on slopes in the distance. Some are spotted, others solid bright or dark- all free as ragged wind on an upland range. As we near them they raise their head, catching scent of our desire, deciding whether to run, whether to await us. (William M. Ramsey, Christian Century, 9-26-10-3-01, p 6) Our Gospel lesson guides us toward prayer and an attitude to "not lose heart." Who would have predicted that story of a widow's persistence for justice when confronted with a corrupt and uncaring judge would direct us to our knees. But, that is exactly what God wants of us. Prayer, conversation, action, commitment....the combination will keep us hopeful. We close with a prayer and a pledge on this Children's Sabbath that we take responsibility for all God's children. We will try not to lose heart! "We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must, for those we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance. For those we smother....and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it." (p 97 The Measure of Our Success)

The Power of Faith

October 7, 2007 World Communion Sunday Sermon: The Power of Faith Texts: II Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17: 5-10 Clare Boothe Luce was once our ambassador to Italy. While she was living in a beautiful 17th-century Italian villa, she began to notice that she was always tired. She lost weight and seemed to have less and less energy. She sought medical care, and after a period of intense testing it was discovered that she was suffering from arsenic poisoning. Everyone on her staff was given a security check, but it was soon established that none of her staff was trying to poison her. Which left the question: Where was the poisoning coming from? Finally, they found the cause: It was the ceiling of the bedroom. There were beautiful designs of roses, ornately done in plaster relief, and they were painted with an old paint that contained arsenic lead. A fine dust fell from the roses, and Mrs. Luce was slowly being poisoned in her bed by the dust from the ornate roses. From this incident in her life, we ask, "Are we in danger of being slowly poisoned by the ornate culture and society in which we live?" Can our attitudes, our concepts, or our values, be eroded or poisoned by the values around us that are opposite from our faith? This is what Paul is asking Timothy. Paul continues to write and counsel Timothy to be bold in his witness because he is fearful that Timothy is being slowly poisoned by the ideas and influences around him. He sees him as sincere in his faith and wants him to hold on to the attitudes, concepts, values he has taught him. What do you think? Can we be slowly poisoned by the ideas and influences around us? Can we be pulled away from the faith that has potential to sustain and guard us through the trails of life? Paul says to Timothy, in case this is happening, "Stir into flame the gift of God which is within you." He wants Timothy to step forward and claim God's gifts of power, love and self discipline. Timothy has choice. How will he respond? Early in my ministry career, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with young adults who were hungry to learn how to lead the life of a Christian. There was sincerity in many of the students I met in my days as a Baptist Campus Minister at the University of Louisville, at George Mason University in Northern Virginia, at the Community Colleges in the Miami Dade system of higher education. These were the day when campus ministry programs were funded in better ways than today! The song we sang over and over in some of our retreat settings was "Pass It On." The first verse begins, "It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around can warm up in its glowing; that's how it is with God's love, once you've experienced it: you spread God's love to everyone, you want to pass it on." We sang that song so many times! I know it by heart and immediately thought about as I read the familiar words of Paul to Timothy, "I remind you Timothy to fan into a flame the gift that God gave you." "It only takes a spark to get a fire going." Today we celebrate communion with followers of Jesus the world over because someone has fanned the flame. We mark this day as World Communion Sunday because about 67 years ago, a man named Jesse Bader started this idea of all Christians everywhere celebrating communion on the same Sunday, no matter where they lived or what denomination they belonged to. His dream was that we imagine ourselves as one big family of those who love and follow Jesus. Jesse devoted his life to the work of motivating Christians to worship and work together. He believed our faith would have an impact on the culture we live in and the attitudes that developed among our youth and young adults. His story reminds us of the life of another who "had a dream." In this study of scripture, another song comes ringing in my heart and mind. We usually sing it around Martin Luther King Sunday in January, but it seems fitting to speak of it of this World Communion Sunday. "We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome someday!" The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached while singing "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. (from "My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence") Jesus prayed before he died, "that we may all be one." Does this mean we fan into flame the gift of faith? Can the power of faith, the resurrection we celebrate each Sunday, enable us to cross all sorts of barriers in order to be united by Christ's love? I say yes. We read in our Gospel lesson of disciples wanting more faith. Maybe this is critical for us. We need to "want" more faith. The disciples yearned to know the secret of the holy life from their teacher, Jesus. He was able to tell them that the tiniest faith had great potential. He told them it mattered that we take this tiny seed of faith and let it multiply. "It only takes a spark to get a fire going." Paul say to Timothy as a brother in Christ, "fan into a flame the gift that God gave you." This is our encouragement as well. Spiritual Director Joan Chittister writes that there are two ways to live in the world. We live as if we were connected to it like a leaf to a tree or as if we are a universe unto ourselves. Which are we? When we are connected to the world like a leaf, we share what can have a great influence on the shape of the tree. These attitudes matter for those who yearn to know the power of faith: reverence for God , reverence for the body, reverence for the other who is younger and unimportant, reverence for the older, or the one in opposition to us and an irritant now. (Joan Chittister, "Daily Reflections taken form the rule of Benedict," www.eriebenedictines.org) The song we sing in our worship has the same message, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me." We imagine that this is the message of Christ to the disciples, "It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around can warm up in its glowing; that's how it is with God's love, once you've experienced it: you spread God's love to everyone, you want to pass it on." God gave Timothy the gift of boldness, power, love and self discipline. God gives us the gift of boldness, power, love and self discipline because God wants to know and to experience the power of faith upholding our lives and keeping us connected to all creation. What can we take with us, daily, for encouragement and strength as we encounter the pressures of our culture and its demands on us? A few years ago, I visited Riverside Church in New York City (UCC and ABC affiliation). I was given a tour of the beautiful building and a copy of an article about renowned pastor in the 1930's, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick. On the back of the article were some words he gave defining a successful life: "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived." His words go with us and so does the power of faith contained in the small seeds of faith we sow. So friends, "pass it on," knowing that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. We approach this table believing that on World Communion Sunday, God will give us the grace to "stir into flame the gift of God within us! Amen.