tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66177754456470600442024-03-18T12:13:42.173-06:00Yankee PastorRandom Thoughts on Life, Religion and SportsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger956125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-43267059306935313382024-03-18T12:09:00.001-06:002024-03-18T12:09:10.730-06:00Baptism: Will You Accept the Grace God Gives You....Here is my message from yesterday. The text was <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=577785289" target="_blank">Ephesians 4:1-6 </a>and <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=577785318" target="_blank">John 15:1-17</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk161548439">As part of programming night, which
is our Sunday evening classes and meal, we have temporarily combined our adult
and youth classes as part of our confirmation class in teaching everyone, or
reminding everyone, about the basics of the faith. Last week I was teaching on
the sacraments, which in the Protestant tradition are two, baptism and
communion, because they are the two in which Jesus not only participated but
also commanded the church to participate in. But only one of those is
repeatable, which is communion. And so, someone wisely asked why we don’t
baptize people more than once, or why we don’t practice rebaptism, especially
since it seems like many churches do. And that’s a great question, and the
reason is faithfulness. Baptism is a covenantal agreement, as we say in the
communion liturgy that Jesus created a new covenant by water and the spirit.
Another word for covenant is agreement, or contract. A contract is something
entered into be two parties, and it calls for things for both parties to uphold,
and to do for each other. And it can also be broken by either party, either
through agreement or because one party violates it. </a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWlXozAXfmx7dwvWjeX9F4zfXuZEIbBVmFFqKnygwbpicAggXSIQ7fFOzA4A4d-FtEw1EV5zpjihFLiQFj01TOEiLDUBiDyVPBPic_BBBYxFqHoCEkqJMiOpXzBWca0AsxvtM3832VCBmpJg9sZ7bAcCz5s9ymTH-od9UpKK5UtHS-fasO1-ZQE4fXy0g/s1920/BaptismHD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWlXozAXfmx7dwvWjeX9F4zfXuZEIbBVmFFqKnygwbpicAggXSIQ7fFOzA4A4d-FtEw1EV5zpjihFLiQFj01TOEiLDUBiDyVPBPic_BBBYxFqHoCEkqJMiOpXzBWca0AsxvtM3832VCBmpJg9sZ7bAcCz5s9ymTH-od9UpKK5UtHS-fasO1-ZQE4fXy0g/w400-h225/BaptismHD.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk161548439">But, when it comes to the
baptismal covenant one of those parties is God, and the other party is us. And so,
the question is, does God violate God’s side of the agreement. No, because God
is forever faithful; God is ever loving. And so, while we can go astray, we can
wander away, we can violate the covenant. While we can be like the prodigal
son, God is always faithful, and God is always waiting for us to return, to
come back home, to come back to abide in God’s love as God’s love always abides
in us. And so, we don’t rebaptize because God is always there, but we can
reaffirm our baptismal vows, to make whole the relationship, to heal what has
been broken, by coming back from our part, but because one side has always been
faithful. And so that leads us then into the final question we ask in
preparation for baptism and that is “According to the grace given to you, will you
remain faithful members of Christ's holy Church and serve as Christ's
representatives in the world?”<span></span></a></p><a name='more'></a><a name="_Hlk161548439"><o:p></o:p></a><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk161548439;">When we looked at
the second baptismal question which is about resisting evil, injustice and
oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, I said that you can’t
really focus on those things, which is the second part of the question, without
understanding the first part, which is “Do you accept the freedom and power God
gives you.” That is, we are not doing the work of resisting on our own, but that
God is giving us the ability and capacity to accomplish these things. I would
even argue that we cannot do them without the freedom and power God gives us.
Or as St. Augustine is alleged to have said, without God, we cannot, and
without us, God will not. And so just as we need the power of God to do those
things, the same thing is true that the first part of this question is also
critical, and that is a question of grace. Grace is a word that we use a lot,
often, I think, with the understanding that everyone knows exactly what that
means right? And perhaps we think that because we don’t want to actually have
to explain it ourselves. Grace has several different meanings. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk161548439;">The Greek word is
also the root word for gracious, and so if we talk about God’s gracious will,
it’s the same word, or that God is gracious and full of compassion. But more to
the point it’s about favor, of kindness, mercy and compassion, benevolence and
forgiveness and love, it can even have a meaning of healing and wholeness. One
commentator I read said that, for them, grace finds its most meaningful
expression in the parable of the prodigal son, already mentioned, that the
father welcoming the son home is God’s grace in all of its dimensions. And the
other thing about grace is that it is both unmerited and undeserved. That is
there is nothing we can do to gain it or earn it. It is freely given, without
price to us. Believing more or harder doesn’t affect it; working more or harder
doesn’t affect it. Instead grace is poured out freely into the world. In a
Wesleyan perspective, we talk about prevenient grace, the grace that goes
before and that is given to all of the creation. That God’s grace is available
to and for everyone, even if you don’t know that it’s there or even that you
need it. And baptism and communion, amongst other things, are also vehicles for
conveying God’s grace, or more directly they are ways we can learn to
understand that grace and how it plays a role in our life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk161548439;">And so, returning
then to the question it talks about the grace given to us, the grace working in
and through us, will we then be faithful members of Christ’s holy church. And
that is more than just the local congregation, it’s to the church universal. To
the entirety of the vine into which we have been grafted, to use Jesus’
metaphor and some Pauline language as well. Thinking back to the third question
in which we also pledged to serve Jesus in union with the church which Christ
has opened to people of all ages, nations and races. Later, if someone also
joins the church as a professing member, which is part of the liturgy, then
they will pledge faithfulness to the United Methodist Church, and to this local
congregation, but we don’t do that in baptism. In baptism we are united with
and into the catholic church, catholic here being little c, meaning universal.
And that’s where the letter to the Ephesians also comes into place, because the
author, who is more than likely not Paul, that it is a letter written in his
name, but not by him, is calling for specific behavior in the church.
Specifically, love, humility and gentleness, patience, so hard, and finally
unity. And please note that unity does not mean uniformity. We can disagree
without being disagreeable, and if we are practicing those other things then
that becomes easier. And this unity, the author says, comes from the reality
that there is one lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all,
and, even more importantly, that we know this because of our call which comes
not from us, but from God. It is God’s call that makes us aware of grace, and
it is God’s grace that redeems us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk161548439;">And that idea also
plays into the idea of faithfulness. Because one of the things that
faithfulness does not mean, nor does love and unity, is going along to get
along. Sometimes faithfulness requires saying and doing hard things, after all
think back to those first questions about evil, injustice, oppression and the
spiritual forces of wickedness. Those don’t just exist in the outside world. As
I said last week, unfortunately they can be found in the church as well. And so
sometimes faithfulness is about not sitting aside and letting those things
happen, but calling the church out where it needs to be called out, and also
calling out society where it needs to be called out. To produce the fruit of
the vine means abiding in God’s love in all ways and at all times, and that too
will lead to faithfulness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk161548439;">But the other part
if faithfulness comes out of the idea of fruit. Plants that produce fruit, or
even just producing seeds, do not produce those things for themselves. I mean
yes, the fruit has seeds in it which help to bring about the next generation of
trees, but that doesn’t do anything for the trees themselves. They don’t
benefit because there are new trees. They don’t get any enjoyment in watching
the new trees grow. Other trees don’t have baby showers for trees that are
producing other trees. The fruit is produced, not for them, but for others and
for other things. And so, when we hear then that we are called to be faithful
members of the church, it’s not for us, it’s to produce fruit for the world by
being Christ’s representative to the world. But that fruit is not for
ourselves, but for others. Think of Paul’s fruit of the Spirit which are “love,
joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control.” Those are about how we are in relationship with other people.
They are not individual fruit, but the fruit of community, born for others. And
they don’t come from us, they come from the vine, and so if we are disconnected
from the vine, then we are disconnected from God, and we are not allowing God’s
grace to be working through us to further the Kingdom of God. We are not being
faithful<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk161548439;">Which leads us to
the last point, and that is will you serve as Christ’s representative in the
world? The scripture passage we chose for the ecumenical Lenten program this
year is from 2 Corinthians about reconciliation, that we are reconciled with
God, through Christ, which baptism symbolizes, but that Paul says we are called
to a ministry of reconciliation and called to be ambassadors to the world. I
like that term ambassador, rather than representative, because, for me, it
becomes clearer what we are called to do. That an ambassador represents their
country, group, to others who are not them, and yes, I know I used the word
represent in that definition. But an ambassador also serves as a bridge between
these groups. And so, as we think of the US becoming more secular then we are
going out to be ambassadors for Christ, or being the ones who talk about
Christ, and through all that we do and say, represent Christ to the world, and
then serve as the bridge to bring others into relationship with Christ. And we need
to take that injunction much more seriously then I think we do. As I recently
saw someone say, be the reason why people want to know about Christ, rather
than the reason they hate Christians. And I have to be honest and say that the
vast majority of any animosity that may be coming back against Christians has
much more to do with how Christians act then about Christianity itself. For
non-Christians all they know of it is what they see, and it turns many people
off. But, what if instead we were living in peace and patience and love, with
gentleness and humility, that we were living in the fruit of the Spirit. I can
almost guarantee you that if that was how we lived as ambassadors that the world
would be much more receptive to the good news we have to proclaim.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk161548439;">As part of our acts
of baptism, we say that through baptism we are incorporated into God’s mighty
acts of salvation, which means that what we do matters. That we participate
with God in bringing about the Kingdom of God here and now, for God’s will to
be done on earth as it is in heaven, and so what we do matters. But, we don’t
do it alone, nor are we called to do something for which we do not have the
ability, the strength or the power or the grace, because God has given those
things to us. We produce fruit not because it’s up to us, but because we are
abiding in God as God abides in us. It is because of God’s grace that is freely
and abundantly poured out for us that we can even begin to do the things that
God calls for us to do. It is because we are a part of the vine, of the entire
vine, that we gather as one body to know that we do not walk this journey
alone, that we do this together, and so on behalf of the whole church I ask
you: “According to the grace given to you, will you remain faithful members of
Christ's holy church and serve as Christ's representatives in the world?” I
pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-75888426251065891432024-03-11T12:10:00.001-06:002024-03-18T12:12:55.543-06:00Baptism: Will You Nurture These Persons<p class="MsoNormal">Here is my message from yesterday. The text was <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=577785524" target="_blank">1 Thessalonians 5:12-24</a>:</p><p class="MsoNormal">Once when I was across the street at the high school talking
to a class about Christianity, along with several other Christian ministers,
one of the students asked me what I would do if my children didn’t want to be a
part of the church when they were adults. It turned out that she was a PK, or
preacher’s kid, so had some idea of what she was talking about. And I said, not
knowing she was a PK, that the tendency is for PK’s either to become preachers
themselves or to reject the church entirely. That’s not universal, but it’s a
pretty good general rule, which includes my best friend from seminary whose
daughter is currently in seminary and whose son is not, shall we say. And so,
my response was that I didn’t want either of those things for my children, but
what I would miss the most for them, and what I would want the most for them if
they were not in a local church, was to find a community that the church can
provide. A group of people who care for you and want to walk the journey of
life with you through the good times, very important, and through the worst
times, even more important. And so, I wouldn’t be necessarily be upsetting if
they weren’t in the church, although I certainly want them to be, but they get
to make their own decisions as adults, but I would be sad if they didn’t have a
church like community in their lives. And that is where the question we that we
ask in preparation for baptism leads us to today. The first three questions are
about sort of individual things that we pledge to do, including accepting Jesus
and participating in the church, which is the question we looked at last week. But
then today’s question in a larger one about those activities as a community.
And that question is “Will you nurture these persons in Christ's holy Church,
that by your teaching and example they may be guided to accept God's grace for
themselves, to profess their faith openly, and to lead a Christian life?”</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWpV5A2_c3O_kAm0AX8u5UXkvH3TIE5_SLIe6ndEN1rbhwitTaOPBCQubJ2NkiAAjRaOnNE9kJr_f-r_I4E0r7T87XqwxtRsHUnb9XS8FIX93f7z75tN6snQP9hi1Iv6vbCbrD39Fg84QdIXdvGI-d-GhLCTPwKJk9tjsxf1P4I765TP-t9loAZdQLXU8/s1920/BaptismHD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWpV5A2_c3O_kAm0AX8u5UXkvH3TIE5_SLIe6ndEN1rbhwitTaOPBCQubJ2NkiAAjRaOnNE9kJr_f-r_I4E0r7T87XqwxtRsHUnb9XS8FIX93f7z75tN6snQP9hi1Iv6vbCbrD39Fg84QdIXdvGI-d-GhLCTPwKJk9tjsxf1P4I765TP-t9loAZdQLXU8/w400-h225/BaptismHD.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now this question comes in this section of the liturgy and
is, as stipulated in the hymnal, directed to parents and other sponsors for
those who cannot answer for themselves. And yet I think it’s actually much
broader than that. Later there is a question specifically for the congregation
in which we ask if you will nurture one another and include those to be
baptized in that care. And so, I believe that this question is certainly also
directed to the church, to the community of Christ into which people are
baptized, and I am certainly going to treat it as such. Because one of the
things that we have to understand is that baptism is not an individual
activity, it’s communal. While we might conduct an individual private baptism
in an emergency, such as in a hospital for someone who is dying, that is really
the exception. And even then, I would try and get other people to be present
for it to be witnesses to it and on behalf of the person being baptized.
Baptism outside of the community simply doesn’t make sense. I have even refused
to do a baptism for someone based on that. I was contacted by their friend,
which was sort of the first red flag asking if I could come to the house to
baptize them, and my first question was “are they going to start worshipping
with us, or attending another church?” and I was told no, that they just wanted
to be baptized. And I said that didn’t match theologically and I’m sorry, but I
couldn’t do it. I would be more than happy to talk with them, and talk about
the why, and that it is the initiation right into the church. That, as the
question last week said, we accept Jesus Christ as our savior in union with the
church. These two things go together. And since baptism and community go
together, not only does that mean there has to be community, but it also means
that the community is doing something for those who are being baptized, those
being welcomed into both the church universal and the local congregation that
is doing the baptizing. Which is where you all then come into play.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nurture is an interesting word. It’s one we use typically in
regards to children and their development, or we talk about the difference
between nurture and nature, which is taught and what is inborn. But the
definition doesn’t actually say anything about age. The definition of nurture
as a verb is “care for and encourage the growth or development of.” And as a
noun, very similar, “the process of caring for and encouraging the growth or
development of someone or something.” And so that means that nurturing isn’t
just directed down, to those younger, but can be directed sideways to those
roughly the same age, and even directed up to those who are older, sometimes
significantly older. It means that our youth and children can nurture those of
a more advanced age, showing them new ways of seeing things, new ways of being
church, just as much as those elders in the church can nurture our youth and
children. As most of you have heard me say many times before, although it
doesn’t make it less true, the church is the real last intergenerational
organization we have left in America. In that it’s not just adults seeking to
teach children, like schools, but where everyone is growing and learning and
maturing together. And, as Carey Nieuwohf has said, no one should be able to
out relationship the church, and that includes online relationships, because
being in relationship is not just part of the church, it is at the heart of
being the church. We don’t go to church, we are the church. In as far as we
fail in nurturing and building up one another, in loving one another, is where
we fail in being church<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In today’s passage, Paul is writing to the church in Thessalonica,
which is in modern day Greece. The city was a major port and was the capital
for the Roman Province of Macedonia. I also learned this week, which I didn’t
know before, that the city was named after the sister of Alexander the Great.
This letter is possibly the earliest of all of Paul’s letters, although some
argue that Galatians is older, and dates from around 49-52, and was probably
written to the church there while Paul was in Corinth. And he is talking about
what it means to live a life in Christ, and turns here to issues of living in
community. And if he is indeed writing from Corinth, probably some of the
issues of that community are running through his mind. First, he calls for
esteeming those in leadership positions, and notice it’s not because of their
positions, but because of the work they do, which includes, sometimes, having
to do hard things, to make hard decisions and to say hard things. As I said in
our last series on leadership, leadership is hard, and I am thankful every day
for the leaders in this church and in the church in general. And then he turns
to more general instruction, which is first to live at peace with one another.
Peace here is not just the negative of conflict, or being without division and
dissent, but is the equivalent of the Hebrew word Shalom, which has the
connotation of completeness, or wholeness or harmony. One of my favorite
understandings for the scriptural idea of love comes from St. Augustine, and I
have to admit that he’s not usually my favorite, but he said that to love
another is to will the good for them. And so, we might think of peace here
being the same thing. That we are seeking the highest good for them, and they,
in turn, are seeking the highest good for us.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so that makes sense then with his injunction to admonish
the idlers, which is not about resting, but about laziness, or sloth maybe the
better word, which is keeping people from doing the work they are called to do,
which includes the work needed in the body of Christ. And then he talks more about
what we think of the church doing and being and that is helping those who are
in need which takes many different forms, which could also be seen from what
Paul says in Galatians, that we are to carry one another’s burdens, to help and
support one another. And then finally a call to be patient in all of these
things, which here has a sense of endurance, of being faithful and not giving
into either anger, which I will admit is one of my flaws, or not giving up
hope. And then he turns to what has become a more familiar passage to “Rejoice
always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances,”
which he says is not just a good idea, but is actually God’s will for us, and
please note, which I think so easily gets overlooked, is that this is not just
for us to do as individuals, but in the context is about how we live in
community with one another. So, when we say that we will nurture one another,
what does it look like? That’s what it looks like, teaching, supporting, loving
and being patient, praying and rejoicing together and for one another, and not
seeking evil, but seeking the good for all, which also means calling out evil
when we see it in church. And yes, there is evil in the church. I’ve not only
seen it, but I’ve even, unfortunately experienced it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I think there is one more thing that’s missing from
this. As I said at the beginning, although I think this question should also be
seen as a congregational question, there is a question directly asked of the
congregation later in the baptismal liturgy about nurturing one another, and as
part of the response we say that we will surround them with “a community of
love and forgiveness.” And it is that last part that also has to be a part of
this community: forgiveness. As Jesus says, to receive forgiveness we have to
forgive, and if any place should practice and live in forgiveness it is the
church, because, as Paul says, we all fall short of the glory of God. We all do
stupid things that hurt others, usually unintentionally but sometimes even
intentionally, and so be in community, especially to be in community for the
long haul, we have to practice forgiveness and to surround each other with
forgiveness. And when we see forgiveness being done, when it becomes part of
the culture, then it actually becomes easier to live in forgiveness, and so it
becomes one of the ways that we nurture one another. And when we live in
forgiveness and love, then we are also living like Christ and demonstrating the
ways of leading a Christian life. We are not just called to come to church, we
are called to be the church. And so, on behalf of the whole church I ask you, “Will
you nurture these persons in Christ's holy Church, that by your teaching and
example they may be guided to accept God's grace for themselves, to profess
their faith openly, and to lead a Christian life?” I pray that it will be so my
brothers and sisters. Amen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-21924226713147789932024-03-04T11:52:00.001-07:002024-03-06T11:55:38.424-07:00Baptism: Do You Confess Jesus Christ...Here is my message from Sunday. The texts were <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=576751296" target="_blank">Romans 4:13-25</a> and <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=576751319" target="_blank">Mark 8:27-38</a>:<div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk160339847">When we talk about the membership
vows to join the United Methodist Church, which are prayers, presence, gifts,
service and witness, I always mention the fact that the order is important, at
least for the first ones. Prayer isn’t just accidentally first, but it’s there
because of its priority. And then presence is important because we need to be
in and around and with the body of Christ, not to just be a part of it, but
also in order to get from and give to the church what we need to grow and
mature in our faith. And so, as we look at the baptismal vows through Lent in
preparation for celebrating Easter which will include baptizing people into the
church and doing a reaffirmation of baptismal vows, I wonder about the placement
of the questions, or why they are asked in the order in which they are asked.
So far we’ve looked at the first two question, and they are, and remember I ask
them on behalf of the whole church, “do you renounce the spiritual forces of
wickedness and reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?”
and so that question has to deal with turning from the brokenness of the world,
which is not just in ourselves but also in the culture and societies in which
we live. And the second question is somewhat similar, but also different and
that is “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil,
injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” Which
means not only recognizing that evil, injustice and oppression are in the
world, that brokenness of the first question, but also accepting God’s assistance
to actually do something about it. First, we renounce it and then we say we’ll
work against it to do God’s will in the world. But do you notice anything about
those questions and Jesus? They actually don’t say anything about Jesus or even
the church at all? It’s not until the third question, which we look at today,
and that question is “Do you confess Jesus Christ as your savior, put your
whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with
the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations and races?” This
is the first time we ask about Jesus, who seems kinda important right? So, is
this the right place for it?</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheuMhgUfIHE91QSwzlDm4EEouzJZJGDwgLb_mxOGFj6y1hyuTW6Y_sjF00ZGiEexjo7fVJGzMOXlhX1Oh_hDkgkm8btOB-u3uaCWHmkFaiYzVPt73tAV9eibMgg_ncB18mA_I1lzjYqQrJFN3e8ldndRdDnyq8_pjmB-Wql9pwyEh0R2KyZkzffyqktpI/s1920/BaptismHD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheuMhgUfIHE91QSwzlDm4EEouzJZJGDwgLb_mxOGFj6y1hyuTW6Y_sjF00ZGiEexjo7fVJGzMOXlhX1Oh_hDkgkm8btOB-u3uaCWHmkFaiYzVPt73tAV9eibMgg_ncB18mA_I1lzjYqQrJFN3e8ldndRdDnyq8_pjmB-Wql9pwyEh0R2KyZkzffyqktpI/s320/BaptismHD.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk160339847;">When the Methodist
movement began to spread and grow quite rapidly in England, someone wrote to
John Wesley and asked him what it was the Methodist’s were supposed to do. That
is what are the marks of a Methodist, or more directly, what are the rules of
Methodism. And so, he created what were called the general rules, and there
were three. The first is to do no harm, the second is to do good and the third
was, he said, to attend upon all the ordinances of God, which got shorted much
later to stay in love with God. And so, if we look at those rule, the whole
Jesus things also comes last. And you can certainly do no harm and do good
without believing in God right? But, I will be bold enough to say, you can’t
love God without also doing the first two. And so, is that order correct then,
a call to living out the faith which could then lead people to faith? Or do we
need to make the profession first to understand what comes out of it? And one
more piece to throw into this conversation is that Jesus does not begin his
ministry by saying believe in me, make a profession of faith first, instead he
begins it by saying “repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near.” For him the
first action is repentance, which is also the first question. And so perhaps
the order makes complete sense, renounce evil and repent, then seek to resist
evil, injustice and oppression, and then make a profession of faith.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk160339847;">And we see this
even more in Jesus’ ministry in the passage we heard from today. The disciples
have been traveling with Jesus for a while now. They’ve been receiving
teachings from him, and have already seen a number of pretty spectacular
miracles take place, including healings and the feeding of multitudes. But
there is no proclamation of who Jesus is by the disciples up to this point. In
Mark’s gospel lots of others have made statements about who Jesus is, but not
the disciples. And notice how Jesus first phrases the question. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk160339847;">He first asks who
others say that he is. Only once they have run through possibilities that
others are throwing around, and then he says “but who do you say that I am?”
who do you say that I am? That’s really the heart of this question, and of
Mark’s gospel, and of baptism is this proclamation of faith. It doesn’t matter
what others have told you. It doesn’t matter how strong or weak others faith
is. And it doesn’t matter what we have been taught or heard, not what our
parents, our friends, or minister have said, but who do you say that Jesus is?
No one is born a Christian, it comes with this profession of faith, confirmed
in the waters of baptism, but the choice has to be our own. We cannot live
through someone else’s faith. We have to either choose or reject it ourselves,
and so we have to answer this question, who do you say Jesus is? “Do you confess
Jesus as your savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve
him as your Lord?” This is not just a statement of faith, it’s also a pledge of
allegiance. To whom are we going to follow, to whom are we going to obey, to
whom are we going to turn over the entirety of our lives? What it also says is
that we cannot save ourselves, and that’s a huge step for many people to make.
That’s the argument that Paul is making about Abraham, that he is not saved, he
is not deemed righteous because of his actions, because of what he does. He is
deemed righteous because of his faith. We are saved because of our faith in
Christ, and in turning ourselves over to him, or loving the Lord our God with
all that we are, and out of that loving our neighbor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk160339847;">And so, if you are
going to do that, if you’re going to make that proclamation, if you’re signing
on the signature line of the contract, you should know what you are signing up
for. In Luke Jesus says that you better know the cost of discipleship before
you take on the task. Or as we heard this morning, anyone who wants to follow Jesus
needs to be willing to pick up their cross and follow, to lose their life in
order to save it. And so, in that understanding the first two questions also
make sense in being asked first. Because it sort of matches what Jesus says
about gaining the things of the world, because those first two questions are
really about the ways of the world. Are you going to reject the kingdoms of
this world in order to accept and work for the Kingdom of God? Are you going to
reject the ways that the world says we should live, in violence and
retribution, fighting and quarrelling, in hating and loathing others? Or will
you live in peace and forgiveness, in love and grace, in turning the other
cheek and praying for your enemies? Those are pretty stark contrasts, but that
is the way of discipleship, the way of the cross, and why it’s so darn hard.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk160339847;">But what this
question, and the question we answered last week, also tell us is that we do
not do this work alone. First, we have God with us, and the Spirit moving and
working in us and around us, to help. But then we also have the church. We need
each other to do this work. John Wesley said that there is no religion but
social religion; that is, we need community to be Christians, to be the body of
Christ, which we will explore in more detail in the final two questions. And
yet this question has a particular view of the church as well because what is
says is that it is the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages,
nations and races. That means that we are not the gatekeepers to the church, as
much as we might want to be. Christ is the gatekeeper, and guess what? The
gates are removed because through Christ’s actions all are brought in, and we
can even see this in his ministry too, like in his interactions with the Roman
soldier, or the Syrophoenician woman and the Samaritan women. Those who had
been excluded are included. In another portion of Romans Paul says, “there is
no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is
generous to all who call on him.” He makes similar claims in his other letters.
And so, all the arguments we have been having recently about who can be included
or not, are not only not new, they are also wrong. And I will also mention that
with the increasing push for Christian nationalism, which says that to be
Christian, let alone American, you must first be white, and second accede to a
particular interpretation of Christianity, and if you aren’t either of those
things then bad things can and should be done to you, is not just not Christian
it begins to fall into those other categories we’ve been talking about. But
here another truth as old as the church is that those who draw the widest
circles always win. Maybe not that day, but in the end, they win, because it is
Christ who opened the doors for the church and it is Christ who judges, not us,
and that’s a good thing in my opinion. It removes all that pressure of having
to be the judge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk160339847;">Jesus was sent to
save, to redeem, to offer God’s grace, and to gives a call to to pick up our
cross and follow him. To do that is not just a vocal assent, but a call to a
way of life. A call to repentance. A call to resistance. A call to love. A call
to forgiveness. A call to allegiance. A call to trust. A call to follow. These
questions we are asking are not independent of each other, but just like the 3
rules of Methodism, they build and play off of each other. So, on behalf of the
whole church, I ask you: “Do you confess Jesus as your savior, put your whole
trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the
church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations and races?” I
pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-29850204125490753622024-02-26T11:47:00.001-07:002024-03-06T11:51:21.522-07:00Baptism: Do You Accept the Freedom and Power...Here is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=576751056" target="_blank">Matthew 4:1-11</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk159735080">Last week I noted that in the
ancient church, Easter was the only day on which people could be baptized. Part
of the reason Lent was established was to use these 40 days for final
preparation in receiving instruction about what it mean to be a Christian and
what it meant to be a member of the church. And so, we are spending the Sundays
of Lent looking at the baptismal questions that we ask people before they are baptized
into the church in preparation for doing the baptisms we have scheduled for
this Easter. And another reminder that if you are interested in being baptized,
or having someone else baptized, please speak with me. Last week we talked
about the first question that gets asked and it is “Do you renounce the
spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and
repent of your sin?” Now as part of that I said that portion of answering this
is to be able to say that evil exists in the world and to be able to name it. I
read this week that in response to his interview with Vladimir Putin, who at
best is an authoritarian despot and whose chief opponents keep dying
suspiciously, Tucker Carlson was asked how he responds to accusation that Putin
had his latest opponent killed. And his response was, and I quote, “Leadership
requires killing people.” Now we just finished a series on leadership, and
never did I think that I had to say that, because I don’t think it’s required.
And he wasn’t talking about tough decisions that some leaders have to make,
like presidents ordering military strikes, or generals, and others, sending
troops into harms way. He was talking about just ordinary politicians and
leaders. And so, I’m good to be bold enough here to say that that is evil, or
at least excuse making to cover evil. That doesn’t mean that Tucker Carlson is
evil, but that he is giving into what Hannah Arendt called the banality of
evil. Justifying the ordinary </a><a name="_Hlk159735080">terrible things that we can do to each other.</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk159735080"></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo7DI5xitEZTyzNlzVNX1NeJVEsRGW3Y8XK_j_PpWBFZkKQn2hpaHr6uUyWBr759ld5lX0zGbbvugRCKnqAMmusV3MNSFwTnNa0C0JpO-mAzSi_oQy0MraLHgopvwHUipLhFyuatyDVRfiVMQSnfsar1Xn4eO6APya0jp8S5ui2mRm-cJ8aJekv1xYCN8/s1920/BaptismHD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo7DI5xitEZTyzNlzVNX1NeJVEsRGW3Y8XK_j_PpWBFZkKQn2hpaHr6uUyWBr759ld5lX0zGbbvugRCKnqAMmusV3MNSFwTnNa0C0JpO-mAzSi_oQy0MraLHgopvwHUipLhFyuatyDVRfiVMQSnfsar1Xn4eO6APya0jp8S5ui2mRm-cJ8aJekv1xYCN8/s320/BaptismHD.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Because
if you can justify the killing of one innocent person, then you can also
justify the killing of many more. And so, while yes there are some things that may
require leaders to take life, those are the extremes and never taken lightly by
those who do them, or at least not taken lightly by those with a conscience and
there are plenty of presidents and generals who have talked about the terrible
cost that decision takes on their very being, but that is not what leadership
itself requires. And so, I think that leads well into the second question we
ask because it has direct relevance, and that question is “Do you accept the
freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in
whatever forms they present themselves?”<span><a name='more'></a></span><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk159735080;">Of those three, I
think we’re better positioned to talk about oppression, which typically is
about trying to keep someone else down, usually involving cruel or unjust treatment
and control. Usually, but not always, this is done by a dominant group, or
person, against someone else, judging them to be less than, or perhaps not even
human, but certainly not due the rights given to others, and this is usually
accompanied by the use of dehumanizing language. Think of apartheid, or Jim
Crow. And notice that oppression is part of being unjust, or therefore part of
injustice, that lack of fairness by treating others differently because of who
they are, and judgments, usually superficial and derogatory, that have been
made against them. And so, there is definitely a direct correlation between
oppression and injustice, and some of that is being able to identify it and
name it, and there can be difficulties in that. Sometimes this happens simply
because we aren’t aware of it, we have blinders on. Sometimes those blinders
are intentionally because if we name it then we have to do something about it.
That’s one of the reasons the US government is extremely hesitant to name
things as being genocide, because then we are obligated to respond, and so we
pretend as if it’s not happening. Or we simply don’t know everything that’s
going on behind the scenes. We like inexpensive items but don’t usually know
how they get to our shelves. For that matter most of us don’t know how the
expensive things get to our shelves either, although they are often in the same
ways and at the same low wages.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk159735080;">But a question then
for me is that while I think we can say that evil things also include oppression
and injustice, does oppression and injustice therefore make them necessarily
evil? I’m not sure. But this baptismal question does seem to imply that they
are separate things, although not without significant overlap. Or at the least
it wants us to be mindful of all of them as things to be aware of and work
against. But here is where the hard work begins and that is being willing and
able to open our eyes not just to see the evil, injustice or oppression done by
others, especially those with whom we disagree, but also to call out that done
by people with whom we agree, especially if it benefits us. That’s where I
would most especially call out Carlson, and others of his ilk, because he is
very quick to justify and support those who he thinks are in his tribe, or who
he wants to be in his tribe, but is also very quick to call out and denigrate
the same behavior, or even lesser behavior, from people he considers to be
opposite of him. And we see this all the time. But this is nothing new, and
scripture calls it out as well. The prophet Isaiah warns against calling what
is evil good, or that which is good evil; do make justifications for bad things
simply because they are on your side. If it’s wrong for the other side, then it
needs to be wrong for your side. If it’s evil for others, then it’s evil for
us. And I will also add that Isaiah, and the other prophets, also expand what
falls into the category, which includes, among other things, the wealthy taking
advantage of the poor. So, several years ago there was the scandal with wealthy
parents paying bribes to get their children into elite schools, although what
wasn’t really talked about was the fact that they could have done exactly the
same thing through easily legal ways by simply giving large donations to the
school for the same purpose which happens all the time. And so, do we call that
unjust, or maybe just stupid, or do we name it as evil? At that leads us to the
gospel passage today and what is at the heart of this question.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk159735080;">In the Disney move The
Lion King, while there are other evil characters in the film, or at least those
who go along with the evil like the hyenas, the main villain, the
personification of evil, is Scar the brother of the king. That is the evil is
not different from the other lions, it resides in them. I always think that’s
important because as I said last week, I don’t think we need to have Satan or
the devil in order to have evil in the world, because it’s within all of us.
The word Satan appears 53 times in scripture, and devil appears 36 times, and
those are not necessarily the same person. Additionally, most of what we think
about the devil or Satan has nothing to do with scripture, but much later
developments, in particular from John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante’s Divine
Comedy, which also impacts our understanding of the afterlife. More often in
scripture this character is playing, for lack of a better term, the devil’s
advocate. Giving voice to another side, sometimes in a prosecutorial role. We
can even see this in the temptation story today. The devil tempts Jesus,
although I don’t think that’s the right word, to do things, that Jesus will in
all intense and purposes do, but we also know that the devil doesn’t have the
power he claims to have. But it certainly seems attractive, which is where we
also go wrong with our understanding of the devil. In medieval art, and still
today, pictures of the devil portray him as ugly and evil looking. But, earlier
imagery showed him as a gorgeous hunk, and that makes a difference. It’s easier
to say no to something ugly, or unappealing, but when it’s attractive then it’s
harder to resist. Just think of the fruit that Adam and Eve eat, which seems to
be attractive to them. So, in answering the question if we will resist evil,
injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, we have to
know that that evil is in us first, and that it is within others as well, and
that many times it is much more attractive than the alternatives, and we can
think of many places where that is true.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk159735080;">But here is how we
work on overcoming those things and where the beginning of the question is
important, and that is do we accept the freedom and power that God has given us
to do these things? That freedom comes through Jesus who freed us from our
slavery to sin and death. But we are granted that freedom, not so that we can
go off and do anything, although that is a possible choice because of free
will. But we are instead granted that freedom with the hope that we will then
make the conscious choice to follow Christ, to become slaves to righteousness,
not because we have to, but because we get to. It is a decision made freely,
not out of fear of punishment, but out of faith in reward for what God has
already given to us, freedom in Christ. And that leads to the second thing and
that is power. When we are baptized we believe that we receive the Holy Spirit,
and when we receive the Spirit we receive what? Power. So, God is not asking us
to go out and do something that is impossible, something beyond our means or
our capabilities. Instead God is saying “I want you to resist evil, injustice
and oppression, and I am giving you the ability to do that, because I am giving
you the freedom and the power to do it, because you have no obligations, no
other allegiances, no other loyalties then to me.” And so, this should be
easier for us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk159735080;">God gives us the
freedom and power to resist. Now resistance often has the connotation of
actively doing something, and there is certainly a strong piece to this vow. Of
calling out evil, injustice and oppression when we see it happening, and then
doing something about it. But resistance can take other forms as well. Prayer
can be a form of resistance, because if we are praying for peace, or justice or
for the end to hunger, we are saying we believe that such things are possible
and that the things that bring them about are not the ways of God. Praying for
our enemies says that we are not going to allow people to divide us, and in
fact we are going to work hard at not even having enemies, which also means
that the practice of reconciliation is a form of resistance. But the biggest
form of resistance? Love. It’s also how I think we determine what is evil or
not, and that is how does it relate to love. If it treats people as less than,
as a means to an end, if it sees others as “the other” rather than a brother or
sister, it’s probably moving, or could move to evil. It’s why Jesus says that
to have anger in your heart is equivalent to murder, because it’s a step in
that direction. And so, we judge actions based on the idea of love, and we
resist by offering love. Think of all of the things that we think of as being
evil, is there a single one of them in which they saw the other person as an
equal, as a brother and sister, as a beloved child of God? The answer is an
affirmative no.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk159735080;">And so, the final piece
of resistance, as part of our power and freedom, is to also resist these things
in ourselves. To be aware when we become too assured that we are correct and
everyone else is wrong, because that sense of assurance, especially when
wrapped in religion, can lead to dangerous things. As I’ve said, what if I am
wrong is a powerful question? Also asking if what we are doing truly represent
the good news of God’s love, not just to some, not just to me, but to all, and
especially the least, the last and the lost? We are called to bring the
Kingdom, the love of God to the world, and so on behalf of the whole church, I
ask you: ““Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil,
injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” I pray
that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-29099032805935074652024-02-19T11:44:00.001-07:002024-03-06T11:47:38.691-07:00Baptism: Do You Renounce the Spiritual Forces...Here is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=576750806" target="_blank">Mark 8:31-38</a> and <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=576750834" target="_blank">Romans 6:1-14</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal">We are now four days into our Lenten journey and so
beginning a new worship series that will carry us through this season. Now Lent
came into existence for two primary reasons. The first was for people who had
been removed from the church to repent and prove their desire to rejoin the
church, and part of this practice was to cover themselves in ashes and
sackcloth. The other reason, and the one we are going to focus on, was as the
final preparation and learning for those who were going to join the church through
baptism on Easter Sunday. And Easter was the only day then that you could be
baptized and join the church. And so these 40 days were set aside for this
work. And someone asked me this week how come there are said to be 40 days of
lent, but there are more than 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter. And that’s
because Sundays exist outside of Lent because every Sunday is a little Easter,
and so a time of celebration, rather than repentance. And so yes, that does
mean that if you have given something up for Lent that you can stop doing that
on Sundays because they aren’t technically part of Lent, although that then
begins to become about rules rather than grace, as we heard in the passage from
Romans today, and that certainly plays a part in our understanding of baptism. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmgwwHC3XtLKI7DN9DaHkvcF4zTSviQSg7ThfZOSUX1qNfH9bCk_U8KmeNXbdodTHRaIP-9qHLfuZzXOUPGJxLoGRVnNWyRKk4NmQcZZn9Xe965X0UFx0HVqptwAvSkP24tgrhkqmSJbwWOoqAqjde9vTkhgZR2vp9E_gznwiKsuiVeq-pSpjBwHbjUTE/s1920/BaptismHD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmgwwHC3XtLKI7DN9DaHkvcF4zTSviQSg7ThfZOSUX1qNfH9bCk_U8KmeNXbdodTHRaIP-9qHLfuZzXOUPGJxLoGRVnNWyRKk4NmQcZZn9Xe965X0UFx0HVqptwAvSkP24tgrhkqmSJbwWOoqAqjde9vTkhgZR2vp9E_gznwiKsuiVeq-pSpjBwHbjUTE/s320/BaptismHD.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Before we baptize people there are a series of questions that get asked of the
person being baptized, or of their parents or guardians, if its for someone who
cannot answer for themselves, which is more than just for infants and toddlers.
And so, we are going to be looking at each of those questions over the next
five Sundays in preparation for Easter when we are scheduled to be doing
baptisms, as well as a reaffirmation of baptism. And let me just add that if
you are interested in being baptized, please speak with me. But that leads us
to the first question, which, like most of them, is actually a multiple part
question and that is “On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you: Do you renounce
the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and
repent of your sin?”<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, we start with the first part of that question which
is that we, or I, ask this on behalf of the whole church. That is not just this
congregation, or even of the United Methodist Church, but I ask it on behalf of
the church universal. Because while you are being baptized here in this church,
you belong to the greater body of Christ. While this is certainly not true of
every church or denomination, as United Methodists we accept baptisms done anywhere
as long as it was done in the orthodox trinitarian formulation, which would
include Orthodox, Roman catholic and protestant churches. It only excludes a
few other groups who consider themselves Christian, but who have non-orthodox
understandings of the trinity, and I will note that includes Mormons. And so,
if you ever wonder why we don’t require people to be baptized here before they
join, that’s why. Although you do have to be baptized somewhere in order to
join the church, because it is by being baptized that we become Christians. No
one is born a Christian, it is through baptism that we enter into the faith and
into the church universal. And so, we ask these questions on behalf of the
whole church.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And although the last of the question is about repentance,
it’s really at the heart of where we start. After all Jesus begins his
ministry, which comes after his baptism and then the arrest of John the
Baptist, by saying “repent, for the kingdom of God has come near.” And so,
repentance is at the heart of what we do as Christians. And the word itself
literally means to turn around. To stop doing what you had been doing and do
something else. That’s where the passage from Romans comes into play, because
in Paul’s day, just as much as it’s still true today, there are people who
think they don’t need to worry about what they do because all they have to do
is ask for forgiveness and it will be given and so they’re fine. They think
God’s forgiveness is like their get out of jail free card from Monopoly. But,
what Paul says, is nit that we should continue in sin so that grace may abound.
But, instead we understand that we had died with Christ and been reborn with
him so that we can therefore also die to sin and be reborn in grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, while some talk about sin as missing
the mark, most of you have heard me say that I see sin as brokenness. It is
represented by the brokenness of relationship that we have with God and that we
also have with each other. That we think of ourselves first, our own needs,
wants and desires and so therefore we break relationship with others. And so,
our repentance is to understand that and to turn around to go a different way
by accepting the healing and wholeness that we find in Christ. And that
acceptance of grace is also the rejection of the law, of looking at all the
things we’ve done wrong and beating ourselves up over it. And as much as people
sometimes want to make Lent about that, that’s not what’s it’s about. It’s
about repenting of where we have gone astray so that we can come to know and
live in God’s amazing grace and in the love that overflows and overwhelms us
when we are truly ready to accept it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the other part of this is while we’re good at talking
about and emphasizing personal sin, we’re not so good at talking about
corporate sin, or sometimes even recognizing or acknowledging that there is
such a thing, but it is something in which we participate, even if we might not
want to, or benefit from. The prophets are full on injunctions against
corporate or societal sins that are taking place, especially at the expense of
the poor and outsiders, including immigrants. The prophet Amos, for example,
says that God despises the Israelites, and we should read ourselves into this
too, assemblies, our gatherings, our festivals because they don’t represent
what God has called for, because we have not established justice at the gates.
That is societal justice, justice for everyone, or we might say equal treatment
under the law. When wealthy people get treated differently, the simply having
access to competent legal counsel because they can afford it, means they are
treated differently, and thus true justice is not being carried out. And so,
when we hear as part of the question, renouncing the spiritual forces of
wickedness, that is part of this call, and it’s not just about those things out
there, but about what’s in us and the things in which we participate.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Because in hearing about spiritual forces of wickedness,
many will think as being things beyond us as humans, demonic powers, or perhaps
the devil. I know that is part of the history of that question, but it’s one I
reject for many reasons, many of which I will give more detail on next week, so
you’ll have to come back, but the biggest reason, and a quick summary, is that
we have the capability all by ourselves of doing evil and wicked things, and we
are spiritual beings, which means we can have spiritual wickedness. I would say
this is especially true when we try and cloak our wickedness in spiritual or
religious practices, which happens all the time. American slavery, as well as
Jim Crow Laws, to name just a few, were covered in scriptural usage to justify
their practices, and are also societal sins, whose ripples continue to be felt
even today. Additionally, if we think that these things are beyond human power,
it might cause us to think that we cannot overcome it, that it’s too big for
us. But, we are co-creators with God in the world, and through baptism, again,
we are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation, which means we are
participating in them. It’s not just up to God, it’s up to us.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Which is where the middle part of the question comes into
play which is about more than just the spiritual forces of wickedness, but reject
the evil powers of this world. And let’s just name it there is evil in the
world, and it should be called out where we see it. And yet we also have to
recognize the simple fact of what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil,
that while we like to point out the big evil atrocities, evil is fairly
commonplace and even the major atrocities take thousands, or hundreds of
thousands of people to commit, because all of us have evil inside of us. And
it’s not just the big things that happen, but the thousands of little things
that add up to that, or that we overlook because they don’t seem like much, but
which lead to others. We like cheap prices and so overlook sweatshops and
literal slave labor that goes into making the items. We like inexpensive
produce and so we might complain about immigrants, but we certainly like what
they contribute for us, and then overlook the abuses they undergo. So,
rejecting the evil powers of this world is not just about those big things,
calling out the powers and principalities where they go wrong, and that’s
important to, but also taking off the blinders we wear, some intentional and
some unintentional, in order to understand our participation in them and the
areas in our lives where we need to calm those inner demons. As the old Native
American parable goes, we have two wolves within us one representing good and
one representing evil, or we might say one is love and one is hate, one is
peace and one is violence, one is forgiveness and one is retribution, one is
personal responsibility and one is always blaming others, one is grace and one
is judgment, and we could go on. And the one that wins is the one that we feed;
the one that loses is the one that we starve. And the choice is ours.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jesus says that the road that leads to salvation is narrow
and hard and the one that leads to destruction is what? Wide and easy. And we
all make mistakes. Peter gets rebuked in the gospel passage, even though he has
just made a confession of faith, because he wants things his way, not the way
of God. Not the way of the cross. When we choose the ways of the world, we will
lose, but when we choose the way of the cross then we gain everything, not just
life but life eternal. We are not called to discipleship because it’s easy
because if it was easy then everyone would do it. Discipleship, which means
picking up your cross and following, is hard work. And so, our baptismal vows
also should not be taken lightly but we should see in them the call to live in
and for the Kingdom of God. And so, we are called to call out the powers and
principalities when what they are doing doesn't match up with the vision of the
kingdom of God, even for those with whom we normally agree or like. But not
just call them out, but to reject them and to act in God's might acts to work
for change. We are not just initiated into the faith through the waters of
baptism, but we are also called to be transformed by the water, not because the
water is powerful, but because God is powerful. We are expected to live
differently because we are a baptized people. That begins with repentance, a
theme of the season of Lent, as well as Jesus’ call to us to repent for the
kingdom of God has come near, but also because we are asked, and I ask once
again on behalf of the whole church, “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of
wickedness and reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?”
May we not answer lightly, but as a mark of our call to discipleship. I pray
that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-3582763365716985892024-02-12T14:05:00.002-07:002024-03-06T11:41:47.344-07:00Little Green Army People: Knowing Your RoleHere is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=576750426" target="_blank">Luke 14:25-33</a> and <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=576750461">1 Corinthians 12:12-31</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal">We are now concluding our series on Toy Box Leadership. I am
very glad that so many of you have commented that you enjoyed this series
because I wasn’t really sure about it going into it. I can say that I have
never specifically preached on leadership before, although as I said when I
read this book a long time ago, I thought it had possibilities. But I’ll be
honest that I have sort of thought about leadership as this separate thing from
spiritual disciplines. We talk about the second of those things a lot, but we
don’t really talk about leadership, not because leadership isn’t important, but
because we just don’t think about it in the role of worship, I guess is the
best way to say it. That somehow these two things are separate and never the
twain shall meet. But a few weeks ago, in one of the daily emails I receive on
church things, it had a story from John Ortberg saying how incorrect that
position was. That leadership is a spiritual discipline, and spiritual
disciplines include leadership. And as I thought about it, I was definitely one
who kept them separate, but now see that I was mistaken. And that has lots of
implications to it, including that we have to work on it for the good of
ourselves, the church and living the faith. It also means that like all
spiritual disciplines it comes in different forms and also has seasons to it.
But that’s going to take some more thought from me on what that means, how to
communicate that as well as how it fits into what we do in worship and our
expectations. It definitely connects, though, to the theme of today which is
understanding and knowing our gifts, graces and roles as we look at the last of
our toys little green army men. And again, credit is due to Ron Hunter, Jr. and
Michael Waddell for their idea.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyVNsIOak4VE2l7KPh8p4Ii0ocz07ccjaOcQxD8L2NBQvkWwk22ozwB5NkMhy3NO2H_Qp-Ydw26b7ioX3cqaTOlI-6qI-dZTlYKMy45J-d1WV8hA6Q3uXp0o-xDFY1ZE3Iro8xTTDdgQflFiyE1bHztVDHQTx61ic0976wAD8dD9TpUTnvTDHEfbuUqbA/s2000/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="2000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyVNsIOak4VE2l7KPh8p4Ii0ocz07ccjaOcQxD8L2NBQvkWwk22ozwB5NkMhy3NO2H_Qp-Ydw26b7ioX3cqaTOlI-6qI-dZTlYKMy45J-d1WV8hA6Q3uXp0o-xDFY1ZE3Iro8xTTDdgQflFiyE1bHztVDHQTx61ic0976wAD8dD9TpUTnvTDHEfbuUqbA/w400-h225/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" width="400" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When we looked at the yo-yo I said that those who study
these things have said that the doll is probably the oldest toy in the world,
and it’s followed by the yo-yo. Well toy soldiers are nearly as old as well. Tiny
military figures have been found in Egyptian tombs. Whether those were
technically toys or not is up for debate as they could have been for military
strategy, but we can be sure that others were using such things as toys. Over
the millennia, toy soldiers have been made out of clay, wood, flour, paper and
different types of metals, including, and maybe most popularly tin. They grew
in such popularity in the 17th century that they began to be mass produced for
not just war games but also for massive displays to be put together of famous
battles. But it was in the late 1930s with the rise of the use of plastics that
toy soldiers took the shape and name by which so many of us know them – Little
Green Army Men, although you can now purchase them in lots of different colors
including blue, pink, purple and grey. The poses and weapons have also changed
some over time. And these little figures were adopted into the National Toy
Hall of Fame in 2014.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And not only can you purchase them in different colors, but
you can also now purchase them including women, which is the first point they
can teach us, sort of unrelated to the passages we heard, but about the power
of making a request to have people see and do something different. In 2019,
six-year-old Vivian Lord from Arkansas wrote to BMC toys, one of the
manufacturers of the little green men and asked a simple question, “why don’t
you make girl army men?” She said that her friend’s mom was in the army and
that they wanted to be able to play with toys that represented the women in the
military. She said that if they were to make them, she would play with them
every day and her friends would too. The CEO said that Vivian’s was not the
first request they had received, as they had heard from female veterans, but
cost was always an issue, but Vivian’s “heartfelt letter”, in his words, that
inspired them to finally do something and in Christmas 2020 they introduced for
the first time little green army women. The CEO said that everyone wants to be
the hero in their own story and to see themselves represented in the toys with
which they play. Since they were released he says he has also been contacted by
lots of women who said they wished they would have been available when they
were kids to be able to play out their story as well. And so, a great lesson is
not to think that we can’t make a difference. That the efforts of one person,
or a small group of people, can’t make a difference. Because one little girl
was the difference in making this happen. As Margaret Mead once said, “Never
believe that a few caring, thoughtful people can't change the world. For,
indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now each green army person set, comes with some pretty
standard characters, the radio operator, bazooka, gunner, prone gunner and the
dreaded minesweeper who isn’t really good for a lot of things when you’re
playing. But in reality, are really important, because there are an estimated
110 million landmines in the ground right now, with an estimated 5,500 people
killed or wounded every year from landmines, about ½ of them children. The UN
estimates that at our current eradication rates it will take 1,100 years to get
rid of what’s currently deployed, not counting on more being added. That should
be of ultimate concern to the church, although I hear crickets around it,
perhaps because it’s not a threat to us. But, keep the minesweeper character in
mind as we go back on target. One of the figures is a person with binoculars
who is the officer. And this is a great leadership lesson, not so much from the
figures themselves, as from the actual military, and that is about power and
information. There are several different types of power. There is power given,
power assumed and power presumed. An officer has power given to them in the
structure. Even the lowest ranking officer can command anyone who is enlisted.
And officers have to know how to assume power. But what do they say about
power? It corrupts. And there are certainly officers, especially at the lower
ranks, who come in wanting to assert their power and authority and prove how
much they know and how good they are, and certainly aren’t going to listen to
anyone below them, even if they are non-commissioned. Those are the officers
the troops dread because they are the ones who will get people killed. Instead
a good officer will listen to what others have to tell them, especially to
their master sergeant, or master chief, or equivalents who have experience and
wisdom acquired over years and can tell them the right, and wrong things to do.
And so, if we are going to learn something from our army people about
leadership, the first is that we have to know that we don’t know it, and rely
on others who know more and have more experience.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And that’s not just those who have been elevated to
positions of leadership. Because, again, there are people who have power and
authority because of their position. But there are also people who have respect
and authority not because of any position, and they might not have any, but
because of who they are. In every church there are elected leaders, and then
there are unelected leaders. People others listen to, and this isn’t because
they talk the most, as they are often just ignored. They may have been leaders in
the past, or maybe never did, but whose opinion, when expressed, carries
significant weight. And so, they need to be listened to. I always have a group
of people that when they say something I pay attention, and some that I will
specifically go to to get input not just because I value it, but also because
their support can win or kill decisions. So as a leader, pay attention to those
around you. Your life and the lives of others sometimes can literally depend
upon it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But one of the things that happens when you play with little
green army people, is that, typically, you don’t just dump them out and go at
it. Instead you take an inventory of what you have, know your strengths and
weaknesses, lots of radio operators and minesweepers is not a great place to
start to win a battle. So, see who you have, what their skills are, identify
what you’re lacking and if you can replace them, and then you have to position
them into the right places. Don’t put your bazooka operators or your medics at
the front, right. You want your infantry at the front, and support staff at the
back. James Collins, who’s written several best-selling business books,
including Good to Great, has said it’s about getting the right people on the
bus, and then getting them all into the right seats, because you can have a
great leader, or great volunteer, but if their doing the wrong thing, doing
something they aren’t gifted to do, then it doesn’t make any differences. So,
do an inventory of what you have in order to prepare and see what gifts people
have and get them aligned to do their part, and in this every single person is
important, even if others might think they are not necessary, or look down on
them because they think their role is better or more important.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That’s what Paul is getting at in his comments about the
parts of the body and the way they work together for the whole. And as was said
in the introduction, this section comes his famous passage on love, which we
like to talk about for Valentine’s Day, or for weddings, but it’s actually a
rebuke of the Corinthian church. That some people think they are superior
because they can talk in tongues, or have lots of knowledge, and so that’s why
he says if you can talk in tongues but have not love, you’re just a noisy gong,
if you have all wisdom and faith such as to move mountains, you are nothing.
This is pointed criticism, and so going back then to say that we all have gifts
and all are needed. Some are radio operators, and some are bazooka carriers,
and some are infantry, and some are grenade throwers, and they are all
important. You might want to look down on the minesweeper, but if you’re
surrounded by landmines, what do you really need? The guy with the rifle isn’t
going to do you much good. You need the person who is skilled at doing that. So,
you have to understand all the parts, and that means that the others have to
understand and appreciate what everyone brings to the game, and know that they
are all necessary. What I do here every worship service is important, but I
couldn’t do this without every other person who assists and I couldn’t do it
without all of you either. All the parts are necessary for the body of Christ
to be effective. And let me just also note that God has gifted us as a body
with what we need to do what we need to do. And so, we can say “oh, I wish we
had someone to do this” or “I wish so and so was still here to do that” and
while those things would be nice, it doesn’t stop us from being the body and
doing God’s work. And so that also requires us to know what are gifts are, and
we are going to have a spiritual gifts inventory to help you identify that, if
you need assistance, available on the website tomorrow. This will help us all
strive for the much greater gift.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, you know who is on your side, you know their gifts and
graces, you put people in the right places, do you then just march forward? No,
then you have to have a plan about what you’re going to be and measure if you
will be successful or not. That’s what Jesus says about the cost of
discipleship. Know what it’s going to take and whether you can be successful,
thus the king will decide if his troops stand a chance against the other army,
and if not, then he, in modern parlance, sues for peace. And so, as a leader we
too have to plan, not as a secondary activity, but as the primary activity. As
they say a failure to plan is a plan to failure. But then we have to know that
even the best laid plans have to be ready to change. In the military they say
that “no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy.” And so, you
have to be ready to change the current realities, to deal with things as they
actually are not as we would like them to be. And yet the ultimate goal can
remain the same, even if the path and steps to getting there have to be
rearranged or completely scrapped and new plans put into place.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then the final thing we can learn is to evaluate
everything at the end. How did things go? What mistakes did we make? How can we
learn from that? What did we do right? What can we learn from that. If we knew
then what we know now, what we have done anything different? Is there a way we
can work to close that knowledge gap? And ultimately how can we make sure the
next time is even better? That is the essence of learning to be a great leader,
rather than just a good one.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The little green army people are pretty basic. No moving
parts, no batteries required, no intricate story lines, and yet what they teach
us is some of the very basics of what it means not just to be a leader, but to
be a follower and to be a member of any organization. All of us have gifts and
graces which we have been given by God. Some of us are good are some things and
terrible at others. Some are radio operators, some minesweepers and some the
person with the binoculars, but all of us are important. All of us are needed
and necessary for the body of Christ to be the body of Christ. If we were all
eyes, or ears or feet, we would look pretty weird and we wouldn’t be effective.
But, instead, all of us are knowingly and wonderfully made, as the Psalmist
says, so that we can work together to bring forth the Kingdom, and when we do
that, when we plan and dream and vision with God, then great things can happen.
That even though we might not win every battle, we can win the war, and let me
just say I don’t really like military and violent imagery when it comes to
faith, but these metaphors can help us to learn these basic lessons about
planning and gifts so that we can strive together to be the body of Christ, to
use our gifts, to be God’s love in action for that still more excellent way. I
pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-86199762200075985822024-02-05T20:01:00.001-07:002024-02-07T20:07:30.081-07:00Weebles Wobble But They Don't Fall DownHere is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Romans<div><p class="MsoNormal">Some of you have heard this before, but when I was growing
up and would spend time with my grandparents, to try and get me to eat my
vegetables, my grandfather would always say “it’ll put hair on your chest.” I
never considered that an acceptable argument for doing something I didn’t want
to do, and will note I still don’t. But that’s what I always think of when I
hear Paul’s words that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces
character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint.” But if
that’s what it takes to get hope, wouldn’t you rather pass? Not that I don’t
want to live without hope, but I don’t want to suffer either, and let’s also
note that anytime someone says about something that it will build character,
you can be pretty sure that it too will be an unpleasant experience, like
having to eat your vegetables as a child. And so, with that, we move on to
today’s toy, the Weeble. And again credit is due to Ron Hunter, Jr. and Michael
Waddell for their inspiration for this series.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj47UefeeuyCetDjxzTa5QZ4wbwukzmrHYvZrwH_iirUqHXO9dDbRQDJ03G3yaRFsCzZIfvANSYd0Y-c7ELwt-5MdR_xwOhFJwtGjcbSvMr1O6j5HmF2x5gjBt-OnxXq0sB-hKMhJ1goGb-Lf9I6OUns_l-zkRubTHBmSzQqdGbX6nt6w43PZy3NvLpoKs/s2000/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="2000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj47UefeeuyCetDjxzTa5QZ4wbwukzmrHYvZrwH_iirUqHXO9dDbRQDJ03G3yaRFsCzZIfvANSYd0Y-c7ELwt-5MdR_xwOhFJwtGjcbSvMr1O6j5HmF2x5gjBt-OnxXq0sB-hKMhJ1goGb-Lf9I6OUns_l-zkRubTHBmSzQqdGbX6nt6w43PZy3NvLpoKs/w400-h225/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" width="400" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is the newest of all the toys we will look at, and thus
one that many of you did not grow up with because it wasn’t yet invented, but
one that your children, or perhaps grandchildren did grow up playing with. It
also happens to be the only toy we will look at that has not been inducted into
the National Toy Hall of Fame. But it is based upon a much older toy. The
television show Romper Room, which began in 1953, introduced a clown punching
bag that was weighed down by sand at the bottom so that when you punched it, it
wouldn’t stay down but would right itself so you could punch it again, and keep
going. Nothing violent about that. And some of you may know the toy because
there was a duplicate that had Bozo the clown on it. When toy manufacturer
Hasbro purchased Romper Room in 1969, they wanted to market the punching bag
idea, with a twist, and so they shrunk it down, made it solid, and shaped it
like an egg, and thus was born, in 1971, the Weeble. And what made them so
unique was not only their shape, but the fact that when they got knocked over,
that because of the weighting, that gravity would cause them to right
themselves, thus creating the famous advertising slogan that “Weebles wobble
but they don’t fall down.” Allegedly this helped introduce children to basic
physics, perhaps a stretch, but it is there. Now I will note, first that I
couldn’t find any reason why they were called Weebles, perhaps just because
they wobble, and second now they are much shorter and squatter than the originals,
allegedly because the originals posed a choking hazard, although that seems
like a huge stretch to me, not because kid’s wouldn’t put them in their mouths,
but because they were still really big and I can’t imagine a child actually
being able to get it stuck in their throat, but there we are. And so that leads
us back not really to the idea of suffering so much as to the idea of resilience
because Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And really, I think that’s what Paul is getting it, more
than just trying to say suck it up buttercup, although I will admit that I do
have a problem with saying that we boast in our suffering. But, setting this
aside for another day, the truth is that we will have suffering in our lives.
We will all have up-and-downs. We will all suffer at some point. Some physical,
some emotional, some psychological, and sometimes all three. Now one the things
about suffering is that, as Simone Weil said, whose work on suffering is on of
the best, is that suffering can isolate us because it makes us feel like we’re
the only ones going through something. A good example is that I’m sure that
many of us have attended a funeral on a bright, beautiful, sunny day and you
wonder how the world can be like that when your life is dark and grey and
rainy, or just pitch black. We have this disconnect that happens. And so, we
have to know that we are never alone, and we are not the only ones who have
ever gone through this thing. Our emotions and feelings are our own, but they
are not unique. And one of the things that suffering helps us to do, or can
help us to do, is to develop a sense of empathy, and we’ll come back to that
point.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now one of the things that often gets said when people are
in the midst of suffering, especially from well-meaning Christians, is that God
won’t give you anything you can’t handle. I call this one of the lies we say
but don’t actually believe, and I say that because I’ve never heard anyone say
that to themselves. It’s usually people who are not going through whatever it
is and it’s doing several things. The first is that they think it will make the
other person feel better, but it doesn’t, and can come with the idea that if
only they were weaker then they wouldn’t be encountering this. But the true
purpose is to let them off the hook of feeling bad or trying to explain things,
and so we end of like Job’s friends, and it also serves to let God off the
hook, because God obviously knows we can deal with it. Except, and this is a
huge one for me, I don’t believe that God is responsible for the bad things
that happen in our lives, as Paul says in Romans, God can redeem all
situations, not that God causes all situations, and that’s where the Weebles
come into play.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not to be flippant when it comes to suffering, but Nietzsche
said that which doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. Kelly Clarkson said
the same thing, so take your pick. And that’s another reason why that God quote
is troubling because we probably know people who have been destroyed by things
that happened to them, including sometimes dying as a result, often of a broken
heart. But being able to come back, of not falling down, or more directly of
falling down but getting back up, is known as resiliency, and there are many
parts to this. One and this is probably hard to keep in mind in the midst of
suffering as we are building character, is the fact that having overcome before
makes it easier to do again. Studies have found that people who have encountered
a loss, usually the death of a parent or sibling, before the age of 20 are much
more resilient to tragedies in the future, and there are lots of reasons for
this, but one speculation is the knowledge that you got through that, and so
you can get through something else. The same has also been found to be true
with those who have suffered with PTSD. If you have had PTSD you are much less
likely to get it again, then the average person. Having suffered tragedy in the
past, will help you, the Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I also suspect that it might have something to do with that
whole hope thing as well, because, as Paul says, hope never disappoints. And
that hope comes for us in Christ, who walks this journey with us through the
movement of the Spirit. And I can’t tell you the number of people who have been
working through trauma, or on the other side of it, who have told me that they
don’t know how they would have been able to do it without their faith. That
they were wobbling and falling, but it was Christ who sustained them and lifted
them back up. It was Christ, and the hope found in Christ, that allowed them to
right themselves again. And it was Christ who kept them grounded and able to
come out the other side in one piece.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Because how we react and how we deal with these things,
where we find our strength and hope, where we find our resilience does make a
difference. I know that some of you have heard this analogy from John Maxwell,
but it bears repeating. In the midst of suffering, trauma, of being knocked
down, we can either be a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean. Because when the
water heats up around us how will we respond. We can become like the carrot who
goes in strong and hard, but gets weak and soft in the boiling water, just as
some cave to the pressures. Or, like the egg, who goes in fragile, but becomes hard
as result, not just hard on the outside, but also on the inside to make sure
that nothing can hurt us again, and therefore shut ourselves off from the world
and others. The coffee, on the other hand, changes the water, it changes the
situation and makes it better and the coffee becomes what it was meant to be.
As I said, studies have shown that these terrible situations can also make us
more empathetic and better able to respond to others in need. To allow us to
work with God to be able to redeem all situations, because Weebles wobble but
they don’t fall down.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And since this series about leadership, I guess I should
mention that as leaders we will fail and fall too. But it’s not about how many
times you get knocked down, but about how many times you get back up. And as we
look at and for leaders, it’s about how they deal with adversity. Do they accept
responsibility or try to blame everyone else but themselves; do they learn
anything from it to get better, and try not to do it again, or do they keep
making the same mistakes, making the same speeches and driving everyone off the
same cliff over and over again. You are going to fail and make mistakes, you
will get knocked over and knocked down, so be prepared for it, learn from it,
get back up again and keep going. As we prepare for the Super Bowl next week,
keep the great Chicago Bear Walter Peyton, sweetness in mind. In his hall of
fame career, Payton rushed over 9 miles, but, as he said, that meant running 9
miles while someone knocked you down every 4.6 yards.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And let me close with a quick last point because other than
talking about Christ and knowing that God walks with us even through our
darkest valleys, I haven’t given any other ways to help us in our wobbling. But
what not only research has found, but life also shows, is that one of the
things that is essential to resilience is humor, and keeping a sense of humor,
or even developing a sense of humor. There is a reason why so many comedians
have backgrounds of trauma, the humor helps them get through. It helps them
find and build resilience. So, keep a sense of humor and intentionally seek out
funny things to help you in those moments. We are not born resilient, it’s
something we learn. We learn it ourselves but it can also be taught as we share
stories with one another, of our failures and our traumas, to help people know
they are not alone. And in same ways we celebrate that as we gather at the
table, because think of all the things that this table represents on that last
night, but they are all redeemed through Christ, through the resurrection and
in the hope of the promises that have been given. That the disciples thought
they were down, but they wobbled right back. The powers and principalities of
the world, though that Jesus was down, but he wobbled right back, and I know
that you’re going to remember that image. And they all did that because of the
power of God who has the final word. Who promises not that life will be a rose
garden, not that we won’t have ups and downs in out lives, but instead that God
will be with us through these things to help us to know that while we may
wobble, with Christ we will never truly be knocked down. I pray that it will be
so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-44714891728916841632024-01-29T20:09:00.002-07:002024-02-07T20:24:11.789-07:00Yo-Yo: Extending Yourself<p>Here is my message from Sunday. The scripture was</p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I’m guessing that most of us have probably seen an image
something like this outlining the life cycle of organizations. It seems like
just about every leadership seminar or workshop I’ve gone to, and definitely
those that want to talk about revitalization, have used this image. Basically
it says that in the beginning there is lots of energy, new things happening a
great vision and direction which leads to growth, and continued climbing of the
organization, but then things start to change, energy is lost, the vision gets
a little less clear or a little less striven for and so the organization
reaches maturity and then bureaucracy starts to set in, and it then begins a
downward slide which can eventually lead to its death. Now, the reason this
comes up in leadership workshops is to talk about the fact that you can stop
that downward slide, give new vision, create new energy, and you then cycle
back and you can start the cycle all over again, with growth, then maturity,
then downward, and hopefully new vision, new energy and do it all over again.
And while there is a lot to be said for that as an idea, I do think that it
glosses over too many things, makes it too simple, too easy both to explain and
to do, and the toy we look at today is a great illustration of what’s missing
here.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyP5chIsen4qZH6DxybS6AO7sz9i5nL8aDiIt6dT3ElQI9k6Zsog4fHoO0swRaXJKNmb3uzsVe3h7Q5T-kQIQP5UagjBW6o3ixxXREuFtoyGezeULBRjHwS7rPw5PaojLyjO2Gv8P4ii0_NKgqOlwqPBIOaapUYmnmc5H608ATklaV4lvL6iTyEtbc0FA/s2000/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="2000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyP5chIsen4qZH6DxybS6AO7sz9i5nL8aDiIt6dT3ElQI9k6Zsog4fHoO0swRaXJKNmb3uzsVe3h7Q5T-kQIQP5UagjBW6o3ixxXREuFtoyGezeULBRjHwS7rPw5PaojLyjO2Gv8P4ii0_NKgqOlwqPBIOaapUYmnmc5H608ATklaV4lvL6iTyEtbc0FA/w400-h225/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" width="400" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But before we get into that, a quick recap of the toys we
have looked at in our toy box that can teach us something about leadership and
life. Although it wasn’t technically a part of this series, for New Years we
did talk about the etch-a-sketch and the fact that if you have made a mistake
you can simply shake it off, create a new screen and start again. And then we
looked at play-doh and the reality that we are molded by the things with which
we surround us, and so we need to form ourselves with the right things and the
right people, and for us as Christians baptism should be our primary mold. Then
we looked at the slinky-dog which is a great illustration of leadership and
change. First as a leader you have to take ahold of the string of leadership
and pull, and when you do that, the head of the slinky dog will move forward,
but the hind end stays where it is, which means we have to be patient in our
change, and also listening and watching, and preparing for the tail end to catch
up, and then start again. And then last week we talked about Lego and the need
for connection and building connection so we can build community. What Lego
also show us is that sometimes we want to lock things into place, to glue them
together, and on the organizational lifecycle that is represented on the
downward slide, and so we also have to live into being open to change and
trying new things, of being creative. And so today we then move onto the yo-yo.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now the yo-yo is actually a very interesting toy, not to say
that the others aren’t. but in the study of these things, it is believed that
the yo-yo is the second oldest toy in the world, with the doll being the
oldest. It is possible that it got it’s beginning in China around 1000 BCE and
then was brought to the west by traders, or it’s possible that it originated in
several places around the same time and spread. But we do have evidence, or
apparent evidence for it very early. This is a vase from Greece dating to the 5th
century BCE which appears to show a young boy playing with something that
distinctly looks yo-yo like. And that means it’s possible that Jesus may have
played with a yo-yo when he was a boy. They were made out of clay, wood or
metal. In the 1700’s in France it was called the jou-jou, which could be where
the name yo-yo comes from. In England it was called a bangelore, and was a
favorite toy amongst the royalty. In the US, the first patent was given in 1866
and also called a bangelore. And then in 1928, Pedro Flores, and immigrant from
the Philippines opened a factory to manufacture what he called the yo-yo, and
in Tagalog, a Pilipino language that means come-come, and he was the first to
trademark that name. Flores’ toy took off, and in 1929 he was approached by
Donald Duncan who offered to purchase the factory and trademark, and in 1932 he
incorporated the Duncan Yo-Yo company with which most of us are so familiar.
Duncan also used Flores’ marketing which involved sending people out into the
community to demonstrate the yo-yo, and also to hold yo-yo contests to
encourage people to learn tricks and gain more interest. And it was the Duncan
yo-yo which was adopted into the national toy hall of fame in 1989.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So what does the yo-yo teach us? Well first is that a yo-yo
just by itself isn’t much fun. Even if it’s in your hand but not doing
anything, it’s sort of boring. To be effective, to be fun, the yo-yo has to be
extended. It has to go beyond your hand in order to be what it is intended and
called to be. And so, the first thing about the yo-yo is that you have to be
willing to extend yourself, you have to be willing to move past your safety
zone, which in this metaphor is your hand. But you have to be committed to it.
If you just open your hand and let it fall, it will fall, it will leave your hand,
but won’t have enough energy to be able to return, and therefore you are
missing the whole action of the yo-yo which is basically release, revolve,
extend, rewind, return, and things can go wrong at any of these points. But,
what is true about the yo-yo, is true about life. You have to be committed to
it. If you commit to it, you put energy behind the release then you are less
likely to have problems at the other points. You have to be committed to
extending yourself to have any real chance at succeeding, and that means we
have to move past any fear or trepidation about being beyond our safe zone.
Because nothing magic happens in our safe spot, there are no miracles in a safe
spot, we have to move beyond that, we have to extend ourselves, to see,
experience and participate in God’s miracles.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, think of that passage we heard from Mark this morning,
which is the first miracle that takes place in Mark and comes immediately, and
that’s a big word in Mark, after Jesus has called the first disciples. He says,
“come follow me”, and Simon, Andrew, James and John all immediately drop their
nets and follow Jesus. They throw themselves into this idea of discipleship,
committing themselves, putting their energy and their lives into extending
themselves beyond who they were and what they did to become disciples. They
could have just as easily staid on the sea of Galilee fishing. In fact, it
would have been even easier to have stayed where they were, but the responded
to the call and set out, and in that they are sort of like the Slinky Dog as we
talked about. And then they make their way to Capernaum, a city on the
northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee, maybe they’ve been there, maybe they
haven’t, but its certainly not their normal stomping grounds, nor Jesus’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then Jesus walks into the synagogue and
teaches with authority, which is perhaps an indicator that something different
is happening, something new. And one of the devotions I read by Rev. Steve
Garnaas-Holmes he said that perhaps the spirit causing the man the convulse and
cry out is the status quo fighting not to give up. He said, “power tightens
it’s grip. There are recriminations. Harsh words. Withdrawal symptoms. Letting
go of old habits, slipping torturous comforts, shedding false assurances, inner
bullies—they drag their hooks on the way out.” I think that’s not just a great thinking
about change, but also about what happens to us, personally and from others,
when we seek to move beyond out comfort zones and to take others with us,
because sometimes others will respond, and sometimes they want to dig in their
hooks and try and damage those who want to change. But this is also what Jesus
shows us just as the yo-yo does.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now when you throw a yo-yo down, when it meets the end of
the string, it can either come right back up or you can also make it stay
spinning at the end, which is known as sleeping. But you can only make it sleep
for so long. The world record for a sleep is an amazing 30 minutes 28 seconds.
But let’s name that’s the extreme outlier, you can be out there for a little
while but to keep the energy up, what do you have to do? Come back to the hand.
Jesus does the same thing, because what we see often is Jesus going out,
expending himself, his energy, his ministry, and then what does he do? He goes
off to a quite place by himself, or with a few disciples, and he prays and he
rests. He is 40 days in the wilderness before he begins his ministry, and after
today’s passage he will go to Simon’s house where he does a bunch of healing,
and then he goes off to the wilderness to be quiet, and pray and rest and
recover so that he can then go out and extend himself, give himself for others,
to spin back into the world. And so, the yo-yo is a great metaphor for that
moving beyond the ordinary, the stationary, extending yourself out, doing new
things, trying new ideas, going out into the world to encounter, and then
rewinding to return, again it’s release, revolve, extend, rewind, return. And
if you don’t do that you will run out of energy, burn yourself out and not
actually be able to lead or to do whatever it is that you are doing. You don’t
have the energy to be effective, and just this week the head coach of Liverpool
FC, which we would call a soccer team, who is one of the best coaches in the
world for that sport, besides for Ted Lasso, just said he was stepping down
because, in his words, he doesn’t have the energy to do the job right now and
so he’s taking a year off to recover. As a leader, or even as a follower, we
need to expend energy, but we have to have enough to come back to our safe spot,
not to burn ourselves out, so that we can then go out and do it again. Remember
the purpose is not just about extending ourselves forever, but being able to
continue again and again, which means resting in order to gain new energy to do
it again. So, we can’t stay in the safe space and we cannot stay in the place
that extends us forever, it’s about finding that balance.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Which leads me back to that graphic with which we started.
The problem with this graphic is that it seems to imply that these are linear,
straight lines. Everything leads to growth, or everything leads to decline.
Except that is not how things work right? The yo-yo shows us this too, and it’s
true in business, in leadership and in life. It looks more like this, with its
ups and downs. The problem is when things are going up, we tend to overlook the
down turns, and when things are going down we tend to overlook or discount when
things turn up. But the reality is we will have both, ups and downs, and we
have to be prepared for both, and recognize both, and live through both, and
learn what we can and take advantage of both.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But let me close with this last thing we can learn from the
yo-yo, and that is everyone starts at the same point of learning to throw it
down, release, revolve, extend, rewind, return, and then you might build from
there. Because let’s face it, just doing that over and over and over again can
get boring pretty quickly and then you either put it down and go off to
something else, or then you start to learn tricks. And how Flores and then
Duncan first helped sell yo-yos was by sending out people with tricks and
holding competitions, which means moving way past the basic of use of a yo-yo.
And so that means keeping our eyes up and open and paying attention to what
others are doing, and learning from them, and just about every yo-yo trick
starts with learning to sleep your yo-yo. And while there are definitely
things, tricks, you can learn yourself, walking the dog and around the world,
are not terribly complex, but others like rocking the baby or the Eifel tower,
which we showed on an earlier slide are much harder to do and involve learning
from others, of sitting at the feet of the masters as it were. And they take
practice and patience and more practice. So, it’s knowing what you don’t know
and being willing and able to admit it, which is a characteristic of all great
leaders, and when lacking a key in all terrible leaders. And then seeking out
those who can help to make you better, which is seeking our mentors<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mentoring is needed for leaders, no matter how long they’ve
been doing it, to be learning from others and then also to be passing that
knowledge on to future generations and simultaneously allowing those new
generations to do new things, to extend themselves in new ways and to do new
tricks which everyone can then learn from. I have been personally gifted by
several mentors in my ministerial career, and most of them have been women. My
last mentor retired and I miss that interchange, and so I’ve been looking for a
new mentor. But, I have also told the cabinet that if there is someone new or
newish to the ministry that you think I could help that I would definitely be
open to that, to pass on what was given to me and allow them to be better than
otherwise and also to learn some new tricks because the world and the church
have changed a lot in the last 20 years. And let me just say that you are never
too old to be a mentor, or perhaps too retired to be a mentor, because everyone
has something, some acquired knowledge, some new trick, they can teach others,
as well as knowing that no one is too old to be learning new tricks themselves
from others<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, what the yo-yo teaches us is the need to extend
ourselves by trying new things and being open to new ideas, of being creative
in what we do because miracles don’t happen in our safe spaces. But, we also
have to know the need for those safe spaces so that we don’t burn ourselves
out, spin all our energy out, so that we are not useful to anyone, including
ourselves. That the yo-yo is about release, revolve, extend, rewind and return.
So that we can then go out and do it again. And just like with most of these
toys, it’s better when we do it with others, watching and growing and learning
from others so that we can learn new things and be better, and then to also
pass that information on to others and to continue to learn from them. And that
takes work, trial and error, and practice, but when we do that, when we learn
to be miracle makers with God be being extended into the world, then the
Kingdom of God comes one step closer to being a reality. I pray that it will be
so my brothers and sisters.</p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-62454061795868972482024-01-22T20:14:00.002-07:002024-02-07T20:24:34.775-07:00Lego ConnectivityHere is my message from Sunday. The text was<div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Some of you know that besides for baseball and Star Wars I
also love Disneyland, although perhaps I should throw in that I love my family
as well. I follow several different people on YouTube to keep up with what’s
happening at Disneyland, when I have time to watch. One of them has been a
critic of Disney and its management, especially in their upkeep of the parks
and the way they compare against Disneyland Tokyo, which is considered the
cream of the crop. But their criticism is always done out of love; because they
love Disney and everything it represents they want to call out those things
that don’t match up to what they think the park can be, and in some ways, had
been. But, under prior executive leadership they were directly called out for reporting
a rumor they had ben told that Disney said was a lie, although it turned out
not to be. But, because of the animosity that came about, this group was cut
off from their press credentials in retaliation, which they took in stride,
including not lessening their criticism and also enthusiastic praise when they
thought it was deserved. But, now, under a new CEO, the communications
department recently reached out to set up a meeting with them to first
apologize for what happened, to reinstate their press credentials and also to
start a conversation about some things they might work on together. I wish I
would have known that last week because it could have worked great in thinking
about the lessons that the Slinky Dog teaches us about leadership, and that
just because people might be opposed to the direction, doesn’t mean they oppose
the organization, they just don’t like the direction and that’s when listening
to others can help make all of us better. But it also matches well with the
direction we go today, which is the lessons we can learn about life and
leadership from Lego®, and again credit is due to Michael Waddell and Ron
Hunter, Jr. for the ideas of this series.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQISx8iFGqBe1J5BITe0V_tJ1zAvUhjgvbZv3DggxbHksFwnfmRSotJdmYTlb6nwZncDWwklGTWUAl4etb_OINIIB6E5HtscDd7NK7lqSY_R1D2tiKtDQ5awUS5DDLiB2cn3Y6G6W2thp-gRpMFC7XiVEG90CbjoOjXnn0ItYLR6EC00uwCxTg2cyuvwg/s2000/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="2000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQISx8iFGqBe1J5BITe0V_tJ1zAvUhjgvbZv3DggxbHksFwnfmRSotJdmYTlb6nwZncDWwklGTWUAl4etb_OINIIB6E5HtscDd7NK7lqSY_R1D2tiKtDQ5awUS5DDLiB2cn3Y6G6W2thp-gRpMFC7XiVEG90CbjoOjXnn0ItYLR6EC00uwCxTg2cyuvwg/w400-h225/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" width="400" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, let me start with the fact that the Lego
organization treats Lego as the name whether we are talking about a singular or
multiple Lego®. It’s like sheep or deer, whether you have one or multiple, they
are the same, and the same with Lego®. Except, within the US, we have tendency
to add an s to make it Legos, and so I am going to try and respect Lego® in
their preference, but will probably invariably mess it up, so just keep that in
mind. Lego® is now the largest toy company in the word, having passed Mattel®
in 2015. And along with Play-Doh and the Etch-a-Sketch, which we’ve already
discussed, it too was inducted into the inaugural year of the National Toy Hall
of Fame, and was also named the toy of the century by Fortune Magazine, as well
as the British Association of Toy Retailers, and it has an interesting history.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a>
<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">They date somewhat back to 1932 when Ole Kirk Christiansen
opened a carpentry shop in Denmark making stepladders, ironing boards and
wooden toys. He named all the toys he made Lego® based upon the Danish words
Leg Godt which means “play well.” Unfortunately, his shop burned down in 1942,
I’m guessing as a result of the war, although I couldn’t find any confirmation
on that. But, instead of rebuilding and continuing to make toys out of wood, he
instead installed plastic-injection-molding machines to make his toys, and in
1949 introduced what he called the Automatic Building Brick, based upon
something he saw introduced by Kiddikraft in the UK. Christiansen saw what
became Lego® as simply building upon the idea of wooden building blocks, with
which he was familiar. This new toy was met with moderate success, but really
took off when it was patented in the United States in 1961.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since that first introduction, more than 600
billion Lego have been sold, with some 36,000 being molded every minute, and
just to give some other perspective, the Rubik’s Cube is considered the best-selling
toy of all time with 450 million units sold. And while Lego can bring a unique
perspective to play, every parent can also attest that there is a uniquely
special kind of pain that comes with stepping on a Lego® block in your bare
feet. And thus, they are also multi-purpose: a toy and a medieval torture
device.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the one thing about Lego® is that they need more than
one piece to be affective. One Lego® by itself is not very useful, and also not
really fun to play with. What did Three Dog Night say about the number one?
It’s the loneliest number, and then they also continued that two can be as bad
as one, it’s the loneliest number since the number one. And so, as we
experience a loneliness crisis in America, and this is true not just amongst
senior citizens because across all age groups, with 61% of people ages 18-25
saying they have experienced serious loneliness, which should be telling the
church something, what Lego® tell us, what they show us about life and
leadership is the need to connect. But not to connect peripherally, like two
ships passing in the night, but to connect intentionally. To choose to do it.
After all Jesus tells us, as his injunction to love, that we did not choose him
but he chose us. He chose to be connected to us, and then calls us for to
connect to others. So, we start with one block, no much fun, add another, and
we’re getting better, but still not much, because with two standard Lego®
blocks, of 2 rows with 8 pegs, there are 24 different ways to connect them
together. If you add three, now there are 1,060 different iterations. Now Lego®
used to say that there were 102,981,500 different ways to connect six standard
blocks together, but mathematician Soren Eilers wondered about the calculation
behind that and discovered that it only involved using all six at the same
time, so he created a new program modeling using all six, and sometimes using
less than six, and came up with the astounding number of 915,103,765
iterations. He then encourages others to try it, and a high school student
Mikkel Abrahamsen wrote their own program, using a different software, and came
up with the exact same number, and it turned out his method was actually better
than Eilers. And if you keep adding blocks it becomes exponentially higher, and
also harder to get as it took the programs a week to run the computation on
six. So, relationship is better, and just because different groups have the
same numbers doesn’t mean you get the same results, as they say about United
Methodists, if you have six United Methodists together you are bound to have at
least 8 different opinions. And that means we have to be open to those
iterations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of Lego® ad campaigns was that Lego® is a different toy
every single day. What you built yesterday doesn’t matter to what you can build
today. That is every day is a new day, what happened yesterday doesn’t matter,
and what comes tomorrow is yet to be decided. In lots of ways this is the idea
of Wesleyan grace and our idea of Christian perfection, that every moment is a
new opportunity to seek to live more like Christ, to put behind both our
failures and our successes that they don’t define us, and instead to focus on
this moment. And what this means for leaders is that these things are also not
defining for us. Just because that’s the way we did it before, the way we built
with the bricks before, doesn’t mean that’s what we have to do today, because
today is a new opportunity, and yesterday perhaps we needed to build a plane,
but today a house or a swing set is more appropriate, and we could also change
up the colors, or the size. With Lego®, in their basic form, nothing is set in
stone. Who here saw The Lego® Movie? Long story short, and 10-year-old spoiler
alert, it turns out that the story is about a boy who wants to play with his
dad’s Lego® sets, but his father wants to superglue them all together, which is
called Kragle in the film, and it’s this battle between flexibility and creativity
and play, versus structure and form and organization, of being locked into
place. And let’s just be clear that there is a place for both, but way too
often we default to the structure, and there are definitely people who want to
super glue things into place. That’s the tried and true, the way we’ve always
done things. And without some structure everything would be chaotic, and even
Lego® have structure, right? The locking is top and bottom, not on the side.
But when it’s all about structure, rather than having 915 million options you
only have a few or maybe even one, which is hugely limiting.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This past week I was at the conference office for several
meetings and one of them was to talk about the future of the New Mexico
conference and who we want to be, and what we want the future to be for us and
our boundaries and our connections. For the most part, those things are sort of
locked into place, with little ability to change, but with everything going on
in the church at the moment, there is a lot more play. Some of the Kragle has
been broken away allowing us to think in new ways and to look for new ways of
doing things and new ways of connecting. Now, I will be honest I have been
arguing for some of the things that we are considering for a while, while also
being told they would never happen because things were stuck. And we also have
to recognize other realities that we aren’t going to be able to connect with Minnesota
or Oregon, because those don’t make sense, there are limits to what can happen,
and Lego® knows that too. You can’t really build a curve with the standard
Lego® set. And sometimes the set itself limits what can be done, and if you
come into my office you’ll see lots of Lego® Star Wars, and they are set, and
when Lizzie wants to play with them there are times I would prefer that they
were Krageled together so she can’t take them apart. A time and a season for
everything.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Which leads to my last point for leadership and that is what
happens if you just throw a bunch of Lego® on the floor? Will they come
together to do anything? Will they magically form a great structure? No, of
course not. There is the potential for something, there is the potential for
connection, but without intentionality nothing will happen. Without someone
bringing them together and beginning to connect them, nothing will happen.
That’s where leadership comes into place, and you don’t even necessarily have
to have a plan, although having a plan is certainly better. But I know that
many of us had the experience of just starting out with the Lego® and start
putting them together and coming up with something, some creation, that never
would have been expected, and there is a definite place for that in leadership,
of brainstorming and seeing what all is possible before settling on something.
But Lego® also show us that at some point you have to choose a direction, a
shape, a form, and when you choose that you then eliminate other things. It
doesn’t mean they are eliminated forever, because tomorrow is a new day, with
new realities and new ways of doing things and if we get locked into that old
structure it is liable to collapse on us because it’s no longer realistic or
effective. And so Lego® show us that we can change and start again.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And what makes Lego® work is the simple structure and the
connection, and that is true for us as well. Jesus says to abide in his love,
just as he, and his love abide in us. One block connecting to another, and then
to build upon that, we are to love one another. And I will note that it doesn’t
say like each other, but to love one another, which is not a feeling but a way
of being. Again, the definition I like comes from Augustine who says that it is
to will the good for another. To connect with them to build something, more,
something better than ourselves, to build the beloved community. A Lego® by
itself, doesn’t do anything, isn’t a part of anything, it can’t bear fruit. But
together, by binding together, and connecting together, and growing together
and living together, by being a part of the vine, then not only can we bear
fruit, but we can bear abundant fruit. And honestly this should be something
that the church should excel at. There are lots of things that are wrong with
the church, and ways we should be called out, but community should not be one
of them. As Carey Nieuwohf has said, “nobody should be able to out-community
the church.” And why? Because we are called to love; not those we like, not
those who are like us, not those who we want to be around, but all. And the
truth is in the ways that we fall short of this, is the ways we fall short of
the glory of God. If we loved like Jesus, if we loved as Jesus calls us to
love, if we built connection like Lego®, people would be lining up outside our
doors to be involved, although to be that connection we shouldn’t be waiting
for them to come to us, we should be going to them to make those connections,
to build those relationships, to love on the world so that we can in turn build
the beloved community, to build the Kingdom of God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A Lego® finds its value in its relationship to other Lego®,
and the same is true for us. We are called to be in relationship with others;
we are called to be connected to others; we are called to love others. And when
we come together, when we are given that vision of who we could be, or when we
play around to create a new vision, then we are working together to be
something more than ourselves and more than what we can be by ourselves. While
there are times in which we might want to lock a Lego® structure into place, we
also need to remember the need sometimes to recreate, of the possibility of
changing, of creating something new every day. And that last piece comes not
just from building with Lego®, but from the Lego® creator himself. After his
warehouse burned down, Chriastensen could have rebuilt and gone back to being a
carpenter and building toys out of wood. But instead, he changed, and he
changed radically, and because of that change, he changed the world. He taught
us a new way to play well, to make connections, and perhaps to love well. Jesus
says, abide in me as I abide in you, be connected to me as I am connected to
you, like a Lego®, and in turn love others, be connected to them in order to
build something new, something better, something more than ourselves, to build
and to be the beloved community by following God’s commandment that we love one
another, and by this we will be known as his disciples. I pray that it will be
so my brothers and sisters. Amen.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-4935990005700897482024-01-15T20:18:00.002-07:002024-02-07T20:24:50.972-07:00Slinky Dog Leadership<p> Here is my message from Sunday. The scripture was</p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Most of you are old enough, or perhaps I might say seasoned
enough, to remember the Tylenol poisonings in 1982. Just a quick refresher,
someone added cyanide to Tylenol pills in the Chicago area, which killed seven
people. In the immediate aftermath there was much conversation about what to
do. The FDA actually recommended to Johnson and Johnson that they only recall
the pills in the Chicago area, and were opposed to a nationwide recall to try
and keep the country from panicking. Members of the board wondered if perhaps
it could be more targeted in order to keep the economic income down, and many
predicted the end of Tylenol as a brand, and perhaps even the end of Johnson
& Johnson. But instead of following that advice, the CEO, believing in the
first line of their credo, “We believe our first responsibility is to the
patients, doctors and nurses, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our
products and services.” And so, the CEO instead recalled Tylenol from around
the country, as well as working with the media to issue emergency warnings,
which then led to new safety standards for bottles, amongst other things. Their
response is now studied for leadership principles in times of crisis.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24lOEaILADzI0MT0yxCeZ8rIZuVFg3FWkrtX1x4-ECa6VoqqD0lj7ZHOo-XJYmXaiY8hVPVegItfHR2cWm4f3Q2MkpQMi_jD1Q81f5PatjLSx8tnrjo6BZsoO5wJ16kHVIOF2y29aeIZEcGlPG_74ZhQx_T7HNRlbpDFLaVdByrd2NoIwtNvV6OW3t2g/s2000/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="2000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24lOEaILADzI0MT0yxCeZ8rIZuVFg3FWkrtX1x4-ECa6VoqqD0lj7ZHOo-XJYmXaiY8hVPVegItfHR2cWm4f3Q2MkpQMi_jD1Q81f5PatjLSx8tnrjo6BZsoO5wJ16kHVIOF2y29aeIZEcGlPG_74ZhQx_T7HNRlbpDFLaVdByrd2NoIwtNvV6OW3t2g/w400-h225/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" width="400" /></a></div> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ve been thinking about that example in this past week in
comparing it against the way that Boeing has responded to their current crisis
with the loss, basically, of a door during flight from one of their planes, on
top of their crisis in losing two similar planes to crashes several years ago
in which they tried to blame everyone but themselves. But this week the CEO of
Boeing said that they supported the FAA’s decision to ground these models until
they found out what went wrong. But, my thought was why did they need the FAA
to take this action for them; why didn’t they ground the planes themselves and
have the FAA agree with their decision? Leadership is hard, but sometimes we
know the right decision and what to do, to be out front, even if we might have
to pull others along with us, being proactive, which is what Johnson &
Johnson did, versus being pushed to do the right thing, being reactive, which
is what Boeing appears to be doing.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so with that, we continue in our series Toy Box
Leadership looking at lessons of leadership and life that we can learn from
classic toys with which many of us grew up, or for some it might have been toys
with which your children grew up. And again, I’m indebted to Ron Hunter, Jr and
Michael Waddell for the idea. Last week we looked at Play-Doh and the call to
be molded and formed in the right ways, in order to do the right things, which
for us as Christians begins with baptism. And today we move on to the
slink-dog, which was popularized by the Toy Story movies. Now the more familiar
classic slinky was designed by Richard James, a mechanical engineer in the Navy
when he was working on a method to measure horsepower in battleships when a
tension spring fell of his desk, and then rather than hitting the floor and
stopping, it instead started “walking” the way slinkies do across the floor. He
immediately saw the possibility for a unique toy, and invented a machine to
coil wire into a two-inch spiral. Initially sales were sluggish until Gimbels
Department Store, the other one in Miracle on 34th Street, allowed demonstrations
to be held during Christmas 1945, and the rest is history with some 250 million
slinkies having been sold since then. It was James’ wife Betty, who came up
with the idea for Slinky Dog in 1952. She also came up with the name slinky,
which means sinuous in Swedish. I’m sure that all our physicists already know
this, but slinkies follow what is known as Hooke’s Law, which says that when an
elastic body is placed under stress, that its shape will change in proportion
to the applied stress, and for slinky dog, when it changes shape and becomes
longer and sleeker, it will eventually stretch enough to cause it to slink back
together to return to its original shape. And thus, the magic isn’t really
magic at all, it’s science and to be expected. And the same is true for us and
leaders around issues of change.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, the first thing to know about the slinky dog is the
rope at the front. Without the rope she won’t work, and the same is true for
leadership. To be a leader you have to take the rope of leadership, or more
colloquially, take the reigns of leadership, and if you aren’t willing to do
that, then you shouldn’t step into a leadership position. And I will note that
not only are there seasons for leadership, and that might not be the season you
are in, but there are different types and roles for leadership, and one might
be the right fit for you and another one might be a terrible fit for you, and
those places can change over time. So, you have to take the rope and then you
have to be willing to pull the rope in order to get people, or the
organization, or whatever it is that you are leading moving. I’m sure that most
of us have been under a leader who refused, for whatever reason, to actually do
anything, and sometimes there is something said for that. But usually that’s
not actually being a leader, that’s more being a seat occupier. Because, as
Proverbs says, without a vision, the people will perish. And so, to be a
leader, you have to lead, which means you have to be pulling people towards
something else, some vision and direction, and the pulling part is crucial. You
cannot push the slinky dog; it simply won’t work. In fact, it will push its
head down and collapse. It has to be pulled, and so the same it true with
groups. You cannot lead from behind, you have to get out and pull.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now is it possible to pull in the wrong way, or the wrong
direction? Yes, and there will be people who will try and pull at the tail end,
although this will usually be people who are trying to resist everything and
trying to keep everything where it is, or even worse, trying to pull it back to
where it once was, and we’ll come back to that in a moment. But it’s even
possible to pull at the front in the wrong direction, and just about every
leader has made that mistake at one point or another, but when a leader is
listening and communicating at their best, going in the wrong direction is much
harder to do. But when you pull the slinky dog, the front will start moving,
but what happens to the back legs? They stay where they are, and so with any
movement forward, any giving of a new vision, or even still working on an older
vision and moving forward, there are going to be people who don’t want to move.
And so, you have to expect that’s going to be the case. All of us will fight
change, depending upon what it is, although most of the time it’s not the
change we are having a problem with, but instead it’s the sense of loss over
what’s being changed. And then there are the resistance because it goes against
what we expect or desire.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We see that in today’s gospel passage. There are lots of
books written about the leadership principles of Jesus, although honestly, I
think most of them are a little foolish and sometimes self-serving, but we can
certainly see some of this today. In the passage immediately before what we
heard, Jesus calls two of John the Baptist’s disciples to come and follow him,
and one of them is Andrew who then calls his brother Simon, who is then renamed
Peter. Jesus takes the rope, and pulls on it, pulling new people forward, who
then lead others. Then Jesus calls to Phillip, “Follow me,” and he does and
then Phillip calls to Nathaniel to follow telling him they have found the
Messiah and he says “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” That is,
Nathaniel is not responding to this call. He’s digging in his heals a little
bit, resisting the pull of the front of the slinky dog and keeping the back end
where it is. And you can hear the bias he is expressing not just to Nazareth
right, but to everyone who is from that place. Have we ever made a statement
like that against someone? Deciding against them not based on anything really
doing with them, but instead with some characteristic about them? Because,
after all, we know all about those people, right? But, Phillip tugs on the rope
a little harder, a little more, causing the backend to release and catch-up and
then Nathaniel meets Jesus and becomes convinced. Now what would have happened
if Phillip hadn’t tugged a little harder? Or what if Nathaniel had decided he
just wasn’t going to go? What would have been missed? And so, the same is true
in leadership.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are times in which you will pull, set a vision, and
some people won’t follow. Now if no one follows then you’ve got a serious
problem, because then you’re not leading, you’re just out walking by yourself,
and one of the biggest things that can happen is that you can get so far out in
front, so far out on the limb that they cut the limb off behind you, and
sometimes that’s even when you are doing what they asked you to do. And if a
slinky gets pulled that far the coils will get damaged and never go back
together again, and usually that’s on the leader. The leader has to pull and
pull hard enough and far enough to get movement and to pull people out of their
comfort zones, which Jesus definitely does time and time again. And again, know
that while there will be some early adopters and those who are gung ho who will
go with you, but that some will still stay behind. And there is nothing with
that in and of itself, but the difference is the why and the how. This is where
the leader can’t give up on pulling and think that they are never going to move
and so we have to go back to them until they are ready. When the Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested in Birmingham for his activities there, he
received a letter from eight white clergy arguing in opposition to what he was
doing, and I will note that two of those were Methodist Bishops, and on the
other side King received his Ph.D. from a Methodist seminary. One of the things
they argued was to give people time to adjust and make the decisions that Dr.
King was calling for, to which King responded in his now famous Letter from a
Birmingham Jail, in which he says that there has never been a “well-timed”
social action movement, but that more importantly the “’wait’ has almost always
meant ‘never.’” And so, you have to know why people are resisting and listen to
what they have to say.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are sometimes very legitimate reasons why people don’t
want to move, and if you listen you can learn more, communicate better and even
make changes as needed in order to pull people along with you. And if you are
resisting you can play a role in this too, and not simply to complain and tell
others why they are wrong and why you are right. At another church we were
working on making a fairly significant change, and while I fully supported it I
was not the one doing the pulling because I wanted and needed the congregation
to own it and make it their own. But a member of the congregation whom I liked
and respected came to me to talk about it. I knew that he wasn’t a supporter of
it, but he said if this is going to happen then you need to be the main puller
and then he told me how he thought it could be made better. Remember he was
opposed, but he was telling me how to improve the idea and how to get it
passed. In the end he ended up voting in favor of the motion, and I had even
more more respect for him after that. And sometimes it simply takes time
because when you pull the slinky dog, the back end stays where it ends, but
then will quickly catch up, as it springs forward, so be patient and don’t give
up because you get resistance.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And you also have to know that some resistance is simply
because they want to be contrary, they want to be the metaphorical tail end of
the animal. I’m sure that most of us, if not all of us, have known someone who
is just fundamentally opposed to any changes or new things that are proposed,
and seek to make sure that everyone knows they are opposed. And if that’s you,
just a friendly request not to do that. Now there is nothing with being opposed
to things, but being opposed either just to be opposed, or because you are
opposed to all change, or to whom is proposing it is not helpful to anyone. And
what leaders have to know, which is a little different than what the slinky dog
knows, is that some people are just never going to come along. But, I will also
note that it’s never too late to spring forward to catch up to the changes. And
I think that’s what Nathaniel does, although his springing forward happens very
quickly, at least as it’s reported to us, and because of that, of answering the
call, the pull of leadership, of discipleship in this case, it changes his
life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so what the slinky dog teaches us about leadership is
the need to first grab a hold of the rope of leadership, then to be able to
cast a vision, and communicate that vision, in order to pull the organization,
or group, or even one person forward, and then to pull strong enough to work to
change but not too hard that you get too far ahead or damage the coil, and then
to be patient and wait for the back end to catch up, and then to do it all over
again. It’s also to know that there will be some who are opposed, and not to be
afraid of their reaction so much that you stop leading, and to know that some
will catch up and buy-in, and some never will, and that’s just the nature of
it. Because while we hear the stories of those who answered the call of Jesus,
how many others didn’t, but that never stopped Jesus and his ministry, and he
certainly didn’t give up simply because people opposed him and his ministry.
But what the slinky dog also teaches us is that all the parts are important.
The head needs the tail end as much as the tail end needs the head, and it also
needs all the coils in between. It takes the tension of moving forward and the
hesitation of the backend that keeps it all going and making it work. The
leader and the pull are important, but they are only one portion of the whole
thing, and without all the parts then the slinky dog can’t work, but when we
all work together, when we all communicate, when we all listen, and when we are
all patient with each other then we can all be the body of Christ and work to
do the work that God has called us to, to answer that call and spring forward
into God’s kingdom. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-59425026571958563022024-01-08T20:22:00.001-07:002024-02-07T20:23:55.560-07:00Play Doh FormationHere is my message from Sunday. The text was<div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Today we begin a new worship series that will take us to
Lent looking at what toys can teach us about leadership and life. I wasn’t
really sure what I was going to be doing for the beginning of the year, and so
was talking with Phillip if there was something that would be helpful for our
faith development activities, and he said that we might look at our goals. One
of our goals is to build up our leadership, and I had in my list of potential
worship series ideas a note about a book I read a long time ago called Toy Box
Leadership, and to let you know how long ago, they use Blockbuster Video as an
example of a company facing a leadership challenges, and they say that the
decisions they make will decide if they survive or not, and we now all know how
that ended. And so, I am indebted to that book and its authors Ron Hunter and
Michael Waddell for providing the inspiration. And with that, today we begin
with one of the staples of childhood, Play-Doh®, which was inducted in the
inaugural class into the National Play Hall of Fame, whose museum in Rochester,
NY, is absolutely fabulous if you ever get up that way to visit.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp34iRhOCFjwHAlMjfZ-Rq-7wJ4v_Qw33t43gAL3kG-kOK31XWV_kbm1_8zzwCTkLw68G8oEC9-qIcX5ZVcAH6YooMwa1Kq5t-Qlc4F0GbkItOTp6PY14COoheqk7G8vyGrwel0O-iLqrpaZY8CvzhfQSz_h5RtjdFuSRWeFZGCMLLdFsuY0urOF9AF9o/s2000/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="2000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp34iRhOCFjwHAlMjfZ-Rq-7wJ4v_Qw33t43gAL3kG-kOK31XWV_kbm1_8zzwCTkLw68G8oEC9-qIcX5ZVcAH6YooMwa1Kq5t-Qlc4F0GbkItOTp6PY14COoheqk7G8vyGrwel0O-iLqrpaZY8CvzhfQSz_h5RtjdFuSRWeFZGCMLLdFsuY0urOF9AF9o/w400-h225/Toy%20Sermon%20Series%20Art%20(Final%2016x9).png" width="400" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now I have to say that of all the toys we will look at, Play-Doh®,
is my least favorite, at least as an adult. When our children get Play-Doh®,
which they invariably do, I sort of bow my head and think, oh great, thanks.
Not because Play-Doh® isn’t great, because it is and I enjoyed it as a child,
but it’s the fact that we end of with little pieces of dried Play-Doh® that end
up all over the house, which then have to be cleaned up and invariably I’m
still finding it in strange places days later. And so, I guess, it’s sort of
ironic then that that is exactly the thing with which we are starting because
of what Play-Doh® and baptism and leadership all sort of have in common with
each other, and I bet you never thought of that combination before.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Play-Doh came about for Christmas 1954 when Kay Zufall, who
ran a nursery school discovered that it you shaped the claylike substance that
was used to clean wallpaper into ornaments, and then let it dry, you could then
have the children decorate them to present to their parents. Her families loved
it. And so, she told her brother-in-law who owned a wallpaper cleaning company
that the compound made great toys, and after a new recipe was created to remove
the detergents, Play-Doh was born. And I will note that the substance as a
cleaner had been around for more than 20 years before that. Today, more than
100 million cans of it sold every year in 60 different colors. And the
distinctive smell is so popular that in was bottled as a perfume for it’s 50th
anniversary. But there are several key pieces for us to know about Play-Doh®
that are examples for us to learn from.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first is that Play-Doh® depends upon its malleability,
or moldability, to be useful. If it’s left out of the can, then it becomes
dried and usually gets thrown away, even if it’s been molded or shaped into
something else, eventually it’s going in the trash. And the same metaphor can
be used with us. We too have to remain open to change and being shaped, if
nothing else, to being shaped by the movement of the Spirit. When we get locked
into shape and dry there so that we can no longer be affected or changed or
modified or shaped into something else, when we are no longer open to new ideas
or new ways of doing things, then we are invariably going to run into trouble,
and probably also make trouble for others because of rigidness will become a
liability rather than an asset or benefit. And again, at the very least, that
hardness of heart or mind or soul, whatever it might be, will keep us from
being able to experience the movement of the Spirit and to be able to answer
new calls that God might have on our lives. We have to be remain pliable for
new movement. And I did learn this week of ways to get dried Play-Doh to be malleable
again, just as a reminder the same is true for us; old dogs can learn new
tricks. And yet, the same pliability and ability to be shaped are also where we
need to be careful, and where the idea of baptism comes into play as we
celebrate today the baptism of the Lord and we will remember our own baptismal
vows in a few moments.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, for us, baptism is foundational and formational. No one
is born a Christian, and becoming a Christian is not about believing the right
thing, or saying the right prayer, the tradition of the church is that we
become Christians in the waters of baptism. This is our initiation right. And
it is this that forms us as Christians as well, for it is what makes us a new
creation in Christ, it pushes off the old form, and gives us the new form. But,
it doesn’t mean we are going to stay that way, because if we seek something
else, then we will take on that shape. So, for example, if we put our Play-Doh®
into a dinosaur mold, what form will it take? A dinosaur, but if we want to be
shaped as a dog can we do it in this mold? No. Similarly if you take the Play-Doh®
shaped as a dinosaur and then put it into a dog shape, what’s going to happen?
It will become a dog, right? Just like the old saying that you are what you
eat, so to do you become what you associate with. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Most of you know that my wife Linda is an addict, who will
have 30 years clean this year, and one of the things that people who are
seeking to get clean get told is that they have to stop associating with the
people with whom you used to use. If you surround yourself with people who are
using drugs and alcohol, the greater tendency is for you to use as well. It’s
the culture that forms us. The people and things and thoughts that surround us,
are what mold us. If you are surrounding yourself with people who acting
unethically, guess what you are more likely to do yourself? As we think about
New Year’s resolutions, if you want to start working out, or losing weight, or
reading more, or not smoking, then you need to be hanging around people and
being friends with those who are doing those things. And if you friends do the
opposite of those things, then you have a much greater rate of doing them as
well. We take the shape and form of the things we are around, they become the
mold to our Play-Doh®. And so similarly, if you surround yourself with hate,
with violence, with demeaning language, with racism or xenophobia or misogyny,
with retaliation, with bullying, with fear, with harassment, with alarm, with
anxiety, and especially if you are following leaders who are doing and
promoting those things, then you will become these things, and you will say
them and act on them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We take the shape and form of those people, ideas and
thoughts with which we surround ourselves. So, if instead, you want to an agent
of love, then you have to be around people who love. If you want to live in
forgiveness, you have to be amongst people who forgive. If you want to live in
peace, you have to be with peacemakers. If you want to be humble, you have to
be with those who know humility. If you want baptism to mold you, then you have
to be with people for whom baptism is the foundational and formational event in
their lives, and who live as forgiven and reconciled people being that new
creation of Christ in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For us
as Christians, we need to make sure that our baptisms are the mold, the form,
the shape we use to help us to be whom God has called us to be.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And let me close with this one last thought. As I said, Play-Doh®
comes in 60 different colors. But, is there any difference between green or red
or blue or purple Play-Doh®? Other than the color, they are exactly the same.
And you can create something only using green Play-Doh®, but is that really all
that exciting? If you want to create a rainbow all in one color, not all that
great. You need to have more colors present. But here’s the thing about Play-Doh®.
Once you mix them it’s really hard to get them separated again, and sometimes
it’s impossible. Now there are people who want to complain about his, who will
say that this mixing poisons the colors, that it just dilutes it all, but maybe
that’s exactly the point. When Lizzie asked to play with her Play-Doh® on
Friday, I pulled it out of the jar for her, and it was that mixed together
color and I mentioned this, and she said, “that’s the way I like it.” Out of
the mouths of babes. So what Paul tells us is that in Christ there is no longer
slave or free, Greek or Jew, male and female, for we are all baptized into the
one body, for we are all one in Christ, who is all and is in all.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Baptism is the foundational act of becoming a Christian, and
it is the formational act of being a Christian. It is in the water of baptism
that we die to our old selves and are reborn, that we are forgiven of our sin
and reconciled with God, that we are adopted by God and made heirs of the
promise, that we receive the power of the Holy Spirit, that we become one in
the body of Christ, the church, and made one with each other for there is only
one Spirit, one body, one Lord, one faith and one baptism, and so in our
baptism may we be like Play-Doh® and be formed, shaped and molded into the
people that God has called us to be. I pray that it will be so my brothers and
sisters. Amen. And now I invite you to stand as you are comfortable as we
reaffirm our baptismal vows.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-84129633326414737332024-01-01T17:14:00.001-07:002024-03-07T17:20:31.845-07:00Books I Read in 2023These are the books I read in 2023. I would recommend most, and the one I would definately not is marked as such. (This is more for my records than anything.<div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>1776 by David McCullough</li><li>A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel</li><li>A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain</li><li>A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen</li><li>A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over
America and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan</li><li>A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a
Faith by Timothy Egan</li><li>A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson</li><li>Advent Conspiracy: Making Christmas Meaningful by Rick McKinley</li><li>After You by Jojo Moyes</li><li>American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 by Cameron McWhirter</li><li>American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert
Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin Sherman</li><li>Angrynomics by Eric Lonergan</li><li>Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End by Bart
Ehrman</li><li>Books by Larry McMurtry</li><li>Breaking the Code by Bruce Metzger</li><li>Can I Get a Witness: Reading Revelation Through African American
Culture by Brian K. Blount</li><li>Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko</li><li>Chocolat by Joanne Harris</li><li>Church and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom by Thomas E. Ricks</li><li>Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump by Rick Reilly</li><li>Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer
Success by Ron Friedman</li><li>Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics by Dolly Parton</li><li>Dress Grey by Lucian K. Truscott IV</li><li>Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America's Role in the
World by Robert D. Kaplan</li><li>Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair that Shaped a First Lady by
Susan Quinn</li><li>Empire Falls by Richard Russo</li><li>Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens by Steve Olson</li><li>Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing
Flight to freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero by Stephan Talty</li><li>Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo</li><li>Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis
Chin</li><li>Experiencing Forgiveness by Charles Stanley</li><li>Facing the Mountain: A true Story of Japanese American Heroes in
World War II by Daniel James Brown</li><li>Fatal North: Murder and Survival on the First North Pole
Expedition by Bruce Henderson</li><li>Finding God in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: A Spiritual Exploration of
the Star Wars Saga by Timothy Paul Jones</li><li>Finding Me by Viola Davis</li><li>Forgive for Good: A Proven Proscription for Health and Happiness
by Fred Luskin</li><li>Forgive for Love: The Missing Ingredient for a Healthy and Lasting
Relationship by Fred Luskin</li><li>Forgive: How Can I and Why Should I? by Timothy J. Keller</li><li>Forgiveness: A Lenten Study by Marjorie J. Thompson</li><li>Forgiveness: Finding Peace Through Letting Go by Adam Hamilton</li><li>Full Dress Grey by Lucian K. Truscott IV</li><li>G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by
Beverly Gage</li><li>God's Ex-Girlfriend: A Memoir About Loving and Leaving the
Evangelical Jesus by Gloria Beth Amodeo</li><li>Headhunters on My Doorstep: A True Treasure Island Ghost Story by
Maarten J. Troost</li><li>How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th Century Pagan by
Mortimer J. Adler</li><li>Into the Canyon: Seven Years in Navajo Country by Lucy Moore</li><li>Julia: A Retelling of Orwell's 1984 by Sandra Newman</li><li>Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell</li><li>Lead Like it Matters: 7 Leadership Principles for a Church that
Lasts by Craig Groeschel</li><li>Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry</li><li>Lost Horizon by James Hilton</li><li>Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah</li><li>Me Before You by Jojo Moyes</li><li>Mecca by Susan Straight</li><li>Midnight Sun by James Dommek, Jr.</li><li>Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders
to Better Understand the Bible by Randolph E. Richards</li><li>Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies
About Our Past edited by Kevin Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer</li><li>Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southward</li><li>Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo</li><li>Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica
Bruder</li><li>Not in it to Win It: Why Choosing Sides Sidelines the Church by
Andy Stanley</li><li>Party Out of Bounds: The B-52s, R.E.M. and the Kids Who Rocked
Athens, Georgia by Roger Brown</li><li>Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond</li><li>Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians got Dumber and
Dumber by Andy Borowitz</li><li>Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness by
Michael J. Gorman</li><li>Return of the Jedi: From a Certain Point of View by Various</li><li>Revelation and the End of All Things by Craig R. Koester</li><li>Revelation: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of
Revelation by Elaine Pagels</li><li>Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who
Made Man's First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson</li><li>Secrets Kids Know… That Adults Outta Learn by Allen Klein</li><li>Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane</li><li>Somebody's Fool by Richard Russo</li><li>Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival
and New Beginnings edited by Reyna Grande</li><li>Stallion Gate by Martin Cruz Smith</li><li>Still Me by Jojo Moyes</li><li>Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry</li><li>Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them by
Elliott G. Morris</li><li>Suder: A Novel by Percival Everett</li><li>Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho</li><li>Th Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World by Diamonds,
deceit and Desire by Tom Zoellner</li><li>The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of
Civilization by Roland Ennos</li><li>The Armor of Light by Ken Follett</li><li>The Art of War by Sun Tzu</li><li>The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and
Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb by Sam Kean</li><li>The Child Who Never Grew by Pearl S. Buck</li><li>The Christmas Train by David Baldacci</li><li>The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies by Aziz Z. Huq</li><li>The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by
Daniel Coyle</li><li>The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge
and Why it Matters by Thomas M. Nichols</li><li>The Deconstructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the
Republican Party by Dana Millbank</li><li>The Exchange by John Grisham</li><li>The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz</li><li>The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media and
Technology Success of our Time by David A. Vise</li><li>The Gospel According to Star Wars: Faith, Hope and the Force by
John C. McDowell</li><li>The Great Hurricane: 1938 by Cherie Burns</li><li>The Imaginary Girlfriend by John Irving</li><li>The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry</li><li>The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda was Found, Her
Descendants and an Extraordinary Reckoning by Ben Raines</li><li>The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston</li><li>The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks</li><li>The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon by Todd Zwillich</li><li>The Manhattan Project Trinity Test: Witnessing the Bomb in New
Mexico by Elva K. Osterreich</li><li>The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks</li><li>The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson (do not recommend)</li><li>The Old Man and the Gun: And Other True Tales of Crime by David
Grann</li><li>The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in
America by Andres Resendez</li><li>The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstadter</li><li>The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God's Mercy by
Timothy Keller</li><li>The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation
by Barbara R. Rossing</li><li>The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by
Janet Wallach</li><li>The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams by Seth Godin</li><li>The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach
to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson</li><li>The Trees by Percival Everett</li><li>The Undercover Economist Strikes Back: How to Run or Ruin an
Economy by Tim Harford</li><li>The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead</li><li>The Wager: A Story of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann</li><li>The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing
Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income is Our Future by Andrew Yang</li><li>The Way of Forgiveness: Letting Go, Easing Stress and Building
Strength by D. Patrick Miller</li><li>The White Darkness by David Grann</li><li>The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the
Battle over American History by Jill Lepore</li><li>The World According to Star Wars by Cass Sustein</li><li>Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges</li><li>Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume</li><li>Toy Box Leader: Leadership Lessons from the Toys Your Loved as a
Child by Ron Hunter, Jr. and Michael Waddell</li><li>Train: Riding the Rails that Created the Modern World from the
Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief by Tom Zoellner</li><li>Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck</li><li>Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy by
Nathaniel Philbrick</li><li>Trust by Hernan Diaz</li><li>Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert</li><li>Upside-Down Apocalypse: Grounding Revelation in the Gospel of
Peace by Jeremy Duncan</li><li>Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America by
Stephen F. Knott</li><li>Waterloo: The True Story of Four Days, Three Armies and Three
Battles by Bernard Cornwell</li><li>Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew
Walker</li><li>Wonder by R.J. Palacio</li><li>You Don’t Own me: The Court Battles That Exposed Barbie's Dark
Side by Orly Lobel</li></ul><o:p></o:p><p></p>
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<div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-11556100797762044902023-09-20T17:07:00.001-06:002023-09-20T17:07:27.982-06:00United Methodist Hymnal Songs from RevelationThis is a list of songs found in <i>The United Methodist Hymnal</i> (1989) based on passages from Revelation. I don't know that this list is complete as the list at the back does not include hymns like <i>Marching to Zion</i> or <i>Battle Hymn of the Republic</i>, which do refer to passages from Revelation. If you know others I have missed please let me know.<br />
<br />
<b>By Hymn Number:<i></i></b><br />
64 – Holy, Holy, Holy (4:8-11)<br />
181 – Ye Servants of God (7:9-12)<br />
325 – Hail Thou Once Despised Jesus (4:2-11)<br />
327 – Crown Him with Many Crowns (19:12)<br />
350 – Come, All of You (22:17)<br />
383 – This is a Day of New Beginnings (21:5)<br />
428 – For the Healing of the Nations (21:1-22:5)<br />
623 – Here, O My Lord, I See Thee (19:6-9)<br />
626 – Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent (4 -- communion)<br />
655 – Fix Me Jesus (6:11; 7:9-14)<br />
674 – See the Morning Sun Ascending (5:11-14; 7:11-12)<br />
638 – This is the Feast of Victory (5:12-13 – communion)<br />
706 – Soon and Very Soon (21:3-4)<br />
717 – Battle Hymn of the Republic (14:14-20; 19:1, 14-16; 20:11-12)<br />
718 – Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending (1:7)<br />
719 – My Lord What a Morning (6:12-17)<br />
722 – I Want to be Ready (21:2, 16)<br />
723 – Shall We Gather at the River (22:1-5)<br />
726 – O Holy City, Seen of John (21:1-22:5)<br />
732 – Come We that Love the Lord<br />
733 – Marching to Zion<br />
734 – Canticle of Hope (22:1-6, 23-24; 22:5, 12, 20<br />
<br />
<b>Alphabetical:<i></i></b><br />
Battle Hymn of the Republic (14:14-20; 19:1, 14-16; 20:11-12) – 717<br />
Canticle of Hope (22:1-6, 23-24; 22:5, 12, 20) – 734<br />
Come, All of You (22:17) – 350<br />
Come We that Love the Lord – 732<br />
Crown Him with Many Crowns (19:12) – 327<br />
Fix Me Jesus (6:11; 7:9-14) – 655<br />
For the Healing of the Nations (21:1-22:5) – 428<br />
Hail Thou Once Despised Jesus (4:2-11) – 325<br />
Here, O My Lord, I See Thee (19:6-9) – 623<br />
Holy, Holy, Holy (4:8-11) – 64<br />
I Want to be Ready (21:2, 16) – 722<br />
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent (4 -- communion) – 626<br />
Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending (1:7) – 718<br />
My Lord What a Morning (6:12-17) – 719<br />
Marching to Zion – 733<br />
O Holy City, Seen of John (21:1-22:5) – 726<br />
See the Morning Sun Ascending (5:11-14; 7:11-12) – 674<br />
Shall We Gather at the River (22:1-5) – 723<br />
>Soon and Very Soon (21:3-4) – 706<br />
This is a Day of New Beginnings (21:5) – 383<br />
This is the Feast of Victory (5:12-13 – communion) – 638<br />
Ye Servants of God (7:9-12) – 181<br />
<br />
<b>By Scripture Reference:<i></i></b><br />
Come We that Love the Lord – 732<br />
Marching to Zion – 733<br />
<br />
Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending (1:7) – 718<br />
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent (4 -- communion) – 626<br />
Holy, Holy, Holy (4:8-11) – 64<br />
Hail Thou Once Despised Jesus (4:2-11) – 325<br />
See the Morning Sun Ascending (5:11-14; 7:11-12) – 674<br />
This is the Feast of Victory (5:12-13 – communion) – 638<br />
Fix Me Jesus (6:11; 7:9-14) – 655<br />
My Lord What a Morning (6:12-17) – 719<br />
Ye Servants of God (7:9-12) – 181<br />
Battle Hymn of the Republic (14:14-20; 19:1, 14-16; 20:11-12) – 717<br />
Crown Him with Many Crowns (19:12) – 327<br />
Here, O My Lord, I See Thee (19:6-9) – 623<br />
For the Healing of the Nations (21:1-22:5) – 428<br />
I Want to be Ready (21:2, 16) – 722<br />
O Holy City, Seen of John (21:1-22:5) – 726<br />
Soon and Very Soon (21:3-4) – 706<br />
This is a Day of New Beginnings (21:5) – 383<br />
Canticle of Hope (22:1-6, 23-24; 22:5, 12, 20) – 734<br />
Shall We Gather at the River (22:1-5) – 723<br />
Come, All of You (22:17) – 350<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-81702571473677658722023-08-28T12:10:00.003-06:002023-08-28T12:10:55.145-06:00How Do I Pray?Here is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=560246220">Luke 11:1-13</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal">I remember sitting next to my mother one day during worship.
I don’t remember how old I was, but I think I was pretty young, and everyone
started saying the Lord’s Prayer and I asked her how she knew it, and she
responded with something like “it’s just something you learn.” That memory
stands out for me for a couple of reasons. One being that it taught me that
there were things that happened in church and you just had to pick them up,
through repetition I was guessing. And the second is that it is probably my
earliest memory having anything to do with prayer, and in this case a prayer
that everyone says together, which is not always what we think about when we
talk about prayer. Of course, we do have communal prayers that we do in
worship, and then there is the Lord’s Prayer, which we say together each week. But
normally when we talk about prayer its about the personal kind, or of someone
else saying a prayer that we are listening to. And in that, I’m sure that most
of us have probably heard someone praying out loud, and we’ve said “I wish I
could pray like that.”</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt4lowcedk1yc6lDC7Pl8ZX2fxB8lU7ZqEkEnaqhUsJI3jyvWbKNxBBgFj0GapJV09FpQlUlfYvdJSruGj8iLM-BJEYU-cxgqCtq2XkjH7mtwm5bfxZl1nEl9IMMct1ES227Udb5JElyu7pOFqDopBblTyqY1qVEAl8i3mVniaJMUtqslWjYpa5KyR44Q/s1280/HOW%20DO%20I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt4lowcedk1yc6lDC7Pl8ZX2fxB8lU7ZqEkEnaqhUsJI3jyvWbKNxBBgFj0GapJV09FpQlUlfYvdJSruGj8iLM-BJEYU-cxgqCtq2XkjH7mtwm5bfxZl1nEl9IMMct1ES227Udb5JElyu7pOFqDopBblTyqY1qVEAl8i3mVniaJMUtqslWjYpa5KyR44Q/s320/HOW%20DO%20I.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And probably not surprisingly, Jesus was like that. In
hearing him praying, which seems to indicate that he was praying out loud, not
silently, the disciples come to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. That is,
whatever Jesus is doing doesn’t match their own prayer lives, and so they hope
to learn something in order to be better. And while we are told many times that
Jesus is teaching people things, and he is even called teacher in numerous stories,
this is the only time in the gospels in which Jesus is asked to give a specific
teaching about how to do something, not just to answer a question. And so that
seems to be one of the clues to us not only about the importance of prayer, but
also that prayer can be taught, and perhaps that prayer should be taught. That
while it may seem to come natural to some people, that if you are not good at
praying, or don’t feel comfortable praying, that there is some good news for
you, that help, through teaching is available. And because it’s a learned activity
that means that you can try new things, question, experiment and even fail and
all of that is okay. And so, as we continue in our series entitled How do I…?
today that is the topic that we move on to, prayer.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now I could have started with prayer, and perhaps I should
have, but one of the reasons I didn’t was because I know that we have talked
about prayer, and the need for prayer, and how to do certain types of prayer,
and so I didn’t want to start with something that many of us have been told or
taught how to do. But if you paid a little bit of attention, you will note that
I did mention for both worship and reading scripture that they need to involved
prayer. And that’s because prayer is central to who we are as a people and what
we do. In the values we have articulated as a church, prayer is second only to
be Christ-centered. In the membership vows, pray comes first. Richard Foster
has said that prayer “ushers us into perpetual communion with” God. It should
be one of the primary ways that we center and focus our lives, our faith lives,
and it is the way we seek God’s will for our lives and the world and it is one
of the ways that God will use to transform us. And so that means that we need
to be praying all the time, or without ceasing as Paul writes, which also means
that prayer has to be about more than just what we normally think of as prayer,
which is usually someone talking to God, and maybe, occasionally listening to
God. and the short part of that story means that just about everything can be
turned into prayer; and that comes with attitude and intentionality. Gardening
can be prayerful, dancing can be prayerful, cooking can be prayerful, paying
bills can be prayerful. If the intention through these acts is to give praise,
or seek guidance, to lift up concerns to God, to connect, or be in communion
with God, then these can be prayerful activities. But, just as a warning, those
are higher level prayer activities, not things you necessarily want to do when
starting out your prayer life, right? That’s trying to hit a home run, rather
than simply trying to put the bat on the ball, eventually go for the homerun,
but at the start try the simple things. But, before we get into that, let’s
just briefly mention what prayer is not.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Prayer is not a vehicle to get from God whatever our heart
desires. Now you can pray to God to win the lottery, or to get a beautiful
spouse, or to get than new car that you covet, but it’s not going to happen and
it also distorts our relationship with God. And it does so because it treats
God, as Bishop Willimon has said, as a cosmic butler whose job is to be at our
beck and call and grant whatever we ask for. But that’s not God being God, or
us serving God, but God serving us with us being in control. Plus, it usually
leaves people believing that prayer doesn’t work because God never grants those
prayers and so obviously the prayers don’t work. And let me say this is nothing
new, if the letter of James, he says “You ask and do not receive, because you
ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.” And so, there
is nothing wrong with taking those issues to God and telling God what’s
bothering you and where you are struggling, turning those burdens over and seeking
God’s guidance. But there is a huge difference between seeking God’s guidance
and telling God how God could solve the problem, because that is then giving
God guidance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And if we want to know the very simple truth about how to
pray, it’s simply just to do it. Like anything that you might want to learn,
there is some study that can go into it, but until you just start, then you’re
not going to get it. Many have heard me say this, but how I learned to pray in
public was that I said I wanted to go into the ministry, and suddenly I became
everyone’s designated prayer, and while I can say that I was not thrilled by
this opportunity, it did help me immensely. So, if you’re concerned about
praying in public, ask God to call you out and then simply step out of the boat
like Peter did. And yes, it’s possible you might begin to sink, but Jesus will
not let you drown, and you only get better by doing it. And if anyone complains
to you, simply tell them that next time there is an opportunity to pray in
public that you will make sure they get called on. That will stop that
criticism immediately. And the truth is I’ve not heard anyone do that because
everyone else is simply saying “thank God I didn’t have to pray.” And that in
itself is a prayer.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And if you want to do prayers in your personal life, the
same is also true. Just do it. Don’t think about it, and you don’t have to
follow any of the rules you might think are there, because those are some of
the ways we seek to make prayer too complicated, sometimes so that we won’t
have to do it. Just simple start talking. And a great way to do this is to do
what’s called a burst prayer or a flash prayer, which is just a short prayer in
the moment. So, for example, you hear sirens going by and you simply ask God
for protection and safety for everyone involved. You see someone having a bad
day, you ask God to carry them. You pray for the workers wherever you go
thanking them for their work, asking to keep them safe and to help them know
they are appreciated. Nothing difficult, just pray whatever comes into your
mind, and you’re saying these to yourself, not out loud, and you don’t have to
tell them. These short prayers can help you get in the habit of praying, get
you in the habit of praying for others, and help to open yourself up to being
present and letting the Spirit occasionally lead you.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, a little more complex, but still simple to help you
remember are two other prayers often called the ACTS prayer and also what is
known as the 5 finger prayer. ACTS stands for adoration, contrition,
thanksgiving, supplication. So, we start the prayer with adoration, and that’s
adoration for God, not about ourselves. Often this is an attribute of God, or
something about God. contrition is saying where we have fallen short, or naming
the areas of brokenness in our lives, and then asking for forgiveness, and
being willing to accept that forgiveness. Thanksgiving is what is says, giving
thanks to God for what’s happening, making sure to name people as well as
things and situations. And then finally supplication is bringing requests to
God for others and yourself, and definitely should include seeking guidance and
God’s will. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The five finger prayer is very similar, and comes from
having your hands in a typical prayer posture in front of you. And so, starting
with your thumbs, which are closest, you pray for those closest to you, family
and friends. Because your index finger points the way or give directions, you
pray for those who teach or heal. The middle finger, standing tallest, we are
called to pray for leaders in government, business, the church, or whatever
leaders you might want to lift up. Now, this is my own take on this, we are
also called to pray for our enemies and those who hurt us, and since how we use
this finger in the US, you could also use that to remember to pray for those
you would prefer not to pray for and instead show them that finger, which could
also include some of our leaders. Then the ring finger, which is the weakest
finger, helps us to remember to pray for those most in need, the sick, the
poor, etc. and then finally the pinky, which is farthest from us and the
smallest we use to pray for ourselves. Those are sort of really easy places to
start praying and to remember different pieces of prayer. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I quoted the theologian Soren Kierkegaard when we were
talking about worship, but he also has a lot to say about prayer, and he said,
“ A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But, he became
more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening.” And
so, another way to pray is to be silent. If one of the goals of prayer is to
hear God’s will or guidance, then we have to shut up long enough for that to
happen. And so being silent, or as Psalm 46 says, “be still and know that I am
God,” is a form of prayer. And I know that this can be very hard for some
people, so practice it. There is a form of Christian meditation, whose goal is
not to empty your mind, as Easter meditation does, but instead to seek to fill
it with God. to hear God speak in that still small voice. But listening also
involves seeing where else God may be speaking to us in our lives. That someone
else may say something that is God speaking to us, but please use your
reasoning around this. Just as an example, if you’ve been praying about financial
issues and you get a phone call about refinancing your mortgage at a great
rate, or an email from Nigeria that you’ve inherited money, those are scammers,
not God. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And if you are someone for whom sitting still and silent may
be really hard, I want to close with one final type of prayer, and that is an
embodied prayer, or a prayer that involves you whole body, and let me throw out
using other senses in prayer as well. I’ve already said that gardening and
dancing and walking can all be a prayer form, but I’m going to give an example
of an embodied prayer that you can use, and there are lots of different ways to
do this. Just do a google search for others, or speak with me and I can help. So,
I’m going to ask you to stand as you are comfortable, although you can also do
this sitting down I would encourage you to move to the edge of your seat, and
you’ll need to spread out a little bit, and I would ask all those worshipping
online to also participate. And so, we extend our arms out asking for God’s
blessings to come to us, and we receive those blessings and pull them into our
chest, and then we know that we are blessed so that we can be a blessing and so
we then in turn spread those blessings out to the world, and then because we
been a blessing, we ask again to receive the blessings and keep doing it. And
as you do this you can be silent and simply listen, or give thanks and ask for
guidance, whatever you are needing, but we keep going through this cycle…. (you
may be seated)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, let me conclude with this: Prayer is to connect us with
God, and while we often hear people say that the answer to every prayer is yes,
no or not yet, that’s actually not correct. Because what Jesus tells us in that
passage we heard today, which gives us a version of the Lord’s Prayer, is that
Jesus says that every prayer is answered. Every single one, because when we go
to God in prayer, we, in turn, receive the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes upon
us, or we might better say is renewed within us every time we pray. So, go to
God in prayer, ask, seek and knock, and when you do, God will send the Spirit
to guide and lead, heal and help, advocate and influence, connecting us with
God and connecting us with one another as we seek to do God’s will in our lives
and the world. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-63444477212058329502023-08-21T16:21:00.001-06:002023-08-22T16:25:36.765-06:00How Do I Read the BibleHere is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=559742995" target="_blank">2 Timothy 3:14-17</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk143406185">I want you to think about the first
Bible you ever received, or that you can remember having. Who gave it to you?
How old where you when receive it? What did it look like? Was it a children’s
Bible or a regular Bible? Did it have a special place in your house or room
where it was kept? Was it treated like any other book or was it treated
special? Did your family have other copies of the Bible? How where they treated
and where were they kept? Do you still own that Bible? If not, do you know what
happened to it? I want you to think about that Bible, and then turn to someone
near you and tell each other about that Bible…. I knew that my first Bible was
special in some way, although I don’t remember anyone telling me it was
special, it was just sort of conveyed. It was different than other books. I
knew the stories where special, although I couldn’t tell you why. I mean if
nothing else it’s pretty rare to have a book read in public any more and yet
this book is read from every week in worship, and we don’t hear from other
books in that way. But no one ever said that we read it differently or treat it
differently than other books, but we did, and no one ever said this is how to
read the Bible. And I’m willing to guess that’s true for most of you as well.
And I’m not talking about Sunday school classes that dealt with stories,
because they might have actually made approaching scripture even more troubling
or confusing. And so today in our series we are going to be looking at how to
read scripture, and please note that I can’t get to everything and so some of
this will be a 30,000 foot view of reading scripture.</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgOm1IhW6xFaSSZLp6KAAZbtIICgeY3ixqyZolesl_uEDiKyaj5lmIedZrdodQzalfBXLLCN6yxohr9JgbuuXSUFPbBVAq6M7fkE6mdoiUDpZBYXNePjoJDx9eVsMILgW-oREDYvE71gYlDgnUBSrQIptQjn91KE8Rpue2vcNOgD9Xohz1IsEsIPkh6KI/s1280/HOW%20DO%20I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgOm1IhW6xFaSSZLp6KAAZbtIICgeY3ixqyZolesl_uEDiKyaj5lmIedZrdodQzalfBXLLCN6yxohr9JgbuuXSUFPbBVAq6M7fkE6mdoiUDpZBYXNePjoJDx9eVsMILgW-oREDYvE71gYlDgnUBSrQIptQjn91KE8Rpue2vcNOgD9Xohz1IsEsIPkh6KI/s320/HOW%20DO%20I.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But let’s start
with some basics. The Bible is widely considered the best selling book of all
time, and large numbers of people own a copy, besides for being found in hotel
rooms, and also report believing what it says to be true. But it might be like Stephen
Hawking’s <i>A Brief History of Time</i>. A book that everyone has, but few people
actually read, and surveys show us this general sense of misinformation. So,
for example, 10% of people say that Joan of Ark was Noah’s wife. Only 1/3 can
identify that Jesus delivered the sermon on the mount, and more than that think
that Billy Graham gave it. 40% believe that both the old and the new testament
were written a few years after Jesus’ death, and a not insignificant percentage
believe that it was all written in English. Or as a Texas woman was reported to
have said, although it’s probably just apocryphal, “If English was good enough
for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me.” It was not written in English, not a
word, but instead it’s in Hebrew for the Hebrew Bible, or the Old testament,
and Greek for the New Testament.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">That means that we
have to read it in translation, unless you want to learn ancient Greek and
Hebrew. And so, translations are important, and it also says something about
those who believe in what has been called inerrancy, which we’re not going to
go into today, other than for me to say that this is a new idea, developing in
the last 150 years, and it arose on the Protestant side at exactly the same
time, and for the same reasons that Papal inerrancy also arose as an idea. But
the fact that there are differences in translation is the first indicator that
there could be problems. The second is that the official formulation of
inerrancy says that the original manuscripts were inerrant, but the problem is
that we don’t have any of the original manuscripts. Our manuscripts come from
the 3rd and 4th centuries. And finally, although the passage we heard from 2 Timothy
today is often used to justify inerrancy, it does nothing of the sort. It does
not say that God dictated scripture. Instead it says that it is inspired by
God. that is something very different. And the Scripture being referred to is
the Hebrew Bible, and so this passage shows us how easy it is to abuse a
passage to make it mean something it didn’t mean. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">But the bigger
piece for us that makes reading the Bible different than it has for most of the
history of the church, and even under Judaism, you didn’t ever have access to
all of the books of the Bible in one place. Until the invention of the printing
press you wouldn’t have been able to hold the Bible in one hand, and you wouldn’t
have had them all in one book. And even then, if you’ve ever seen a Guttenberg
Bible, they were massive, so you still couldn’t hold it in one hand. And so, as
we think of the Bible, this is a new thing and having it all together has
definitely impacted what we have thought about the Bible, and not necessarily
for the better. But, this is a collection of books. It’s not one. And why
that’s important, and what it has to do with how we read, is that we have to
let each book tell its story, and sometimes those stories are in dialogue with
each other, and contradicting each other. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">Probably the best example of this is the book of Ruth, which tells us about Ruth, a
Moabite woman, who, long story short, marries an Israelite man, and in doing so
becomes the great-grandmother of King David. Now this mixed marriage stands in
contrast to the story of Ezra and Nehemiah in which Israelite men are told to
abandon their foreign wives and families and instead marry a good Jewish girl.
The book of Ruth is therefore in conversation with, and against, these two
books, as well as other portions, like in Deuteronomy where anyone of Moabite
descent, even to the 10th generation, shall not be admitted into the assembly,
or tent, of the Lord. So, Israel’s greatest king is of a mixed-marriage, of
Moabite descent, and of course the person who builds the Temple, Solomon, is
also and only fourth generation, so a violation of Deuteronomic law. So, pay
attention to these conversations and be cautious when saying “the Bible says”
because it might also say exactly the opposite. It’s also why being familiar
with the whole Bible, and reading the whole thing is important.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">And that then leads
into the fact that the different books have different styles, or genres of
literature. There are histories and laws and poetry and prophets and
apocalypses and letters and gospels, to name just a few different styles. And
each of those things has to be approached and read differently. So, the county
recently redid the building codes and so if I was to give you that document and
then also give you a book of poetry would you read them the same way? Of course
not. And the same is true with the Bible. You can’t read Leviticus, which is a
series of rules, the same way you read Psalms, a series of poems, which are
also songs, and so perhaps gives an even different way. One has a much more
factual basis, and one is heavy on imagery which also lends itself to
non-literal understanding. When Psalm 18 says, the Lord is my rock and my
fortress, does that mean a literal rock, or a literal structure? No, and so we
have to understand that as we begin reading. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">And to build off that, which plays
into what we already talked about with inerrancy, if you walked into the
library at Alexandria, which was one of the greatest libraries in the ancient
world and you asked them to show you their non-fiction section, they would have
no idea what you meant. The idea that something is either true or untrue, with
nothing in between is a modern concept, and it can’t be applied to documents
that weren’t intended to have that, without forcing them to be and to do
something that they simply cannot do by themselves. And so, when we read
scripture we have to understand their purpose is theological, not historical.
They are seeking to tell the story of God and of God’s people, not to record
history, or science, the way we would understand that in a modern context. And
if we force scripture to be modern in the way we do, it will always come up
short, but that’s not the Bible’s problem, that’s our problem.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">And so that can
lead us to ask if there are some things then that are more important than
others. Is there a hierarchy to scripture? And so here is where I do my little
dance and say yes, with some significant caveats. It’s clear from Jesus and the
apostles that some areas of scripture were more used, than others. So, for
example, Isaiah and Psalms are quoted quite a bit, whereas others, like Ezra
and Lamentations, are not quoted at all. Clearly Jesus saying that we are to
turn the other cheek trumps the passage from Exodus which says an eye for an
eye, or that what goes out is more important than what goes in, because Jesus
specifically says that it is being replaced. But what about other passages, or
how do we rank what’s more important, or even what might be ignored, such as
the fact that we don’t follow kosher laws nor do we require circumcision? Well
that’s where the hard work really begins, and where the trouble can also start,
because the truth is that we all pick and choose scripture that we want to
follow and what we want to ignore. Liberal, conservative, middle of the road,
we all pick and choose, even the authors of the New Testament did it. In 1
Timothy we read that men should have authority over women because Adam was made
first. Well that’s picking and choosing to make the point he wants to make, and
it totally ignores the first creation story in which men and women were made at
the same time. We all pick and choose, so what do we do about it, and how do we
do it with integrity?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">First is to
recognize that we are doing it, and second, and most importantly, is to have a
reason for why we pick and choose what we do. It’s not just rejecting things
because we don’t like them, or because we think they don’t apply to us, because
more than likely in doing that we are rejecting things exactly because they
apply to us. Scripture should not only give us wisdom and insight, it is after
all not just a means of grace, of feeling God’s love, but also, as John Wesley
says, “contains all things necessary for our salvation.” That means it should
push us and challenge us as well. It’s been said that preaching should comfort
the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, well scripture should be doing
exactly the same thing. We should be both comforted and afflicted by what we
read, and when we are challenged the answer isn’t to throw it out, but to
figure out what it’s challenging, and what are we going to do about it, and
when we decide that something might not apply any more is to be able to give
reasons, and more than “I disagree”, but sound theological reasons with
scriptural background to support your argument. And a lot of that comes from
context. A number of years ago, State Farm did a great commercial that has
something to say about this, so take a look… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">Just as a
disclaimer, I am not advocating for State Farm, and neither I nor any family
member have anything to do with State Farm. I just though it was good because
both the young woman and the man say exactly the same things, right? But how
they say it and why they say it are completely different. Context matters. And so,
while we can quote chapter and verse, which also allows us to chop them out of
the text, losing the context of where they passage is found or even of the book
in which they are found. But to understand a passage we have to understand its
context there, as well as the context in the ancient world, which is even
harder work, because sometimes words are being used in English that have an
entirely different understanding originally.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">And that means our
context matters too. While you may hear people talk about not wanting to
interpret scripture, but instead to let the scripture simply say what it says,
that’s impossible to do. All of us bring our own context to what we read. It’s
impossible not to. We bring who we are, what we’ve done, what we’ve experienced
into our reading of scripture. It’s the lens we use, and the more we understand
about the lens, about our context, the better we will be in recognizing what we
bring so that we can try and see scripture differently than we might otherwise
do. And so that leads into why we might want to read scripture. What are we
hoping to get out of it? Scripture as a daily devotion is very different than
scripture for study for a message which is different than seeking God’s
guidance for a particular point in our lives which is different for some other
reason. What we want to get will also impact what translation we might use. If
we are looking for inspiration, then Eugene Peterson’s The Message can be a
great resource, or if we’re looking for a new way of seeing something, which is
often how I use it. But, if we want to study, or to be able to say, Mark says,
or Deuteronomy says, then that’s not where you want to go. The NRSV, which we
use, is a better source, with the NIV being comparable. So, then you are
approaching scripture with a specific task, and its okay, in fact its great, to
be led by the Spirit differently than perhaps what you set out to do. And so,
scripture reading, like just about everything else, should begin with prayer.
As I said last week for beginning worship with prayer that you get what you
pray for, the same is true with reading the Bible.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">It’s also okay to
struggle with parts and to know that you are not alone in those things because
contexts and realities have changed. Reading the prophets can be difficult in
trying to understand, and so use outside resources, although be aware that not
every resource is good or useful, and some might be downright unhelpful. But,
sitting on the sideline saying “I’d like to play, but I don’t know how” is not
acceptable. Get off the bench and begin engaging with scripture. It will change
your life, and as your life changes your reading will change too. If you are a
senior citizen and you still read it as you did when you were a teenager,
there’s something wrong. And we have to be open to the Spirit to see new
things, to be uplifted and to be challenged, and if scripture isn’t challenging
you occasionally there’s something wrong too. And as Methodists we are also
encourage to bring tradition, experience and reason to the reading of
scripture, known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, and I gave a message about that
last year that I would encourage you to watch on our YouTube channel, or speak
with me about. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk143406185;">We must also
approach scripture with humility, because as soon as we think we have scripture
figured out we need to go back and read it again because we’ve probably missed
something. And we approach the scripture with arrogance, then it becomes a
weapon, that honestly usually leads us away from its very teachings. Scripture
is inspired and it is inspiring. These are the books that the church has said
are important. St. Augustine said that the goal of scripture was to induce love
for God and neighbor and thus to order our lives accordingly. As we are called
to know and love God, that means that we need to be reading scripture, and if
we are not being challenged by scripture, then we are not reading it closely
enough, if we are not being inspired by scripture, then we are not reading it
closely enough. but know that when we read scripture the best we can, that’s
the best we can do. So, go and pick up your bible and pray and read, and
question and be challenged, for scripture “is useful for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that
everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” I
pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-32436064150015827202023-08-14T13:32:00.003-06:002023-08-28T12:11:50.677-06:00How do I Worship?Here is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="In 1940, philosopher and educator Mortimer J. Adler wrote a book entitled How to Read a Book. Now how we read books seems to be sort of self-explanatory. Other then the mechanics of learning to read, and sentence structure, and looking for main themes, and things like that, I’m willing to bet that few, if any of us, where ever taught how to read a book. And yet if you’ve ever read Adler’s book then you will probably came to realize that perhaps you didn’t actually know how to read a book after all. And the purpose of that is to say that there are some things that we do just because we’ve always done them, and we may never have been formally taught how to do them. And this definitely includes some things that we do in the church. And so, for the next four weeks, our worship series is going to be addressing some of these ideas and asking the questions that perhaps you may have asked, or maybe even never even thought to ask, of how do I do x, and we start with the question How do I Worship? Now just like with learning how to read a book, you might think you don’t need to know the mechanics of worshipping, after all you’ve been doing this worship thing for a very long time. But I’m again willing to guess that no one ever set you down and taught you how to worship, or talked about the mechanics of worship, or how to prepare for worship, or what to do after worship. Now, I’m sure there were some things you were taught when you were a child, like to be quiet and not to squirm in your seat. And other things you picked up, like when to sit and when to stand, and how to pretend like you’re singing when you’re not, things like that. But even though worship is this extremely important thing we do, few were taught what it takes to worship, or what we should do to worship. So, what are we called to do in worship, and are there things to help us give more to worship and get more out of worship? And the answer is a most definitive yes. But to start how we worship, we should probably have some very brief background on what worship is and why we worship, and this is going to be brief because it’s not the purpose of the message. In today’s passage, after the disciples see Jesus walking on the water, and he then saves Peter who attempts the same thing, they all climb back into the boat, we are told that they proclaimed that Jesus was the son of God and that they worshipped him. So, does that mean they sang songs, and did a responsorial reading, read scripture and heard a message? That’s what worship is right? Not really, because in its basic form the Hebrew and the Greek words translated as worship mean to bow down, to prostrate yourself, or to pay reverence to. And so, when I hear that the disciples worshiped Jesus, I imagine them bowing down to him, not only as an act of respect, which bowing does, but more importantly it is a sign of submission. It saying that I am giving myself to you and will follow you. But, is that how you imagine worship? Do you think of coming to worship as an act of submission to God? If you don’t, would that change how you approached worship, or participated in worship? And I would add that contrary to what some people might say, we do not worship God because otherwise God will strike us with a mighty blow. Jesus doesn’t tell Peter I’m going to let you drown because you didn’t worship me properly. We worship God because of what God has already done for us, and worship draws us closer to God And while I should note that it is possible to worship anywhere at any time, and there is important reasons for practicing that, the purpose of this message is about worship as we experience it right here and right now for regular worship. And, as I’ve already hinted at, it begins with our approach to worship, and might I dare say our attitude to worship. Because what we bring to worship, how we approach worship, will affect what we get out of worship. And not only what we get out of it, but it can also affect what others get out of it. And so, we have to remember that worship is not about the me, it’s about the we. Worship is important. We cannot deepen our faith, we cannot grow in discipleship, separately from worship. Everything we do in worship brings us into fellowship and community, because it’s about the body of Christ being one. In looking in scripture at the early Christian communities, one of the crucial factors was the aspect of being the gathered community; it was in coming together in worship. And so, preparing starts with our expectations for worship. We should have the expectation that we are going to feel God’s presence, we should expect some transformation in our lives, we should expect that the Spirit is going to speak to us in some way during the service, and we should expect that we are going to take that worship experience with us out into the world in order to be the church, as we say at the end of every service. So, set expectations of what you are bringing to worship and what you want out of worship Other steps also begin well before Sunday morning. It’s said that you get what you pray for, and so preparation for worship should begin with prayer. Pray for me, pray for our musicians, prayer for other worship leaders, pray for the other participants and pray for yourself that you will be open to hear what the Spirit is saying to us that day. And also pray that the Spirit will gently nudge those who are less inclined to make it to worship that day, that the Spirit will lead them in the right direction. The next step is to read the scripture passage that will be used. Every week in the scripture insert, the newsletter and the Friday worship email, we list the scripture readings for the coming week as well as a series of questions about the preaching text for you to consider. When reading the passage, look for the main theme of the passage and then focus on the other details like who the passage was being addressed to and what was the original context? What do you find surprising about the passage? What do you find comforting? What do you find challenging? If it’s a passage with which you are familiar, did you see anything new or different from your memory of the passage? If you are really ambitious, look at the passage in different translations, or look at Biblical commentaries to see what they say. A corollary of that is also to look at the songs. One of the comments we’ve been hearing a little more recently is about familiarity with songs. And for contemporary that’s largely because we’ve been pulling out songs we haven’t sung in a while so that they can become familiar again. But starting this last week, we are going to be including the songs with links to videos of them in the Friday worship email so that you can listen to them in advance, which means you can be prepared to sing the songs before you even walk through the doors. This will be done for both traditional and contemporary services. And regardless if you listen before or during worship, pay attention to the lyrics. What are they saying? Do they match the theme of the service, which is a goal, but doesn’t always happen. What can you take away from it? How does it make you feel? Do you agree with the thoughts conveyed, why or why not? These are things to help you prepare And then the final piece is to be ready to worship before you walk through the doors or turn on the stream. Go to bed early the night before so you are well rested. Leave early to get here a little early. If you rush into worship late and are all harried, do you think you will be centered and focused? Probably not. So, come to worship early and have some time of quiet contemplation and prayer in preparation for worship, releasing the things that might hold you back from fully entering into the worship experience. You can also use this time to turn over to God all the things happening that might be distracting during worship, and one the things that worship should do is to help us deal with the manure in our lives, and I have a specific message about that coming up in a few weeks. One of the things that people who study creativity note is to change up routines in order to keep your mind active, opened and engaged. And so, if you come into the sanctuary and sit in the same seat every time, do you know what your mind does, or can do? It says, “oh, I know this, and I know what to do” and it can shut down so that you think you’re paying attention, but you’re really not. So, and I know this is a radical idea and maybe what gets me in the most trouble, you can sit in a different spot, and this applies to those worshipping online, and then your mind says “hey this is different, different is good. I need to pay attention to this.” Then your mind is primed to be responsive to what’s happening. I strongly encourage taking notes during worship because it helps your mind to remember key ideas through writing them down. I know that doesn’t work for everyone, but it is a strong learning habit, and this is true not just during the message, but the Spirit will speak at different times and I know that if I don’t write it down, I won’t remember it, and that’s truer the older I get. So, take notes. In addition to paying attention to the words of the songs, also pay attention to the other words we use in the liturgies, which is a fancy word for the words we say, but it’s an important word because liturgy literally means the work of the people. And that helps us to remember, once again, that the “language of the gathered is about us, not about me.” And because it’s about the community, that means that there are times in which there are going to be things that don’t work for you, the song doesn’t resonate, the message is off, whatever it is, but I can almost always guarantee that it will be working for someone else, and we celebrate that. And when it isn’t working is a great time to pray to God to give thanks that it’s working for someone else, that we get to do this together, and ask for the Spirit to be open to other parts of the service. Once the message has begun, pay attention to what the preacher is emphasizing as the main point. If you did you pre-work did that match your idea? Is there something that the preacher saw in the text that you didn’t see, or is there something you saw that was not touched on? Make note of those things. Focus on picking up the one or two points that you can take away from the message, and write those down. Normally even the worst sermons are going to give you at least one thing to remember, even if it might be something you think differently about. And if there is something with which you disagree, know that’s okay, but please give the preacher the benefit of the doubt that they have done lots and lots of work in preparing for the message. And if you are upset with the message, try and figure out why. Is it because the words touched us in an area where we are sensitive or truly need to be pushed in our faith lives? If that is the case then it’s not about the preacher, but instead about where they spirit is pushing. And the truth is, if you are routinely hearing from the same preacher and they are not occasionally making you upset with something they have said, then they are not doing their job. Another step is to absorb distractions with gratitude. First it means there are other people there, and I’ve literally preached to an empty sanctuary, and so I give thanks for you being there, and you should too. And that includes the sound of children because a church without the sound of children is the sound of a dying church. So rather than fussing and fuming about the distractions, and therefore taking you away from the worship experience, instead lift up those distractions, thanking God for their presence, or asking God to touch them, so that rather than being a distraction it instead becomes a blessing and can keep you centered. I’ve mentioned this before, but the theologian Soren Kierkegaard has said that worship is like the theater, which is a metaphor that others have used. And the way most sanctuaries are set up, you might think that those at the front are the performers and you are the audience. But, what Kierkegaard said was that that’s wrong concept; we are all the performers and God is the audience, and so we all need to be participating, and this is especially true during songs. As Methodists we are a singing people. It’s one of the ways we participate and its also a way that we learn theology and faith. And there are many reasons why people say they don’t sing. One is they don’t know the songs, but we are now changing that by making the songs all available in advance. And the second is because they don’t think they sing well, and therefore don’t sing. But, this is a new thing. A hundred years ago, or 200, everyone sing, well or badly, because it was what you did. You don’t have to bawl, but sing as you can, make a joyful noise to the Lord, and I might also note the psalmist says to sing new songs to the Lord. So, participate in worship through song. I can guarantee you it will not only improve your experience of worship, but the whole experience of worship will be improved for everyone. Last week we talked about sacrificing for others as being a part of what it means to live in love. And worship can be a sacrificial activity. There are times in which we don’t feel like worshipping, for many different reasons, and we can come up with lots of reasons why we can’t go to worship, but these are the times in which it is most important to go, and so we say that these are my people, and to say to God, “I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to do this, but this is your time and I am giving it to you,” and we trust that God is going to reach into our lives in these moments and touch us. And being present helps everyone else as well, and so if you come into worship joyfully, you might also offer up a prayer for those who are making that sacrifice that God will speak to them in that special way during that service. And finally, is to remember that worship does not end when the last note of the postlude is played. As someone said, “we come to worship on the lookout for God and we leave worship on the lookout for people.” And so, consider what was said, or done or sung during worship and talk about it with someone else. This could be a great thing to do at coffee hour, or on the drive home, or at lunch or dinner. See if others got the same thing out of the message, or if they heard something else. Ask yourself, how does this apply to my life, my family, my children, my friends, my job, my community, my walk with Christ, etc.? Then after you’ve contemplated it and talked about, make a plan for what you are going to do. Is there some change you need to make, something else you need to do, something you need to stop doing, someone you need to talk to about this issue? How is this impacting your faith life or the life of the church, and what are you going to do about it? Worship doesn’t just happen, because worship is about giving the best that we have to God, of worshipping fully with mind, heart, body and soul. Worship is about bowing down to God giving praise and glory for what God has done, to hear the story of the faith and to find our place in that story so that we may pass it on to future generations. Worship is a way we come to encounter God’s word and what God is saying to us as individuals and as a community, where God is calling us and pushing us and leading us, and when we are not prepared or when we are only hearing but not truly listening, then we are not opening ourselves up to God’s presence or God’s amazing grace. We need to prepare to be here, to do the work to celebrate together, to bring our desire to be in the presence of God here in this place, and to do it together so that we will never be the same again that we will be changed and transformed into the people of God and that we will worship in Spirit and in truth and discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen." target="_blank">Matthew 14:22-33</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal">In 1940, philosopher and educator Mortimer J. Adler wrote a
book entitled<i> How to Read a Book</i>. Now how we read books seems to be sort of
self-explanatory. Other then the mechanics of learning to read, and sentence
structure, and looking for main themes, and things like that, I’m willing to bet
that few, if any of us, where ever taught how to read a book. And yet if you’ve
ever read Adler’s book then you will probably came to realize that perhaps you
didn’t actually know how to read a book after all. And the purpose of that is
to say that there are some things that we do just because we’ve always done
them, and we may never have been formally taught how to do them. And this
definitely includes some things that we do in the church. And so, for the next
four weeks, our worship series is going to be addressing some of these ideas
and asking the questions that perhaps you may have asked, or maybe even never
even thought to ask, of how do I do x, and we start with the question How do I
Worship?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtBzctf_xopUGfZc6oLBFnxjY8ilf6kLhv9TqU1bOFY2Kimzr0DjWPt2he3o8h1GcaFzsg5EMBsTmGtTClp0UPBbj2L0MwYllvYwLB1_4jMgybxwgz6xdVsylE5RXHOaOz_ikRqb58q3OuQ3V66FzOt2ITJvpyIofvdW974uNbJZ3CVvMO5OPpUvpG2U/s1280/HOW%20DO%20I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtBzctf_xopUGfZc6oLBFnxjY8ilf6kLhv9TqU1bOFY2Kimzr0DjWPt2he3o8h1GcaFzsg5EMBsTmGtTClp0UPBbj2L0MwYllvYwLB1_4jMgybxwgz6xdVsylE5RXHOaOz_ikRqb58q3OuQ3V66FzOt2ITJvpyIofvdW974uNbJZ3CVvMO5OPpUvpG2U/s320/HOW%20DO%20I.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now just like with learning how to read a book, you might
think you don’t need to know the mechanics of worshipping, after all you’ve
been doing this worship thing for a very long time. But I’m again willing to guess
that no one ever set you down and taught you how to worship, or talked about
the mechanics of worship, or how to prepare for worship, or what to do after
worship. Now, I’m sure there were some things you were taught when you were a
child, like to be quiet and not to squirm in your seat. And other things you
picked up, like when to sit and when to stand, and how to pretend like you’re
singing when you’re not, things like that. But even though worship is this
extremely important thing we do, few were taught what it takes to worship, or
what we should do to worship. So, what are we called to do in worship, and are
there things to help us give more to worship and get more out of worship? And
the answer is a most definitive yes.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But to start how we worship, we should probably have some
very brief background on what worship is and why we worship, and this is going
to be brief because it’s not the purpose of the message. In today’s passage,
after the disciples see Jesus walking on the water, and he then saves Peter who
attempts the same thing, they all climb back into the boat, we are told that
they proclaimed that Jesus was the son of God and that they worshipped him. So,
does that mean they sang songs, and did a responsorial reading, read scripture
and heard a message? That’s what worship is right? Not really, because in its
basic form the Hebrew and the Greek words translated as worship mean to bow
down, to prostrate yourself, or to pay reverence to. And so, when I hear that
the disciples worshiped Jesus, I imagine them bowing down to him, not only as
an act of respect, which bowing does, but more importantly it is a sign of
submission. It saying that I am giving myself to you and will follow you. But,
is that how you imagine worship? Do you think of coming to worship as an act of
submission to God? If you don’t, would that change how you approached worship,
or participated in worship? And I would add that contrary to what some people
might say, we do not worship God because otherwise God will strike us with a
mighty blow. Jesus doesn’t tell Peter I’m going to let you drown because you
didn’t worship me properly. We worship God because of what God has already done
for us, and worship draws us closer to God<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And while I should note that it is possible to worship
anywhere at any time, and there is important reasons for practicing that, the
purpose of this message is about worship as we experience it right here and
right now for regular worship. And, as I’ve already hinted at, it begins with
our approach to worship, and might I dare say our attitude to worship. Because
what we bring to worship, how we approach worship, will affect what we get out
of worship. And not only what we get out of it, but it can also affect what
others get out of it. And so, we have to remember that worship is not about the
me, it’s about the we.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Worship is important. We cannot deepen our faith, we cannot
grow in discipleship, separately from worship. Everything we do in worship
brings us into fellowship and community, because it’s about the body of Christ
being one. In looking in scripture at the early Christian communities, one of
the crucial factors was the aspect of being the gathered community; it was in
coming together in worship. And so, preparing starts with our expectations for
worship. We should have the expectation that we are going to feel God’s
presence, we should expect some transformation in our lives, we should expect
that the Spirit is going to speak to us in some way during the service, and we
should expect that we are going to take that worship experience with us out
into the world in order to be the church, as we say at the end of every
service. So, set expectations of what you are bringing to worship and what you
want out of worship<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Other steps also begin well before Sunday morning. It’s said
that you get what you pray for, and so preparation for worship should begin
with prayer. Pray for me, pray for our musicians, prayer for other worship
leaders, pray for the other participants and pray for yourself that you will be
open to hear what the Spirit is saying to us that day. And also pray that the
Spirit will gently nudge those who are less inclined to make it to worship that
day, that the Spirit will lead them in the right direction.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The next step is to read the scripture passage that will be
used. Every week in the scripture insert, the newsletter and the Friday worship
email, we list the scripture readings for the coming week as well as a series
of questions about the preaching text for you to consider. When reading the
passage, look for the main theme of the passage and then focus on the other
details like who the passage was being addressed to and what was the original
context? What do you find surprising about the passage? What do you find
comforting? What do you find challenging? If it’s a passage with which you are
familiar, did you see anything new or different from your memory of the
passage? If you are really ambitious, look at the passage in different
translations, or look at Biblical commentaries to see what they say. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A corollary of that is also to look at the songs. One of the
comments we’ve been hearing a little more recently is about familiarity with
songs. And for contemporary that’s largely because we’ve been pulling out songs
we haven’t sung in a while so that they can become familiar again. But starting
this last week, we are going to be including the songs with links to videos of
them in the Friday worship email so that you can listen to them in advance, which
means you can be prepared to sing the songs before you even walk through the
doors. This will be done for both traditional and contemporary services. And
regardless if you listen before or during worship, pay attention to the lyrics.
What are they saying? Do they match the theme of the service, which is a goal,
but doesn’t always happen. What can you take away from it? How does it make you
feel? Do you agree with the thoughts conveyed, why or why not? These are things
to help you prepare<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then the final piece is to be ready to worship before
you walk through the doors or turn on the stream. Go to bed early the night
before so you are well rested. Leave early to get here a little early. If you
rush into worship late and are all harried, do you think you will be centered
and focused? Probably not. So, come to worship early and have some time of
quiet contemplation and prayer in preparation for worship, releasing the things
that might hold you back from fully entering into the worship experience. You
can also use this time to turn over to God all the things happening that might
be distracting during worship, and one the things that worship should do is to
help us deal with the manure in our lives, and I have a specific message about
that coming up in a few weeks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the things that people who study creativity note is
to change up routines in order to keep your mind active, opened and engaged.
And so, if you come into the sanctuary and sit in the same seat every time, do
you know what your mind does, or can do? It says, “oh, I know this, and I know
what to do” and it can shut down so that you think you’re paying attention, but
you’re really not. So, and I know this is a radical idea and maybe what gets me
in the most trouble, you can sit in a different spot, and this applies to those
worshipping online, and then your mind says “hey this is different, different
is good. I need to pay attention to this.” Then your mind is primed to be
responsive to what’s happening. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I strongly encourage taking notes during worship because it
helps your mind to remember key ideas through writing them down. I know that
doesn’t work for everyone, but it is a strong learning habit, and this is true
not just during the message, but the Spirit will speak at different times and I
know that if I don’t write it down, I won’t remember it, and that’s truer the
older I get. So, take notes. In addition to paying attention to the words of
the songs, also pay attention to the other words we use in the liturgies, which
is a fancy word for the words we say, but it’s an important word because
liturgy literally means the work of the people. And that helps us to remember,
once again, that the “language of the gathered is about us, not about me.”
And because it’s about the community, that means that there are times in which
there are going to be things that don’t work for you, the song doesn’t
resonate, the message is off, whatever it is, but I can almost always guarantee
that it will be working for someone else, and we celebrate that. And when it
isn’t working is a great time to pray to God to give thanks that it’s working
for someone else, that we get to do this together, and ask for the Spirit to be
open to other parts of the service.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Once the message has begun, pay attention to what the
preacher is emphasizing as the main point. If you did you pre-work did that
match your idea? Is there something that the preacher saw in the text that you
didn’t see, or is there something you saw that was not touched on? Make note of
those things. Focus on picking up the one or two points that you can take away
from the message, and write those down. Normally even the worst sermons
are going to give you at least one thing to remember, even if it might be
something you think differently about. And if there is something with which you
disagree, know that’s okay, but please give the preacher the benefit of the
doubt that they have done lots and lots of work in preparing for the message. And
if you are upset with the message, try and figure out why. Is it because the
words touched us in an area where we are sensitive or truly need to be pushed
in our faith lives? If that is the case then it’s not about the preacher,
but instead about where they spirit is pushing. And the truth is, if you are
routinely hearing from the same preacher and they are not occasionally making
you upset with something they have said, then they are not doing their job.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another step is to absorb distractions with gratitude. First
it means there are other people there, and I’ve literally preached to an empty
sanctuary, and so I give thanks for you being there, and you should too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that includes the sound of children
because a church without the sound of children is the sound of a dying church.
So rather than fussing and fuming about the distractions, and therefore taking
you away from the worship experience, instead lift up those distractions,
thanking God for their presence, or asking God to touch them, so that rather
than being a distraction it instead becomes a blessing and can keep you
centered.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ve mentioned this before, but the theologian Soren
Kierkegaard has said that worship is like the theater, which is a metaphor that
others have used. And the way most sanctuaries are set up, you might think that
those at the front are the performers and you are the audience. But, what Kierkegaard
said was that that’s wrong concept; we are all the performers and God is the
audience, and so we all need to be participating, and this is especially true
during songs. As Methodists we are a singing people. It’s one of the ways we
participate and its also a way that we learn theology and faith. And there are
many reasons why people say they don’t sing. One is they don’t know the songs,
but we are now changing that by making the songs all available in advance. And
the second is because they don’t think they sing well, and therefore don’t
sing. But, this is a new thing. A hundred years ago, or 200, everyone sing,
well or badly, because it was what you did. You don’t have to bawl, but sing as
you can, make a joyful noise to the Lord, and I might also note the psalmist
says to sing new songs to the Lord. So, participate in worship through song. I
can guarantee you it will not only improve your experience of worship, but the
whole experience of worship will be improved for everyone.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last week we talked about sacrificing for others as being a
part of what it means to live in love. And worship can be a sacrificial
activity. There are times in which we don’t feel like worshipping, for many
different reasons, and we can come up with lots of reasons why we can’t go to
worship, but these are the times in which it is most important to go, and so we
say that these are my people, and to say to God, “I don’t want to be here, I
don’t want to do this, but this is your time and I am giving it to you,” and we
trust that God is going to reach into our lives in these moments and touch
us. And being present helps everyone else as well, and so if you come into
worship joyfully, you might also offer up a prayer for those who are making
that sacrifice that God will speak to them in that special way during that
service.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And finally, is to remember that worship does not end when
the last note of the postlude is played. As someone said, “we come to worship
on the lookout for God and we leave worship on the lookout for people.” And so,
consider what was said, or done or sung during worship and talk about it with
someone else. This could be a great thing to do at coffee hour, or on the drive
home, or at lunch or dinner. See if others got the same thing out of the
message, or if they heard something else. Ask yourself, how does this apply to
my life, my family, my children, my friends, my job, my community, my walk with
Christ, etc.? Then after you’ve contemplated it and talked about, make a plan
for what you are going to do. Is there some change you need to make, something
else you need to do, something you need to stop doing, someone you need to talk
to about this issue? How is this impacting your faith life or the life of the
church, and what are you going to do about it?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Worship doesn’t just happen, because worship is about giving
the best that we have to God, of worshipping fully with mind, heart, body and
soul. Worship is about bowing down to God giving praise and glory for what God
has done, to hear the story of the faith and to find our place in that story so
that we may pass it on to future generations. Worship is a way we come to
encounter God’s word and what God is saying to us as individuals and as a
community, where God is calling us and pushing us and leading us, and when we
are not prepared or when we are only hearing but not truly listening, then we
are not opening ourselves up to God’s presence or God’s amazing grace. We
need to prepare to be here, to do the work to celebrate together, to bring our
desire to be in the presence of God here in this place, and to do it together
so that we will never be the same again that we will be changed and transformed
into the people of God and that we will worship in Spirit and in truth and
discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God. I pray that it will
be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.<o:p></o:p></p><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-5404303892509128292023-08-07T14:44:00.002-06:002023-08-16T14:51:25.673-06:00Rogue One, May The Force Be With YouHere is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=559219051">John 15:9-17</a> and the movie was <i>Rogue One</i>.<div><p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk142196087">Sports fans in Philadelphia are
known to be particularly passionate about their teams, and their passion
sometimes leads to downright hostility, and this is not just directed at
visiting players and fans, but even to their own players. These are fans who
might be best known for throwing snowballs at and booing Santa Clause. I mean,
who boos Santa? People who want coal in their stockings is who. Now this
hostility sort of stands in direct contrast for being known as the city of
brotherly love, which of course has nothing whatsoever to do with the people
who live there, and no offense to anyone here from Philly, I love your
sandwiches. But their nickname comes from the meaning of the word Philadelphia,
which literally means brotherly love in Greek. And some may remember that there
are actually four words in Greek for love. One is the word eros, which is a
passionate, physical love, and it never appears in the New Testament. Another, much
rarer, is storge, which is the feeling that people in families have for each
other, or we might familial love. Then there is Philia, which is brotherly
love, with brother here being a much broader category linking with people not
related by blood, and we could also certainly include sisters in this. Love for
BFFs. Then there is agape, which is much more common. Iit is the word used to
describe God’s love for us, but this is, again, not a feeling, but a doing a
way of being. It’s also a sacrificial giving love, which is why this word is
sometimes used to describe a parents love for a child. It’s giving of yourself
for someone else, and so as we conclude our series on The Gospel in Star Wars
by looking at the film <i>Rogue One</i>, I want you to keep those understandings of
philia and agape in mind because they become important.</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7cxENzpPj3IjnlCrn0tomQtKBSK5a5gKcCsymI7lKc7vsGLoi4H4-ZtcnUg3Kxfo1NmYZOxSJYyN2ZONYuOKx4MWQ8AXwSomXh71Qpg8c8w4D0-Q6mNAqwvms2aL-dHQ1TOtJFY_OoSlS6Yr_EffQ8wsStAyhzp6xLhvRO7pkDTyuTeRUhHfKEY9W7g/s1200/rogue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7cxENzpPj3IjnlCrn0tomQtKBSK5a5gKcCsymI7lKc7vsGLoi4H4-ZtcnUg3Kxfo1NmYZOxSJYyN2ZONYuOKx4MWQ8AXwSomXh71Qpg8c8w4D0-Q6mNAqwvms2aL-dHQ1TOtJFY_OoSlS6Yr_EffQ8wsStAyhzp6xLhvRO7pkDTyuTeRUhHfKEY9W7g/s320/rogue.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Rogue One</i> was
released in 2016 and was the first of the live action stand-alone Star Wars
movies, also sometimes referred to as the unnumbered films. Rogue One takes
place immediately before the original Star Wars film, by a few weeks, and thus
brings us full circle back to where we started. The main story line tells us
about Jyn Erso, the daughter of Galen Erso, the man who is forced to design the
Death Star. As a young girl, Jyn watches her father get taken by the empire and
her mother killed, and then she is rescued by Saw Gerrera, a militant rebel leader.
Rather than resisting the empire and being killed, her father Galen, designs a
flaw into the Death Star so that with one shot it might be destroyed, which
explains the end of Star Wars. Galen gets an imperial shuttle pilot to defect
with a message for Jyn, which he takes the city of Jedha, the home of a former
Jedi temple and a mine for Kyber crystals which not only power lightsabers but
is also what powers the death star’s weapon. Captured by the rebels to help
them get the plans, Jyn travels with the rebel Cassian, who is shown to do
whatever he thinks is necessary for the rebel cause, and K2SO a reprogrammed
imperial droid. While on Jedha, they encounter the blind seer Chirrut Imwe, the
coolest force user we’ve met in a while, whose personal mantra and breath
prayer is “I am one with the force and the force is with me.” We are told that
Chirrut is a guardian of the whills, which is an ode to Lucas’ original story
idea before he came up with the force, and he is accompanied by Baze who helps
protect Chirrut. Although Jyn thinks of herself as being totally independent,
of not being able to trust anyone and making it on her own, we get an early
indication of who she is when she and Cassian are caught in a street fight
between the empire and Saw Gerrera’s followers. (Video)<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk142196087;">Jyn risks her life
to save a child. Now there are definitely people that we say we would risk, or
even lose, our lives to save, right? A child, partner, parents, siblings. But
would we be willing to lay down our lives for a total stranger? In this day and
age, that’s is not just a hypothetical, and its not just violence, but recent
events show us plenty of things that we might have to make personal sacrifices
for in order to protect the lives of others. And so Jyn steps out to help a
stranger, risking her life to protect the child. And this takes us back to the
Greek. Jesus says “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have
loved you. And no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s
friends.” The word for friend here is philos, which comes from that Greek word
to love, and is the word translated as you love in the phrase love one another,
which is, again, philia, that love for others, brothers and sisters. And again,
this love is about action, about service, and that becomes even more apparent
as this is the final instruction given to the disciples in John, and the last
night is not surrounding the institution of communion, which is a sacrificial
reminder, but around the foot washing. The role of servant that Jesus takes on
and then serves the disciples, and so we have to remember that this call to
discipleship, this call to love is never self-centered, its always about the
other.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk142196087;">The force is the
same, Chirrut’s breath prayer excepted, when people give their blessing it’s
the force be with you, or the force will be with us. It’s not self-referential,
it’s focused outward. And even Chirrut’s statement that the force is with him,
does not mean he owns the force, or that it’s only for him. It’s like the 23rd
Psalm, “You are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.” That doesn’t
deny that God isn’t there for everyone else, in fact it emphasizes that as the
multitudes prayer that Psalm, because that’s how God’s love works. God’s love
is also outward directed, because that’s what the vine does, it gives to the
branches so that they can survive and produce fruit. And God’s love is so
outward directed that God didn’t even withhold Jesus, as we hear numerous times
in scripture, especially in the writings attributed to John. So how do we know
of God’s love? Because of the sacrifice that Jesus gives in order to bring
healing and wholeness to the world. In order to be love. This message stands in
opposition to the heavy emphasis on the individual and individualism that we
have in our culture. It’s about recognizing that we are a branch in a much
larger tree, which means we are all in this together. Which what Jyn and the
other rebels also come to understand.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk142196087;">After they find out
where Jyn’s father is, the go to find him, Jyn with the hope of reuniting, but
Cassian with the orders to kill him. After Cassian leaves the ship, Chirrut,
remembering he’s blind, asks if Cassian has the face of a killer, as he senses
through the force his intentions, and Baze, his collaborator, says “no he has
the face of a friend.” There is no greater love than to lay down your life for
a friend. But the empire kills her father, and so they set off to the planet
Scariff in order to retrieve the plans for the death star, which are held there.
The rebels face a mighty battle against heavy odds, with major losses, sacrifices
for the message of hope, which is what rebellions are built upon, we are told,
and we should have known that because the original Star Wars was renamed a new
hope. But the Death Star, and Darth Vader arrive on the scene, but not before
they are able to get the plans sent out. (Video)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk142196087;">Jyn gives her life
to help the rebellion, to bring hope. Does that remind you of anyone? Jyn is a
Christ figure, which is a common motif in literature and film. There is no greater
love than to lay down your life for your friends. To make a sacrifice through
love. But that need not be actually losing your life, there are lots of other
ways we can sacrifice. Perhaps you see a mother, or a father, struggling with
their kids and the grocery store, facing the daunting challenge of a long check-out
line. Letting them go ahead of you is an act of love and sacrifice on your
part. Giving someone else your umbrella, or parking space, or volunteering your
time. All these can be sacrificial. And I know you can think of lots more, and
then there are sacrifices that can cost you the life you imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk142196087;">At another church I
had a member who worked in the pharmaceutical industry and he found out that
there had been contamination of the product at one of their plants, and the
company was trying to cover it up. He came to talk to me about what to do.
Well, he knew what he needed to do, but he needed to talk through the
ramifications of becoming a whistleblower, which actually rarely has positive
outcomes for those who take on that vital role. He said he knew that he would
be blackballed in the industry and at his age he new that just getting a new
job, let alone trying a new occupation would be difficult, which would have ramifications
for his family. So, what do you do? Do you go along because it’s easier for you
and best your family? Or do you do what you know is right consequences be
damned? I don’t ask these questions flippantly because they are genuinely hard.
That’s why Jesus says that the road to discipleship is narrow and hard; if it
wasn’t hard everyone would do it. Loving others and laying down your life is
about saying that the me is not more important than the we. That I am willing
to do things that might be harmful to me in the short-term and long-term in order
to do the right thing for others. To protect them, to offer them the love that
we have received from God.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk142196087;">Star Wars is filled
with the sacrifices that others make, some paying the ultimate price, and some
making sacrifices of their life, their time and their talent to serve something
greater than them and to serve their fellow brothers and sisters. We give of
ourselves because of what God has already given. We love because God has
already loved. And we abide in God, because God already abides in us. Jesus
says, this is my commandment, and notice that it’s not a recommendation, it’s
not a suggestion, it’s a commandment, that we love one another as Christ has
have loved us. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for
one’s friends,” Jesus says. That does not mean being killed for them, but about
laying aside our own preferences and living for others. As Jesus said, “If any
want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross
and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and
those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” I pray that it will be so
my brothers and sisters. Amen.</span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-80683179008475093752023-07-31T14:51:00.004-06:002023-08-16T14:56:15.450-06:00You Were RightHere is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 19:1-10 and the movie was Return of the Jedi.<div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">When people are named to ask the best movie villain of all
time, Darth Vader routinely makes that list. For quite a few years Vader was
actually at the top of the list. He has now moved down to number three. But
Vader seems a little different from Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates, who are number
one and two, because as we have seen is that Vader does not seem to be mentally
unstable, like those two. Now I am not arguing that he is hero. He is not, for
example, Atticus Finch from <i>To Kill a Mockingbird,</i> who is number one on the
list of best movie heroes. He seems more like Nurse Ratched from <i>One Flew Over
the Cuckoo’s Nest</i> or Mr. Potter from <i>It’s a Wonderful Life</i>, number 5 and 6 on
the list, in that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rather than having a
mental illness, they are just mean and nasty, although perhaps that’s even
worse. Because at least with those with mental issues we can give some
reasoning for their behavior. And yet we are probably right to ask whether, as
our metaphor, Vader’s behavior moves him beyond the grace of God? Does
forgiveness apply to Vader, or has he, and others like him, moved beyond what
we can forgive, or that God can forgive? Is redemption possible? And so that is
the topic that we turn to as we look at what the was the conclusion to the
original Star Wars trilogy <i>Return of the Jedi</i>, which happens to be my favorite
film.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhrtUSCLteVHIKmn1XdrDLt_A2R8Qvyy-XNlgpxYdimrr4IRkwg6EIRiP8hEKSGLCo5cda_Ma8OboDCajmwsDEWTzR-uVAg7w4Sq5eDxjJfCRQWxR8h4qzXJEJMaFycDabkdCGLZ7Z46X8DhqWvM1ETbfHbSiUmVddduYhzG_0Ol4vJwIZuz8847YcCYc/s1200/return.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhrtUSCLteVHIKmn1XdrDLt_A2R8Qvyy-XNlgpxYdimrr4IRkwg6EIRiP8hEKSGLCo5cda_Ma8OboDCajmwsDEWTzR-uVAg7w4Sq5eDxjJfCRQWxR8h4qzXJEJMaFycDabkdCGLZ7Z46X8DhqWvM1ETbfHbSiUmVddduYhzG_0Ol4vJwIZuz8847YcCYc/s320/return.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Return</i> was released in 1983, and so this year is the 40th
anniversary, and the reason we are doing this series now. Originally it was
entitled Revenge of the Jedi. Does anyone know why they changed it to return?
Because Jedi don’t seek revenge, revenge is something sought by those who
follow the dark side, thus Revenge of the Sith. But, Return has the empire
working on rebuilding a new death star. Han Solo is encased in carbonite and
shipped off to Jabba the Hutt, who is Godfather like head of a crime syndicate,
which leads Leia, Luke and Chewbacca on a rescue mission. Leia kills Jabba, before
most of them fly off the moon of Endor, where they encounter a teddy-bear like
group of inhabitants known as Ewoks, who will help the rebels battle the
empire. Meanwhile, Luke goes back to receive more training with Yoda, who dies,
but not before telling Luke that Leia is actually his sister and that to truly
become a Jedi that he must confront Darth Vader. Luke eventually joins them all
on Endor, voluntarily surrendering to the imperial troops so he can meet with
Vader, who takes him to the emperor. Vader and Luke again engage in a
lightsaber duel, but Luke puts his weapon away because he will not kill his father
and so the emperor then seeks to kill Luke, but that’s jumping too far ahead.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I do want to address one side issue before getting to
the main point, and that is the outfit that Leia is made to wear when she is a
prisoner in Jabba’s palace, usually referred to as the gold bikini. Now we
already talked about the lack of diversity in the original films, which does
improve over time. But we could also address the issue of gender inclusion. In
the original film, there are only two women, including Leia. In fact, there are
only three women, besides for Leia who have any lines of dialogue, not counting
singers, in all 3 original films. Their dialogue time totals 1 min, 3 seconds,
against 386 minutes of run time. Now one of those women in Mon Mothma, who is
the leader of the rebel alliance, so there is leadership being demonstrated by
women, but it’s still not overwhelming. But I think I can make some arguments
for female empowerment even without greater representation. First is that Leia
basically rescues herself in the first film, she is not the princess who needs
to be saved, she can take charge of herself. But is the gold bikini scene
merely another objectification of women? The answer, is yes, and that’s the
very point. Jabba sees Leia as nothing more than an object, something to be
used for his own pleasure, and this is true not just with Leia, but with others
in the palace as well. As we talked about last week, Jabba sees others as a
means to his own end, rather than seeing them as ends in themselves. And so,
this objectification is an object lesson, although not everyone is going to see
that. But I think this becomes clear because it is Leia who ends up killing
Jabba with the very chain that is used to keep her in her place, or Jabba’s
chains of imprisonment become the means of Leia’s victory. She is not merely a
victim, she has her own agency, which she uses. That’s off topic a little, but
an important issue to point out, and if you are going further in watching the
newer films I would encourage you to pay attention to the ever increasing
diversity in race, gender and species, but that leads us to today’s key point.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the gospel passage from this morning, as Jesus enters
into Jericho, a crowd gathers around and so Zacchaeus, who was a wee little man
and a wee little man was he, (that’s an old Sunday school song), climbs up a
sycamore tree in order to be able to see Jesus. This is quite the unseemly
thing for a grown man to do in this culture, as was running. But when Jesus
sees him he calls Zacchaeus down and tells him that he is going to stay at his
house, which causes the people to begin to grumble. And they do so because of
the first piece of information we are told which is that he is the chief tax
collector and that he is rich, which means he is a very good tax collector. Now
I’m sure that some of you don’t like taxes, but if you met someone from the IRS
or the NM department of Taxation and Revenue, I doubt that any of you are
instantly going to hate them let alone try and kill them, and yet that’s what
happened with Roman tax collectors, especially those who were Jewish. Because
they were seen as collaborators with the Romans and therefore traitors to their
people. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It wasn’t that taxes were set by the Roman senate and then
shopkeepers applied the tax, or employers withheld tax, as we are used to.
Instead taxes were put out to bid, and whoever said they would collect the most
amount of money would win the bid and then they had to be able to deliver what
they had promised to Rome, or pay the price. But to then make any money, to
make a profit, they had to be able to collect above and beyond what they had
promised. And so, they would lie, cheat, steal or whatever else it took not
only to gain what they needed to pay the Romans, but also to make their money,
and since Zacchaeus is rich, we know that he is really good at that. And the
fact that everyone grumbles about him shows just how much he was disliked. Now
I don’t think that there is a straight comparison between Zacchaeus and Vader,
but they are probably both liked about as much and perhaps feared about as
much. And so, Jesus seeking not just to go to the man’s house, but to offer
salvation is even more shocking. And even though Zacchaeus says he will give ½
of what he has to the poor, and if he has defrauded anyone he will give four
times as much back in return, everyone knows that’s not possible, because he
has defrauded nearly everyone. He doesn’t have enough money to be able to do
it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Additionally, it appears that Zacchaeus is making this
gesture, not only to appease the crowd, but more importantly to appease Jesus.
To make himself worthy of having Jesus as a guest. And so, Jesus’ response that
salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house that day has nothing to do with this act
of generosity, but because of who he is. He is a son of Abraham, therefore an
heir to the promise, and he was once lost but now is found. Zacchaeus’
salvation is given because God freely gives and seeks to have everyone return
to the fold, and so that grace is poured out without cost, because if there was
something we could do to earn it, then we would brag about it, as Paul says.
But it does require Zacchaeus to recognize he is on the wrong path and take the
steps to move back to the path of righteousness. While the story doesn’t say
it, I think it’s implied that had Zacchaeus kept doing what he had been doing,
if he hadn’t agreed to make a change in life and practices, that Jesus would
not have made the proclamation he did. It would not have changed how God viewed
Zacchaeus, he would still have been a son of Abraham, he would still have been
a recipient of God’s grace, because he himself would not have been able to
receive that grace.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And we see a similar thing with Darth Vader. After Luke
surrenders in order to confront Vader and the emperor, Luke tells Vader, his
father, that he sense that there is still good in him, and Vader says “it’s too
late for me.” That’s not a denial of the goodness, just that he thinks there is
a sort of timeline for grace, that past a certain point, or once you have done
too many bad things, like blow up a planet perhaps, that you are lost. But
that’s not how God’s grace or God’s love or God’s forgiveness work. No matter
how long you have been on a particular path, no matter what you have done in
your life, God’s grace is still there for us. Additionally, what God says is
that we are always so much more than the worst thing, or worst things, that we
have ever done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus says that we will
be forgiven all our sins, and in the passage from Romans we heard today Paul
says that there is nothing in all of creation that can separate us from God’s
love. Do you believe that? I mean truly believe it, that there is nothing you
can do to separate you from God’s love? Does it ground what you do and how you
live? Not so that you can do anything we want and get away with it, but to know
that when we truly repent, when we turn around, when we change our lives that
redemption is not only possible, but that grace and love are present?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That leads into the conclusion of Return of the Jedi. After Luke
surrenders Vader takes Luke to see the emperor while the rebels are fighting imperial
troops in space and on Endor, and Luke again engages in a battle with Vader.
(Video)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now it’s one thing to talk about Vader’s redemption, of him
telling Luke that he was right and turning away from the dark side, which the
taking off of the helmet represents, as those who saw Revenge of the Sith may
remember that the last thing that happens for Anakin to become Vader is the
mask coming on, which we see from a first hand perspective. But do we really
want to forgive Vader? What about all those who force choked? What about
everyone on Alderaan, which he blew up? Can redemption really apply to him? Is
there really nothing that can separate him from God’s love? Because it’s much
easier to be grateful that God’s grace comes to us, but it’s much harder to
want to extend that to others, especially those whom we consider evil, or at
least those have done evil things. I mean I’ve heard the questions you’ve asked
me, what do with do with Putin? Hitler? Pol Pot? The serial killer they
recently arrested in New York? Can they ever truly be redeemed? Does God’s
love, can God’s love, possibly extend to them? And if yes, some want to wonder,
why? Don’t we want there to be at least some point that is a bridge too far?
And yet, Paul tells us, nothing in all of creation can separate us from God’s
love and if I am going to accept that for myself, then I have to be willing to
accept that for others.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And here’s how I deal with that idea: I leave it to God.
Last week I quoted Dr. King who said that hate was too great a burden to bear
and so he was going to live in love. And I think this is the same. Judgment is
too great a burden to bear, and so I’m going to leave that to God, and I’m
going to live in forgiveness and grace and love. That does not mean we cannot
name evil when it happens, that we cannot call out social injustice and work to
make correct it, because we are called to do that, but to also remember that
the good news for us is good news for others, and just as we have been washed
clean in the waters of baptism, like Amari this morning, so too does the water
of baptism cleanse others. And we have to remember that while it might seem
that evil and hate are powerful, that love wins. Just like the rebels win. And
I would rather settle on a love that I don’t understand than on judgment and
hate that I understand all too well. And what Jesus tells us is that the angels
in heaven rejoice for that one lost sheep who is returned to the fold, because the
son of man came to see out and save the lost.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When the original Star Wars trilogy began in 1977 and was
completed with the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983, we thought it was
about the path and journey of Luke Skywalker. But, as it turned out, it wasn’t
about Luke at all. Instead it was about the fall and redemption of Anakin
Skywalker, the man who became Darth Vader. The good news for us, the good news
for the world, the lost and the found, is that God did not withhold even God’s
own son from us because there is nothing which can separate us from the love of
God. When we seek forgiveness, forgiveness will be given, to you, to me, to
everyone, even Darth Vader, that redemption and salvation are possible, and in
that we should give thanks. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters.
Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-774703349928805042023-07-24T14:58:00.001-06:002023-08-16T15:02:30.837-06:00I Hate YouHere is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=559219571" target="_blank">1 John 4:7-21</a> and the movie was Revenge of the Sith:<div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">One of the big questions that gets posed around all of the
Star Wars films, as there are now 11 feature films, is in what order you should
view them. Probably the most recommended is to see them in the order that they
were released. So, start, as we did, with<i> Star Wars</i>, watch the rest of the
original trilogy, then what the prequels, which are episodes 1-3, then go to
episodes 7-9, which are sometimes called the sequels, and then onto <i>Rogue One
</i>and <i>Solo.</i> Without putting a lot of thought into them, that would be the order I
would recommend. But, another recommendation is to watch them in chronological
order, which would be to start with episode 1, adding in <i>Rogue One</i> and <i>Solo</i> at
the end of the prequels, then move into the original trilogy and the sequels to
complete it. I can see some logic in that, except that doing it in that order
removes the reveal in Empire, which was the last movie we covered, that Darth
Vader is actually Luke’s father, as well as the reveal that Leia is his sister
as we learn all of those things at the end of <i>Revenge of the Sith</i>, which is the
film we cover today. Now maybe since those reveals happened 43 and 40 years
ago, respectively they don’t matter, but I still think cinematically that they
do, which is also the reason that I started with the first two films and then
jumped backward to episode three which then, in my reasoning, and I will argue
that my reasoning is correct here, for where we end up next week in moving on
to <i>Return of the Jedi</i>, which is my particular favorite of the films for many
reasons.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqZY7Fj7ImehDdPKAqyLwEIQmjBABzJvEJZXowZOl2Az6xSbY_ufab-THAPvBeaCLWzWZI1yZL2XL1l4E1vJPORaANBAkMLBYaQa5yaow_c33iH4izzp9CORrxGL7YlbPyHsQSLUzx3fmZNMU_nJ7Gz0HSLiDc6crywVG0zgcBhLs8dZQW8C_8LDIZsKM/s1200/revenge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqZY7Fj7ImehDdPKAqyLwEIQmjBABzJvEJZXowZOl2Az6xSbY_ufab-THAPvBeaCLWzWZI1yZL2XL1l4E1vJPORaANBAkMLBYaQa5yaow_c33iH4izzp9CORrxGL7YlbPyHsQSLUzx3fmZNMU_nJ7Gz0HSLiDc6crywVG0zgcBhLs8dZQW8C_8LDIZsKM/s320/revenge.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now I do have to admit that <i>Revenge of the Sith</i> is the only
Star Wars film that I never saw originally in the theater. In fact, I had never
seen it on the big screen until we showed it there on Monday. And the reason I
didn’t see it was because I was in the midst of seminary and I was so
disappointed in Episode 2, Attack of the Clones, that I actually wasn’t
interested in seeing Lucas make the franchise even worse. I will admit that I
was mistaken, and while it is not what the originals were, it’s not as bad as I
originally imagined, and it’s grown on me and is usually ranked as the best of
the prequels, and is even as high as number four on some lists of the best,
with the original trilogy occupying the top three. But that’s more nerdy
filler. Two weeks ago, when we talked about The Empire Strikes back, we talked
about the choices that Luke is presented with and has to make to follow the way
of the Jedi or to follow the pull to turn to the dark side like Vader. And I
said those choices are presented to all of us and that what Luke comes to
discover is that what separates him from his father is not that he father was
evil and he is good, but the choices that his father made that led him there.
And we’ll save whether those choices are permanent or not for where we move to
next week. But Revenge of the Sith sets up how and why Anakin Skywalker, who
becomes Darth Vader, makes those choices. And in seeing them you can have some
sympathy for him and understand his reasoning. He is trying to do the best that
he can and trying to protect the people and the things that he loves, and in
doing so he ends up destroying those same things. But he is not evil, it’s as
they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Anakin ends
up fighting Obi-Wan Kenobi at the end of the film in what might be seen as a
metaphor for hell, but that’s jumping ahead of the story.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So very quick recap of where the story goes, the galaxy is
at war and Senator Palpatine, whom we find out is actually a Sith Lord, or a
follower of the dark side of the force, is given power and becomes emperor and
accuses all his foes of trying do the thing he wants to do, called projection,
what happens so often in politics. But to gain that power he battles against
the Jedi, the keepers of peace in the galaxy, as well as holders of power, and
so takes a young Anakin Skywalker under his wing because he senses the power that
he has and who strong he will become, although he wants to use this not for
Anakin’s sake, but for his own sake. Which becomes one of the key
differentiations in the Star Wars films, and in real life, of whether people
are a means to our own ends, things to use for our benefit, or whether we see
people as ends in and of themselves, and treat them as such, which is a means
of loving. But we also begin to see the struggle Anakin is going through, the
choices he is having to make, as we talked about two weeks ago with the cave of
evil and Luke, early in the film as Obi-Wan and Anakin go to rescue Chancellor
Palpatine from the grips of Count Dooku, who is a Sith Lord, or a follower of
the Darkside, although the whole thing has actually been set up by Palpatine,
although no one knows that yet, but took a look… (Video)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, what does Dooku, and then Palpatine, want Anakin to make
more use of? His fear and anger and hate, and the arguments that Anakin has
about why he shouldn’t have killed Dooku, will be exactly the same as the ones
he makes that will save Palpatine’s life later in the film just before Anakin
turns to the dark side and becomes his apprentice. And, as I said before, it’s
not that Anakin, or even Darth Vader, are just evil, and therefore we can
explain everything away. What Revenge of the Sith shows so well is the
reasoning why he makes the decisions that he makes, and he thinks he’s doing it
for the right reasons, and yet we can also see the mistakes all along the way.
That, as Yoda says, “fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger,
anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” And we so much hear that in
scripture as well. And while there are certainly other things we might have
pulled out of this movie, in some ways it was the easiest because these themes
of love and hate and anger are so prevalent. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, Jesus equates anger directly with murder. That just
as you are liable for murder, so you are also liable for anger. Why? Because
anger leads to that murder. And notice that Jesus makes no distinction here
between righteous anger, that is being angry about things that we maybe should
be angry about, like social justice issues, and unrighteous anger. No
distinction is made, because as they say “the road to hell is paved with good
intentions.” And so, I can say that there is room in scripture to be angry for
the right reasons, about the treatment of the poor as the prophets continually
highlight, but it’s what we do with that anger and how we use it against or
about other people.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Because one of the things that anger does, and we certainly
see this in Star Wars, is that it makes us feel righteous about what we are
doing, that our anger is justified and therefore whatever it leads us to do is
fine, right? And so Palpatine explains away Anakin’s anger as an act of revenge
that justifies what he did, even though Anakin knows it was wrong, but leads
him to understand things in a way to explain away his acting with aggression,
hate and anger. The ends were justified. But of course, they aren’t. That is
the very danger that Jesus is warning us about. That’s why he says that we are
to go and be reconciled with whomever we have an issue, in particular if they
have an issue with us, before we make any offerings at the altar. That is, we
need to put the fire out, we need to be healed in our relationships, we need to
be working on restoring brokenness there, as we also work, or celebrate, a
restored relationship with God. Hatred and anger in our relationships with
others impacts, or impairs, our ability to have a relationship with God. and
why? Because as we heard in the letter from John, because God is love. And we
are not called to love others because it gains us something, but because of the
love that God has already poured out for us. We love because God first loved
us. And so, notice that John uses pretty harsh language about hate, just as
Jesus does about anger. He says that anyone who says they love God but hate
their brother or sister are liars. Not that they are deceiving themselves, or
mistaken in their faith, but they are LIARS. In scripture this is also often
called bearing false witness, which is forbidden in scripture in those same
sets of laws that give punishment for murder, of being liable for judgment. If
you claim to be a Christian, if you claim to be in the light, or if you claim
to be following the force for our subject matter, and you hate another, then
you are lying. You are, in fact, living in darkness, you are in the dark side. And
ultimately, it’s wrapped up in the self-centeredness of this, rather than being
focused on others. That love ultimately takes us out of ourselves, and most of
you have heard this, but the love we’re talking about here is not the feeling,
but the doing for others. It is, as Augustine said, to will the good of
another.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And yet, as we see with Anakin, even the proclamation of
love can be self-serving and self-centered. Because what drives the decisions
that ultimately lead to Anakin’s destruction is his fear of losing Padme as he
has a vision that she will die in childbirth. But his fear is not really about
Padme, but about himself. Because nothing he does is to protect Padme, its to
protect himself from losing her and what that would do to him. it’s love of
self, and self-centeredness not love of the other. And to reiterate, as Yoda
says, fear is the path to the dark side, because fear leads to anger, anger
leads to hate and hate leads to suffering, which is not just for Anakin, but
for everyone around him. And so, after he decides to become Palpatine’s
apprentice, because he has been promised that he can make Padme immortal, the
first injunction given is that he must participate in killing all the Jedi,
because they are now enemies, and enemies must be destroyed, keep that
dichotomy in mind, and you can assume that anytime someone or a group works to
dehumanize someone else that violence will soon follow. So, Anakin goes to the
Jedi temple where he kills all of the younglings, or the child Jedi in
training, and then goes off to Mustafar, which is a Lucan vision of hell, where
he and Padme and Obi-Wan’s futures are decided, so take a look at this, which
has been heavily edited by me for time and also graphic images…. (Video)<span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And with that Anakin is now the Darth Vader he knows and in
doing so he can say, to quote Barbie “Now I become death, the destroyer of
worlds.” Or maybe that was Oppenheimer, with both films coming out together I
get confused, and either way they are quoting from the Bhagavad-Gita. But one
of the things that Star Wars also does well is to show the fact that hate will
eat you up. You can see it happen to Palpatine and you can also see it happen
to Anakin over the course of this film. We even see it in the lightsabers, as
those who follow the dark side have red lightsabers, and the reasoning given is
that all their anger, hatred and thirst for power are imparted into the kyber
crystal, turning it red. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hate will
destroy you, or as Dr. King said, “I have decided to stick with love because
hate is too great a burden to bear.” And he would certainly know something
about reasons, or desires, to hate someone else. So, did Mamie Mobley, the
mother of Emmitt Till, who said about her son’s murders when interviewed by Studs
Terkel, “It certainly would be unnatural not to (hate them), yet I’d have to
say I’m unnatural…The Lord gave me shield, I don’t know how to describe myself…
I did not wish them dead. I did not wish them in jail. If I had to, I could
take their four little children – they each had two – and I could raise those
children as if they were my own and I could have loved them…. I believe the
Lord meant what he said, and try to live according to the way I’ve been
taught.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, while I could say that we have to choose which we
are going to do, hate or love, in fact we don’t get that choice. Because if we
choose to be disciples of Christ then we have to love. It’s not a choice at
that point, because to be in the light, to be in God’s love, to have God abide
in us then we have to abide in God and God is love, and love casts out fear,
love casts out anger, love casts out hate, and discipleship calls for us to
love. And so, Obi-Wan cry’s out I loved you and what does Anakin say, “I hate
you.” Hate will destroy, hate will devastate, hate will ruin and hate will
defeat. But we know that love will ultimately win. That love, in fact, is more
powerful than anything else because God is love. There are plenty of people who
call for us to be afraid, call for us to hate others, who say that you are
either with me or against me, who want to make enemies of others, much of it
done in the name of religion and much done simply for power, but what does
Jesus say? Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you and that we will
be known by the love that we show to the world, because those who say they love
God but hate their neighbors are liars. Jonathan Swift once said “We
have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to
make us love one another.” But I think he’s wrong. I think it is true for some,
but we are called to commit our lives, our whole lives, to Christ, to follow
the way of light, which means we must love. It’s not a choice, it’s a command,
because we are to abide in God’s love, just as God abides in us, because God is
love. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-90605538413453878452023-07-10T19:22:00.001-06:002023-08-16T19:26:12.452-06:00Choose You MustHere is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=559235483" target="_blank">Romans 7:15-25a</a> and the movie was <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>.<div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">On Thursday, Linda and I celebrated our 21st anniversary,
and we had a very nice dinner together reminiscing about the favorite house
we’ve lived in, as we’ve had 8 in the past 21 years, favorite job, favorite
car, favorite child, you know all the usual. But it was sort of a reflection on
the different ways that we might have imagined going differently, sometimes
because of decisions that we had little say over and sometimes because of
decisions that we make. While we often act as if our lives, and the lives of
others, are direct lines of one point leading directly to the other, but we
know that’s not really how it works. That while it might not exactly be a
choose your own adventure novel, that there are definitely choices that we get
to, or have to make, sometimes large, sometimes small, that end up making a
huge difference in the direction that our lives take and that also affect the
lives of others as well. And that’s where we turn today as we continue in our
series on the gospel in Star Wars looking at the second movie in the series.
Released in 1980, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>The Empire Strikes
Back</i> is widely considered the greatest of all the films.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Aaqxz6AtHQU6cAK3aEK1BTinLH6DmfZ29XYGw34SudeimZY52mR8nQpGRqk0vaamx3Z3d7P_lvrYTmFN0WJjeDq0nfdE9s6pzX7qLuofrBPbKE61soylouz8kgWj495Y5EulBVNfIwCZNbMjh07sInTL2WxZVs7jOkJ9D4920zwOgAXdKDp9XGm40lQ/s1200/empire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Aaqxz6AtHQU6cAK3aEK1BTinLH6DmfZ29XYGw34SudeimZY52mR8nQpGRqk0vaamx3Z3d7P_lvrYTmFN0WJjeDq0nfdE9s6pzX7qLuofrBPbKE61soylouz8kgWj495Y5EulBVNfIwCZNbMjh07sInTL2WxZVs7jOkJ9D4920zwOgAXdKDp9XGm40lQ/s320/empire.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the rebel alliance had destroyed the death star at the
battle of Yavin at the end of the first film, the empire strikes back, as the
title says, and seeks out to find and destroy the rebels who are now hiding
from the empire. After their base on the ice planet of Hoth is attacked, they
retreat again, with Luke Skywalker going to the Dagobah system to receive
instruction from Yoda, the last remaining Jedi Master, and put in a different
order, his words are, therefore making him sound super smart. Meanwhile, Han,
Chewie and Leia are being pursued by the evil Darth Vader when the hyperdrive
on their ship won’t work and so they retreat to the cloud city of Bespin,
controlled by an old friend of Han’s, Lando Calrissian. Calrissian betrays them
to Vader who uses them as a trap to get Luke to come to their rescue, where he
and Vader engage in a lightsaber battle, with Luke losing his hand, and where
Vader reveals, and I hope this isn’t a surprise to anyone any longer, that
Luke’s father was not killed by Vader as he had been told, but that Vader
himself is his father, and along the way Luke learns somethings about the force
and himself. But one of the things that gets bantied about in the films is this
idea of choice, against questions of whether those decisions are predetermined
or if we have freewill.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And to
start this I’d like to look at the choice that comes to Lando Calrissian, whom
I’ve already said betrays them, but take a look at what happens (Video)… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now just a little back story on this
character, who was played by Billy Dee Williams. He was introduced for two
reasons. The first was that Harrison Ford had been saying that he wanted to
stop playing Han Solo, and so Lucas wasn’t sure if he would be around for the
third film, which is why he was locked into carbonite so that it could go
either way. So, Lucas wanted to introduce another loved scoundrel, or scruffy
looking nerf herder as Leia says, in case Han was dead. Now for the Star Wars
geeks, does anyone know how Lucas convinced Ford to come back? He promised him
more Indiana Jones’ movies, I guess appropriately with the last installment out
in theaters now. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the other reason he
came in was to add a little diversity to the cast. </p><p class="MsoNormal">You might have noticed that
in the original Star Wars, everyone was white, although perhaps their might
have been some diversity amongst those playing storm troopers, although that
was hidden by their white armor. And this isn’t just looking backwards and
seeing it. At the time, when the casting director suggested hiring the
inestimable James Earl Jones to be the voice of Darth Vader, Lucas initially
rejected it because that would have meant that the only black actor would have
been the one playing the personification of evil, which he didn’t think was a
good look. Fortunately, he made the right decision and Jones was brought in for
the voice. Keep your eye out for the change in diversity as the movies
progress, and we’ll also come back to the role of women in the Star Wars
universe. But, that’s all filler. Lando says that he didn’t have a choice in
betraying them to the empire, but is that really true? No. He just didn’t like
the outcomes if he didn’t. He did have a choice, and, although he consistently
says “It’s not my fault” as things keep going wrong, thereby not taking responsibility
for things, which is something that we as Christians are called to do, he does
realize things have gone badly, that perhaps he made the wrong decision, and
orders everyone in the city to flee, which probably saves hundred or perhaps
thousands of lives. That too is a choice that he makes, although overlooked.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now I do have to say that Star Wars does play both sides of
the equation when it comes to what choices we can actually make or whether
there are things that are predetermined, and therefore there is nothing we can
do about it. In the later prequels, when Qui Gon Jinn meets the young Anakin
Skywalker for the first time, Anakin makes a remark about how fortunate that
they had to land where they did to get their ship repaired, and Jinn says “Our
meeting was not a coincidence. Nothing happens by accident.” And
then of course Vader tells look that it is his destiny to turn to the dark
side, that the emperor has foreseen it. Of course, spoiler alert, that doesn’t
happen, which then sort of should make us question the idea of destiny and
predestination in the films. And of course Yoda has his own take on this, and
we could do an entire series just on the wisdom of Yoda. He does have some of
the best, and most famous lines in the series, including Size matters not, do
or do not, there is no try, you do not believe, and that is why you fail, and
best of all, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to
suffering. But about destinies, Yoda says that the future is impossible to see,
it’s clouded, or as he says in the Empire Strikes Back, always in motion the future
is. That means we can’t predict the future because there are too many
variables, too many choices that people can make, to be able to determine the
future outcomes. It’s its own chaos theory. So, which do we believe? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now one of the recurrent arguments, at least within the
Protestant tradition, has surrounded some of these very issues. Are we
predestined to things, or are we given freewill to choose, to decide for
ourselves, how we will live, what we will do, which then brings into play
salvation issues? Some of you will probably remember that last year we did a
series on what Methodists believe, which I did as sort of a counter to what
come in the churches who have disaffiliated where saying. And in that we talked
about the difference between Calvinism and what has become known as Wesleyan
theology. John Calvin argued that God’s decision about our fate had already
been made, that our eternal judgment was already made before we were even born,
and that in addition, Jesus only died for these chosen elect, so that there is
what is known as limited atonement. In addition, it was argued that because God
made this decision that God’s grace was irresistible, that is you could not
deny God’s grace, it was given to you whether you wanted it or not. Nothing you
did or did not do could change your eventual fate. Now if you would like to
know more, I would encourage you to go back and watch that other message. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As the points of Calvinism were being debated, a theologian
by the name of Jacob Arminius, who was a Calvinist, set out to make a
scriptural argument in support of Calvinism and predestination in particular,
and found that he couldn’t, and formulated a new theology, which is now known
as Arminianism. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, was an
Arminian in theology, although the thoughts are also sometimes now referred to
as being Wesleyan since they are found and promulgated within the Wesleyan
tradition. Wesley said of predestination that “it destroys all of God’s attributes
at once: it overturns both his justice, mercy and truth: yea, it represents the
most holy God as worse than the devil, as both more false, more cruel and more
unjust.” (Free Grace, VII.2) Wesley argued that while there might appear to be
scriptural justification for the idea, those passages were taken out of context
and not compared with the image of God found in the entirety of scripture. Out
of this understanding of God came Wesley’s formulation of prevenient grace,
that is the grace that goes before us, that is always there and that is
extended to everyone. That Christ died not just for the elect, but that Christ
died for all so there is universal atonement. In addition, as Arminians, we
believe that God’s grace is resistible, that is we have to choose to accept and
believe and act on Christ’s saving action. God’s grace is extended to us, but
we have to welcome it into our lives, but once you have accepted it, you can
reject it again later, that is no perseverance of the saints. Every day is a new
journey in our faith, somedays being good and somedays being bad, but it’s a
choice that we get to make. This is not to dismiss the knowledge that there are
people who are psychotic or sociopaths, but that we can choose to do things
that people would consider to be good or evil. It is a choice that we get to
make, that God leave it to us. Now God certainly wants us to make the right
decisions, but the decision is ours, and we see the same thing in Empire. Luke
is training with Yoda and they come to what is known is known as the dark side-cave,
or the cave of evil. Take a look. (Video)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This idea of choice will keep coming up over the next few
films, so keep that in the back of your mind as we watch and discuss them, but
I think one of the most important, but probably overlooked lines, in that scene
is that Luke asks what’s in the cave, and Yoda says “only what you take with
you.” That is what will happen is what Luke brings. And Yoda then tells him to
leave his weapon, but what does Luke do? He straps his belt on, and the idea of
violence and non-violence also plays itself out in the films, and Luke has also
been told that a Jedi, a follower of the force, only acts in defense and never
attacks, but who lights their lightsaber first in the cave? Luke does. All of
these little decisions add up to what happens, and then in cutting Vader’s head
off and the mask dissolving to show Luke’s face, he comes to see that there
isn’t this massive difference that he imagined between him and Vader, but
simply the choices they have made, or can make, and that might lead us to ask
what would have been the result if he hadn’t strapped his weapons to his hip
before he went in. would that have changed what happened? We might get an
answer at the end of Return of the Jedi, in 3 weeks. All these little choices
are important. It’s been said that it’s not the big yes of a mistake (new word)
that gets us into trouble, it’s the hundreds of little yes’s that lead up to
that. But what Luke discovers, what we also need to discover, is that these
outcomes are in all of us.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now when I was thinking of this series I was originally
planning on talking about Cain and Abel, because it so demonstrates this
reality as God tells Cain, before he kills his brother, that “sin is lurking at
the door, its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Gen. 4:7) That’s the
first time that sin appears in scripture, and the warning sounds very similar
to what Yoda tells Luke about the dark side, and of course Cain does not master
it. He chooses a different path and kills his brother. Good stuff. But then I
saw that the passage we heard from Romans was the assigned reading for today,
which also matches so closely into this story of choice. Because Paul is
talking about the choices we face, except he’s also talking about the simple
reality of humanity that we all fall short of the glory of God. that because
sin is within us, that we do that which we know we aren’t supposed to do, or
don’t want to do. Now you could read this out of context and think that Paul is
therefore giving us the excuse that we are not responsible, but that sin made
us do it, or more proverbially, the devil made us do it. But, that is not what
he is saying here. Instead he’s saying that God has given us the same warning
that came to Cain “sin is lurking at the door, and you must master it.” It’s
that we choose to do follow own will, our own desires, our own inclinations,
our own yearnings, we choose to put on our weapons rather than following the
injunction not to take them, not to be aggressive, and we act impulsively,
without patience and we do not seek the will of God to be done on earth as it
is in heaven. And because of that we go astray, and to paraphrase Yoda, when we
give into sin, “forever it will dominate your destiny. Consume you it will.”
And so, Paul cries out that he is wretched, much like Cain. But is that the
final answer? Paul cries out, we cry out, with a resounding no. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Because just like the dark side can be overcome, or avoided,
by moving to the light, away from the dark, so to are we saved by following the
light of Christ, but yoking ourselves to Christ and learning to follow his ways
so that we are freed from our slavery to sin which leads to death. And so,
Paul, rhetorically, asks who will rescue him from this state, and the answer,
of course, is Jesus Christ, the one in whom we find our freedom and who guides
us out of the cave into the light, and shows us the way to live by offering us
healing and wholeness, just like Yoda teaches and guides Luke, even when he
goes astray, even when he is exasperated by what he does, he never gives up on
him, just like God. Because whether we are Calvinist, Arminian, or something
else in our theology, what we know is that salvation comes from God through
Christ. That it is not dependent upon us, that we can’t earn it, but that we
need it, especially when we understand ourselves as having free will because it
is then that we understand how we we have the gifts to overcome the sin that is
lurking by turning to God for assistance and guidance, we turn to God for love
and forgiveness, we turn to God for strength and understanding. We turn to God
for salvation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Life is a series of choices, and what Luke discovers is that
what separates him from Vader, what separates him from his father, is not that
one is good and one is bad, but it’s the choices that have been made. Life is
full of choices and the outcome is not predestined. We get to choose, we have
to choose, what path we will follow. Are we going to follow the ways of the
world, the wages of sin and death, the path that leads to the dark side, the
path that is easy and wide, as Jesus says, or are we going to follow the path
of God, to follow God’s commands, to live lives worthy of the calling into
which we have been called, lives of love and peace and forgiveness, the path
that is narrow and difficult but leads to eternal life? For the choice is ours.
God’s grace and love are extended to us, and God is ready to receive us on that
path, but we have to be willing to make the choice to follow that path. The
choice is ours. I pray that we make the right choices, and when we have failed
to seek forgiveness and the guidance to move to the right path. I pray that it
will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-87672581249003069492023-07-03T19:27:00.005-06:002023-08-16T19:38:19.502-06:00Faith and FearHere is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’" target="_blank">Matthew 28:16-20</a> and the movie was <i>Star Wars</i>.<div><p class="MsoNormal">It’s said that there are two types of people in the world: Those
who love Star Wars and those who are wrong. That’s a joke. I know that <i>Star
Wars</i> is not for everyone, and that’s fine. But, someone told me they weren’t
really into <i>Star Wars</i>, and when I asked if they had seen Star Wars on the big
screen, and they said no, and I said “well there’s your problem” because the
opening scene of the original movie, after the crawl explaining what’s
happening, when the imperial star destroyer comes from the top of the screen
into the scene is one of the greatest moments in cinema history and changed
movies forever. Like what can be said of the most influential films, there is a
pre-Star Wars and there is after Star Wars. Even if it had not been anywhere as
close to as successful as it was, it still would have given us the special
effects company of Industrial Light and Magic and Skywalker Sound, which are
monumental. Pixar Animation also comes out of Lucas Films, although that’s a
few years later. And while the movies are noted for their stilted language,
it’s said that Alec Guinness, who plays Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi asked to be
killed off early so that he wouldn’t have to keep saying more lines. But we
also tend to forget that it was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, won six of
them, and was given two additional awards for sound editing and for the
creation of a new motion picture camera. What Lucas did was truly revolutionary
which we forget form a distance because so much of what he did is now so common,
and also noting that what we see as Star Wars now is not what was released in
1977, because Lucas upgraded then in the 90s, and the originals are no longer
available, and apparently will never be released again as they originally were.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp2DHE-kp_OHiyO0GXwWSe7DWsu9eOLtIrgeYskgDvD1u23-6YVpP2DG6rWsFoVB1K0mrExVtX84eSn7TwsEwMT4jNM7KlWsVnRmStr4MIBVMoiqztfohfrZD0zprM0sKsd34oj7GAlV7-rMr7kfQLmTKAhNIn3WdOf5lUtsPrwHMI5IK-RaAlYpncIW0/s1280/star%20wars.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp2DHE-kp_OHiyO0GXwWSe7DWsu9eOLtIrgeYskgDvD1u23-6YVpP2DG6rWsFoVB1K0mrExVtX84eSn7TwsEwMT4jNM7KlWsVnRmStr4MIBVMoiqztfohfrZD0zprM0sKsd34oj7GAlV7-rMr7kfQLmTKAhNIn3WdOf5lUtsPrwHMI5IK-RaAlYpncIW0/s320/star%20wars.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, with that long-winded introduction, we move onto our
new series the gospel in Star Wars. And I say this every year in our movie
series, but please note that it is not the gospel according to Star Wars,
because we have four gospels, and George Lucas did not write any of them, but
instead we will look for what we can see in the movies that can help us in our
faith, and there is so much. And I will warn you that my Star Wars geek will
come out and so some of you may think to yourselves, “I have a bad feeling
about this, “ but let me just say that “this is the worship series you are
looking for.” And if you don’t know <i>Star Wars</i> you have no idea what I just
said.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Today we begin with the original<i> Star Wars</i> film, which is
now referred to either as <i>Episode 4</i> or <i>A New Hope</i>. Lucas did intend the story
to start in the middle as if you come into the fourth part of a Saturday
matinee serial, much like Flash Gordon, which was what he actually wanted to
do, but he couldn’t get the rights to it, so he made his own. Some of you may
remember that they did come out with a terrible Flash Gordon movie in 1980, of
which the best that might be said is that the theme song was written and
performed by Queen. Lucas also thought <i>Star Wars</i> was going to be a flop, as did
20th century Fox. In fact, they thought so little of it that Fox required
theaters that if they wanted to screen <i>The Other Side of Midnight</i>, which was
supposed to be their big hit for the summer, anyone ever heard of that, that
they had to take Star Wars, and even then, it only opened on 32 screens
nationwide. But it would go on to show continually for more than a year on 42
screens. The other big movie opening at the same time was Smokey and the Bandit,
which opened on 386 screens. It earned 2.7 million on opening weekend. Star
Wars earned 2.5 million, and blew up from there earning 240 percent more than
the next highest grossing film that year, <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Star Wars</i> tells the story of the battle between the empire,
who controls the galaxy with an iron fist, and the rebel alliance who are
seeking to bring democracy and peace back. The princess Leia Organa, funny she
doesn’t look Druish, has been given the plans to the empire’s death star, a
planet killing space station, which she has sent to Obi-Wan Kenobi, the last of
the Jedi, telling him, he is her only hope, although it turns out that he is
not her only hope. Obi-Wan, rather than thinking he alone can save, teams up
with Luke Skywalker, a young man who dreams of bigger things that being a moisture
farmer, Han Solo and renegade space cowboy and Han’s partner, Chewbacca, who
was based on Lucas’ dog Indiana. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
what seems like a classic story of a damsel in distress being rescued, Leia
takes charge of the escape, and the evade the grip of the evil Darth Vader, get
the plans to the rebels who launch a last gasp effort to destroy the Death Star
and save the galaxy, which they do when Luke makes the final shot, with the
help from Han Solo who, although he thought the entire thing was a fool’s errand,
has returned, and the death star is destroyed although Darth Vader escapes to
fight another day, and all of this is surrounded with an exposition and talk
about a mysterious power in the universe known as the force.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now the introduction of the force was an intentional act on
Lucas’ part. And I will note that Lucas was raised Methodist and describes
himself as a Buddhist-Methodist, and he said that he made the film in order to
give a new generation not only a way to look at the battle between good and
evil, but also a way to encounter the supernatural. He said “I put the force
into the movie in order to try and awaken a certain kind of spirituality in
young people… I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask
questions about the mystery.” “I was trying to say in a simple way,” he said,
“that there is a God and that there is both a good side and a bad side. You
have a choice between them, but the world works better if you’re on the good
side.” It is Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is a Jedi, a group who are connected to the
force, who gives us our first introduction, so take a look… (Video)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Just 28 well-chosen words is what we hear about the force,
before we sort of learn about it through how people interact with the force,
and for the geeks, I’m rejecting the idea of midi-chlorians, and if you don’t
know what that means, don’t ask. Now does that mean that the force is meant to
represent God? No, there are aspects to it, and some have made the comparison
to an understanding of the Holy Spirit, but even that is a stretch. The force
is not God, but again, like the movies it can serve as a metaphor for God, and
like Lucas wanted, help us to ask questions about the mystery not just of God,
but of life. Now there so, so many ways we could approach this film, but for
today’s purposes I would like to focus on discipleship and the making of
disciples as given to us in the gospel passage. Jesus tells the disciples that
they are to go forth and to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the
trinity, teaching them what they have learned. And then he says he will be with
them always. This too has an echo in Star Wars as Obi-Wan tells Luke that the
force will be with him always. Now there are lots of ways that we can live out
what has come to be known as the great commission, some better than others, and
so I’d like to focus on two clips that highlight the conveyance of the force,
but just in very different ways The first is Darth Vader meeting with the top
military leaders in the death star… (Video) the second clip is similar, and yet
very different. Obi-Wan is beginning to get Luke to be able to sense and use
the force, and so Luke is using a lightsaber, which Obi-Wan calls a more elegant
weapon for a more civilized time, and we can save whether weapons can be
elegant and how civilized times can be that still require weapons, but that’s
for a different message at a different time. But Luke is using the lightsaber
for the first time with a remote shooting lasers at him to help him learn how
to use it… (Video)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now I have to say that in staff meeting this week, when I
read the gospel passage, they said they had no idea where I was going to go
with that in Star Wars, and perhaps you thought the same thing. But both Darth
Vader and Ob-Wan are using the force. It’s not a different thing, it’s just
Darth uses the dark side, and we should note it’s not that there is a dark and
a light side, there is the force, and then there is the dark side of the force.
But they’re both using the force, and both of them are facing people who are
doubting the force or those who know nothing about it. That is, they are
religious in a secular society. And so, in that, we might see them both as
being representatives for their faith, or maybe even as evangelists, but their
methods are radically different. When Vader is challenged, he chokes the man
who challenges him. Now the man’s lack of faith may truly disturb Vader, but do
you think that being choked is an effective evangelism tool? Does this make the
man want to know more about the force? Does his fear lead him to faith? How
many disciples does Vader make? Is there anyone who seeks to know the force
because of what Darth Vader does or how he lives his life? No. In none of the
movies does anyone that we see from those who work or follow the empire, other
than Vader and the Emperor, ever refer to the force in a positive way. Others
certainly fear the force, or more appropriately they fear Darth Vader, but they
don’t respect either it or him. Fear does not bring people to faith, or at
least we might say honest faith.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now compare that interchange between Obi-Wan, Luke and Han. Rather
than chastising Han, or telling him how wrong he is, Obi-Wan instead sort of
smiles and then keeps focusing on Luke, and calls Luke not to explain it, but
instead to take a step even further, to call for Luke to put on a helmet with a
shield so he can’t even see what the droid is doing, telling him “sometimes our
eyes deceive us.” He pushes Luke to stretch beyond his comfort zone and where
he is at that moment. He continues to teach him, and in some ways, distracts
him from interacting with Han, because what does Luke know about the force?
He’s just heard about it and started connecting with it a few hours before this
moment, although not knowing anything about something rarely stops anyone from
talking about it. And while Han is not yet a believer, he is not automatically
set to be opposed to it because he sees it playing out in how Obi-Wan lives,
and as the movie goes on is even bold enough to begin talking about the force,
and even saying to Luke before he goes into the Battle of Yavin where Luke destroys
the Death Star, “May the force be with you.” And it’s not just Han, others also
begin talking about the force, and trusting and relying on the force, even if
they don’t understand it, but they see it lived out in other’s lives. And just
another geek moment, the destruction of the Death Star is known as the battle
of Yavin, and it’s upon which all dating in the Star Wars universe happens, as
being before the battle BBY, or after the battle, ABY. And now back to our
regularly scheduled programming.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Madeleine L ’Engle said, “We do not draw people to Christ by
loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and
how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want
with all their hearts to know the source of it.” I think that sums up how we
are to carry out the great commission, especially in light of Friday’s Supreme
Court decision that says it’s okay for Christians to discriminate which
unfortunately is how all too many people see who we are. We are called to go
forth and make disciples, and we can do that by trying to make people afraid,
or telling them how wrong they are, or by truly offering God’s love, not by
what we say to people, but how we live our lives, by the love we show to the
world, you know, like Jesus said, and by the faithfulness we show to God and by
the trust we place in God. Just like Luke turning off his targeting computer at
the end to make the shot to destroy the death star because he trusts the force,
so too are we called to trust God and to teach what it means to be a disciple
to others, and it begins at this table, where God, through his son Jesus
Christ, has poured out God’s love for us, and teaches us the ways to be a
disciple and by calling everyone to participate. So, go forth to make new
disciples by being God’s love to the world. And may the force be with you,
always. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-68932974402198670932023-06-26T19:35:00.001-06:002023-08-16T19:37:14.540-06:00State of the ChurchHere is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=559236204" target="_blank">1 John 3:1-3</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal">It has been my practice for most of my years in ministry as
the end of an appointment year comes to and end and a new one begins to take
the time to look back at what we did in the past year and more importantly
where we were going in the next year which I have called the state of the
church message. Now I didn’t do that the first two years here, I think it was,
because of what was happening it was too hard to plan for the next month, let
alone the next year. But we did do it last year, and we do it again as I
complete my fourth year serving this congregation, and I’ll be honest that
sometimes it feels like it hasn’t been that long, and other times it feels like
it’s been at least a decade here. But today we’re not looking back, even though
we have some great things we have accomplished but I want to spend the looking
at where we are going as a congregation, how we might get there and what all of
us, as the body of Christ, need to do to do that work. But let me give just a
little context for everything.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 2008, Phyllis Tickle published a book entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Great Emergence</i>, which we have a
copy of in the church library, and the Los Alamos Library has a digital copy.
But one of the arguments that she has in the book is that every five hundred
years or so the church faces a great upheaval, that there are tectonic shifts
that happen and, in her words, the church “cleans house” and holds a great
rummage sale in which it decides what to keep, what to get rid of and what new
things to introduce. And while I’m not going to go into all the details, and
there is certainly room for debate in her argument, it think it’s largely
correct. And the last time the church went through this major disruption was at
the Protestant Reformation. Does anyone know what year the reformation is said
to have begun? 1517, so basically 500 years ago. And of course, it didn’t
actually begin that year and it didn’t end that year, it went on for a while,
as did the other turmoil she cites.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, if Tickle is right, then we are right in the midst
of all of this, and I can tell you from where I stand I do think it’s right, or
at least it feels right. My conversations with other clergy, not just United
Methodist, but other protestants, Catholic and Orthodox priests and even Unitarians,
they are all saying “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m working harder than
ever, and I was not trained to do any of the things the church is now doing,
and no one else has been trained for this either, that we are all making it up
as we go along.” That there is a disturbance in the force, not to jump ahead in
week in our messaging, and we’re all flying by the seat of our pants doing
things we never imagined and having to think in new and different ways. And I
can tell you that’s unsettling, and scary and daunting, and yet there is also
an energy and excitement that are there as well because we are in the vanguard
in some ways of how the church will be for a while. I don’t know if it’s 500 years’
worth, but we are creating something new. And so, if you have this sense that
things are shifting under our feet rapidly and you’re not sure what’s
happening, and perhaps it leaves you worried, or maybe you find it exciting,
then you are not alone. Welcome to the party. And so, as I’ve been trying to
capture in the newsletter this year these are all the things that are swirling
around in my head as I’m trying to figure out these next few years while also
wondering how much what we do will change in the next 15 years which gets me to
retirement. Although we’re not looking that far ahead yet, but we do have some
longer term goals.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, the leadership board met for a retreat two months
ago to talk through some of these issues and to begin creating goals for the
church. We did the same exercise just a few weeks before we closed for Covid,
and we actually got many of those accomplished, and others didn’t happen
because the world changed rapidly. We were led in this process by Leaven
Coaching, whose goal is to help people and groups rise, hence the name, and we
set out to create goals to be completed in the next year, starting July 1. Then
we had 3-5 year goals, which we are calling the 75th anniversary goals, as the
75th anniversary of the founding of this congregation is September 9, 2026. And
then we had 10 year goals. And before we jump into those goals, let me just say
that not completing a goal is not a failure, depending on why it wasn’t done.
Sometimes the world just rapidly changes, and that goal no longer makes sense,
or we have a new opportunity come that is more important, or that changes what
we imagined and leads us in new directions. So, we are not writing these in
stone and locking ourselves into them, because that’s not how the Spirit moves
and works. As the passage we heard today from 1 John says, and you may remember
this was the passage that sort of centered our thinking for the Lenten series
in which we did a lot of the prep work for these goals. We know that we are
children of God. That is who we are now, and who we will always be, but the
future is unknown but we will continue to strive after the Kingdom, or doing
God’s will here on earth, as it is in heaven, and holding onto the hope we have
through Christ. And so, without further ado, away we go.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, we start with the one year goals, I guess that would be
obvious, but maybe not, and we start <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with sort of a very practical one. And by the
way those in the sanctuary you will find these as an insert, and those online
as this is live, they were available in the Friday worship email, which if you
don’t receive that, you can subscribe on our website, and for those who are
watching this later, you’ll just have to see them in the bottom corner.
Anyways, since we want to a one board model under Steve Trout, one of the areas
that we have struggled is with the trustees, which have multiple roles. One is
a fiduciary one of overseeing insurance and incorporation stuff, and the second
is that of dealing maintenance and upkeep of the building. The Leadership board
does the fiduciary stuff, and even some of the larger decisions, but we really
need volunteers for the maintenance team. They don’t meet, we do most things by
email, but we need more people, men and women, skilled and unskilled, who can
take on tasks that happen throughout the year. ( So, one of our goals is to get
that team created and operating effectively. Another, and this you will find
covers multiple years, is to increase and improve our online worship as well as
discipleship making activities online. This is a growing edge for us, and last
week we posted a new high for those watching line on Sunday with 27 households
with us, beating our old record by 2. While there are some churches who are
moving away, or want to move away, and are encouraging people to be in-person,
as if that’s the only appropriate way to worship, but we’re going the other way
for multiple reasons. One is that’s the way the world is moving, and more
importantly because its an inclusivity issue. We can reach more people in more
ways and in more times, who otherwise might not otherwise be able to worship
with us at all. But, right now those online are just observing what’s happening
in the sanctuary, but that’s not, in my opinion, the right way to do that. Just
think of a sporting event, or even a Broadway show. Is the in-person experience
the same as watching it on tv or online? No, they are very different because
the experience itself is different, and so we need to program for that. And we
are preparing to make another upgrade to our system to assist that as well as
to form a team to help us improve that as well as to connect those who are
worshipping online together, and with the rest of the congregation, and build
in other fellowship and faith development activities. We are also, as part of
this, going to try to reach out to United Methodist’s who have lost their
churches to become a temporary worship home, as well as becoming a leader in
the conference in online worship and online community so that we can assist and
train other congregations to do the same thing. A goal is to create a welcoming
statement for the website, and other things, for those who are looking for a
church to know who we are and that we are called to love all. And that flows
out into how we interact with our community as the church, and you’ll see a
list of potential things there, including also increasing our ecumenical work
by partnering with other faith groups to do more things together. Now one of
the things I hear a lot about from both the church and also the community is
about skates. But here's the thing about skates. Don has been doing it for
thirty years, and while he’s had help over that time, he cannot do this alone.
And so, I have told him we won’t start skates up until he has a team to help
him. this cannot be, and will not be, a ministry of one person. If we want to
have skates again, to restart that institution, it needs to be owned by the
congregation and supported by the congregation. And finally, as part of this
work is to do a demographics study of who is living in the area now and how we
can work with them better and meet some of the needs of the community.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then we move onto what we are calling the 75th anniversary
goals, because we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of our founding in 2026,
and so these are really 3-5 year goals. But the first is that we will hold a
celebration for that anniversary, and what that looks like is yet to be
determined. But what we do want to also celebrate at that time is having paid
off the remainder of our mortgage, which currently stands at just a little more
than $220,000, and to which we contribute $37,000 a year. Paying off the debt,
not only removed that weight from us, but frees up those funds to be used in
ministry. We continue with goals for worship and faith development of creating
another worship service not on Sunday and that takes place out in the
community, along with a second program night like program, which means it could
be very different, but combining families coming together, and that too might
be off campus and will include a digital component to it. And let me just add
that I think some are worried from some of the things I’ve said that I am going
to eliminate the traditional service. And nothing could be further from the
truth. But we do need to look at how we do worship because while we call the
contemporary worship contemporary, it’s not. This model is now 40 years old and
the generation it was built for are now entering retirement age, and so that means
we need to look at where young adults are finding and encountering God and
respond accordingly. But, just like with online worship, this is not an
either/or but a both/and. One of the areas in which I need to focus is on
creating a leadership development pathway, along with our current leaders, in
order to raise up and train new leaders in the congregation, which I think also
goes alongside the creation of a discipleship pathway, as leadership in the
church and discipleship go hand in hand. And the final one here that we haven’t
yet covered is one that I am excited about and I think has lots of potential
for us, and that was the goal of creating and/or partnering with others to
create life skills classes. And this is targeted at all ages. So, for example,
it could be technology classes or classes on how not to get scammed, for
seniors, and planning for retirement for younger, and finance classes for all
ages, or classes on how to change a tire and check the oil and other
maintenance for teenagers. It’s really responding to the needs we see and hear
about in our community, so that we continue to build on our identity of being
the church that is in service to the community, that we become known as God’s
love in action.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then we have what we are identifying as our 5-10 year
goals. And so, one of our long-term goals is continued increasing our outreach
opportunities, or building on what we already have. The next goal is to move
towards environmental sustainability as a congregation, or to have a zero-carbon
footprint, and there are lots of ways that could happen. Someone also suggested
that as we do these things, it could also be an opportunity for us to make it a
learning opportunity for high schoolers to learn a trade, or be exposed to a
trade, which is a great way of thinking broadly to try and accomplish multiple
goals through one project. And then finally it was to work on what we have said
is to dispel misconceptions about what it means to be a Christian. When we say
that we are Christians, especially to people who are unchurched or of other
faiths, many or even most probably have a very different meaning of that word
that how we might understand it. So, this is a way for us to communicate what
it means for us, that it doesn’t mean that all Christians do this, believe
this, or that we all vote the same way. It’s to broaden the understanding of
Christianity and therefore to be welcoming to those who might be favorable to
hearing about our understanding of God and of the good news which is different
than what they imagine it to be.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That was a lot of information in not a lot of time and with
not a lot of details. We are going to be holding what we are currently calling
an opportunity expo sometime in the early fall, at multiple times and in
multiple ways, so that you can hear more about these goals and even better to
say that you are interested in participating because these cannot be done only
be the members of the Leadership Board. But, in the meantime for those in the
sanctuary, you will find an insert in the worship guide that has all of these
on there, with little boxes next to it, and we are strongly encouraging you to
mark in the box next to the ones you are most interested in and that turn it in
with the offering. Marking this does not mean you are committing yourself to
any of these, it just gives us a starting place to begin gathering and
disseminating information. For those online, again you will find this in the
Friday worship email and also on the church center app. Fill it out and then
send it in to the church and we will get you added to the list. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Right now, we are children of God, beloved children,
disciples of the way seeking to be God’s love to the world, and what we will be
is not yet known, but we are moving boldly and bravely into the future in the
sure and certain hope that God is with us<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and guiding us, and that when we work with God, and abide in God and
God’s dreams and visions, just as God abides in us that all things are indeed
possible. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-86427742049659683172023-06-19T19:40:00.002-06:002023-08-16T19:43:03.838-06:00Do Not Hold OnHere is my message for Sunday. The text was <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=559236527">John 20:11-18</a> and it was also a recap of Annual Conference.<div><p class="MsoNormal">Bill Belichick, who is the head coach and general manager
for the New England Patriots football team is widely regarded as one of, if not
the best football coach of all time. What he is also known for is the
ruthlessness in how he treats even his star players when it comes to the end of
their careers. He has said that he would much rather cut a player a year too
soon and still have them perform for another team, then to keep them a year too
late and have them underperform for him. It’s like the disclaimer we hear on
investment commercials that tells us that past performance is not indicative of
future performance. But all too many people, us probably included, even if we
also have a what have you done for me lately mentality, do look backward at
what was and hold onto it for the present and want to forecast it into the
future. Sometimes we do it because it’s what makes us feel comfortable,
sometimes it’s because it’s all that we know and therefore cannot imagine
something else, sometimes it’s because we are afraid of change and sometimes
its because whatever it is worked for us and therefore it has to be the same
for others and the same path forward.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCEDpg_5HmqD7AKKoEc5kJgtVlBWp_rodiKS2_S2yJMY8ehVqxZp-W_Ci2SPuk8nInfKhPRtD05tQLYiq0H1KBJ2vsz5pJ4KffH2VRMSccBiGpVasraRl79Zxk3oxguu522FRFRztfUUqwJo0CN-x3VDF6hJC3Fag5IhpthycrMAPlh3Nb_mXGw4xqSbI/s1280/nots%20of%20Jesus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCEDpg_5HmqD7AKKoEc5kJgtVlBWp_rodiKS2_S2yJMY8ehVqxZp-W_Ci2SPuk8nInfKhPRtD05tQLYiq0H1KBJ2vsz5pJ4KffH2VRMSccBiGpVasraRl79Zxk3oxguu522FRFRztfUUqwJo0CN-x3VDF6hJC3Fag5IhpthycrMAPlh3Nb_mXGw4xqSbI/s320/nots%20of%20Jesus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, for example, we had annual conference this past week,
and we’ll talk more about that in a little bit, but in the opening message the
Bishop talked about how important VBS was for him as a child in forming his
faith that led him into the ministry and then to his current position. Now he
did note that this was sixty years ago, but simultaneously seemed to emphasize
how important doing that same thing now, because of how it might impact a young
person today in the same way. Now I am not discounting the need to engage
children and youth, although the number one indicator of whether a child will
be engaged in faith as an adult has nothing to do with these things, but
instead with the religiosity of their parents. But I do have an issue of saying
that because something worked sixty years ago means that it is still going to
work today, or should even be taking place. And that’s why I chose the passage
I did for today as we think about the church and the events of Annual
Conference while also concluding our series on the nots of Jesus by jumping
back to the Easter story. We originally started this be looking at just a week
after Easter when Jesus tells Thomas do not doubt, but today we go back to the
original resurrection appearance.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mary goes to the tomb on Easter morning, although unlike
some of the other stories she is not there to prepare the body for burial, she
is apparently just going there to be near the tomb in order to mourn, although
that’s speculation on my part. And then skipping overseeing the tomb open and telling
others, because that’s not the focus, and jumping to the end where Mary
encounters the risen Christ. She is crying, and then sees Jesus, but doesn’t
know it is Jesus until he calls her name. Now in Matthew, when she recognizes
that it is Jesus, she bows down in worship and grabs ahold of Jesus’ feet.
Although Jesus says to her, do not hold onto me, we are not told that she has
grabbed onto him, and that could then lead to an interpretation that perhaps
this is a metaphorical hanging on, either both physical and metaphorical will
work for our purposes. Because does Mary come to the tomb expecting life? No.
she comes to be near the body, expecting him still to be dead. That’s every
experience she has had in her life, right? Resurrection doesn’t make any sense.
It’s not on the radar screen. And even though Jesus appears to shape shift, or
she is just totally misunderstanding of seeing him as the gardener because she
doesn’t expect to see him there, like encountering someone outside of the
context in which you know them, she doesn’t recognize him at first, and then
when she does, she expects him to be exactly like she had known him before, and
perhaps there is reason for that.<span></span></p><!--more--> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If she witnessed or heard about the raising of Lazarus or
the raising of Jairus’ daughter, they were the same as they were before. And
what makes their stories very different from Jesus is that they will die again.
So even if she believes this is truly Jesus, she doesn’t yet understand and
expects him to be exactly the same Jesus that she knew alive a few days before.
But that Jesus doesn’t exist anymore and for her to truly understand the
resurrection, the power of Easter, she has to understand this transformation of
seeing and knowing Christ differently. She has to let go of that understanding
of pre-resurrection Jesus in order to understand and know the resurrected
Christ. She has to let go of that old life in order to claim a new life. She
has to let go of Christ in order for him to become whom she truly needs now,
and to let Jesus become the resurrection and the life. If she tries to hold
onto that other Jesus then Easter will never be a reality for her, and Christ
cannot truly be present for her. To gain Christ, she has to let go of Christ.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, at Annual Conference this week we had to discuss
what got called the elephant in the room, disaffiliation, and that became how
it kept being referred to. But while we talked about mourning the churches and
clergy and laity who have left the United Methodist Church, what was a primary
point of conversation was where do we go from here. That this is a new world
for us, full of new possibilities, that we are smaller or leaner, but that we
can have a new focus and determination to be better. To learn and grow and
focus on making the main thing the main thing again, which is to be the good
news to the world. And while no one expressed it directly as such, what I kept
thinking about because of this message, was that to claim this new reality, to
be this new vision of church, that we have to hear this injunction: “do not
hold onto me.” Or to put it into Frozen language we have to learn to let it go.
If we try to hold onto the way things used to be, and the old model of church,
and the old United Methodist Church, we will never move forward. If all we do
is to talk about what we have lost and mourn that, then we can never see what
might be gained and we can never move into a new future. To be an Easter
people, to witness a resurrection, to be transformed and renewed and reborn then
we cannot hold on. We have to learn to let it go. We have to learn to see and
be new things in order for new things to come to fruition.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When I was seeking an appointment to come back to New Mexico
out of the New England Annual Conference, I was working with the Albuquerque DS
at the time Tom Nagle, whom I’m sure some of you remember, and he kept telling
me to be patient which then turned into we don’t know if there is going to be a
church for you or not, which got us a little worried. And so, I was talking to
our Director of Christian Education at the church I served, and she said “maybe
this is a sign for you and you need to let go of the idea of going back to New
Mexico and be open to other places that God might be leading you.” Not what I
wanted to hear, but I deeply respected Elizabeth and her faith journey, so I
paid attention and even talked with Linda about it that night. And I don’t remember
if it was the next day, or two days later, but Tom called me and again said he
didn’t think there was going to be a church available in New Mexico, but would
I be open to serving a church in northwest Texas, outside of Lubbock. And with
Elizabeth’s words in my head that I needed to not hold on to what we wanted and
be open to something else, and with Linda’s permission, I said yes. And I
actually had an appointment in northwest Texas for a day.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I had an appointment for a day, until someone in the congregation
found out that I was serving a reconciling congregation in New England, which
means that we were openly welcoming and affirming of the LGBTQ community. Which
1, I had nothing to do with that decision, it happened before I was appointed
there, and 2 was not all that uncommon of a thing in New England. But they then
told the Bishop that I was not welcome as their pastor. As you might guess they
just disaffiliated. And so, they did find me a church, or two churches, in New
Mexico, and one of them just disaffiliated as well, and so that decision to not
hold on, to let go, ended up really getting us where we wanted to be, just not
in the way we imagined it, and I guess then indirectly led us to being
appointed here. We have to learn to not hold on to old ways, not hold on to the
way we want things to be, so that God can bring new life, new ideas, new things
into our lives. We cannot hold on if we want to be transformed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So much of what is happening in the church, and really in
society at the moment, is this desire to want to cling to the way things used
to be, to the way we knew it, to the way it was when we at least imagine in our
minds that everything was better. Tat is not only not healthy, but we’re never
going back there again. And so, we have to stop clinging to the past in order
to see a new future. We have to stop looking backwards in order to move
forward. We have to stop holding on to what was that has been lost in order to
dream God’s dreams and see God’s visions. One of the common refrains we heard
at Annual Conference this year was “that’s the UMC,” whether it was hearing
about Four Corners Ministry and the creation of a homeless shelter this winter,
and the school supply drive, which we have participated in, and the Bishop
would say “that’s the UMC.” Or the new president of Lydia Patterson Institute
talking about the amazing work they do, and that only 30% of youth in Juarez
graduate high school, but pulling from this same population that they graduate
100% of their students and 100% of their seniors are scheduled to go to college
next year. That’s the UMC. And we heard from Todd Seelau, and Exile, whom we
support and have heard from here, and the 18 faith communities they currently
have meeting all over Albuquerque, and none of them in churches, and the more
than 100,000 meals they have prepared and distributed to children who deal with
food insecurity. That’s the UMC. And it’s a church in Albuquerque rethinking
their property and selling several acres that weren’t being used to a
non-profit, founded by the UMC, that provides housing, training and education to
move families out of homelessness. That’s the UMC. And really all of these
things came about because someone saw a problem or a need, and they do not
cling onto doing nothing, or letting the status quo continue, but instead
decided to do something and create a new reality and are now transforming lives
through these Easter moments.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And we passed a new budget and spending plan, that are
greatly reduced from prior years, driven largely because of the elephant moving
away and changing our income amounts. But, I chaired the subcommittee that put
those numbers together, and rather than continuing to fund as we have in the
past, we started every line at zero and built up from there which meant not
lining onto funding these we have in the past just because that’s what we have
always done, but thinking of new ways of doing things, or setting different
priorities, and saying goodbye to cherished programs we have funded but no
longer choose to because we are doing new things in new ways. To move into the
future, to see new things, new life, new opportunities, new possibilities, to
see transformation, we have to stop clinging to what was, in order to be
present in the resurrections that are happening around us, because we are an
Easter people. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the main presenters at the conference was Rev. Gavin
Rogers, who is the executive director of Corazon Ministries, which is a
homeless ministry, founded and hosted by Travis Park United Methodist Church in
San Antonio. And he talked a lot of their ministries and how they came about,
but one of the most recent was responding to the increasing number of teens and
young adults living on the streets, and they began this program he said, by
claiming old Sunday School classrooms, repainting and repurposing them. And those
were his words, old Sunday School classrooms, because he said that they weren’t
being used for that purpose anymore because they didn’t have children in the
numbers they used to. And he said, even if they were still used for Sunday
School it was only for a couple of hours one day a week. How effective is that?
Is that good use of the building? Is it really fulfilling the mission of the
church? Is it reaching new people for Christ? So now those classrooms are being
used all day, every day and truly changing people’s lives, even if they don’t
come to Christ. There are lots of churches where that couldn’t happen because
they would prefer to cling to what was, and hope it might be again, or they
want to wrap the building in bubble wrap because heaven forbid the paint or
paneling might get marked up, or a hole put in the wall, and what are we going
to do then. We’d rather cling to our buildings and our structures then to let
go in order to see the amazing things that God is doing in the world and to
participate in God’s miracles, participate in transformation, participate in
resurrection, participate in brining new life, new opportunities, new
possibilities, to participate in bringing about the Kingdom of God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ve invited Linda and Don and Valerie to share for 2
minutes any other thoughts from conference or things that happened they want
you to know about. But I want to close by quoting what I thought might have
been one of the most powerful things that was said, and also one of the
snarkiest, and that came from the chair of the trustees who were very, very
involved in the elephant of disaffiliation. He had been talking about the fact
that the churches who still make up the UMC have, on the whole, had more
baptisms, more professions of faith and give more beyond the local church to
other groups than churches that disaffiliated. And then he said, and the truth
is if you want to truly be a global Methodist church that is changing lives and
transforming the world that you need to be in the UMC, because that is the UMC.
So, do not hold on to the past, do not cling to what was, instead let go and
embrace the power and the movement of the Spirit that is living and working
amongst us and driving us forward into a big, bold future. I pray that it will
be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Bill Belichick, who is the head coach and general manager
for the New England Patriots football team is widely regarded as one of, if not
the best football coach of all time. What he is also known for is the
ruthlessness in how he treats even his star players when it comes to the end of
their careers. He has said that he would much rather cut a player a year too
soon and still have them perform for another team, then to keep them a year too
late and have them underperform for him. It’s like the disclaimer we hear on
investment commercials that tells us that past performance is not indicative of
future performance. But all too many people, us probably included, even if we
also have a what have you done for me lately mentality, do look backward at
what was and hold onto it for the present and want to forecast it into the
future. Sometimes we do it because it’s what makes us feel comfortable,
sometimes it’s because it’s all that we know and therefore cannot imagine
something else, sometimes it’s because we are afraid of change and sometimes
its because whatever it is worked for us and therefore it has to be the same
for others and the same path forward. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, for example, we had annual conference this past week,
and we’ll talk more about that in a little bit, but in the opening message the
Bishop talked about how important VBS was for him as a child in forming his
faith that led him into the ministry and then to his current position. Now he
did note that this was sixty years ago, but simultaneously seemed to emphasize
how important doing that same thing now, because of how it might impact a young
person today in the same way. Now I am not discounting the need to engage
children and youth, although the number one indicator of whether a child will
be engaged in faith as an adult has nothing to do with these things, but
instead with the religiosity of their parents. But I do have an issue of saying
that because something worked sixty years ago means that it is still going to
work today, or should even be taking place. And that’s why I chose the passage
I did for today as we think about the church and the events of Annual
Conference while also concluding our series on the nots of Jesus by jumping
back to the Easter story. We originally started this be looking at just a week
after Easter when Jesus tells Thomas do not doubt, but today we go back to the
original resurrection appearance.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mary goes to the tomb on Easter morning, although unlike
some of the other stories she is not there to prepare the body for burial, she
is apparently just going there to be near the tomb in order to mourn, although
that’s speculation on my part. And then skipping overseeing the tomb open and telling
others, because that’s not the focus, and jumping to the end where Mary
encounters the risen Christ. She is crying, and then sees Jesus, but doesn’t
know it is Jesus until he calls her name. Now in Matthew, when she recognizes
that it is Jesus, she bows down in worship and grabs ahold of Jesus’ feet.
Although Jesus says to her, do not hold onto me, we are not told that she has
grabbed onto him, and that could then lead to an interpretation that perhaps
this is a metaphorical hanging on, either both physical and metaphorical will
work for our purposes. Because does Mary come to the tomb expecting life? No.
she comes to be near the body, expecting him still to be dead. That’s every
experience she has had in her life, right? Resurrection doesn’t make any sense.
It’s not on the radar screen. And even though Jesus appears to shape shift, or
she is just totally misunderstanding of seeing him as the gardener because she
doesn’t expect to see him there, like encountering someone outside of the
context in which you know them, she doesn’t recognize him at first, and then
when she does, she expects him to be exactly like she had known him before, and
perhaps there is reason for that. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If she witnessed or heard about the raising of Lazarus or
the raising of Jairus’ daughter, they were the same as they were before. And
what makes their stories very different from Jesus is that they will die again.
So even if she believes this is truly Jesus, she doesn’t yet understand and
expects him to be exactly the same Jesus that she knew alive a few days before.
But that Jesus doesn’t exist anymore and for her to truly understand the
resurrection, the power of Easter, she has to understand this transformation of
seeing and knowing Christ differently. She has to let go of that understanding
of pre-resurrection Jesus in order to understand and know the resurrected
Christ. She has to let go of that old life in order to claim a new life. She
has to let go of Christ in order for him to become whom she truly needs now,
and to let Jesus become the resurrection and the life. If she tries to hold
onto that other Jesus then Easter will never be a reality for her, and Christ
cannot truly be present for her. To gain Christ, she has to let go of Christ.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so, at Annual Conference this week we had to discuss
what got called the elephant in the room, disaffiliation, and that became how
it kept being referred to. But while we talked about mourning the churches and
clergy and laity who have left the United Methodist Church, what was a primary
point of conversation was where do we go from here. That this is a new world
for us, full of new possibilities, that we are smaller or leaner, but that we
can have a new focus and determination to be better. To learn and grow and
focus on making the main thing the main thing again, which is to be the good
news to the world. And while no one expressed it directly as such, what I kept
thinking about because of this message, was that to claim this new reality, to
be this new vision of church, that we have to hear this injunction: “do not
hold onto me.” Or to put it into Frozen language we have to learn to let it go.
If we try to hold onto the way things used to be, and the old model of church,
and the old United Methodist Church, we will never move forward. If all we do
is to talk about what we have lost and mourn that, then we can never see what
might be gained and we can never move into a new future. To be an Easter
people, to witness a resurrection, to be transformed and renewed and reborn then
we cannot hold on. We have to learn to let it go. We have to learn to see and
be new things in order for new things to come to fruition.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When I was seeking an appointment to come back to New Mexico
out of the New England Annual Conference, I was working with the Albuquerque DS
at the time Tom Nagle, whom I’m sure some of you remember, and he kept telling
me to be patient which then turned into we don’t know if there is going to be a
church for you or not, which got us a little worried. And so, I was talking to
our Director of Christian Education at the church I served, and she said “maybe
this is a sign for you and you need to let go of the idea of going back to New
Mexico and be open to other places that God might be leading you.” Not what I
wanted to hear, but I deeply respected Elizabeth and her faith journey, so I
paid attention and even talked with Linda about it that night. And I don’t remember
if it was the next day, or two days later, but Tom called me and again said he
didn’t think there was going to be a church available in New Mexico, but would
I be open to serving a church in northwest Texas, outside of Lubbock. And with
Elizabeth’s words in my head that I needed to not hold on to what we wanted and
be open to something else, and with Linda’s permission, I said yes. And I
actually had an appointment in northwest Texas for a day.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I had an appointment for a day, until someone in the congregation
found out that I was serving a reconciling congregation in New England, which
means that we were openly welcoming and affirming of the LGBTQ community. Which
1, I had nothing to do with that decision, it happened before I was appointed
there, and 2 was not all that uncommon of a thing in New England. But they then
told the Bishop that I was not welcome as their pastor. As you might guess they
just disaffiliated. And so, they did find me a church, or two churches, in New
Mexico, and one of them just disaffiliated as well, and so that decision to not
hold on, to let go, ended up really getting us where we wanted to be, just not
in the way we imagined it, and I guess then indirectly led us to being
appointed here. We have to learn to not hold on to old ways, not hold on to the
way we want things to be, so that God can bring new life, new ideas, new things
into our lives. We cannot hold on if we want to be transformed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So much of what is happening in the church, and really in
society at the moment, is this desire to want to cling to the way things used
to be, to the way we knew it, to the way it was when we at least imagine in our
minds that everything was better. Tat is not only not healthy, but we’re never
going back there again. And so, we have to stop clinging to the past in order
to see a new future. We have to stop looking backwards in order to move
forward. We have to stop holding on to what was that has been lost in order to
dream God’s dreams and see God’s visions. One of the common refrains we heard
at Annual Conference this year was “that’s the UMC,” whether it was hearing
about Four Corners Ministry and the creation of a homeless shelter this winter,
and the school supply drive, which we have participated in, and the Bishop
would say “that’s the UMC.” Or the new president of Lydia Patterson Institute
talking about the amazing work they do, and that only 30% of youth in Juarez
graduate high school, but pulling from this same population that they graduate
100% of their students and 100% of their seniors are scheduled to go to college
next year. That’s the UMC. And we heard from Todd Seelau, and Exile, whom we
support and have heard from here, and the 18 faith communities they currently
have meeting all over Albuquerque, and none of them in churches, and the more
than 100,000 meals they have prepared and distributed to children who deal with
food insecurity. That’s the UMC. And it’s a church in Albuquerque rethinking
their property and selling several acres that weren’t being used to a
non-profit, founded by the UMC, that provides housing, training and education to
move families out of homelessness. That’s the UMC. And really all of these
things came about because someone saw a problem or a need, and they do not
cling onto doing nothing, or letting the status quo continue, but instead
decided to do something and create a new reality and are now transforming lives
through these Easter moments.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And we passed a new budget and spending plan, that are
greatly reduced from prior years, driven largely because of the elephant moving
away and changing our income amounts. But, I chaired the subcommittee that put
those numbers together, and rather than continuing to fund as we have in the
past, we started every line at zero and built up from there which meant not
lining onto funding these we have in the past just because that’s what we have
always done, but thinking of new ways of doing things, or setting different
priorities, and saying goodbye to cherished programs we have funded but no
longer choose to because we are doing new things in new ways. To move into the
future, to see new things, new life, new opportunities, new possibilities, to
see transformation, we have to stop clinging to what was, in order to be
present in the resurrections that are happening around us, because we are an
Easter people. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the main presenters at the conference was Rev. Gavin
Rogers, who is the executive director of Corazon Ministries, which is a
homeless ministry, founded and hosted by Travis Park United Methodist Church in
San Antonio. And he talked a lot of their ministries and how they came about,
but one of the most recent was responding to the increasing number of teens and
young adults living on the streets, and they began this program he said, by
claiming old Sunday School classrooms, repainting and repurposing them. And those
were his words, old Sunday School classrooms, because he said that they weren’t
being used for that purpose anymore because they didn’t have children in the
numbers they used to. And he said, even if they were still used for Sunday
School it was only for a couple of hours one day a week. How effective is that?
Is that good use of the building? Is it really fulfilling the mission of the
church? Is it reaching new people for Christ? So now those classrooms are being
used all day, every day and truly changing people’s lives, even if they don’t
come to Christ. There are lots of churches where that couldn’t happen because
they would prefer to cling to what was, and hope it might be again, or they
want to wrap the building in bubble wrap because heaven forbid the paint or
paneling might get marked up, or a hole put in the wall, and what are we going
to do then. We’d rather cling to our buildings and our structures then to let
go in order to see the amazing things that God is doing in the world and to
participate in God’s miracles, participate in transformation, participate in
resurrection, participate in brining new life, new opportunities, new
possibilities, to participate in bringing about the Kingdom of God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ve invited Linda and Don and Valerie to share for 2
minutes any other thoughts from conference or things that happened they want
you to know about. But I want to close by quoting what I thought might have
been one of the most powerful things that was said, and also one of the
snarkiest, and that came from the chair of the trustees who were very, very
involved in the elephant of disaffiliation. He had been talking about the fact
that the churches who still make up the UMC have, on the whole, had more
baptisms, more professions of faith and give more beyond the local church to
other groups than churches that disaffiliated. And then he said, and the truth
is if you want to truly be a global Methodist church that is changing lives and
transforming the world that you need to be in the UMC, because that is the UMC.
So, do not hold on to the past, do not cling to what was, instead let go and
embrace the power and the movement of the Spirit that is living and working
amongst us and driving us forward into a big, bold future. I pray that it will
be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-47755948424023467712023-06-12T19:45:00.002-06:002023-08-16T19:48:21.411-06:00Do Not Store Up TreasureHere is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=559236831" target="_blank">Matthew 6:19-21</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk137358195">I was having a conversation with a
member of a United Methodist Church that was going through the disaffiliation
process, which means they were talking about leaving the United Methodist
Church, and he supported that movement. And he said that he was doing so
because he took the Bible seriously and followed every injunction. And since he
was then trying to imply that I therefore didn’t take the Bible seriously and
didn’t know what I was talking about, I decided to challenge him a little bit.
And so, I asked if he gave to everyone who asked for him for money, to which he
said no, and then wanted to make a statement about “those” people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I told him that Jesus explicitly says
that we are to give to anyone who begs of us (Luke 6:30) And then I asked him
if he wore clothing that had mixed fibers, which he did. He also had a tattoo,
which is forbidden in Leviticus. He also had fruit trees, and he didn’t leave
some of the fruit for people to glean from his trees. And I, of course, could
have gone on and one about the things that he apparently didn’t take very
seriously, largely I think because they applied directly to him, rather than
only applying to others, and as conversation was deteriorating, I decided to
leave it there. And yes, I will totally admit to my culpability in this,
especially since we just talked about last week that we should put away anger
and malice and that our words should build up and convey God’s grace. But all
of that leads us up to what is Rev. Adam Hamilton, who is the pastor of the
largest United Methodist Church in the country, often counters this same issue
by asking the other person, often to clergy, if they have a retirement plan and
are contributing to it. And when they invariably say yes. He then says, to
quote today’s passage, “so what part of do not store up treasure’s in heaven do
you not understand?”</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5krZxPDfwAC6hpiW_dYXw7hFqFj-l6dqBeR2EorEs_CRLH8s-szgYeVNjBvqnHwuDWa_kdUwoB198VRsrOT6gppau0bNb87YWsDng_l2CqZZJ9Hqa-tKEstVKpBo2JyO7GZ9yRv1NJyA4p8QcIGEaeIxyz_knnCJ81qnqvut2aDmhVivOzIrBW8LB7k/s1280/nots%20of%20Jesus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5krZxPDfwAC6hpiW_dYXw7hFqFj-l6dqBeR2EorEs_CRLH8s-szgYeVNjBvqnHwuDWa_kdUwoB198VRsrOT6gppau0bNb87YWsDng_l2CqZZJ9Hqa-tKEstVKpBo2JyO7GZ9yRv1NJyA4p8QcIGEaeIxyz_knnCJ81qnqvut2aDmhVivOzIrBW8LB7k/s320/nots%20of%20Jesus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk137358195;">And so that’s where
we find ourselves today in our series on the nots of Jesus, the things that Jesus
tells us not to do. So far, we have looked at the injunctions not to doubt,
fear, judge, worry, sin, stop children from coming, and complain, and now do
not store up for yourself treasure here on earth. And just a funny aside, Julie
pointed out that in the preparation for this service that I had written do not
store up for yourselves treasurers, which we actually want to do, and to thank
Kim for her service as our treasurer, and this has nothing to do with her. So,
there are several things here. First is that this isn’t all about treasure
being bad. There is a place where Jesus specifically says that we are to store
up treasure, and where is that? In heaven, where, we are told, moth and rust
and thieves won’t be able to get to it. But the problem is, Jesus does not tell
us here how to do that, although in my research those who wanted to try and
tackle this seemingly were arguing for a sense of works righteousness. that is
do good things in the world in order to build up this treasure in your account
for when the judgment comes. I don’t know that those who were arguing would
necessarily see it that way, but that’s how I interpreted what they were
saying. And so, this is a reminder that we are saved by faith alone, and one of
the reasons, as Paul tells us, is because otherwise we would brag about it and
what we had done, and there is definitely some of that that plays in role as we
think about our treasurers. And so, when it comes to that, I have some good
news and some bad news.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk137358195;">And so, we’ll start
with the good news. If you’ve been here for each of the nots we have covered
you should have noticed that for each of them I’ve given caveats so that these
rules are not absolutes. That doubt can actually help build your faith, and we
should be afraid of spiders, and there are troubles that happen that we should
worry about, and there are times in which complaining is appropriate. And if
you missed those reasons, and they are specific and limited, I would encourage
you to go back and watch or listen to those messages. But the same is true
here, there are also times in which storing up treasure is appropriate, even
with the threat of moth and rust and thieves. Probably the best example of this
is in the story of Joseph, who calls for the Egyptians to store up grain from
the seven years of bounty in order to be able to survive the seven years of
famine. Colloquially now we talk about saving up for a rainy day. And there is
other scriptural witness for this as well, especially in the book of Proverbs.
Proverbs says, amongst other things, that wisdom should be sought for, like
searching for a hidden treasure. That while a foolish person spends all they
have, a wise person builds up a treasure, and the righteous person also
accumulates a treasure. But Proverbs also warns against gathering this treasure
through deceitful means, or by lying and cheating others. And so, while there
are cautions in the Hebrew Bible around treasure, which also includes the
treasure held by the Temple and by kings, treasure has a more positive
connotation and understanding than it often takes in the New Testament.
Proverbs, and others, will also warn not to trust in the treasure because it
can disappear either through theft, war or even unwise moves on the part of the
owner. And that comes from the understanding that a treasure is something that
is stored up, or hoarded, and therefore treasure can be much more than just
gold or silver, and we’ll come back to that idea, but for the moment let’s
stick with treasure as being riches or wealth, because that plays such a
crucial role in how it is understood in Jesus’ teachings.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk137358195;">And so here is the
bad news. While money is neither good nor bad, it’s a neutral thing, it can be
a problem. and we can know that because of how we talk about it. So, for
example, Jesus says that is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a
needle than it is for a rich person to get into heaven. Stacey Simpson, a
Baptist minister from Georgia, recalls encountering this scripture for the
first time while reading in bed when she was seven years old. She says
that she became so alarmed that she slammed the Bible shut, jumped out of bed
and ran down the hall to her parents’ room, where she awakened her mother out
of a sound sleep. “Mom,” she whispered urgently, “Jesus says that rich
people don’t go to heaven!” Her mother’s response was brief and to the
point: “We are not rich. Go back to bed.” And I think that’s how we too
often hear these injunctions. We might say, well Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or
Bill Gates, their rich, they have treasure stored up, but that’s not me, and so
these rules don’t apply to me because while we might do more than just get by,
we are not rich. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, more bad news, by
any standards we want to apply, unless it’s comparing ourselves to
billionaires, we are all rich. Just under 10 percent of the world population
live on less than $2.15 a day, and 50% of the earth’s population live on less
than $6.85 a day, and for those not good at quick math, that works out to
$2,500 a year. And the huge news, which we should celebrate is that 30 years
ago,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>70% of the world’s population lived
on less than $6, including 40% who lived on less than $2. That’s a massive
change, and a large portion of that is because of the anti-poverty work of the
church. But when we see those numbers then we have to understand that we are
rich, and when we try to dismiss these instruction as only applying to someone
else then we miss their guidance and warning at our own risk. We are all rich
and we all store up treasure, and that includes me. I put money away every
paycheck into my retirement account, and one the good reasons I encouraged
Linda to take her new job with Linda was to get back into the state education
retirement fund. And we also have money set aside in our savings account not
only for emergencies, but also to fund future expenses, and I encourage
everyone to do the same. So, does that mean I’m a hypocrite then in preaching
on this, or that I don’t take these teachings seriously? I don’t think so
because we should also understand context and the reasons why we are doing
things.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk137358195;">I think I’ve said
this before, but one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite bands, Huey
Lewis and the News, says “if money is the root of all evil, I’d like to be a
bad, bad man.” But of course, the passage from 1 Timothy is that it is the love
of money that’s the problem, not money itself. And to return back to our prior
point, treasure can take many forms. It can, of course, be money, but it can
also be possessions, or anything that we can horde, but it can even include
things like family or even perhaps beliefs and ideals; and so, it’s things we
can store up physically, mentally or spiritually. And the problem that resides
in these things is that they come to be how we identify ourselves, and where we
begin to place our allegiance and loyalty. That is why Jesus will say just a
few verses later than what we heard this morning that you cannot serve both God
and mammon, or wealth, or anything else, because you will hate the one and love
the other. So why do we have the things that we are storing up? Are they a
means to an end? And then what is that end, and does it further the Kingdom of
God? Or have they become ends in and of themselves? If they are an end, then
they are likely to be problematic. Especially, again, if they are leading us
away from God, or our trust in God. And that’s at the crux of this, trust in
God, as well as an understanding of where blessings come from and where do they
go?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk137358195;">Think of the
parable of the rich fool, who is doing so well he has to build bigger barns to
store it all, and then he tells himself to take his ease and to eat, drink and
be merry because he has stored up for himself goods to last him for many years.
But what happens to him that night? He dies. He thought that he was doing all
the work to get this treasure, ignoring all of the people who assisted him, as
well as thinking that having lots of things could bring him prosperity and a
good life, but they didn’t, and he found out that he was not, in fact, self-sufficient.
And I would also guess that he had fear of losing what he had and what that
would mean for him. and I think that is probably at the heart of what this
treasure on earth is about, is the fear of losing it for whatever reason, which
is often a sense of identity that it gives us, as well as that sense of
assurance and security and confidence, without realizing that it is all
fleeting. That not only can moth and rust and thieves steal it, but we can be
dead tomorrow and it won’t get us anywhere. And so that takes us back to
storing up treasure in heaven.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk137358195;">And for me, and
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and will admit that I might be off a
little, it’s about that sense of identity. Who says who we are, God or our
stuff? From where do we get our sense of worth, God or our stuff? Where do we get
our purpose and meaning, God or our stuff? What makes us understand our
distinctiveness, God or our stuff? What gives us a sense of belonging, God or
our stuff? What gives us a sense of home, God or our stuff? If we answer God
first, and I don’t mean answering simply because we know enough to know that’s
the right answer, but genuinely being able to answer that we get all of those
things from God first, then our treasurers shouldn’t be a problem because our
treasures won’t become our God. They will be resources that we instead know can
and should be used for the work of God in the world, and we give generously and
appreciatively to the work of God knowing that we are mere stewards of those
resources. They don’t belong to us, they ultimately belong to God, and when we
hold onto them too tight, or fear losing them, then they become a stumbling
block in our faith.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk137358195;">And please note
that this does not have anything to do with the size of our treasure. You can
be a hoarder with a penny and you can be a hoarder with a million dollars, the
same as you can be generous with a million dollars and you can be generous with
a penny. It’s about where our heart is, for where our treasure is is where our
heart will be. So, may we indeed put our heart in God, to love the Lord our God
with all that we are and all that we have, and love our neighbor as ourselves,
so that our identity and purpose and meaning and everything else are found in
that relationship, then we are indeed storing up for ourselves treasure in
heaven and we can then use our treasure here to further the Kingdom of God. I
pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617775445647060044.post-2499449692420289732023-06-05T19:49:00.001-06:002023-08-16T19:51:20.506-06:00Do Not ComplainHere is my message from Sunday. The text was <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=559237021" target="_blank">John 6:35-48</a>:<div><p class="MsoNormal">I’ve mentioned it before, I can be a little vocal towards
others when driving. Not like rolling down the window and yelling at them, but
yelling at them in the car. A little while back I was driving with Lizzie, and
I yelled “come on you idiot” to someone in front of me, and so Lizzie asked
what was wrong, and I said that this driver doesn’t know what they are doing.
And she responded, “so that’s why they’re an idiot?” Proud parental moment
right there, and that’s sarcasm by the way. As every parent knows our children
are much more likely to do as we do, rather than do what we say, especially if
they don’t correspond. But how we act also says much more about who we are then
anything that we say we believe. And so, with that, we definitely have to think
about the power of our words, and how they not only affect the world but also
how the affect us, and so we move onto the not that I have been worried about
the most, even though one of the things we are not supposed to do is to worry,
but today we tackle the injunction not to complain.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLpLUX0wyt8D_IZDvBwQFOh8ZH78q81OCyJHzBZEjyjPIiT1XGK3b1T5YYDryHAghUel51Xw84IPOB3gsjjqd7FVOfD8qfrN1K1wQef1HsYaSzlVth_DTIk_lfyRPdeyAYnnZbxlw-dBCcGESMVapq0RKc7Bzt21_iTgWvEoP2KLeQA_911-rtHfl4Sc0/s1280/nots%20of%20Jesus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLpLUX0wyt8D_IZDvBwQFOh8ZH78q81OCyJHzBZEjyjPIiT1XGK3b1T5YYDryHAghUel51Xw84IPOB3gsjjqd7FVOfD8qfrN1K1wQef1HsYaSzlVth_DTIk_lfyRPdeyAYnnZbxlw-dBCcGESMVapq0RKc7Bzt21_iTgWvEoP2KLeQA_911-rtHfl4Sc0/s320/nots%20of%20Jesus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now while I think this not is a generally good idea, while
noting there are times when complaints are important, and we’ll get back to
that idea, there is a very specific context in which this injunction, and the
complaining he is pointing out are made. As Cathy said in the introduction,
before this interchange, Jesus has just fed the 5000 on a mountain, and this is
a section of John which is known as book of signs as Jesus does things that to
John prove he is the Messiah, or that John wants to give than meaning. Then
while Jesus walks on the sea of Galilee, a little more impressive than simply
parting waters, the people also go around the sea to the other side, and there
they ask Jesus what sign it is that he will do so they will believe, after all
God gave their ancestors manna, or bread, in the wilderness. Hopefully then you
are seeing the clear illusions to the Exodus taking place here, and then Jesus
says that he is the bread of life, which is one of his I am statements, and
remembering that the name of God given to Moses is I am. But this causes the
religious leaders to begin to complain as we heard this morning, or to grumble
as the NIV translates it. So, two important points here.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first is that with the rise in Anti-Semitism in the
country, or perhaps not rise, but that it has once again become fashionable or
allowable to say the silent part out loud again. But what religion was Jesus?
Jewish. What about all the disciples and apostles? Jewish. So, while the
gospels, and John in-particular have been used for anti-Semitic purposes
throughout the centuries, while John is being polemical that was not his
intention. First because we have to understand that this is an intra-religious
argument. Even with the latest dating of John there has not yet been an
official break between Christians and Jews yet. So, they are arguing between
themselves. And then how this has often been interpreted is that all Jews are
doing this. But let me rephrase this to help us see it in a different way. What
if they text said, “the Christians began to complain…” would we truly
understand that as being all Christians? Probably not because we understand the
wide diversity of opinions on things. Or if we said, “the Methodists began to
complain…” again, we understand a wide diversity of belief. A better
understanding than thinking “all the Jews” is to say “the religious leaders”,
but even then, you can run into problems that clearly not all leaders were
opposed to Jesus because in John Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, both Jewish
leaders, are supporters of Jesus. So just take those statements when they are
made with a grain of salt in understanding their original context and that they
don’t nearly come close to including everyone that there was just as large of a
diversity of opinion within Judaism then as there is now and the same is true
within Christianity and within Methodism. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the other piece is the connection to the Exodus story as
I already began to build up. But if you were reading this in the original
Greek, you could also go back to the book of Exodus and if you were reading the
Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, you would find
it uses exactly the same Greek word for then the Israelites complain to Moses
about their having to wander in the desert (and see how easy it is to make the
entire group guilty of something rather than just a small party?) and so the
complaining that is being raised up here has something to do with complaints
against God, and in those complaints completely overlooking the blessings and
gifts that God has given to the people. So, these complaints are sort of
pointed – sure you fed us then, but what have you done for us lately God? And,
why should we trust these people who say they are sent by you, which includes
both Moses and Jesus here? Which then ultimately is making it about us, rather
than about God. As I’ve said before, we all want to follow God, we would just
rather do so in an advisory capacity, rather than as true followers. Additionally,
I’m sure that we have all known people who constantly complain about everything
and in doing so they totally miss the blessings around them. And there are
people who will say that it’s important to get these thoughts and feelings out,
and that it’s healthy. But if that was the case then people who complain all
the time would be the happiest and healthiest people in the world. But, is that
true? No. in fact they tend to be some of the unhappiest because rather than
seeing anything positive, or appreciating the blessings in their lives, they
instead focus wholly on the negative so they can complain about it and
therefore negative things keep happening to them because that’s all they ever
see.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And just like with the other nots we have looked at, not
complaining is not an absolute. Because is there reason and times to complain,
yes. Scripture is full of complaints or lamentations. Psalm 64 beings, O Lord,
hear the voice of my complaint. But here’s the truth about those complaints.
They are made to the person that can actually do something about it. That’s not
true with most complaints. Most of the time we complain about things that only
perpetuate the problems because our complaints are not actually about solving
them or correcting them, but simply giving voice to our discontent. I think
that’s part of the problem that we see in this passage and why Jesus calls them
out is because they are complaining amongst themselves. They aren’t complaining
to Jesus, or asking him to explain himself, they are simply grumbling, or
gossiping which is often a type of complaint, to themselves rather than to the
person who can actually solve the problem. If you go to a restaurant and the
soup is cold, it’s okay to make the server aware of it and ask them to correct
it. That’s an appropriate form of complaint. But, it’s not okay simply to tell
everyone at the table, but not give them a chance to solve it, and it is not
appropriate to lambast the server about it. There is no ego in telling the
server your soup is cold – that’s a statement of fact and is neutral. But
telling them they are terrible at their job, or saying “how dare you serve me
cold soup,” is a complaint. In the words of Rev. Will Bowen, who created the
complaint free world movement, a complaint often has a sense of being a
counterattack for a perceived injustice, or a “this is unfair” or “how dare
this happen to me” quality to it. That is, we personalize what has happened and
therefore feel justified in how we respond, and that’s really where we then get
ourselves into trouble and that’s where the passage from Ephesians comes into
play.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This passage is actually pared with the John passage for
today in the lectionary, which are the recommended scripture readings for each
week that are used by the Roman Catholic Church and a large portion of
Protestant churches, and I think they go together nicely. Because we have this
statement about not complaining amongst themselves, matched up with the author
of Ephesians starting this passage, which is a call to how we are to live
differently from who we were before, and to live differently from the world
first by telling the truth to others because we are members of one another.
That means that we are, in the words of Dr. King, “We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever
affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” We have to be honest to be in
relationship. Now unfortunately in a modern context we misuse this telling the
truth with being jerks, and try to cover it up with the statement, “I’m just
keeping it real.” Telling the truth here is not giving us permission to demean
or belittle someone else, that’s part of the being members of one another, but
is also then what follows. First it says “be angry” which is not a command, but
a realization that anger is an emotion and we are bound to feel it, but that’s
quickly followed by “but do not sin.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now if sin is as I refer to it as the breaking of
relationship, then it cannot lead to us trying to excuse away derogatory or
destructive words because we’re just keeping it real. And that becomes even
clearer towards the end of the passage, in being told to “put away from you all
bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all
malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another.” And
that comes through how we talk with one another because we are to let “no evil
talk come from our mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is
need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” And that, I think,
is the key when it comes to complaining and what I thought of that can change
the voice of our complaint, and studies show that the average person expresses
a complaint 15-30 times a day, is to seek that what we say to others, and what
we say to ourselves would seek to build others up, and that all our words would
convey God’s grace, God’s love, God’s forgiveness to others. Because in doing
that we not only imitate Christ, and making a sacrifice of our lives, which
means that perhaps we don’t get to do what we want or say what we want, and we
do this because of the love and forgiveness and grace that God has already done
for us.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Like Christ, we seek to do not our own will, but the will of
God, by turning to the light and not seeking the things of this world, but by
pursuing the light of the world. We talk a lot about what happens in the waters
of baptism, and the new creation we become, and therefore the new life into
which we have been born, which is what Ephesians is emphasizing, as well as
Jesus in calling for us to pursue the bread that will never leave us hungry,
and the water that will never leave us thirsty. But I learned something new
about baptism as it was practiced in the early church this week. And that is as
those about to be baptized took their vows to reject the forces of the world,
they were turned to the west, but then as they vowed to follow Christ and to
clothe themselves with Christ, the turned to the East, the direction from which
the light comes as it overcomes the darkness of the night, symbolically calling
us to do the same. To live in the light and to imitate Christ and to live in
love so that all that we do and say won’t be our complaints, but instead we
recognize our blessings and will build up others and will give grace to all those
who hear. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0