Five Practices: Extravagant Generosity

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was 2 Corinthians 9:1-15:

In preparation for this week, I actually ended up writing 3 different messages.  The first is lasts 5 minutes and it costs $5000.  The second lasts 25 minutes and it costs $2500, and the third costs $1000 and it lasts an hour.  Now we’re going to take up a collection and see which one I deliver.

Today we conclude our series on the five practices of fruitful living, based on a book of the same name by Bishop Robert Schnase.  We have looked at passionate worship, radical hospitality, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and today we conclude with extravagant generosity.  For the past three weeks we have also been answering a series of question about the church.  The first week, the question was what we loved about our church, and one of my favorite answers was from someone who said they loved my sermons, except when I talked about money.

That means today is going to be a day that they aren’t going to enjoy, but I know they aren’t the only ones because lots of people don’t like it when I, or any minister, begins talking about money, first because they want to hold onto their wallets a little tighter, and second because they don’t want to be made to feel guilty or uncomfortable about their finances.  But the simple fact is I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t talk about money, because Jesus talks more about money, and things that come out of it like greed and envy and covetousness, than he talks about just about anything else.  And here is also the simple truth, we don’t have to give.

Five Practices: Risk-Taking Mission and Service

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was Matthew 16:21-28:

Today we continue looking at the five practices of fruitful living, based on a book of the same name by Bishop Robert Schnase.  We have already looked at passionate worship, radical hospitality, and intentional faith development, and today we move on to risk-taking mission and service.  What are some of the ways we practice mission and service?  In the passage we just heard from Matthew, Jesus says that if we want to become followers, that it’s not based on what we say, it’s based on what we do.  “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  How often?  Trick question, in Matthew it doesn’t say, in Luke we are told that we must do it daily, and I think that’s correct.  This is not something we do once in a while, but instead that we do it continually, and what Bishop Schnase says is that when we do it we need to be a risk-taker.

What does risk taking mean?  It means going beyond ourselves, beyond our comfort level, going beyond the bounds of safety, not necessarily things that actually are physical risks, but safety in the sense of playing it safe.  In some ways this is at the heart of being a Christian, not only because we are told to pick up our cross and follow, but also because it’s inherent to faith.  Has anyone ever said that you need to take a leap of safety?  But you have heard someone say to take a leap of faith.  That is to take some risk in what you are doing, and that is especially true when we are talking about mission and service, because what we would like to do is sit back, to do the things that feel comfortable, to do the things that are safe, to do the things that pose no risk to us, again not necessarily to our actual physical safety, but pose no risk to us in being changed in any way, of being transformed by the experience, of doing things that transform others, let alone our community and the world.

Our donations to the food pantry are fantastic, and I would never want to do away with them.  I like seeing the food piling up at the front of the sanctuary each week because it’s important to what we do and who we are, but it’s not risk-taking.  It’s important, but it’s really safe, other than perhaps missing a really good sale, what risks do we take?  We never interact with those who we are helping, and one of the major problems is in doing this we can begin to think that we are being generous in giving, and those who are receiving are only receiving.  It sets up hierarchical relationships.  Even in our mobile food pantry, there is still a difference that is kept between those who are serving, and this is not unique to us.  Rev. Joe Daniels said about many programs being run by churches, “The problem is that if we ask the people engaged in these serving ministries the names of those they are serving, where they live, what’s going on in their lives, why they are hungry, and what is the deeper need in order for them to reach God’s dream for their lives and their community — the answer for most is “I don’t know.” We are often doing ministry for people, but not with people. Many of us are doing “caring” ministry, but are we engaged in “transformational” ministry?”  Are we seeking to be in mission and service to someone, or are we seeking to be in mission and service with someone?  Although certainly not the only thing, that is one of the differences between whether mission and service is risk-taking or not.

Five Practices: Intentional Faith Development

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was Acts 2:37-47:

Baseball Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver was known for many things besides for leading the Baltimore Orioles to a World Series title.  His temper tantrums were legendary.  He owned the major league record for being thrown out of the most number of games for many years, including being thrown out during the exchange of the line-ups before the game twice.  He was also known for his unique philosophy of winning baseball games, in which he said the key was “pitching, defense and three run homers.”  But none of that really has to do anything with today’s message except as a set-up to this.  One of his players once said, “Don’t you want to walk with the Lord?” to which Weaver was said to have responded, “I want to walk with the bases loaded.”

I thought that quote was appropriate for today, not only because we are now in the midst of the baseball playoffs, but also because today we look at the third part of our series on the five practices of fruitful living, based on a book of the same name by Bishop Robert Schnase.  We started by looking at passionate worship, which is to give all that we have and all that we are to God in worship, to literally bow down and pledge our allegiance to God through our lives.  Last week we looked at radical hospitality which is about opening ourselves up to welcoming others way beyond the ordinary, and this also begins with opening ourselves up to receiving God’s radical hospitality which is offered to us and is best represented by the table fellowship we share when we participate in communion.  And today we move onto intentional faith development.  Now it could be argued that passionate worship and radical hospitality are issues of the heart, because as we commented on, you can do worship and hospitality and go through the motions, but never live into the adjectives that we have accompanying them.  But when we give of ourselves in these things and become radical or passionate, it comes from the heart, from the emotion, from the feelings we bring to these issues, not really from the mind.  Surely there is something of the mind involved, but that’s not really what we think of when we talk about these subjects.

Five Practices: Radical Hospitality

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was Matthew 21:33-46:

I’m sure most of us have stories we could tell of when we have gone someplace and we have been greeted and treated well and when we haven’t been.  Our family went to a restaurant recently and we were seated right away, but then sat there waiting for our server to come by.  Lots of people passed by the table, including one of the managers, but no one stopped.  Finally just as we were contemplating getting up and leaving, the manager stopped to ask if we had been helped yet.  It turned out that although we were seated, the hostess did not assign us to a server.  But, as if that was not enough, we kept trying to order things off that they were apparently out of, even though they were still listed on the chalkboard.  They were clearly not ready to welcome us, nor definitely seek to have us return as customers.  There was no sense of hospitality, which is what the entire restaurant and hotel industry is called, the hospitality industry, and without hospitality these places are not likely to survive for very long.

Today we look at step two in the five practices of fruitful living, based on a book of the same name by Bishop Robert Schnase, and I think appropriately enough for the Sunday in which we receive communion, we are talking about hospitality.  What is hospitality?  (friendly reception of guests or strangers, the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.)  But hospitality is not just what we do, it also is about an attitude we have, that is to say that we can do all the right things, but if we don’t seem happy about it, or are just going through the motions, then we are not truly being hospitable.  That’s why Bishop Schnase says it is the adjective that makes all the difference, because we are called not only the practice hospitality, but we are called to practice radical hospitality.  So what does it mean to be radical? (Going above and beyond, beyond expectations, on the edges)  The word comes from a word meaning root, which is why we often use the term to refer to something which is  affects the fundamental  nature of things, saying something like “it made a radical difference.”  Radical represents something that is part of who we are, or something which fundamentally changes us and makes us different.  And so radical hospitality is something that can be in us already, or it can be something which we acquire through practice or by intentionality.  But what we see in scripture, and what we have to understand about hospitality is that for us to practice radical hospitality, we first have to understand God’s radical hospitality and second we have to accept that radical hospitality into our lives so that we can then practice it in the world.

Five Practices: Passionate Worship

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was Matthew 22:34-40:

Most of us are aware of the importance of words, and how one word can make a huge difference in our perspective or in the story we tell.  When I was growing up my brother loved madlibs, in which you add random words to a story to create something funny.  Many of you are probably familiar with the idea, but we are going to do one here today, and to warn you this is going to be a much more interactive sermon than normal, and interactive, so you are all aware, means that you are active in it along with me.

An Unforgettable Church Service

We arrived at the Church of the Holy _________ (noun). We were dressed in our __________ (day of week) best. Today was special because it was ___________ (holiday) and the kids looked forward to receiving _________ (noun) as part of the celebration.

Pastor John welcomed us and the service started with invigorating ___________ (action verb). It was so __________ (emotion), people were ___________ (verb ending in ing).

The sermon was based on _________ (Book of the Bible). The pastor talked about  ____________________ (biblical character)’s injunction to love God with all of our  ______________________ (body part) _________________ (body part) and   ________________ (human characteristic).   When he finished, I couldn’t believe he had only talked for _________________ (amount of time).  Then we sang a ___________________ (musical style) version of Amazing Grace. 

We wrote a check for $_________ (amount of money) and put it into the __________ (noun). This made us so ________ (emotion) we couldn't contain ourselves.

The _________ (kind of team) team played another song and we filed out to the ___________ (name of a room) to have _____________ (beverage). We stood there waiting to ________ (verb) to someone.

All in all it was a(n) ________ (adjective)  worship service.   _________ (exclamation) God!

Words matter, and descriptive words sometimes make all the difference.

Today we begin a new sermon series based on The Five Practices of Fruitful Living by Bishop Robert Schnase.  It’s been said that once someone becomes bishop that they believe that everything they think has to be written down and published, and Bishop Schnase certainly lives into that belief, but he also has something to say to us.  He says that the five habits are radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service and extravagant generosity.  But, while the activites in and of themselves are important, Schnase says it is the adjectives that really make all the difference, and you can move them around, you could have extravagant hospitality and passionate mission and service and risk-taking worship.  The adjectives make a difference because they are describing what it is that we are really doing.  There is a difference between worship and passionate worship.  The adjective matters.  Most of us have probably participated in boring worship or even mediocre worship, maybe even here.  Those are the times in which we don’t feel like we worshipped at all.  And then there are the times in which we have been truly moved, in which we knew that God was present for us in that moment, in which we may have been fundamentally changed.  That is what passionate worship feels like, and yet it is about so much more than that as well.