With Liberty and Justice for All

Here is my message from Sunday. The texts were Deuteronomy 10:12-13, 17-21, John 8:31-36 and Galatians 5:1, 13-25:

Today is the day we, as a nation, celebrate our independence, or achieving our liberty, from Great Britain. Although technically I agree with John Adams, that we should probably celebrate on July 2 because that was the day that the continental congress actually passed the resolution declaring independence. They then spent the next two days debating the wording of the declaration, which was then adopted on July 4, although it’s possible some signed it on July 4th, most didn’t start signing it until nearly a month later, and several never signed it at all. But as I was thinking of today and what I might talk about, I was thinking about the last line of the pledge of allegiance, “with liberty and justice for all.” And those are terms that have a particular meaning for us as Christians, that may be, and probably are different than those that we think of as a country and a culture, even though the writer of the pledge, Francis Belamy, was a Baptist minister. He was also a socialist and was removed from his church after denouncing the evils of capitalism. But what makes the story even more interesting is the fact that the first place that really published and pushed the pledge was a publication entitled The Youth’s Companion, but their motive was to encourage schools to buy flags for all of their classrooms, and of course who was selling those flags? The Youth’s Companion. I’m telling you you can’t make this up.

But anyways, we hear much in the Bible about justice, and in particular about God’s justice, which is part of that passage we heard from Deuteronomy, and the prophets have a lot more to say about it, because often the reason that Israel is being punished is because they are not upholding God’s justice. And what God also makes clear is that because Israel is God’s chosen nation and people, that they are held to a higher standard. That because they know of God’s justice that their acts of justice, or how they live out justice, must follow the same standard of that of the divine. And what is that? Well we don’t have time to go into that in detail, and one of the reasons I wanted to talk about it today was for me to begin thinking about it in greater detail for a possible worship series on God’s justice, and what that might look like and entail. And so Moses tells the people, sort of summarizing the law, or at least how it’s lived out, that God is impartial and takes no bribes, the sort of basics of what we might think of what justice in the world looks like, especially amongst judges, the police, prosecutors and politicians, those who carry out human justice, after all we say that justice is blind right? That she is blind so that everyone gets a fair shot, even if we might not actually live into that, that’s the ideal. Which is also being set out here.

Spiritual Disciplines: Worship

Here is my message from Sunday. The texts were Hebrews 5:5-10  and John 12:20-33:

For the past two weeks, our gospel passages have come immediately after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event that we will celebrate in two weeks for Palm Sunday. The crowd’s reaction to Jesus in that moment is a form of worship, something we continue in our understanding of Jesus as our high priest. But, the entire reason why Jesus is going to Jerusalem to begin with is for the Passover celebration, which is itself a worship event. We see Jesus participating in worship activities throughout scripture, in the Temple and in the synagogue. Even when he is tempted in the wilderness, one of the temptations is Satan asking him to fall down and worship him, and in return Jesus is promised the kingdoms of the world, to which Jesus responds, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” To worship literally means to bow down, to prostrate yourself, which is not just an act of worship, but it’s a sign of loyalty. And so as we talk about worship as act of bowing down, as an act of obedience, it is something that puts boundaries on our lives, because, as Jesus said, if you are worshipping God you cannot be worshipping other things. And since one of the things that spiritual disciplines do is to set boundaries, to govern conduct or activity or operation, or things that mold, correct or perfect, it turns out that worship itself then is a spiritual discipline.

It’s sort of seems obvious if you think about it, but I’m willing to bet that most of us have never really thought about worship that way, because it’s just something we do. It’s not like prayer or fasting or scripture reading, which are the things people tend to think of when we talk about spiritual disciplines. And yet, as we have talked about, spiritual disciplines are things we do, that are found in scripture, that help us to deepen our faith and our relationship with God. Things that structure our spiritual lives, and therefore our everyday lives, in order to put God front and center and to help transform our lives and our faith. And so by that standard, worship is clearly a spiritual discipline, and so for those who were wondering if you do any of the disciplines, or if you can, you can be assured that you are already doing one, just by being here, and of course we also practice many of the other disciplines within the service of worship.

Core Values: In Service and Mission

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was 1 John 3:11-24 and Mark 10:35-45:

Shortly after I was appointed to my last church in Albuquerque, a member of the congregation came to me with a service project that he wanted to do, which is the best place for service to begin. Albuquerque did not have a food pantry anywhere west of the river and north of the interstate, which is a pretty large section of town. There was one way up in Rio Rancho, and one in the south, but none close to us, and so he wanted to start one. I was totally supportive of that effort, and having some experience with food banks, I told him that it would be great to have some other churches involved because I didn’t think we would be able to support the pantry by ourselves, especially to do what he was hoping it would do. So he went off and met with the 3 churches that were within a ½ mile of us, two of whom were immediately on board and another said they would think about it, so we were off to a great start. He then went to meet with another church that was close by which happened to be one of the largest in the city, and also the 10th largest in their denomination in the country, which I am not going to name in order to protect the guilty.

But, he sat down with them and explained what we were doing and asked if they would be willing to be a partner. The pastor he met with then asked how they could get new members of the church from the pantry? He wasn’t sure what they were asking, and so asked for clarification, and was told that unless they could be guaranteed that new people would start attending their church because of the pantry then they weren’t interested in participating. That is, the only reason to be of service to the world, the only reason to help others in need, the only reason to offer Christ’s love was if, to be a little blunt, it would put more butts in the seats.

Run The Race Before Us

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The texts were Hebrews 12:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:

Tonight many of the athletes will gather once again will gather for the closing ceremonies of the Olympic games, not including those who fled the country with the police on their heels.  At tonight’s ceremony, the head of the International Olympic Committee will declare that the Rio games are officially closed, and then the flag of Japan will be hoisted up in the stadium, as they will be the host nation of the next Olympic games, and the race to the next Olympics will be begun with stories of cost overruns, of the inability of the city to host the Olympics, of the worries of terrorism, and as we get closer the reality that many of the facilities are not yet completed, just like we hear every single time the Olympics come around.  We move from what has just happened, and we move forward to the next games. In some sense this is just one big relay race, one nation passing the baton on to the next, and on to the next, with everyone hoping the baton doesn’t get dropped, or perhaps with a little glee at the spectacle hoping the baton does get dropped.  But regardless, the athletes and Tokyo are now all working hard to prepare to be ready come back in four years to do it all over again, to run the race that is before them.  And so today we conclude this series looking at what we can learn from the games about our faith in how we run the race that is before us.

Last week when we looked at wrestling, I said that it was believed to be one of the oldest sports in the world and one that is found in every culture.  But, since walking is an Olympic sport we would have to go with walking as being the oldest sport, something we have been doing for some 4 million years, but running probably comes in as the second oldest sport in which we undertake. Although my guess is that the earliest races were not about being the fastest person, but instead only about not being the slowest person, because when you’re being chased by a wild animal intent on killing you, you don’t have to be the fastest one, you merely have to outrun the slowest person in order to survive.

Three Simple Questions: Who are We Together?

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a:

For the past two weeks we have been seeking to answer three simple questions posed by Bishop Reuben Job in his book by the same name.  Those questions are, who is God, who am I, and who are we together?  Of course those are anything but simple questions and a very brief recap, we started with what I thought was the hardest, and really is the building point, who is God.  What I said was that God is love, an idea of God found throughout scripture and everything else that we might think about God can build from that point.  Because God is love, that also means that God wants to be in relationship with the creation and most importantly, at least for us, God also wants to be in relationship with each and every one of us because we are all children of God, which led us into our second question, Who am I, and that is that we are children of God and we are made in the image of God.

We hear in Paul’s writings that when we clothe ourselves in Christ, that all of the distinctions that we like to think are important, or that society says are important, are blown away because of the freedom we achieve in Christ.  For Paul, and for us, this is best represented in the act of baptism, an outward symbol of our adoption by Christ, to recognize that we are sons and daughters of God.  When Martin Luther was feeling unsure about himself, when people were attacking him, or he had doubts, he said that he would stop and tell himself “remember you are baptized.”  When he did that he said he was reassured that he was a beloved child of God.  I suggested that we should do the same in our own lives, that our mantra should be, quoting from the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, where God says to us “I have called you by name, and you are mine.”  But when we recognize and remember that we are children of God, we must also recognize and remember that everyone else is a child of God as well.

Bishop Job says “When we claim our full inheritance as children of God, then we are able to see clearly and to know in the depth of our being that when we look at another human being, we are looking at a sister or brother who is God’s beloved child, just as we are…. Our identity is not something we create but something that is given by the God who made us, leads us, sustains us, and loves us.  We can, however, give up our own identity and inheritance.  When we forget who we are and begin to see others as anything less than beloved children of God, we are giving up our identity and our inheritance as children of God.”  Because when we do that then we stop following Jesus’ example and injunction to love others as God has loved us.  And that too is part of baptism, because we don’t become Christians through baptism and then seek out a church to join. Instead, when we are baptized we become part of a community.  Baptism is an initiation not just into the faith, but also into the community, into the body of Christ.  To recognize that we are children of God and baptized members in the faith is to begin to answer the question who are we together.

A Servant

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was John 12:20-26:

Today we conclude our series looking at the spiritual disciplines by looking at the discipline of service.  I’ve opened up the other sermons in this series with a joke, but I’m not doing that today not because I think this topic is more serious, but instead for the simple reality that I couldn’t find a good joke to use, as all the jokes I could find had to do with worship services, but that’s not the service we’re talking about here.  The service we are talking about is about reaching out to others, and yet it’s about so much more than that as well.  As part of today’s service we are going to be receiving new members into the church, and that involves vowing to support the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness.  None of those things are independent of each other, and all of them go back of course to the earliest days of Methodism.

Methodism began at Oxford University when Charles Wesley, who was a student there, asked his brother John, who was an Anglican priest and also an Oxford Don, which is a fancy English word for professor, to come and help he and his friends deepen their faith lives and spiritual practices.  And so together they formed what came to be known as the holiness club, and they gathered together several times a day to pray and read scripture, and they fasted twice a day, and they asked each other how it was with their soul to have mutual accountability for their lives and what they were doing.  But one of the members, William Morgan, said this wasn’t enough, and persuaded John and Charles to visit one of the prisons in London, which they did, and continued to do so, and so a faith lived out became one of the key characteristics of Methodism.  Indeed, John Wesley was always much more concerned about orthopraxy, that is right action, over that of orthodoxy, right belief, a tradition which carries on today, with some of the most famous organizations helping people in need, like the Salvation Army and Goodwill, originating in the Methodist church.

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: 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.

Laborer's In The Vineyards

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13:

In 1937 the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer published a book, titled in English, The Cost of Discipleship.  Written against the rise of the Nazis, and Bonhoeffer’s observations of the German church capitulating to the Nazis, the book is an exposition on what discipleship looks like.  One of the most talked about aspects of the work was Bonhoeffer’s distinction between cheap grace and costly grace.  “Cheap grace,” Bonhoeffer said, “is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline.  Communion without confession.  Cheap grace is grace with discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”  Bonhoeffer said that it was not enough to ask and receive forgiveness but then to go on living your life exactly as you did before, that was cheap grace.  Instead, he said, “costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus; it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and contrite heart.  It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: ‘My yoke is easy and my burden light.’”

As Methodists we understand this through John Wesley’s means of grace, which are prevenient grace, the grace that goes before, God’s grace which is extended to us before we even know of its presence or even of our need, followed by justifying grace, which is when we except Jesus grace and savings acts on our behalf, but then we are moving on to sanctifying grace, we are moving on to perfection.  It’s not enough to simply accept Christ’s actions, and ask for forgiveness, but then never seek to change anything in our lives, to never seek to pick up our cross, how often?  Daily, and move on to perfection.

For the past few weeks we’ve been talking about the membership vows of the United Methodist Church, and the expectations that we should have for each other.  We vow to support this congregation with what?  Our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness.  You’re getting pretty good at that, and if you get nothing else out of this at least you’ll be able to remember that.  We started with prayer, and the expectation that we will all be praying every day, and that will include praying for this church, for its leaders and for its mission.  Last week we talked about presence and I said that it is my expectation that we will be present for worship every week unless we are out of town, sick or are scheduled to work, and presence will also include attendance in Christian formation activities including small groups and education classes, which we will be working on and talking about in the spring.  We should also have expectations for worship.  We should expect that we will all be here, that we will be giving our best to God; we should expect that we will encounter God and we should expect that we will be transformed by our worship experience together.