Author Archives: RevJule

Unknown's avatar

About RevJule

RevJule is a pastor of the Presbyterian Church (USA). She is The Rev. Dr. Jule, who holds a BA in Theology from Valparaiso University, a Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt University Divinity School, and a Doctorate of Ministry (in Gospel and Culture) from Columbia Theological Seminary of Decatur, GA. She soon recently completed a Certificate of Christian Spiritual Formation from Columbia Theological Seminary of Decatur, GA and is beginning to be trained as a Spiritual Director through the Haden Institute in North Carolina. RevJule has served in a variety of professional ministry settings ranging from specialized ministry among children and families to adult ministry to solo pastorate work. She began writing almost before she could read and it was her way to connect deeply with God, others, and her truest self. RevJule currently enjoys creating weekly worship experiences and sermons for a congregation she is leading on a journey of self-re-definition. She enjoys teaching and connecting with others about matters of faith and life. She makes time almost daily for sitting quietly, being with her closest friends, walking her toy poodle Rufus, reading great books, and digging into the soil of whatever garden she can create. If you like what you are reading here, contact her to schedule a retreat or other spiritual formation experience for your faith community.

Life from Death

Leave a reply

It was so uplifting Saturday to be at a regional meeting of church folk (a.k.a. a Presbytery meeting).  I know!  If you’ve ever been to one, then it may not seem a credible statement.  But it was for me.

I’ve been doing a lot of research and reflection lately on the church, contemporary culture, and change.  In many ways, it’s been my passion for the past decade.  Inevitably, it leaves me wondering often about what of the church needs to die.  I dream too about what might be able to grow if in fact those within the church (like me) let go of what we’ve always known.  It’s scary.  It calls me to dig deeper into that vow to serve with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.

I used to care about needed changes in the church for reasons like job security, and to ease my frustration over things that drive me bonkers about the church, and to create ways that might be easier on all.  The deeper I go in it, the more I see that I care because my own life is full of all sorts of people who I love immensely and who want nothing to do with communities of faith in which I have lived my whole life.  Many of the folks in my life used to want to be a part; but for whatever reason, they no longer can be.  Some have been burned badly, or been raised with terrible theology that still haunts them, or find themselves totally bored in worship by things that seem absolutely irrelevant to daily life.  I even find active church folks who desperately want something different, something more; but don’t have the foggiest idea what that looks like or how to get there.  Of course, I know there always will be people who aren’t at all interested.  They never have been and they likely never will be.

My heart breaks for us all.

Just to be clear:  I think it’s wise to turn away from a people who label themselves with Jesus’ name but act like the antithesis.  I think it’s tragic to feel isolated or lonely or unloved or unlovable and have no community to turn t0 — especially because some expressions of church today are at their best and do offer the needed healing balm.  I think it’s deplorable to be seeking — or worse yet:  to already have connected deeply to the Life Force — only to be told that such things are NOT of God (which, in fact, they are!  The Divine is about the journey of awe and wonder; not certainty and fact).   I think it’s sense-less that the hearts of a people who claim the name Jesus aren’t breaking for the eclectic array of people Jesus went out of his way to welcome home.  It’s not ok to me for people to be unaware that they are beautiful, cherished treasures.  And it’s even worse to me for any to be deemed unacceptable by others who believe they know.

Recently I saw an amazing clip on The Work of the People in which Rachel Held Evans made a matter of fact statement that rocked me to the core:  “Empires worry about death.  Gardeners do not worry about death”  (To watch the clip go to http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/creating-something-new).  A few day later I watched a clip by John Philip Newell on “Dreaming Forward” (http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/dream-forward).  Newell quoted the Dalai Lama regarding hope for the future.  He said:  “‘Of course I believe there is hope for the future.  The future hasn’t happened yet.'”  My mind once again blown, I went off to the Presbytery meeting Saturday where we heard from three different young adult women (interestingly all were women) who spoke passionately about the meaning they have been finding for life through their involvement in Presbyterian Campus Ministries.  They have connected with others and that which is beyond, they have built relationships and learned from those much different from themselves, they have helped the hurting and shown love to those battered by life.  I left that meeting so excited that these young women are the church today:  the future hope in our midst.  The people who passionately and honestly seek to follow the Way of Love.  Ones who want to make a difference in others lives, not just seek to have their own needs met.

Maybe it’s just a handful and maybe as they get older the flame will fade.

Or maybe . . . just maybe, their lives (and the fruit of who they are) are the new growth.  And maybe, just maybe, all can learn a thing or two from them as we seek to breakdown in ourselves the walls of cynicism, self-focus, and indifference.

Then . . . maybe, just maybe, our own fresh growth will unfurl under the blazing sunshine in the grand garden of this world.

Here’s hoping . . . here’s to hoping!

 

Peace & Love prevail,

RevJule

 

Relationship

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 22 May 2016 – Trinity Sunday

A reading from the wisdom of the Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 (NRSV). Listen for God’s word to us.

“Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out: “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth –when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

It’s Trinity Sunday. The day every year when the church tries to explain the inexplicable. We’re ambitious like that! . . . Trinity: lots of people like to think of it as the Father who creates, the Son who redeems, and the Spirit who sustains. The God who is beyond us, the God who lived among us as one of us, and the God who lives in all. One God, in three persons. If you’ve studied up on all this ever, then you likely already know that in ancient acting, a few actors would play various personas throughout a drama. That’s where the three persons words for Trinity comes from. Our One God, who is known to us in three personas – three distinct characters in the drama of this thing called life. . . . As ancient creedal language puts it: the Father who begets the Son; and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, who with them is worshipped and glorified! . . . I remember protons, neutrons, and electrons from high school science, don’t you? We can understand that all living things are not solitary. Even before the explorations of modern science, anyone could look at the world and see things that were one, but three. Take a bird for instance. It has a beak, wings, and tail feathers. Three different parts; but it’s all one bird. And, in fact, without all three parts, it wouldn’t really be a bird. . . . God is kinda like that. Three distinct parts: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; YHWH the almighty One, Jesus Christ the embodied Word, and the Holy Spirit forevermore. God is all these. All these are God – three, but One: Trinity.

It’s a mystery. And I think a great children’s book gives us insight. It’s called: God is Like a Mother Hen and Much, Much More (by Carolyn Stahl Bohler). I wish I could show you the pictures, but it’s kinda a small book and I didn’t think you’d all be willing to scrunch up here together on the floor, so you’ll just have to hear the words today. “God is like a Mother Hen,” the book begins as the opposite page has a picture of a momma chicken with her chicks. Gently gathering them under her wings the page reads: “who protects her little chicks.” Turning the page we see: “God is like a Caring Daddy, who listens really well. God is like a Teacher, who smiles and says, ‘Try again’” – cuz the lil chic at the chalk board wrote four as the answer for one plus two. God’s like that. We’re all learners in this journey of life; everyone makes mistakes. “Try again,” smiles our Teacher God. As the book continues we learn that: “God is like a Best Friend, who plays and shares with you. God is like a Mommy, who kisses all your hurts. God is like the Air, right there, but you can’t see it.” The little chic on the drawing is skipping in the sunshine of the great outdoors saying: “The air keeps us alive!” The next page reads: “God is like a Child, who loves to have surprises.” Then “God is like You. Sometimes crying, sometimes laughing. God’s Love is like a Teddy Bear’s, ready for snuggling at night.” Then the book states: “Can YOU think of what else God is like?” The caption is: “Fill in using your imagination.” . . . “God is like a Mother Hen, a Caring Daddy, a Smiling Teacher, a Best Friend, a Mommy kissing hurts, the Air you can’t see, a Child loving surprises; You, crying or laughing; a Teddy Bear’s Love, blank” where you fill in what you named God with your imagination, “and much, much more!” God is like a Mother Hen and so very much more! . . . Solid rock, scripture attests. Good Shepherd. Forgiving Judge. Intimate Presence. The Way of Peace. And so very much, much more. All of these together; yet none of these in full. Known to us and Unknown to us all at the same time. The Triune God is so very much, much more. All the different metaphors give us a great way to experience – not to mention speak to others about this One-in-Three that we love.

In Proverbs we get a different kind of peek at our amazing God. That part of God which is wisdom. “On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals” – in other words: everywhere! “She cries out: ‘To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live’” (Prov. 8:2-3). . . . In the Hebrew language, wisdom is associated with the feminine. The Spirit of God that is a part with God at the very beginning. . . . In the Greek, wisdom gets linked with the Word, Logos, masculine and a foreshadow of the Word embodied in the male figure of Jesus of Nazareth. Proverbs links wisdom much more with what we might understand as God’s Spirit. The force with God in creation. She declares in joy that “when God established the heavens, I was there, when God drew a circle on the face of the deep, when God made firm the skies above, when God established the fountains of the deep, when God assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress God’s command, when God marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside God, like a master worker; and I was daily God’s delight, rejoicing before God always, rejoicing in God’s inhabited world and delighting in the human race” (Prov. 8:27-31).

What a beautiful tribute to God! Logically, we know God cannot just be One: nothing living is entirely solitary. If any of this magnificent creation ever was going to be, God has to be more than just one part. The creative force in synergy with itself causing something to come to be. It’s why in the first creation story of Genesis 1, God speaks thus: “’Let us make (humankind) in our image, according to our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Even then, we declare God is an us – One but more than one. Creating a whole world to be one – no single solitary thing – but beautiful in the distinctness of each. . . . Isn’t it a wonderful image of the Spirit of God creating while the wisdom of God is celebrating it all? . . . Maybe you grew up with the triangle view of God. One at the top point, typically what was referred to as God the Father, or God the Creator. The Son and Spirit, not quiet as important, were at the points down below. For centuries, it was a popular way for the Church of the Western world to visualize God. But tucked back away in the Eastern Church was a different kind of image. One that’s slowly making it’s way into the West, which I think is a really good thing as it seems a bit more biblical. You might have heard me say it before, and I first ran across this great truth in Shirley Guthrie’s book Christian Doctrine, which some of you have been studying all year. It’s the perichoresis of God. In this image of Trinity, God is like three distinct circles – equal is shape and size. (Kinda like the image on the front cover of the bulletin.) An interconnected one with all three. There’s really not one that predominates another. Rather this image of Trinity connotes the mutual dance of God. Love itself. Three intertwined dancers twirling about with each other in flawless delight. It gives us a better picture of the One God who is involved in every aspect of the God who is creating and redeeming and sustaining. For in truth, we can’t have one function without the other and still have God as we know God.

And so in mutual delight, we know the Almighty Creator . . . whose final word always is Life. Who makes covenant with a people to be a light to all the nations. Who speaks through the prophets to call us back to faithfulness. Who never-ever will let us go; even when it’s what we really do deserve. . . . We love God the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Who’s life, death, and resurrection sets us free from all that would bind. Sets us free for Life here and now and forevermore. Who shows us what it looks like to live as God. Who teaches. Who heals. Who feeds. Who celebrates every aspect of human living and welcomes the entire eclectic array – men, women, and children. Young, old and everyone in between. Not just those like himself of Jewish descent: but those of all lands, every tongue, all economic situations. We love God the Son who is our Way, our Truth, and our very Life. . . . And we celebrate God the Holy Spirit. Who powerfully comes among us. Who is our courage and strength. Who lives in every little finger and toe of our bodies. And who lives beyond us in all things living – sometimes known as the very breath of God enlivening all creation. The greening, viriditas force that is alive in all. Celebrating it all as does the Spirit of God, according to Proverbs. The Spirit of the Risen Christ, who guides us into all Truth that we might live in like manner. Who revives us when we are weary and gives to us that great zest for life. . . . Our God, the great Trinity; One yet three, and so very, very much more!

Whether we get it up here (in our brains) or not, it’s the One in whose name we all were baptized – the one in whose image we all were made. No single solitary thing, so that we know we too are not one entirely on our own – whether we want to be or not. Made in the image of the God who is in relationship in God’s very self, we are connected to everything else that lives: in relationship with it all, to be in mutual delight. One with all creation, even as is our God. . . . At the end of the day, whether we understand the mystery or not; our call is to give God praise. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer! The God who is beyond us, who lived among us, and who lives in all. To the Mysterious, Holy Trinity, we give praise forevermore!

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)

 

Language

1 Reply

A Sermon for 15 May 2016 – Pentecost Sunday

A reading from Acts of the Apostles 2:1-21. On this Pentecost Sunday, perhaps you’ll find these words very familiar. Listen anew for God’s word to us.

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

So there’s this sit-com with the plot line about a young woman who had been held captive in an underground shelter in Indiana by some crazy self-proclaimed prophet who captured these four teens and told them for like fifteen years that the end of the world had happened and they are the only things left. Then one day, they’re rescued. The teens now are full-grown women and one of them decides she’s moving to New York City to finally begin living. The thing is: she’s been secluded underground for the past several years. And though she’s nearly thirty, she still has the mannerisms, clothes preferences, and language from her days as an eighth grader. Her new New York City housemate tries to help her get a clue about life today. Like: she has no idea what a selfie is – because in fact, she hasn’t ever heard of, let alone had a cell phone. She’s read only one book over and over again for the past fifteen years so any life lessons she’s come to know are through that one pre-teen story. And worst of all, she still uses expressions that were popular in her junior high prior to her captivity in the underground shelter by the crazy self-proclaimed prophet of the end of the world. Like, there was a time and place when it was so cool to say things like “Groovy!” – or so I’ve been told. But not in New York City in the year 2016! Her housemate keeps a notebook entitled: “Things People No Longer Say.” Every time she blurts out such an outdated expression, it gets recorded in the notebook. As if teaching someone about language is that easy.

Language really is a funny thing. I mean, you can tell a lot about a person by the language they use. I’m not talking about dialect or accent – though those certainly place us as well. But just the particular words we use and how we use them. . . . Remember just a few years ago? It was so confusing to hear the younger generation say things like: “That’s sick!” Because when I was a kid, we really meant it was sick – like gross. Disgusting. Something you’d want nothing to do with. Not amazing, awesome, and incredible as the kids were using it. . . . Language can be really confusing. It’s part of what defines a group. A part of a group’s culture. Just like the rituals, traditions, celebrations, and songs that mean something to a particular group of people. Certain language resonates with some because it signifies something those people value. Something a group tacitly has come to agree represents something about them. Language matters significantly.

Which is part of what makes the readings for Pentecost Sunday so incredibly fascinating. This year we hear of the day of Pentecost coming against the backdrop of that great Genesis story of the tower of Babel. A lot of really bad exegesis has been done on both of these texts over the years so that somehow lots of people came to believe that God punished the people for pride over the tower of Babel by confusing their language and dispersing them all across the land. Then, thank the Lord Jesus, at this first Christian Pentecost, God finally changed the course and re-united the people with the Holy Spirit that allowed everyone to once again understand one another – to reverse Babel and allow everyone to finally speak the same language. The only problem with these interpretations of both of these texts is that they’re not at all what the texts record! Of Genesis 11, one commentator writes: “The goal of the building project was to keep the community in one place, lest they be scattered over the surface of all the earth. Hence the people with one language wanted to stay in one place.” They wanted to establish “an identity that will endure . . . to perpetuate a single culture – the human race speaking one language and living in one place” (Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, Ralph W. Klein, p. 3,5). I guess it made no difference to them that the command from God at the beginning of creation was to: “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). In fact, according to the story, it’s the very first thing God tells us; that is after blessing us and reminding us how beloved we are. We are to fill all the earth – this grand creation of God’s that God intricately made in vast variety. If God wanted everything the same, one kind, one culture, one location, and one language; then God would have made it that way from the start! We’d all be women or we’d all be men. The whole world would just be fish or birds or creeping things – not all of them and so much more. And then in such diverse array of types. . . . The beauty of anything is to behold it in all its vast array. Color pops when there’s all different shades of black and blue and green and red and purple and yellow. It really means something – moving to our spirits, I think, when we can reach beyond our own little boundaries – our own little ways – and connect with someone or something so very different from ourselves. When we can understand one another – what the other values and yearns for in this life – across the different words we use. Despite the varying languages we speak. Like that children’s book by Mem Fox that reminds us that laughter is the same and tears are the same and blood is the same. Love is the same whoever you are, where ever you are all over the world (Whoever You Are, Mem Fox, 1997).

That’s what happened when that first Pentecost occurred after Christ’s resurrection. It wasn’t one unified language the disciples started speaking so that everyone finally understood. And it wasn’t some sort of glossa or speaking in tongues as some believe. It was, according to the text: “In other languages” (Acts 2:4). That’s what absolutely amazed the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. As the text records: “In our own native language” we hear the disciple speaking to us (Acts 2:8). Somehow the Spirit caused the first followers of Christ to speak the language of the people who were right around them. To communicate in words that meant something to those who were listening because the words used were exactly what they could understand. Pentecost reminds us that we must learn the language of those we want to hear of God’s amazing deeds of power. We must speak in a way that will connect with what they already value – what they already know that they too might come to trust the good news we have to share.

In the beautiful book Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen explains in his introduction that a much younger, secular Jewish friend named Fred once asked him – an older, Roman Catholic priest and professor of Yale Divinity School – to write for him and others like him. Nouwen explains that he finally undertook the writing of Life of the Beloved in the early 1990s because Fred had asked: “’Why don’t you write something about a spiritual life for me and for my friends?’” . . . After a while Nouwen came to see that: Fred’s “own experience and that of his friends required another tone. Another language. Another spiritual wave length.” Nouwen writes: “As I gradually came to know Fred’s friends and got a feel for their interests and concerns,” (not to mention the chaotic, demanding, isolating ways they lived), he “better understood Fred’s remarks about the need for a spirituality that speaks to men and women in a secularized society.” Nouwen writes: “Much of my thinking and writing presupposed familiarity with concepts and images that for centuries had nourished the spiritual life of Christians and Jews. But for many people, these concepts and images had lost their power to bring them into touch with their spiritual center.” Nouwen confesses that “Fred’s idea that I say something about the Spirit that his friends and he could hear stayed with me. He was asking me to respond to the great spiritual hunger and thirst that exist in countless people who walk the streets of big cities. ‘You have something to say,’” Fred kept telling Nouwen. “’But you keep saying it to people who least need to hear it. What about us? Young, ambitious, secular men and women wondering what life is all about after all.” Fred asked: “Can you speak to us with the same conviction as you speak to those who share your tradition, your language, and your vision?’ . . . It became the plea that arose from every side.” Fred begged Nouwen to: “’Speak to us about the deepest yearnings of our hearts. Of our many wishes. About hope. Not about the many strategies for survival, but about trust. Not about new methods of satisfying our emotional needs, but about love. Speak to us about a vision larger than our changing perspectives and about a Voice deeper than the clamorings of our mass media. Yes, speak to us about something or Someone greater than ourselves. Speak to us about God. . . . You can do it,’” Fred said. “’Look attentively at what you see (among us) and listen carefully to what you hear (among us). You will discover a cry welling up from the depths of the human heart that has remained unheard because there was no one to listen.” Nouwen’s spiritually hungry friend told him what the masses today still plead: “Speak from that place in your heart where you are most yourself. Speak directly, simply, lovingly, gently, and without any apologies. Tell us what you see and want us to see. Tell us what you hear and want us to hear. Trust your own heart. The words will come.’” (Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen, 1992, from the Introduction).

Isn’t that exactly what Pentecost teaches us: to tell what we see and want others to see. To tell what we hear and want others to hear. To trust our own hearts; for the words will come. That’s the work of God’s Spirit in us all. . . . For the sake of us all today – those who hunger and thirst and those who believe they’ve got it all figured out: let us speak, let us speak the words of Life. The language of our hearts.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)

Still Easter

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 16 May 2016 – 7th Sunday of Easter

A reading from Acts of the Apostles. We continue to hear in this season of Easter of the adventures of the apostle Paul and Silas. Listen for God’s word to us.

“One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, “The magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.” But Paul replied, “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.” The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home; and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.” (NRSV)

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

It’s still Easter – though our memories of that glorious morning the last Sunday of March have about faded. For those of us who were there, can you remember the sound of the birds singing as we sat for a moment of silence at the Sunrise Service in the old sanctuary on The Hermitage? Remember the joy we felt around the tables in the fellowship hall that morning? The glorious music of the 11 a.m. service that day and the fun of plastic Easter Eggs all over the yard as the children enjoyed a few moments of adventure after the service? It seems forever ago – but it’s still Easter. The seventh and final Sunday of the season for this year. Next week we celebrate Pentecost: the coming of the Spirit and the birth of the Church. But for today: Easter: one last shred of this annual church season when we celebrate crazy things, ridiculous things. Impossible things coming to pass! Things like publicly crucified men being found alive again. Stone-sealed tombs somehow being opened. Disciples once crouched in fear-filled grief finding themselves shouting Alleluia! Easter causes upside down, turned-all-around, unexpected stuff.

Certainly it seems that way in our Easter-tide tale for today. Paul and Silas are stuck in jail praising away. It’s ridiculous! They have been dragged before the magistrates, unjustly. And their accusers say they have been committing crimes against the state. You see the story goes that after Paul and his buddies arrived in Philippi to find the circle of devout women, witness to Lydia, baptize her and her household as the first European converts, and begin a church back at her house; Paul and Silas continue to make their way to the place of prayer. Each day they go outside the city to praise together. One day a slave-girl starts following them. According to the story it doesn’t bother them at first. She would lag a bit behind and periodically shout out: “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation” (Acts 16:17). It’s too bad we only have the words without the vocal cues. If the scriptures were written more like a script, then we might know the inflection in the girl’s voice. Was she being sincere, acting something like a herald of good tidings as Paul and the others made their way out to the circle to pray? Or maybe her words dripped with sarcasm: she was a slave too. Maybe she spit: “You’re slaves just like me; is it really any better to be indebted to the Most High God?” What we know about her is that she had the spirit of the python – that’s the literal words in the original Greek. Which could in fact have linked her and her seemingly psychic powers to the Greek Temple of Delphi (Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2; David Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor, ed.; 2009, p. 523). It’s possible the spirit that possessed her was in direct conflict with the Spirit of God that possessed Paul. A clue to us listeners that the Most High God is about to do battle with all sorts of opposing forces. And remember, because of Easter, we know who wins. . . . Whatever tone the girl takes, eventually her proclamation grates Paul’s last nerve. Highly annoyed, one day, he finally tells the spirit of the python to come out of her. Which kinda leaves us wondering if Paul knew that a confrontation with that spirit would lead to all sorts of trouble. I mean, maybe, at first, he was afraid to order it out; but when he no longer could stand the girl’s annoying parade, he finally says enough! . . . And so the real clash begins. You see, this young girl made a LOT of money for the men who owned her. They put her to use fortune-telling in the city and as soon as she was free from the spirit that secured their income, her owners were furious! That’s why Paul and Silas find themselves in jail. Beaten bloody. Humiliated in public – without due process of the law. The slave owners who find their lucrative business dried up, seize Paul and Silas and drag them into the marketplace. . . . Those slave owners must have been shrewd men; for they knew to twist the truth just a bit toward their favor. They wanted Paul and Silas stopped. They shout out to everyone: these Jews are “advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe” (Acts 16:21). Which probably is true. I mean Paul and Silas were testifying to others about the Most High God – the God who in Jesus Christ had conquered even death. The God who certainly reigns supreme over the ways of the market, over the ways of Rome, over even Caesar. See, Easter causes craziness. Paul and Silas are attacked by the crowd. Then at the command of the magistrates, they are brutalized by the police, before they are thrown into the deepest dungeons of the prison so that no hope of escape would ever flicker. Bloodied, their feet are bound in the stocks. An attempt to crush their spirits as surely as their bodies.

Still they’re praying. They’re praising! According to the story, at the latest hour, midnight, Paul and Silas are singing away at the top of their lungs, offering prayers to God. It’s ridiculous! Everyone else is overhearing and I wonder if they thought it just as radical as it sounds to us? Easter is the only explanation. Their hearts could not be broken because they trusted the God to whom they had become enslaved. They entrusted their lives to Easter – to the God of Life who would use them as that God sought to re-make the world.

I once knew a very proud momma who every chance she got would try to get me to visit the ministry her son had begun. It was in a pretty rough area of Chicago that I never did like to go visit. But that momma wouldn’t let up until one day I finally set a meeting with her son to find out all the fuss. After parking on a street that looked a bit like an old war zone, I climbed the steps of a huge building. Inside I asked for Glen. . . . It was an odd experience, walking from bright bustling hallways through locked-down corridors leading to parts of the building not yet refurbished. I remember Glen telling me as we walked that when the South underwent desegregation, nearly 500,000 African Americans flooded the city of Chicago all of a sudden and no one was ready for it. Seemingly overnight, areas like the one in which he and I were standing that day became dead-end urban ghettos. It was obvious to me that Glen and his friends believe in Easter and the craziness it causes. Glen, his wife, and fellow professional pioneers moved into that dying neighborhood back in the early 1970. . . . It was remarkable to listen to this man who not only cared, but could figure out exactly what to do first to make a difference. Glen explained that they first sought to stabilize the neighborhood through improved housing, legal assistance, medical access, and other empowerment ministries. Then, in the early 1980s when the community development ministries they had begun were busting at the seams; a mammoth vacant complex on the corner of a nearby city block finally became available. The building, which once had been home to a thriving Catholic girls’ school, had sat empty for several years with all sorts of vandalism – the electrical, plumbing, and heating all having been pillaged. In 1983, Circle Urban Ministries decided to buy the abandoned facility for $80,000. Bit by bit, as they got the funding over the next three decades, they brought back that old structure in order to transform an entire neighborhood. It’s unbelievable! Everything from a charter Kindergarten through 8th grade school, to an emergency food pantry, to a community church, to an after-school mentoring program, to a college readiness ministry, to legal and medical clinics, to a half-way home for single young moms, to a gym for physical activity in the neighborhood and a library for mental enrichment – all of it are under the roof of this one gigantic, once abandoned facility. That old building slowly over the decades became a haven for the slew of ministries finding home-base there. It’s incredible. Sure it took steady, slow progress over nearly thirty years. But an entire neighborhood in what once was one of the roughest areas of Chicago is finding itself transformed. Thanks to Easter and a few people trusting so deeply in it; men, women, and children here and now are receiving new lives – kinda like the jailor did when Paul stopped him from harming himself and opened him to a whole new world where God can cause the most unbelievable things to occur. . . . That’s the kind of craziness Easter causes. Those are the kind of ridiculous, impossible things God ends up doing through folks who are willing to trust.

It’s still Easter – in fact, the beauty is that even though the church calendar brings the season to a close, Easter never ends. It’s the season, the celebration, that changes everything forever. The question is: will we keep entrusting our lives to Easter for God to re-make the world through us?

In the name of the Life-giving Father, the Life-redeeming Son, and the Life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)

Holy Meals

Leave a reply

I pretty much loved this one too!!  Enjoy!

RevJule

A Sermon for 2 April 2015 – Maundy Thursday

(based upon John 13:1-17, 31b-35)

As we get ready to enact that most amazing meal which our Lord and Savior shared with his disciples even on the night when they would betray, scatter, and deny; it is fitting for us to spend a few minutes remembering our own experiences of meals. Meals around this table. Meals around the tables in the fellowship hall. Meals shared in homes and restaurants and at picnic tables. Meals shared on days when it felt like the world was falling apart. And meals shared in great joy when we wanted to gather all those important to us to celebrate together. . . . Every day at least once, and better if it’s two or three times, our bodies require that we stop. Hopefully to sit down at a table for sustenance. Sometimes it’s just for the fuel we thoughtlessly shovel in. But hopefully, if not every day, then at least once or so a week, we sit down, like Jesus, with those we dearly love. Whether we talk about the really important things of life or just laugh together about nonsense, what we do together around tables is significant. Not only for the nutrients our bodies crave to keep us active however we need to be for God in this world; but also for what happens between us when at last we sit down to eat. . . . I once heard it said that the surest way to make a friend – even out of an enemy – is to invite them home for a shared meal. Try it sometime with someone you’re struggling with. See if you can stay bitter at someone with whom you’ve broken bread. . . . What is it about sitting down to delight in the bounty of this world that changes things between us? Maybe the act of eating itself reminds us of our frailty. Our mortal bodies were made to stop. Hunger and thirst tell us so. Our hearts have been made to connect – overflowing freely with love that is not to be withheld – that, without great violence to ourselves. You know: building that rock solid wall around our heart which we presume will protect us. That’s the only way love can be stifled as we break bread with one another. . . . Meals are the perfect place for us together to be a little bit more of who God has made us to be. Creatures who know our dependence on one another, on this beautiful world, and on the Mystery that dances all in between – the Mystery we call the Holy One. God.

It was no ordinary meal Jesus sat down to enjoy on this night so long ago. His people were in the midst of the festival culminating in the meal we heard instituted at the Exodus. The celebration of the Mighty One passing over all of their households on the way to giving them something that had been taken from them: their freedom. . . . The meal of Passover was a Sabbath unlike all the others of the year – it was THE meal that reminded them of who they were, to whom they belong, and for what purpose the great act of Passover was done. . . . That night together was a most holy meal, deepened further in meaning as the Lamb that was about to be slain for the Passover feast sat among those first disciples.

According to the gospel of John, he went a bit overboard in the symbols that night at the meal on the night before Passover. He took off his outer garments, got down in the dust at their feet, and humbly washed each one. . . . Foot by foot, did he remember all the steps they had taken together over the years? As he held each person’s feet in his hands, did he recall the day he first called that one? When he told them to love as he had loved, could he see all of the places their feet yet would take them in proclamation of the most amazing love they had come to know in him? . . . Ah, what holy moments around the table of that holy meal.

In the bread and in the fruit of the vine we are about to partake at his command, we are challenged to remember. To wonder what the Christ would be thinking as he held our feet in his hands, then broke the bread and poured out the cup that we might taste the gifts that change us forever: the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation for us! . . . That meal; a holy, holy meal that charges us to go to live likewise.

In the silence now, let us be readied to receive such an amazing gift! Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2015  (All rights reserved.)

 

The Ruckus of the King

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 20 March 2016 – Palm Sunday

A reading from the gospel of Luke 19:28-48. Listen for God’s word to us.

“After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?’ just say this, “The Lord needs it.’ ” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, “It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.” Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

A reading from the prophet Isaiah 50:4-9a. Listen for God’s word to us.

“The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

We started this service with that beloved reading according to the gospel of Luke of that first Palm Procession down the Mount of Olives, through the garden of Gethsemane, and into the city of Jerusalem right through the Temple gate. And just in case we don’t see you again this week, let me remind you that Jesus is about to get into great big trouble! Trouble that will bring on for him what the prophet Isaiah once wrote about. . . . What a blessed day, Palm Sunday, to rehearse the story of his coming into Jerusalem. I guess we could call it triumphant – though at this point in the story, he’s really not triumphed over anything yet. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus just has welcomed into the fold Zacchaeus. It might have been one of the last straws for the religious leaders of the day because, according to the gospel of Luke, Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector. And he was very rich. But he wanted to see Jesus so he climbed up a tree. Much to everyone’s shock, Jesus called Zacchaeus outta the tree and sat with him at table in his house. . . . Jesus really is starting to meddle. It all was clear before – who was in what place. Tax collectors were out. Unclean as they mingled with the Romans. And not to mention despised for all too often overcharging for their own gain. In the eyes of Jesus’ people, no one’s much lower than a chief tax collector. . . . But “he too is a son of Abraham,” Jesus declares. “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). If those in religious leadership had no reason to be furious with him before, as Jesus sits at table with Zacchaeus, now they most certainly do!

And he doesn’t stop there! He should’ve stayed out of the city. Kept his mouth shut – as some Pharisees warn when the crowd is going crazy shouting “Blessed! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!” (Luke 19:38). . . . We all do our best to make sense of things. And the gospel of Luke’s got a certain understanding. Here alone the story goes that the crowds shout “blessed is the king . . . peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven.” . . . This is the gospel writer who alone tells of the night of his birth. Remember at Christmas when we heard of angels singing to the shepherds? It was the in-breaking of a new kingdom. “Glory to God in the highest heaven,” they proclaimed. “And on earth, peace among those who God favors!” (Luke 2:14). . . . We miss it because words like king. Peace – often these are common for us when we think about Christ. . . . But it’s believed there was another procession into the city that week. Passover was when all the Jewish pilgrims would flock to Jerusalem. It was time to celebrate their freedom from captivity. The way God made when they were slaves in Egypt. With a merciful hand the LORD their God passed over each home marked with the blood of the lamb – the sign of the covenant. Later that night, their sandals on, their cloaks ready – the people of God escaped captivity behind the mighty staff of Moses. . . . Passover in Jerusalem was the annual reminder that God had set them free! . . . So, just to make sure they didn’t get any revolutionary ideas, each year at Passover, Rome made sure they were ready. Pilate came parading into the city too. Strong. Royal. On a warhorse, surrounded by Roman soldiers, spears in hand. As a sign of the Roman Empire – an extension of Caesar, Rome’s king – they were there to keep PEACE (Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2; H. Stephen Shoemaker, p. 153). . . . The kingdoms indeed are clashing!

On one side we have Pilate, Rome’s right-hand man, ready by force to overtake any who get outta line. That’s what peace looked like for Rome. Fear, intimidation, domination, force: that’s the way in the kingdom of Rome, the way of the world. . . . Now don’t get me wrong: the Pax Romana, or the Peace of Rome, brought with it many good things. Travel suddenly was secure – possible even – on roadways Rome built all over the empire. After all, they had to have a way to move their army around. So it may not have been for the best of intentions, but still it brought movement all over the Empire for almost anyone – and in relative ease and safety. The potential for commerce boomed. Which probably was a good thing for common folks, because Rome had to have some way to pay for it all. Heavy taxes were laid upon the people – for some a crushingly cruel amount. And Rome wasn’t interested in letting you file for an extension if you thought you were going to miss the April 15th deadline. With ruthless force, Rome ensured peace. If followers of God aren’t careful, they too will mistake such ways as acceptable. It appeared as if the end justified the means. Being so deceptively sweet, such ways easily ensnare.

And in more ways than one. In the gospel of Luke’s telling of the story alone, some of the Pharisees are present as Jesus parades into the city. They’re not necessarily adversarial towards Jesus; just insistent. They want the ruckus stopped. It reads as if they represent the voice of fear. You know: that part of us that doesn’t want the boat rocked. Those voices in us that clutch us and keep us from seeking truth. That power that overtakes until we cannot act on faith. . . . Fear is a major force, played upon by any empire wanting to keep folks quiet. The threat of the cross was real in Jesus’ day. It represented execution by the state for any sort of crime against them – including inciting allegiance to One higher than the Emperor. Crosses dotted the land as a fearful threat to stay in line. Maybe these Pharisees know exactly how much trouble Jesus is in for as his followers hail him king and shout out about God’s way of peace. It’s possible they are the very same leaders who’ve warned him once before as he approached the city – sending word to him to stay away because Herod wanted him dead (Luke 13:31-35). . . . No matter. Jesus tells them God’s way will prevail; for if his followers were silent, “the stones would shout out” (Luke 19:40). No matter the pressure; creation bows only to one King.

It’s we people who quickly forget. The gospel of Luke’s telling of the story alone reminds us even further. For it reports that when Jesus rounded the bend – a bit closer to Jerusalem – he wept over it bitterly. . . . As in the days of old when prophets like Zechariah had warned against living according to the ways of force. When Habakkuk had prophesied that those unjustly betraying God’s Law and God’s people would not last long. As in the days when God’s people fell into living the ways of the world instead of being according to the ethic of Love; Jesus weeps over what it all has become. The peace he knows – the peace he brings is so very different than the enforced peace he sees. The same kind of peace we often see that benefits some and greatly diminishes others. . . . One commentator seeks to explain God’s very different kind of peace by writing: “’Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven’ is more than a song of heavenly rest and hope in the world to come. It is about the ‘kingdom of the heavens,’ as (the gospel of) Matthew called it, which has drawn near in Jesus to challenge and change the kingdoms of this world” (Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2; H. Stephen Shoemaker, p. 155). . . . O yes! Jesus is about to get into some very big trouble. He’s about to alienate everyone.

But why? Why does he seem to seek out the conflict? Didn’t his parents school him in not rocking the boat? Why won’t he tell his disciples to pipe down a bit – everyone’s listening? Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone – stay outta Jerusalem all together. Or at least keep a low profile and just celebrate Passover dutifully along with everybody else. Why’s he got to seemingly go looking for trouble? Which the gospel of Luke indicates he does as he heads from his Palm Parade directly into the Temple. Imagine the scene as he starts pushing out the Temple peddlers. More ruckus! Even if they just were doing their job in reference to providing proper sacrifices in remembrance to God. It’s not like it was the first time and it certainly will not be the last time the people of God have it bobbled, and what was to be a good and holy thing got turned all inside out and upside down. The church can heed the warning that too quickly can we make the worship of God about something else entirely: our gain, our entertainment, our right thought or feeling over everything else. . . . Why would you march right into Jerusalem, with a whole crowd singing your praises, only to incur further wrath as every interaction from here forward just infuriates the religious leaders even as it threatens the powers of this world?

Because he trusts another Way. For he embodies a very different kind of God. If Rome wants to portray peace as something kept by intimidation and force and even death to any challengers; then Jesus knows a prevailing power. We’d do well to remember. The gospel of Luke emphasizes – especially at the end – that Jesus represents a different kind of King. Here from the cross Jesus readily gives up his spirit. It’s an ultimate act of love – a willing sign of trust. No “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani” is here, as in the gospels of Matthew and Mark when the crucified Christ questions why God has forsaken him. . . . This king is of a different kingdom – the kingdom of true peace. Freedom. Shalom. And this Christ shall be victorious over any other power. For God’s ways of justice, mercy, everlasting love shall demolish all other ways forever – though maybe I’ve given too much of next Sunday away. . . .

“Blessed??? Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!??? Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!???” . . . Hold on . . . because all the other ways are going to do everything they can to put an end to this Way. . . . Hold on: it’s a rough ride on the way to resurrection . . .

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)

 

Prepared to Die

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 13 March 2016 – Fifth Sunday during Lent

A reading from the gospel of John 12:1-8. Listen for God’s word to us.

“Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.””

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

So here we are: one week before all the passion and pomp of Holy Week. Next Sunday that amazing rehearsal of events we cherish begins! . . . The gospel of John has us on another day this last Sunday during the season of Lent: six days before the Passover. In other words, Sunday before the Friday of Jesus’ death. His last week among us before his crucifixion and beyond. . . . A lot can happen in one week. A lot will happen to Jesus, the Christ, in his last week. It’s something we so often miss. Things happen TO Jesus his last week and he lets it. We know he goes about doing a thing or two himself. Depending on which gospel you read, Jesus goes about everything from entering Jerusalem triumphantly, but humbly riding on a donkey as one would do in a time of peace, not on a horse heading out for war. Jesus weeps over this city – the ancient site of his nation’s religion and sovereignty. Jesus drives money changers out of the Temple his last week – according to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There’s his whole thing with that fig tree he tries to use as a lesson on fruitful faith. He prepares for and sits at table one last time with his closest disciples and friends. And then he goes out to the garden. Where in the chill of the night, he pleads his case before God.

I imagine Jesus loved life. Every bit of it – from being in a human body, to connecting with other human bodies, to enjoying the beauty of this gorgeous world, to healing and helping whoever he could. Letting go of that’s not an easy process – not even for our God in-flesh in Christ, at least according to the gospel’s record of his prayers in Gethsemane. This is the point in Jesus’ life on earth as one of us when he really, really, really must trust in-full in God. He’s lived his lifetime letting go of his own desires in order to accomplish the work of God among us. And now, one last time, he must do what his words to Mary Magdalene will be after his resurrection. “Do not cling to me,” the Risen Christ speaks in the garden of Easter morn (John 20:17). . . . Do not cling to your life is the message Jesus first must drink in the garden of Gethsemane. Do not hold fast to your own desires, Lord Christ. Rather, let it be. Let it be with you according to the Way of the Creator of the universe. The pattern for all is life, death, then something new. . . . The gospels tell us that his struggle that Gethsemane night finally dissipates. He is ready to let events happen to him. Which is the meaning of the word passion – the pascal mystery of Christ. “Thy will be done,” at last he utters (Luke 22:42). Just in time for a guard, led by his beloved disciple Judas, to come take him away. He is ready.

According to the gospel of John, Mary – the sister of Martha and Lazarus – knew. It should have come as no surprise really. He’d been telling them all along that it would be the path. And then, what he did there in Bethany just one chapter prior to the story we hear today, seals his fate – at least according to the gospel of John, which alone tells of Jesus’ raising of the dead man Lazarus. (And yes, I checked! The Greek word used for it IS the same that is used of the Risen Christ on Easter morning.) . . . The council was incensed. So many started to believe this Jesus really was somebody that the council felt the nation was threatened. He’d have to be put to death. That’s the only way they believed it all would end up ok. The worst failure of imagination on earth. They could not see another way for it all to be. . . . Mary knew.

Imagine what was going on in her heart. We know that she and her siblings deeply loved Jesus. We’re not sure how they met – perhaps he stayed often at their house on his way to and from Jerusalem. What we do know is Jesus had been with them before. We also know that they all treasured each other very much. Imagine your dear old friend returns to your home, just a bit after he’s given you back your dead brother. You’ve heard the rumors, so you know this act is it. The higher ups will be on his tail until they nail him; you know. AND you know you are absolutely grateful – grateful for the gift of bringing your brother back from death. Mary and Martha’s lives depended on their brother Lazarus. We don’t hear of husbands or other surviving male relatives. They needed him alive for their own lives to carry on. Imagine the well of thankfulness stirring in Mary’s soul. Imagine the pit of sorrow stuck in her throat because she knew her brother’s life meant her Lord’s death. At the feet of such an extravagant gift, she seeks to give back an equally extravagant gift. At some point in the meal, Mary bends before Jesus. She takes out a huge amount of the most glorious, most fragrant, most expensive perfumed nard. She holds Jesus’ feet in her hands, rubbing the oils into what must have been calloused, aching feet from taking him all over their country and back. Tenderly she prepares these feet for the last steps they will take. The cold of the pit he’ll be held in at Caiaphas’ house. The pain of the nails that will rip through them. The dew they’ll at last feel again in the resurrection garden. Maybe she couldn’t know each step those feet yet would trod, but in an act of extravagant care, she does her part to prepare her Lord to die. She does not cling – she cannot. For she just has learned in the death of her brother how fleeting life is. How out of our hands life on this earth really is.

It’s what he’s been trying to show every step of his journey. It’s the path we’re invited onto as he pleads, “Come follow me.” It’s the only way that ensures life – this way of self-emptying, of letting go, that something new can begin. It’s the only way that makes of our days anything important. Anything valuable. Anything of significance for anyone else in this world. The Way of self-giving love. Of setting aside our own way, and joining Christ in the prayer, “Thy will be done, O God. Let your pattern of life, death, and new life be cherished and trusted by us.” . . . That doesn’t mean our losses will be easy. Letting go – not clinging is so very hard for human beings. As we were reminded in our Wednesday night class this week: it’s ok to feel however you feel – it’s ok to cry in the face of death. AND, at the very same time, we’re invited to look beyond that moment. To see the Way of our God. . . . It struck me in a new way at one our retreats this past fall. Did God put the pattern all around us in this whole world to show us? Spring ALWAYS follows winter. Something new always grows. Always – no matter how severe the winter – no matter where you go on this planet. It might be more intense in some spots, but maybe, just maybe our Creator was trying to show us from the very first blade of grass on this earth. Maybe, just maybe, our work here is to be prepared. Prepared to move through the pattern of dying to self for God’s ways to be seen in us. Of holding on to everything – our lives, our families, our relationships with each other, even the stuff in our closets at home – never clinging. Hands open ready to let go and behold the unfathomable ways God can work. Maybe, just maybe like Jesus, and this Mary kneeling at his feet; we’re invited to heed the Risen Christ’s command: do not cling. For God makes a Way!

As we enter these final days of Lent and all the passion of Holy Week that’s yet to come, may we find ourselves a little more ready this year.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen!

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)

“New Creations”

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 6 March 2016 – 4th Sunday in Lent

A reading from the second epistle of Paul to the Christians in Corinth (from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21). Listen to this good news not only with those brothers from Jesus’ parable in mind. But also listen for the way God works in us all. . . . Listen:

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he (God) made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him (Christ) we might become the righteousness of God.”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

Last year on a trip to the monastery our retreat series heads to at the end of the month, I picked up a cute little icon in the bookstore gift shop. The icon features slender figures. A bit dark-skinned, with angled faces. One figure in the icon appears to be dressed differently than all the other figures who collectively appear through an opening in a wall with a majestic skyline in the background. Eleven sets of eyes peer at that figure who is dressed differently – in red that covers from head to toe this one who is the tallest figure in the icon. A finger is raised – as if in mid-sentence – and the eleven other figures look on at this one who obviously is talking. Interestingly, the figure at the lead of the pack is stern-faced and holding up a hand as if to indicate no. At the top of the icon, above the people, above that opening in that wall, a rainbow arcs over all. . . . The point of an icon is to tell the story in picture form – initially the form used to pass on the gospel in a world where few were able to read and write. Today, we have the privilege of knowing the names of icons, in case our eyes can’t read the truth the icon creator intended when they wrote the picture. By the way, icons are written, not drawn, though all they typically are is a scene of something in our faith. It’s an elaborate, deliberate process to proclaim a very intentional message. . . . And can you guess the message of this little icon? The eleven in the opening of the wall would be: the Risen Christ’s disciples. The rainbow tells us it’s the advent of a special new day – all creation knows it. The tallest figure in red outside the wall to whom every eye instantly is drawn is Mary Magdalene. The sentence she’s obviously in the middle of saying is: He is risen! Christ is risen indeed! On the back, the icon is entitled: Mary Magdalene Announces the Resurrection.

I’m not sure we think enough about those first disciples during the season of Lent. That is until the dramatic events of the Last Supper where Christ washed the feet of them all and gave the command that they love one another as he loves us. But what about Mary Magdalene and all the others a few weeks prior to that fateful night? Three Sundays before Easter, where were they and how had their lives already been changed?

History hasn’t always been pretty to this Mary of the New Testament who is believed to be from Magdala – so, often referred to by us, as Mary Magdalene. The gospel of Luke is the only gospel to make mention of Mary Magdalene before we get to the events of Holy Week and Easter morning. Luke alone states in chapter 8, verse one: “Jesus went on through cities and villages bringing good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evils spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources” (Luke 8:1b-3). As Mary is the first person named in Luke chapter 8, and as this portion of scripture directly follows the time when Jesus forgave, at the home of a Pharisee, a woman of the city who was named a sinner – though the text never says what her sins were; somehow a Sixth Century Pope took all that, mushed it together, didn’t quite read the text closely enough, and labeled Mary Magdalene – well, you know what they call women of the city who are sinners (prostitutes). . . . For whatever reason, Pope St. Gregory the Great started telling a particular tale of her that ended up sticking pretty well (The Wisdom Jesus, Cynthia Bourgeault, 2008, p. 81). No evidence exists – even in the New Testament writings to draw such racy conclusions about what kind of a woman Mary Magdalene was. If we trust the writer of the gospel of Luke’s account of Mary Magdalene, then we know her as one who presumably Jesus has healed of whatever spirits held her captive – the text doesn’t even make those details very clear. What all four of the gospels do consistently tell us of Mary Magdalene, and her alone, is that she is the only one with Jesus through every step of the crucifixion, burial, empty tomb, and, as my icon accurately tells of the gospel’s record: Mary Magdalene not only is the first to whom the risen Christ appears, she is the first to go blurt out to all the rest who are hiding out in fear that she has seen the Lord! He is risen! He is risen indeed!

The Nag Hammadi scrolls which were unearthed in the Egyptian desert in the 1940s include manuscripts believed to be written by Mary Magdalen herself – or at least recording her perspective of the trek with Jesus all over Palestine, to that last week in Jerusalem, and beyond (Ibid., p. 1, 22). The New Testament, in addition to these recently unearthed treasures, makes it clear that whatever Mary of Magdala saw in this Jesus called the Christ, whatever she experienced in her life because of him: from the first day meeting him on, her life never ever would be the same. She became a new creation. A sought after voice for believers in the early days after the resurrection, though the manuscripts that were unearthed in the 1940s tell of one or two run-ins with Jesus’ other follower Peter throughout the years their paths crossed. One author writes of that first encounter of the Risen Christ on Easter morn: that it is “a powerful moment of pure love” (Ibid., p. 85). In her distress from witnessing with her own eyes the entire Holy Week drama, Mary Magdalene goes and does what those who most love a dying person would do. She stays by his side every step of the way. Even weeping at an empty tomb, she demands to know where her beloved Lord’s body has been taken. When at last he speaks her name, and I quote again that same scholar: “she recognizes him and throws herself at his feet with an ecstatic cry . . . Easter Sunday begins with the energy of this encounter; it reverberates with two hearts reunited” (Ibid.). Nothing in her ever would be the same again.   She was a new creation.

They all were. What of Peter and James and John? What of little known to us Thomas, who I once was schooled about by a member of a church I served. She was a devote Christian woman from India who proudly explain to me that her family lineage traced all the way back to the Apostle Thomas himself, as is common in many of the Christians in the land to which Thomas took the good news just a few decades after Christ’s resurrection. If I was taught that in all my years of school, I hadn’t remembered the trajectory of Thomas’ mission outside of the Roman Empire all the way to India. When I did a little fact checking, I found it indeed to be so. If you’ve been to Italy, perhaps you’ve visited the chapel in his honor that contains relics from him that were found in India (www.gcatholic.org/churches/Italy/0164.htm). Or if you’ve been to India, perhaps you’ve visited the Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Thomas, were one of the three known tombs of Christ’s first apostles still exists – that of Thomas, of course. Peter’s being in Rome and the tomb of the Apostle James being in Spain (www.velankanni.in/stthomas.html). All of them were entirely NEW CREATIONS! They met Christ, they followed him, they learned from him, they grew to love him more and more each day, and their lives NEVER, EVER were the same again.

I think that’s what Paul, in his second letter to the Christians in Corinth, was trying to say. “So if anyone is in Christ,” he writes “there is a new creation: everything old has passed away” (2 Cor. 5:17). Our love for him – Christ’s love for us really – changes us. How else would anyone of us even know each other? Why else would the path of our lives lead us to wherever your path as a follower of his has led you? Do you think you would deliver meals on wheels in this neighborhood if you never had heard of the gracious love of God, who in Christ was reconciling the world – seeing us as beloved, scot-free sinners to whom God has entrusted the very same message that God was about in our flesh and blood as Christ Jesus our Savior and Lord. Listen to what Paul writes in that beautiful text about us: not counting trespasses against any, but entrusting the message of reconciliation to us, so that we now are ambassadors in this world for Christ! (paraphrase of 2 Cor. 5:19-20a). NEW CREATIONS! Every last one of us.

Because of him we love the children who come to us on Wednesday nights. We open this building to be a place of communion, healing, and growth for an eclectic array of people from beyond this church who come here as if it too is their home. We feed those who come here hungry. Through your Good Samaritan ministry, you ensure families have heat and senior adults have water to clean and bathe themselves. You love and care for one another and you go into the everyday places of your homes, neighborhoods, and professional lives to live differently because Christ has made you a new creation! . . . I love that those first followers of him come to us in this season of Lent and I don’t know, like me, don’t you want to know more about the wild and crazy turns of their lives because they met and followed and learned from and loved Christ Jesus our Lord? Don’t you want to know their absolute determination, their unstoppable courage, their amazing ingenuity to navigate the waters of whatever culture they eventually found themselves in? I mean, India had to be VERY different from Palestine in the First Century – an exotic land so far away from the place where Jesus lived and died and lived again. Spain was like a land no one ever had heard of back then? What did James do to learn the lingo of the people he met there so that they too would come to know the life-changing love of Christ? We know he did because some of the oldest monasteries in this world began in Spain thanks to James’ efforts. And Peter? He didn’t care if he had to stand before the Holy Roman Emperor himself (which he supposedly did). He was going to find a way to pass on the good news of God’s unending love for us all as we know in Christ. . . . And you know, I just wonder. If they could do it; all those years ago. In a world that seemed absolutely foreign to them, among people who most probably seemed so incredibly different from them; then what about us? Why can’t we? . . . Why can’t we?

HPC: each and every one of us are NEW CREATIONS. We can leave behind the old and continue to forge a future as ambassadors for Christ some-20 centuries after folks first began it. Because it’s God’s work in those who follow and love and continue to learn from the One who revealed the heights and depths and lengths of God’s love for this whole world. We have in our DNA all we need to become what God needs us to be individually and collectively, today and tomorrow, for this community right here in the world around this building where we all come to worship each week. We can do it; for in us, God has made a new creation to be about God’s work right here and right now! . . . I know it’s still Lent, but that good news makes me want to shout already: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! And Amen!

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen!

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)

 

It is NOT Okay

Leave a reply

 An interesting read. Thank you for this helpful reminder!  -RevJule

 

I can no longer hide behind the flag of “I don’t want to be political” rather I have to state the obvious and say, “This is not about politics. This is about human decency a…

Source: It is NOT Okay

“The Fruitful Interruption”

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 28 February 2016 – Third Sunday of Lent

A reading from the gospel of Luke 13:1-9. I know it may seem like we’re going in reverse order as we move back to the first verses of chapter 13 today. The lectionary takes us on an interesting gospel-ride during this season of Lent. Though we’ve already considered what happens after it with a warning from some Pharisees regarding Herod’s growing disdain for Jesus, Jesus has been preaching up a storm. And, according to the gospel of Luke, the crowds have been getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Suddenly, the following takes place. . . . Listen for God’s word to us.

“At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. Jesus asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’ Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”’ ”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

I still remember the night in fifth grade Wednesday night bible school when our class had a substitute teacher. If you’re in school now, or if you still recall such days; then maybe you know what often happens in classes with substitute teachers. . . . That night, we did everything as a group of slightly obnoxious fifth graders, to throw off our substitute teacher. He was the new pastor from the Presbyterian Church in the small community down the road from ours. We had never met him before. He was young and wound just a bit too tight, which made him fresh meat for our sharp-minded class. That night, something came over four of us in particular. For the better part of the hour, we had his head swimming with our what if interruptions. He was getting more and more frustrated, because he just wanted to get through the lesson. We sensed it. We kept on firing off questions until he finally threw up his hands in anger and drew a firm line in the sand. He wasn’t budging. We knew we had got to him. He never returned to sub for us again. I’m not proud of the incident, but I certainly learned that night how a group quickly can lead a teacher off course.

In our text for today, Jesus gets interrupted. Thousands have gathered to hear him teach. They’ve come to soak in his words like thirsty sponges. And it’s good stuff. “Beware of the yeast of the phonies” (Luke 12:1). “Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat . . . or wear . . . but strive for God’s kingdom and you’ll get the rest as well” (Luke 12:22, 31). “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded” (Luke 12:48). Jesus was out there preaching with impressive passion. He was proclaiming the providing love of God. Then – someone abruptly interjects, “Hey Jesus, have you heard about the Galileans Pilate killed while they worshipped?” . . . Now, this is one of those totally off the wall comments that seemingly has nothing to do with the topic at hand – at least not in anyone else’s mind but the one who spoke it. A whole lot of teachers would react by laughing off the interrupter. Some might ignore the comment all together. Others might shame the person into silence. Substitutes often end up totally frustrated. Not Jesus. Instead he goes with it. Perhaps seeing it as a perfect opportunity to further his point – even if the example provokes anxiety in other listeners.

You see, the common conviction of the day was that suffering was a sign of God’s displeasure. The whole system of Greco-Roman gods – which was the system of belief held by many of the Gentiles of Jesus’ day – their beliefs were based on it. They believed the gods to be moody entities who needed to be appeased by the little people whom they had created for their own whims. Jesus’ response to his interrupter leads us to believe that the one asking implied that those Galileans must have been really bad. Why else would such a sacrilegious end have come to them – being slain by Rome’s puppet Pilate while they offered sacrifices in Jerusalem’s Temple? The interrupter imagines that those Galileans must have done something wrong. Something that transgressed so badly that they were brought to such a horrible, abrupt, end. . . . We know about such rationing because it’s still found around us today. Too often people blame the victim for whatever circumstance befalls. Remember after 9/11, when a nationally-known preacher said that the catastrophe was God’s judgment on us for becoming the perverse nation he believed we had become. Then a few years back when Haiti had that terrible earthquake, remember the retired professional athlete who posted on his blog that the Haitians deserved what they got because they lived in such rubble to begin with? Layers of ignorance ooze from sentiments like these. We know better than to believe that such suffering is a mark of wretched sinfulness. . . . Now, don’t get me wrong: we do bring plenty of pain upon ourselves and the rest of our world – awful actions about which God has warned. Hildegard, the infamous German mystic, theologian, healer, artist, musician, and church reformer of the Twelfth Century, was saying all the way back then that the natural world will not tolerate human beings living out of balance with it. We’ve had plenty of experiences in the past twenty years to show us how true Hildegard’s Twelfth Century wisdom is. But it’s not God doing anything to us as punishment. . . . Jesus beautifully takes the interruption as a time to correct the popular, though off-base, notion. The truth is that bad stuff happens – to anyone and everyone. Sometimes Galileans get slaughtered – it’s no fault of their own. Sometimes a tower of the city wall suddenly collapses; as Jesus pointed out about another innocent eighteen. They didn’t bring it on themselves. It’s not like that. Sometimes suffering just happens – it’s not punishment from God and it’s not due to a person’s sinfulness.

Not only does Jesus grab the gift given by those who interrupted his preaching, but he also uses the time to re-direct those with ears to hear. He launches into his favorite teaching method. He begins to tell a story. The one about the fig tree. . . . Once upon a time there was a tree – a fig tree. It was planted in a vineyard for the purpose of – well bearing figs, of course. Why else are fig trees planted? So there’s the tree. Summer turns to winter. Winter to spring. Three years the tree matures. However, there’s one problem. The tree is trouble. Not once does it do what it’s intended to do. Three years; no fruit! Now most fig farmers are pretty decent people. They’re patient and persistent. But three years – three fruitless harvests is a long time. If you’re not one to work the land, then imagine your car. If, for instance, we had a car that for three years wouldn’t work; well, no doubt about it: we’d sell it in an instant. Now when we take it in to get rid of it and the car man says, “Wait; let me tighten a hose or two. Add some oil. Maybe even give it a new gallon of gas.” Before we’d buy another, it’d make sense to see if we could get the old one running. Who among us wouldn’t give it a chance? . . . The owner of the fig tree allows another year. Hoping that perhaps this will be the remedy. The tree finally will bear fruit.

That’s Jesus’ message: come on guys. Bear fruit! After all, it’s why you exist. How many years are you foolishly going to let the fig farmer find you fruitless? It’s like he’s trying to wake them up. Don’t waste a single moment. Especially in light of the Galilean tragedy, bear fruit NOW. . . . Someone tries to throw off Jesus with the horrifying story of a group of Galileans being murdered as they worship and Jesus just seizes the opportunity to vividly remind us that we have absolutely no idea. Life – at least on earth – is fleeting. We’re not guaranteed tomorrow, or the next day, or another year. BUT. We do have this moment. This exact instant to be as we are meant to be. To bear the fruit God wants from us. To birth LIFE into the world with our every breath, through every word, every deed.

I hope you noticed that Jesus’ parable is unfinished. “Let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down . . .” (Luke 13:9). That’s it. Here ends our reading of the Word of God. . . . I want to know what happened to that fig tree, don’t you? I mean, I wish Jesus would’ve told us. After the gardener tended it; a year later. Did it make it? Was all well and good? Or did this unproductive little tree find itself fatefully falling to the ground? He never said. That’s the beauty of parables. . . . The answer is up to us. We are left to write the ending. . . . The answer is up to us: what are we going to do with this very moment? Today? Will we bear fruit or not?

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)