Tag Archives: Richard Rohr

The Fullness of Christ

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 2 June 2019 – 7th Sunday/Ascension Sunday

Despite the fact it’s not Thursday, we’re hearing Scripture readings assigned by the lectionary each year for the Ascension of the Lord. As most people never have heard of it and aren’t about to shift their daily calendar to attend to it, as we do for Christmas and Easter; this liturgical day often gets pushed from Ascension Day – the fortieth day of Easter – to the Sunday following it: today, the seventh Sunday of the season of Easter. This year we heard not only the gospel reading assigned for Ascension Day, we also hear the epistle. Ephesians is a letter, likely written by a student of the Apostle Paul, to the church of Ephesus. It has been said to have been “one of the most influential statements of Christian discipleship in early Christianity . . . (with) its depiction of Christian life as a battle against hostile forces” (The Discipleship Study Bible, JKWP, 2008, Ephesians introduction by Stanley Saunders, p. 1990). New Testament scholar Stanley Saunders writes: “Ephesians depicts the Christian life as a battle against cosmic and worldly powers that enslave humankind and darken our awareness and understanding. . . . The first three chapters describe the new reality that has come into being in Christ” (Ibid.). The fullness of Christ, who fills all in all. Listen to this reading of Ephesians 1:15-23 to hear God’s word for our Christian lives today.

“I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God put this power to work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and seated him at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And God has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

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

 

When I was a child, I loved the Wonder Twins! You may not be familiar with Zan and Jayna who originally were a part of the Super Friends Justice League (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Twins). No matter the caper, the twins would come together, fist bump, and declare: “Wonder Twin powers activate!” Zan would proclaim: “Shape of” whatever state of water would be needed to combat the evil being done by whoever was threatening the wellbeing of the world. Jayna would shout: “Form of” whatever animal she needed to be in order to work with Zan in saving the day. So, like: as a giant water-wave, Zan could take out the nemesis with a powerful tide while Jayna transformed into something like a friendly whale to carry those in peril safely back to shore. What’s more, as twins they had this psychic connection so that they literally could tell when the other superhero needed back-up. As long as they could come together, to fist bump and declare “Wonder Twin powers activate,” their special powers would be triggered. They would be transformed into exactly what was needed. They galvanized their superhero abilities for everything to be a-okay.

It is that activation. That process – when those two twin energies join together as one. That ability to call upon something extra-ordinary that strikes me in the Wonder Twins. Typically, they looked like every other brother and sister going about their day. But something in them knew they possessed very special powers – ones needed so very much by those in trouble. Oh, every now and again a crafty villain came along to try to bend their minds to his own control. That was when the world most was in jeopardy – the powers of the Wonder Twins vulnerable to be twisted for destructive ends. But for the most part, Zan and Jayna knew that something was in them that could be an incredible force for good. Again and again, they would jump to it, ready to activate those amazing powers not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of any who were in need.

Amazing special powers within is what the writer of Ephesians was trying to tell the church. As far as we know, the writer of this letter never had seen the Christians of Ephesus in person – just heard of their amazing works (Feasting on the Word, Yr. C., Vol. 2, Christopher Rowland, p. 511). Likely the writer heard of feats we’ve come to know as typical Christian kind of stuff – though the acts often were revolutionary in their own time and place. Christians would ensure those without had food. They would care for those who were sick. Christians would welcome widows into the community and give them new purpose through service in Christ’s name. Early Christians sent special offerings to those experiencing famine, like in Jerusalem during the reign of Claudius about fifteen years after Christ’s death and resurrection. They gathered together for prayer – which likely included the kinds of story swopping we hear at Fellowship Time each week. They helped those needing help and found a way to meet as equal all sorts of people: Jews and Greeks. Slaves and free. Men and women alike. Something was activated in them so that they understood the world differently. They saw something in people that many others could not – or just were not aware yet to see. It’s the prayer the writer of Ephesians has for the Christians hearing the message. The spiritual enlightenment the writer wants for them – the opened eyes – that leaves us knowing who we are, what we are made of, and to what we have been called.

Premier Twenty-First Century teacher Father Richard Rohr recently released his mind-opening opus called The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything we See, Hope for, and Believe. In it, he weaves the theology we’ve come to know in the Western Church back together with the best wisdom we turned from in the Eastern Church when we mutually excommunicated each other’s finest teachers in our 1054 C.E. split. He lifts up Scripture after Scripture to show what’s always been there, but we haven’t always seen. For starters, Rohr reminds us that Christ is not Jesus’ last name! Christ is the word for the anointed one, he explains. The “name for the transcendent within . . . the immense spaciousness of all true Love . . . another name for everything – in its fullness” (SPCK, 2019, p. 5). Rohr is trying to remind us that Scripture proclaims from the beginning that the whole world is “Christ-soaked” (Ibid., p.15) – God infused, if you will. Containing a very special power within! Spirit and matter woven together – shown beautifully to us in the incarnation of the one we claim was vulnerably born in Bethlehem. This is the scriptural witness: that the fullness dwells in all – the divine in and above all that leaves us that beautiful mix of flesh and Spirit. The biblical witness proclaims this truth. A reminder we desperately need to know, Rohr claims, because something in the human mind has a tendency to clench the negative. Before we know it, we see the world through the eyes of Genesis 3 – the story of our fallenness. Instead of reading the world through the eyes of Genesis 1 and 2 – the Judeo-Christian creation stories that declare everything good, good, good, good, good, very good!

Living from the frame of our original blessedness, we walk around the world able to see the special power – the transcendent within all – the divine in matter. The fullness of Spirit and flesh beautifully aligned as one. It might sound a little wonky, if we’ve never considered the wisdom coming from what’s often referred to as the Big Tradition – or perennial, wisdom tradition of the Body of Christ – a tradition of Christianity coming not just from reason-seeking theologians, but from embodied contemplatives and mystics whose work is having significant world-wide impact today. When we understand Christ as the fullness – seen clearly in Jesus of Nazareth – it’s almost like we get the blueprint for how to live fully human. How to live whole. Rohr explains: “Jesus is the archetypal human just like us who showed us what the Full Human might look like if we could fully live into it” (Ibid., p. 23). Jesus is the one who shows us how to be those in whom the Spirit of God is activated. Which hopefully we experience at least a few minutes every day!

It’s how the writer of Ephesians can declare to the church that we are Christ’s body, “the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). With enlightened eyes, we can see. Spirit activated in matter; the fullness of Christ in, yet above, all. We might need reminding now and again – which is when it’s best we return to our baptisms. You remember baptism, I hope. The trickle of water on the head. The tracing of the cross on the brow, done – in purist liturgical form – with oil as an anointing. Not as coincidence, nor as a way to show the world we’re now somehow over and above everything else. Rather, baptism reminds us – and all with the eyes to see – that we know the Spirit of God to be in us (Another Name for Everything: Episode 1: Christ-Soaked World, 24 Feb. 2019 Podcast about The Universal Christ, Father Rohr). We understand and accept our original blessedness. So that our baptism into Christ – our engrafting into his body – is kinda like our initial fist bump with God when the Spirit of God gets activated in us. Baptized, the Spirit’s power works through us. So we can go forth to combat the forces within and without that threaten the well-being of the world.

It’s a risky venture to infuse us humans with the Spirit. To rely on us now to live awakened – the special power activated in us to be the body of Christ for the world today. To remind everyone we meet that the Spirit of God lives in them too – longing for enlightened eyes to see. Thankfully God gives us each other for the fullness of Christ to dwell. For the need is so great. So many precious people of this planet are in peril because, for whatever reason, they do not know – they cannot yet see their own original blessedness. The good in self and in neighbor. It’s time we remember to live into our hope. To embrace our glorious inheritance. It’s time the immeasurable power of the Spirit gets activated in us all!

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

© Copyright JMN – 2019 (All rights reserved.)

To See as Jesus Sees

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 3 February 2019

A reading from the gospel of Luke 4:21-30.  We learn in the verses earlier in chapter 4, that Jesus has been tempted in the wilderness after his baptism that confirmed he is God’s Son.  Upon the completion of his wilderness testing, he returns to Galilee filled with the power of the Spirit.  He goes to his hometown Nazareth and reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah when gathering with others in the synagogue on the sabbath.  Remember:  he chooses to read the part from the prophet about the Spirit of the LORD being upon him.  Being anointed to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recover the sight of the blind, let the oppressed go free, and proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor – the year of jubilee! (Luke 4:18-19).  Right before the verses we hear today; Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down.  The gospel records that “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him” (Luke 4:20).  Everything was going really good!  Then, the reading assigned for today begins.  To learn what happens next, listen for God’s word to us in a reading of Luke 4:21-30.

“Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.  They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”  23 He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’  And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’”  24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.  25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.  27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”  28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.  29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.  30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”

This is the word of God for the people of God.

            Thanks be to God!

 

Well, here we have a very good example of what NOT to do if you ever want to get scheduled again as worship liturgist for the day!  Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit after being baptized and tested in the wilderness, Jesus (according to Luke’s chronology of the good news) goes back home.  Just in time to gather with his old friends and family for sabbath; he heads to the synagogue for worship.  He’s given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah – he doesn’t totally self-select the words he wanted all to hear that day.  Finding the part about the one anointed by the Spirit to proclaim God’s favor, he stands erect to read.

Of course, it was a beloved reading!  He was standing in the synagogue among those he’d seen all his life.  Scraping by on their little plots in Nazareth.  Living under the continuous threat of Roman soldiers.  Close to the spot in Galilee where foreign armies had invaded the land for centuries – the gateway between Egyptian power to the southwest in Africa; and northern and eastern powers like Syria, Babylon, Persia.  Not to mention a Mediterranean boarder vulnerable to invasion by Rome, Greece, anywhere in the Western world.  Jesus was a part of this crowd, had grown up in their midst; so that in fact he would have known the joy in their hearts that day in Nazareth to hear again the prophet’s promise from God that an anointed one was coming.  Good news was for those crushed under the poverty of foreign oppressors.  The favor of the LORD rested upon them all!

Imagine how the day might have went had Jesus left well enough alone.  Stopped right there.  According to the gospel of Luke’s telling of the events, the issue’s not because of Jesus’ lofty proclamation that he is the One!  His downhome folks in the synagogue are mesmerized by him.  The graciousness that poured forth from his mouth.  What a gift to hear the time had been fulfilled.  God’s change is a’coming!  But, launching into provocation, Jesus pushes.  “Doctor, cure thyself?” he quips.  He goes on saying, like:  “How about a reminder that God long has seen differently?  Like it or not, the outsiders repeatedly are in his examples declare.  God brings hope through foreign widows.  God heals commanders of invading armies.  It’s easy enough to see, Jesus is saying – unless you are totally blind, say like by a mis-guided sense of tribalism.  A mis-informed understanding of the way God always has worked.  A mis-directed heart that continues to buy into the system’s view of separation.  Differentiation.  Division between us and them” (paraphrase of Luke 4:24-27).  Wanna get hurled off a cliff from an enraged response to God’s way of seeing things?  Just point out to people that from the beginning of time God has made us one.  As the authors of The Luminous Gospels write:  “the return to oneness from twoness (duality) is the ultimate goal in the spiritual evolution of humanity” (The Luminous Gospels:  Thomas, Mary Magdalene, and Philip, by Lynn C. Bauman, Ward J. Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault; Praxis Publishing, 2008; p. 4).  Jesus wanted us to see!  To know the steps we must take!  . . .  Hometown folks snap!  His words hold a mirror up to their faces.  And they are not at all interested in taking a look!

In The Art of Letting Go; Catholic priest, spiritual teacher, and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, Richard Rohr, explains the eyes with which Christ invites us to see.  Rohr says:  “If I believe Jesus, I believe God is wherever the suffering is.  God goes wherever the pain is.  . . .  I believe awakened and aware people go where the suffering is.  Go where people have been excluded.  Expelled.  Diminished.  Abused.  And that is where they find God” (The Art of Letting Go:  Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis, Richard Rohr, A Sounds True Audio Learning Course, 2010.  Quotes from chapter 2).  That is where we see rightly, as Christ sees.  No separation between ourselves and another.  No separation between God and all.  Rohr explains:  “I look at the life of Jesus . . . and I gain courage to believe it because of (him).  That’s what (he) did.  (He) did not live . . . judging and labeling things up or down” (Ibid.).  Rohr declares, rather, “Jesus, a bona fide and proud Jew, makes the heroes of almost every one of his parables and stories . . . a non-Jew.  . . .  Jesus always praises the outsider and critiques the insider” (Ibid.).  Rohr invites us to imagine “how different Western history could have been, how different Western religion could have been if . . . we had treated other people with inherent dignity.  Inherent respect,” Rohr states (Ibid.).  Where we honor and see, as Rohr calls it: “the Divine DNA in everybody else” . . . as equally as we see it in ourselves! (Ibid.).

Can we see the Divine DNA in everybody else, as equally as we see it in ourselves?  . . .  Think about it.  Does the mess of the world begin within ourselves?  Because we can’t see in ourselves the indwelling Spirit of God; so, of course, we are not able to see God living in anyone else???  Would Jesus quote that proverb:  “Doctor, cure thyself” (Luke 4:23)?  Father Rohr wisely concludes:  “All awareness.  All enlightenment.  All aliveness.  All transformation begins with an inner awakening:  that you recognize your own inherent dignity.  (That we see our) DNA is Divine.  That,” Rohr states, “moves you . . . to this world of reverence.  This view of respect.  This attitude of love” (Ibid.).

When we see with those eyes – the Presence within and without, we see as Jesus did.  Our dual minds overcome, as two at last become one!  . . .  It’s not an easy path – we might rather drive him to the cliff to hurl him off in a rage!  . . .  The gospel of Luke starts Christ’s good news with a story that challenges us to see differently – an act that takes conversion.  The inner transformation for which Christ came.  The daily discipline of awakening the Spirit within that we will see it in all as well.  . . .  Here is the good news:  to see as Jesus sees.  May it be our daily prayer.

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

© Copyright JMN – 2019 (all rights reserved).

Outside

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 20 August 2017

A reading from the gospel of Matthew 15:10-28.  Listen for God’s word to us.

“Then Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand:  11it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”  12Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?”  13Jesus answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.  14Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind.  And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”  15But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.”  16Then Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding?  17Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?  18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.  19For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.  20These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”  21Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.  22Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”  23But Jesus did not answer her at all.  And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”  24Jesus answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  25But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”  26He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  27She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  28Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.”  And her daughter was healed instantly.”

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

 

Fifteen years ago, right after the beginning of the 21st Century, Charles Campbell – then preaching professor at Columbia Theological Seminary and now at Duke Divinity School – wrote these words:  “The church is called intentionally and habitually to move out of the places of security and comfort into those ‘unclean’ places where Jesus suffers ‘outside the gate of the sacred compounds,’ whether those compounds are shaped by religion or class or race or culture.  . . .  Through dislocation, privileged Christians cross the boundaries that keep the privileged and oppressed apart and take a first step toward solidarity . . . which, in a consumer culture, is one way of radically contesting the Domination System” (Charles L. Campbell, The Word before the Powers:  An Ethic of Preaching, WJKP, 2002).  . . .  “The church,” he urged, “intentionally and habitually” is to move outside.  Beyond itself.  Beyond the gates of safety in the land of the known.  Outside to where we will encounter the outsider.  Not just for their benefit, but for the mutual benefit of us all.

What happens when we venture forth outside – outside the familiarity of our typical circle?  Outside the comfort of being among people whom we perceive to be like us?  Outside – beyond the boundaries we tend to keep between ourselves and those who are unknown?  . . .

Look what happened with Jesus.  . . .  Before us today is a timely text.  Religious leaders come from Jerusalem to Jesus in Galilee.  They’re concerned he’s letting his disciples break the traditions of their elders.  Stepping outside the norms of their people as they fail to wash their hands before they eat.  Whether their violation has to do with the act of washing hands before the weekly Sabbath meal, or unclean hands passing out bread and fish to 5,000 men plus women and children at Tabgha; it’s clear.  Tension is building over who does what to show all they are insiders and who does not.

I realize hand washing may seem minute to us today, but the traditions of the elders of Jesus’ people were in place for good reason.  Such rituals were practiced as a part of their culture – the acts that defined them as a people, which was especially important to them when not everyone living around the land was Jewish.  Beside them now were gentiles of Rome, soldiers and supporters who were not of their own kind.  We know there were Samaritans smack dab between Galilee and Jerusalem with whom ancient feuds festered.  And, as we learn in the story of Matthew before us today, not far from their beloved land still lived Canaanites, the original folks dwelling in the land whom their ancestors had driven out.

It’s interesting that the gospel of Matthew describes the woman Jesus soon will encounter as a Canaanite, whereas the gospel of Mark refers to the same woman as a Syrophoenician (Mark 7:26).  You might remember that when God promised the land west of the Jordan River to the Israelites who had been forty years in the wilderness, the people were afraid.  The spies of Israel came back to tell Moses and the people that the land of Canaan was abundant in luscious fruit.  But the inhabitants of the land were fierce, large people.  Not one Israelite had courage enough to enter the land of Canaan because they felt like insignificant “grasshoppers” next to such strong inhabitants (Numbers 13:23-33).  Listeners to Matthew’s telling of the story likely were aware this son of the great King David would be up against a giant as fierce as the one David was up against in Goliath.  A Canaanite woman who was not about to back down was coming after Jesus.  Likely the encounter would not be easy – not even for our Lord.

He went their anyway.  Intentionally.  He dislocated himself and his disciples out of the safety of their known land of Galilee to Tyre and Sidon, where non-Israelites lived.  Roman port cities on the eastern Mediterranean in Jesus’ day, Jesus may have known of the great spiritual hunger in the people of that land.  According to the gospel of Mark (3:8) and the gospel of Luke (6:17); early in his ministry, people from Tyre and Sidon came to Jesus for healing.  Traveling now to them, seemingly intentionally after friction between him and Jerusalem’s religious leaders; it could not have been possible that Jesus believed he’d go unnoticed.  . . .  Silence is his first response to the fierce mother calling out for her daughter’s life.  His disciples definitely do not want to get involved.  It’s hard to reconcile the racially charged exchanges here in this story.  Though he’s intentionally traveled outside, Jesus tells his disciples he’s been sent only for those lost in the house of Israel (Mt. 15:24).  Was he trying to set up a powerful object lesson for his listeners?  Or was Jesus really not yet clear that there was food enough for those outside of their own house as well?  The text never really clarifies.  What we do learn is that encounter matters.  When that momma, whose daughter has been tormented, throws herself at Jesus’ feet, her request cannot be denied.  When she will not allow her need to go unnoticed, Jesus sees past any outward appearance into a heart that firmly trusts that grace is big enough to include her too.  It is as if the encounter leaves all understanding that something deeper binds us.  Pain is pain.  Tears are tears.  Furious mother love is furious mother love whoever you are.  No matter the language you speak.  The race with which you identify.  Or the land from where you come.  Something deeper binds us one to another.  O for a world in which we all finally would see.

In a meditation taken from A New Way of Seeing, A New Way of Being:  Jesus and Paul, Richard Rohr writes:  “It is an openness to the other – as other – that frees us . . . It is always an encounter with otherness that changes me.  If I am not open to the beyond-me, I’m in trouble.  Without the other, we are all trapped in a perpetual hall of mirrors that only validates and deepens our limited and already existing worldviews.  When there is the encounter with the other, when there is mutuality, when there is presence, when there is giving and receiving, and both are changed in that encounter; that is the moment when you can begin to move toward transformation . . . – to ‘change forms.’  When you allow other people or events to change you, you look back at life with new and different eyes.  That is the only real meaning of human growth.”  Rohr goes on by writing:  “One could say that the central theme of the biblical revelation is to call people to encounters with otherness:  the alien, the sinner, the Samaritan, the Gentile, the hidden and denied self, angels unaware.  And all of these are perhaps in preparation and training for hopeful meetings with the Absolute Other (with God).  We need practice in moving outside of our comfort zones.  It is never a natural or easy response” (Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation:  “Intimate with Otherness;” from Center for Action & Contemplation; 14 August 2014).

It certainly doesn’t seem an easy encounter for Jesus and his disciples.  It won’t always be for us either.  And yet we go.  We dis-locate ourselves outside ourselves to encounter whoever we might meet.  We go, trusting the Absolute Other to bless us all.

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

© Copyright JMN – 2017  (all rights reserved.)

 

The With-us Potter

Leave a reply

A Sermon for 4 September 2016

A reading from the prophet Jeremiah 18:1-11. Listen for God’s word to us.

“The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.”

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

 

I wish we each had a lump of clay in our hands today. That would be the best way to spend some time with this text from the prophet Jeremiah. All of you sitting there with a ball of the soft stuff. Squeezing and kneading and working it in your hands. . . . If you’ve ever held clay before, then you know that it has such potential. It can become anything you want it to be: a pinch pot, which typically is the first thing you learn to make in a pottery class. A long snake of clay that you then can wind together into a flower vase. You can flatten it out in your hands as thin as a pancake in attempts to make a plate. Tear it into smaller bits to fashion little balls for earrings or even into the shape of a cross for a necklace.

Throwing a pot is a bit different. First you have to work the clay. Push down one way, then turn it to force it down the other direction. It’s kinda like warm up stretches before running. You’ve gotta get the clay ready before you put it on the wheel. It’s a process of moving around the molecules and getting out any air. In pottery class, they always said this is the most important step, which never ever should be skipped, even though so many novice potters wanna get right to the wheel. . . . After you have your clay ready, you finally take it to the wheel. Water and equal pressure on both sides are key – it’s what is needed to center the clay. Something you have to get right if the clay’s gotta a shot of becoming anything. Next, cutting into the centered clay, all the while keeping the wheel turning at a slow and easy pace. Too fast and the clay goes spinning out of control. Too little or too much water and the clay won’t form as you’d like in your hands. Too much pressure too quickly from one hand or the other and the next thing you know, the clay is collapsing between your fingers. Your intended beautiful bowl falls into a misshapen mess. . . . It’s fascinating to watch a master potter at work – and if you’ve ever attempted it yourself, you know it’s no where near as easy as it looks!

A lot of potters will tell you you have to listen to the clay. Let it tell you what it wants to become. . . . But not according to this text! According to Jeremiah, the potter has a good plan for what the potter wishes to make. That clay in the potter’s hands has an intended purpose. . . . I remember the pottery instructor always saying that to create on the wheel, you have to be willing to let go. Fail and begin again when the clay wobbles off center out of the form needed for a bowl. It’s not really that there’s only one way to make it, but it is the case that a pot thrown with too thick a bottom or too thin a wall won’t last the firing in the kiln. When the clay goes array on the wheel, it’s better to scoop it off to begin again because once it begins to set out of form, the clay will be wasted entirely. No use at all when it breaks in the scorching fires of the kiln.

It’s a mighty metaphor for our lives in God’s hands. . . . At God’s command, Jeremiah goes down to the potter’s house to hear a word from the LORD. He sees a potter at work. A typical potter who’s obviously mature in his craft. For the potter doesn’t hesitate one moment when the clay spins off track. He scoops it up to begin again. He’s not about to waste his clay. I’d imagine that potter Jeremiah was watching had been through quite a process to get that lump of clay in the first place. I don’t know everything about where you get clay and what all the right ingredients have to be, but I know clay is found in certain parts of the ground. The potter either paid a high price for his clay, or did the hard work himself of digging for it. Each piece is precious to the potter. If it all goes array, he’s going to scoop it up to re-work, re-center, and begin to create again. He’s a committed master potter, who’s not afraid to let go of what it’s become because he wants the clay to be what he knows it can be.

The process is a little scary, however, when we start to understand ourselves as the clay. That’s what Jeremiah is hearing as he sees the potter at work. The house of Israel is in the process of going array. It’s an act of love that God won’t just let it be, though the words the prophet hears seem kinda harsh. “Can I not do with you . . . just as the potter has done? . . . Just like the clay in the potter’s hands, says the LORD, I can pluck up and restart” (paraphrase of Jer. 18:6, 7). All this talk about disaster on those devising evil. We don’t really want to face this seemingly harsh-sounding God. It sounds so like: turn or else! A threat with punishment if not heeded – which doesn’t fit so well with our warm-fuzzy notions of God. And actually it isn’t the best way to bring about true, sustained transformation.

What we do know is that this is the same God, through Jeremiah, who says to the people: “For surely I know the plans I have for you. Plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jer. 28:11). A few chapters later, God declares: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people . . . for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:33-34). . . . Like the master potter, God has a plan for the people’s good use. When the clay goes array on the wheel, when the people turn from who God intends for them to be; like the master potter, God will re-work the vessel as seems good to God.

If you’re familiar with the work of Brené Brown, then you may know about her research on shame and the power of vulnerability – acts that take a whole lot of trust. The first thing Brown underscores is that all of us have a need for love and belonging. Shame leaves us feelings as if we’re not worthy of such love and belonging, which in turn makes it really hard for us to be willing to be vulnerable – to be willing to trust. Brown’s research testifies that: one powerful way to send a message of shame, which leads to one being stuck immobile, is to disengage. No longer be involved with someone when their behavior is unacceptable. Refuse the healthy act of engagement by setting proper boundaries with them. According to Brown, when we fail to do so – to set those proper healthy boundaries, it actually creates a deeper sense of shame in the other. Disengaging sends the message that you’re not worthy of a sense of love and belonging from me. . . . Do you hear the truth in that? The worst possible thing the potter could do to the clay when it goes array is to let it go array. Disengage from the process and just let it be. Scooping it up to re-work, re-center, and re-create again may be a process that really hurts – a process that seems like destroying. Plucking up and breaking down in order to re-build and plant may sound kinda vicious; but with the clay, the potter stays engaged all the while. The potter sends the message to the clay that it is so entirely valued, so deeply loved, that the potter just won’t let it go into whatever the clay itself might want to be. For surely the potter knows the plans the potter has for it . . . plans for the clay’s welfare – not harm – to give an amazing future overflowing with hope.

We are the clay – not just us individually, as we so often read into this text – but us collectively as a part of the body of Christ, the church. And the Master Potter seeks to re-create us into what is needed today in this world. It’s not easy to know what exactly that will look like. After all, the clay being re-worked doesn’t know if it’s going to end up a beautiful bowl that will be able to feed those who hunger; or an amazing cup that will quench all those who thirst. The process is a mystery that takes all of our trust. . . . It has been said that “we are not so at home with the resurrected form of things despite a yearly springtime, healings in our bodies, and the ten thousand forms of newness in every event and life . . . resurrection offers us a future . . . one that is unknown and thus scary. . . . (it’s not a) resuscitation of an old thing, but the raising up of . . . an utterly new thing” (Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond, 2013, pp. x-xi). In this we can trust. For a Master Potter holds us every step of the way. Indeed our Loving God continues with us until all things are entirely new! For this we give great thanks!

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

© Copyright JMN – 2016  (All rights reserved.)

Our Crosses

Leave a reply

DISCLAIMER: I believe sermons are meant to be heard. They are the word proclaimed in a live exchange between God and the preacher, and the preacher and God, and the preacher and the people, and the people and the preacher, and the people and God, and God and the people. Typically set in the context of worship and always following the reading of scripture, sermons are about listening and speaking and hearing and heeding. At the risk of stepping outside such boundaries, I share sermons here — where the reader will have to wade through a manuscript that was created to be spoken word. Even if you don’t know the sound of my voice, let yourself hear as you read. Let your mind see as you hear. Let your life be opened to whatever response you begin to hear within you.

May the Spirit Speak to you!
RevJule
______________________

A sermon for 1 March 2015 – Second Sunday During the Season of Lent

Click here to read scripture first: http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/mark/passage/?q=mark+8:31-38

It’s Lent, so I guess public confession is good.  Here goes. Someone really hurt my feelings last week. Don’t worry – it wasn’t anyone connected to the church!  It was something someone else I know said to me, about me, last week. And it hurt. My ego got bumped. I got mad.   . . .  Am I the only one this ever happens to?   . . .  For at least the first two days, I wanted to call up my best friends and trash talk. Tell them all about it. Point fingers at the person who said what they said. Get them on my side about it all just so I would be justified.   . . .  Seriously: am I the only one stuff like this ever happens to?   I don’t think so, though I realize some of us are further along on the continuum regarding such things.

Recently I heard a beloved, deep-on-the-journey spiritual leader talk about it on national television. The interviewer asked him something about him living each day in the flow or absolute love of God. And he confessed that though he writes and talks eloquently about the absolute love of God – the Ground of our very being, sometimes he’s there. But not always. And some weeks not even every day. This is someone who has devoted his life to daily silence, scripture reading, study, communal living, and prayer. He’s sought after worldwide for in-person lectures. His printed works sell millions and his visual and audio recordings are bringing life to Christians all across the globe. And still, after nearly fifty years of the practice, he claims his own ego still gets bumped. People say things or do things that rub him wrong and before he knows it, he feels that pain. Now, thanks to his daily, life-long practices, he admits such annoyances come and go fairly quickly for him now – even things like getting cut off in traffic. Anyone get all worked up about that? But he doesn’t have that urge to call up BFFs to tell them all about it. And he doesn’t stew either –as the less verbal among us tend to do, right? Just soaking in our juices. Fuming about what so and so did or said that really got our goat.

It’s the first thing that comes to mind from Jesus’ words of the gospel of Mark. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). It would be easy to keep such words way back then in history. Thinking about Peter, James, and John literally having to give up the regular ways of their lives to follow Jesus around Galilee before finally heading to Jerusalem. But the message isn’t just for those long ago. It’s for every last one of us. Today. In the real stuff of our lives.

If you were at Wednesday night to see it, or watched the link of the video we email blasted (click here to watch it:   https://vimeo.com/116071300) that was by the Barna Group about their findings regarding the unchurched, then you might remember that one of the major hurdles to Christianity today is that the unchurched, or church-less as they were calling them, cannot see any distinctive difference between how they are living their lives and how most of us church people are living ours. Ouch! The research showed that other than us being in worship sometimes on Sundays, for the most part, the daily lives and choices of most American Christians do not look all that different from the daily lives and choices of the church-less. Chilling, isn’t it? Because the One we claim to follow was pretty clear that we are not to be living the same as everyone else. In a world of rampant consumerism, self-absorbed self-interest, and escalating violence; we should stand out. It should be seen that we give of at least a portion of our time, talents, and money not for our own pleasure but for the benefit of others. It should be seen that we curb our appetites for more, more, more. It should be seen that, if nowhere else in this world, at least among us Christians forgiveness is genuinely practiced – love for all no matter what is the norm. All those good fruits of the Spirit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22). It should be seen that we’re not about us and them but about one, beloved human family. One, united creation actually, that all is sacred unto God.   . . .  As an example to demonstrate his point, the Barna researcher spoke of an ancient practice of God’s people that can be incredibly relevant for today: keeping Sabbath. True rest as a creature in our amazing Creator without all our techno-gadgets. The point being that if others see us able to use, but not be addicted to our screens, like actually NOT all being on our smartphones as we sit at a meal in a restaurant. You’ve seen that, right? Dad taking a work call. Mom searching the web for something, and little Christian children playing whatever app they’re playing when the server comes to take their order. Sabbath just one day a week – or one hour if the consideration of one full day causes you an immediate sense of panic. Stopping from life like that, to rest in the natural beauty of this world. Truly connecting with one another face-to-face and even with our God; well, that would be one way to be an authentic witness today of denying ourselves to follow after the principles of another.

Our crosses might not look like the bloody devices of torture used by Rome to put to death anyone seeking to incite the people against their ways. Our crosses might look like practicing daily meditation so that we’re not as attached to the bumps and bruises of our egos. Steeping ourselves in the words and actions of Christ that the ways we interact with others blare with mercy and kindness and grace. The sacrifice of our own hidden agendas are seen by our colleagues out there in the world and even in here in the church. Not being doormats for everyone else to walk all over. Being our best selves in God by losing how we always want it to be for the sake of God’s grander vision to grow.

You know, the one who says to follow didn’t have to show up here in this world and live the kind of life he did. Jesus could have gone about his little carpenter life – eking out a living for the benefit of his own family. Keeping his unique worldview and talents to himself. He could have had year after year of his life used up just by getting by each day – trying merely to make it from sunup to sundown accomplishing the duties laid upon him by his business and family and friends. Or by making and taking more for himself, even at the expense of others. But he didn’t, did he? Which is why we know anything about him at all – this man who was truly one of us and yet truly of God as well. He turned to the Spirit. He gave space enough for God’s truth to grow in him. He enjoyed others – cherishing them, not trying to figure out how they could benefit himself. He quieted his own wants – probably by the times he daily stole off to be alone in prayer with God – until his only want was summed up in that amazing prayer in the garden: “Thy will be done, O God. Thy will.” That’s the way he was God with us. Showing us how to be Godlike in the world today.   . . .  With all the clamor and concern about how to live well these days, why do we look anywhere else but to the life of Jesus, the Christ?

“Those who want to save their own life,” he said, “will lose it.” But those who lose their life – giving up their own selves each day, like him? Those already know real Life! The point of it all.

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

© Copyright JMN – 2015  (All rights reserved.)

Looking to Follow

Leave a reply

DISCLAIMER: I believe sermons are meant to be heard. They are the word proclaimed in a live exchange between God and the preacher, and the preacher and God, and the preacher and the people, and the people and the preacher, and the people and God, and God and the people. Typically set in the context of worship and always following the reading of scripture, sermons are about listening and speaking and hearing and heeding. At the risk of stepping outside such boundaries, I share sermons here — where the reader will have to wade through a manuscript that was created to be spoken word. Even if you don’t know the sound of my voice, let yourself hear as you read. Let your mind see as you hear. Let your life be opened to whatever response you begin to hear within you.

May the Spirit Speak to you!
RevJule
______________________

A sermon for 18 January 2015 – 2nd Sunday after Epiphany

Click here to read scripture first:   John 1:29-51 (NRS)

Recently I heard a spiritual teacher (Richard Rohr) tell about the two different kinds of people that exist in this world. Type number one are those of certitude. Those with whom you never want to lock horns. You know what I mean. Type one people ALWAYS are right. They know for SURE what they believe they know for sure. Like concrete that solidifies fast in the mold, type one folks cling ferociously to what they believe to be the truth. It’s even worse when they think they know everything for sure! We’re not bad people as type ones. But we’re probably driving most everyone around us a little mad. Because type oners are convinced they know what’s right – and they usually think only one way can be right. There’s no need to hear any other perspective when you’re a type one. No need to do a little self-reflection to admit our own biases. We’re absolutely certain we’re right – no shred of doubt. But, if we did enough digging, we’d probably discover that type oners really are filled with doubt. It’s why they have to keep such a red-knuckled grip on it all. Rock bottom, type one people of certitude are drowning in a sea of fear. Their certainty acts like the life-saver that keeps them afloat and out of the realm of deep consciousness where all sorts of scary things lie lurking in the shadows. That’s type one people of certitude.

The opposite type, type two, are those open to the mystery of life. Those who know they do not know. They look at the world in such a different way. Unlike type one that has to be certain, type two tends to live a little and let that living influence their perspectives on it all. They greet the world with a warm embrace – ready to experience whatever unfolds on the journey. They’re open to meeting new people, hearing new thoughts, wondering about everything instead of quickly coming to decisive conclusions. They tend to be a bit more on the adventurous side and when the petals are peeled away, two fragrances generally are released: that of love and that of trust. At rock bottom they’re not as concerned about being right because they know they are held. Loved in this great big cosmos by something that always eventually bends toward the good. It’s true type twos sometimes can find themselves lost in a forest of confusion. So it might actually be good to have a little bit of type one’s assurance woven into the fabric of being so open to the mystery of living. A bit more balance might be needed between both. . . . The fascinating thing is that too much of Christian history has teetered over to the side of type ones, when what Jesus really seems to be about is bringing into community a whole lot more type twos.

Just look at the story we encounter in the gospel of John today. “Come and see, come and see, come and see,” we keep hearing. Those aren’t words for ones, but for twos. Actually, I’ve been wondering this week about how many people of absolute certitude Jesus might have called from the start of his ministry. Maybe there were others but because their minds already were 100% certain about everything in this world, we never have heard their names or learned their stories. Instead from the start they responded: “No thank you, Jesus, I’ve no need to see what you might be up to. I already have this thing with God all figured out!” . . . Not so with the men first named in John’s gospel. Andrew. Simon, his brother, who Jesus quickly named Cephas, Peter: the Rock. Philip. And Nathanael too. Come and see! Come and see! Come and see! . . . According to the gospel of John, the first words out of the mouth of the Messiah, the eternal Word embodied in this one from Nazareth called Jesus. The first words the eternal, embodied Word speaks according to the gospel of John are a question. “What are you looking for?” (John 1:38). It’s an interesting word to first speak as one of us in this world; for it almost sounds as if our search has become of utmost importance to the Holy One.

What are you looking for? How might we answer that question. . . . I spent the better part of the past 2 and a half days at a Circle of Trust retreat. It’s the Courage Work Parker Palmer created to bring strangers together to listen one another deeper into the Spirit’s desire for our whole-hearted living. It’s the first of 4 seasonal retreats to be held throughout 2015 and it all began Thursday night with the question: What question is rising up in your life now? But I heard it as: what are you looking for now?  . . .  Peace from the hectic life we’re living these days? Security in a world where those dead-set in their certitude keep trying to destroy others? Restoration from the aches and pains of aging bodies? Hope where it all seems hopeless? Connection with One that has been Life for us all along our journey? . . . The first two disciples respond to Jesus’ question by saying: “Teacher, where are you staying?” There’s that whole play here in this story on staying and remaining and coming along to see (John 1:38-39). . . . What were they looking for? Someone who might turn their lives around – even if they really could NOT imagine the ride they were in for. They’re going to see amazing things – stupendous works, life-altering words, jaw-dropping love if only they will leave their current comfort zones to follow where – who – they cannot yet know. Come and see. Come and see. Come and see.

You’re aware, I hope, that here in this congregation we’re doing this thing called The Vital Church. The other night after what I’d like to think was a thought-provoking presentation, a few folks were antsy about doing more. You know that since the days you all undertook New Beginnings in 2010, this church has been in a time of seeking to clarify your vision for future ministry. I think it’s getting a lot clearer than it was a few years ago. You have begun ministries in the community like assistance to those in need through snack bags to the local elementary school and dollars that you give face to face to those coming here in need of help with utilities or medicines or rent. You’ve been earning a name in the community with the annual Craft Fair and the music ministries to the senior living facility next door and beyond. I’m probably missing something that has been a new focus for you all in the past few years, but all these are the ways you all have been following Jesus anew into the world. It’s wonderful! . . . And now a few of you are telling me you want to do more. Part of the shift in 21st Century Christianity is go out to meet the neighbors and there’s rumor that some of you have decided you are heading next door to the senior living facility this week to get to know the neighbors there. To see if they might desire the kind of loving, caring family so many of the rest of you treasure among one another. Come and see Jesus is saying to us . . . see what stupendous works, life-altering words, jaw-dropping love we might experience with those living right across the street if only we would leave our current comfort zones to meet up with Jesus over there. I hope you will make an effort to join in. Every member and friend is invited to be a part of this endeavor. And if you don’t have time to give to this attempt to get out there, then I hope you at least will be ready to greet any new people if in fact they show up here, across their street. . . . We cannot know how it all will turn out or where it all might take this church. We only can trust the One who is hoping and praying we’re type number twos: open to the mystery of how the journey will unfold. Even if a bit timid or filled with swirling doubts, willing to greet the world of our neighbors with a warm embrace. Ready to enjoy an unimaginable ride! You’re all invited: come and see!

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

© Copyright JMN – 2015  (All rights reserved.)