About Me

My photo
My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Sunday, February 24, 2008

1 Cor. 11:17-31

The Church is caught between a rock and a hard place. As the universal church strives to re-define itself, we suffer one of two ills: the first is participating in something so little that we forget why its important, and the other is participating in something so much that it becomes trivial. At the root of each of these scenarios lies the same problem – not really understanding the meaning behind the “things the church does”.

As we prepare to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, today we need to be honest with ourselves as we ask the question “do we really know why we celebrate this sacrament?”

We celebrate to Remember. We are called to remember the night that Christ was betrayed. That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me’. In the same way he took the cup also, after supper saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ When we remember we place ourselves at the table in the upper room with Christ. Where are you sitting? Are you confused about what you have just heard and seen? As you leave the table you know that you have just taken part in a special event, but its not until you look back on that night after Christ has risen when the full implications of that meal come to light. But we are also called to remember more then the meal itself. Communion is not an event made to be administered in solitude. It’s about the body of Christ coming together to collectively remember the sacrifice of the personal, yet commotional Savior. So as we gather at the table today we are also called to remember our neighbor. We are called to keep in mind those who couldn’t be with us at the table today. To think of our brothers and sisters around the world who don’t have the privilege to worship God publicly. And our family who is going hungry.

Forgetting others is why Paul is so pointed at the beginning of the lesson today. Look at verse 21 For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry while another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? When Paul is writing this letter to the church of Corinth, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was part of a great feast, sometimes referred to as the Agape or Love Meal. Each person brought what they could to the table to share. Only class divisions quickly sprang up and the rich were seated at better places at the table, given the finest food, and had more to eat and drink on the whole, while the poor starved. Paul pointed out that this is not what the family of God is about, giving first and foremost to yourself. No, the body of Christ is about thinking about others, putting others needs first as Christ did and sharing all we have. I realize words such as self-sacrifice and sharing are not popular today. But as we show contempt for those words we have to ask ourselves why. Is our heart in any better place then the church of Corinth? Or as we approach the table do we think only about ourselves and our needs and what Christ has done for us. Christ did not die just for you, Christ died for all. So as we approach the table today let us dwell on the sacrifice that Christ made for all of us and remember our brothers and sisters who are struggling. We need to remember those who are half way around the world, but we also need to remember those right next to the table with us.

We celebrate the Lord’s Supper because it gives us the opportunity to confess our sins. Confession really can be ugly at times because it requires us to remember the things that we have done that are rather shameful. We don’t want to go back to those moments when we brought dishonor to God. But we cannot hide these moments from Him, he knows our heart, so we must ask him for forgiveness. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment on themselves. All too often we take this passage of scripture and use it to say who should or should not take in communion. Some denominations say that only those who are members of that particular congregation or denomination should take communion. Others say that the baptized are the only one’s worthy of eating and drinking at the Lord’s Table. But what if these verses really mean, those who enter the table without confessing their sins should not be there. When we approach the table without confessing our sins we are trivializing why it exists in the first place. We all have sinned. We need a safe place and time to admit that. Here at the table we find that opportunity.

A word of caution, the Lord’s Table is not the place where we come and just lightly say, “Forgive me, I have sin.” No this is the place where we get down on our knees before God and confess our particular sin. This requires examination. Looking back on our lives and asking God to point out to us the dark blotches of sin so that we can lay them before him, and knowing that His grace will cover all that we have forgotten if only we approach confession with an open heart.

We should also confess our sins to our neighbors. I once had a professor that said that we have avoided confessing our sins, because then people will see us just as we are. The table today gives us that opportunity. We will continue to struggle with sins that we keep secret. When we seal our sin inside of ourselves, then we don’t allow others to minister to us. We miss opportunities for accountability as well as sharing our struggles and triumphs with sin.

We celebrate because we are forgiven. At the table, where all of our sin has been laid at the feet of the cross, we find forgiveness. Forgiveness cannot be separated from confessing our sins, admitting that we are in need of Christ, or remembering the sacrifice made. Today as we kneel at the table we come broken, but we arise remembering that Christ has made us whole and has deemed us his worthy children.

As we approach the table, we also must seek forgiveness and forgive others. This past week we have wronged others, in thought and action. We have dishonored God by dishonoring other people. We have been short tempered. We have gossiped. And we should seek forgiveness for our sin not only from God but from those we have sinned against as well. How can we approach the table that signifies so much love, when we have acted in an unloving way?

We also need to seek forgiveness for the things that we have done that have not directly hurt one person. What I mean by this is that all of our sin affects other Christians, because we are a body. We are no longer judged solely as individuals, but rather as a collective body. How many times have you heard claims about the wrong doings of Christianity that come from a place of deep wounding or brokenness? We need to seek forgiveness from one another for giving Christianity a bad reputation, because we have not acted like Christ.

And as people seek forgiveness from us, for personal hurts or on behalf of the body of Christ, we must forgive them, over and over again. Forgiving does not necessarily mean forgetting, because sometimes our actions have consequences. But forgiving does mean loving another person as Christ would love them. Which is hard.

Finally, when we come to the table we must forgive ourselves. All too often as Christians we punish ourselves for our sins more then God would. Repeatedly confessing a sin that God has washed away, but we cling too out of guilt. When God pronounces us forgiven, we need to shed our guilt and shame. Freeing ourselves from the chains of sin that we have been wrapped in for so long. We have been transformed through this forgiveness. We are like the bread and wine before us today. Bread and wine seem like ordinary elements, but both involve an act of God to become what they are before us. Yeast must rise and wine must ferment. And like these elements, it takes an extrodary act of God to meet our ordinary sinful being at the table and transform us into a forgiven child of the King, but that is what God does, if only we will accept it.

Finally, we celebrate with thanksgiving. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. The Lord’s Supper prepares us to celebrate in Heaven someday. It’s supposed to remind us that we are going to be at banquets in Heaven with the Triune God when he deems the time to be right. And as we leave the Lord’s Table, the table we approached so somberly remembering and confessing, we can celebrate because we are forgiven. At the Lord’s table we face a spectrum of emotions. And we can be thankful for each and every one of them, because God has created us to be so emotionally complex. We can celebrate our brother and sister who joins us at the table and their ability to be a vital part of the body. And we can celebrate because at the table, relationships are healed and sin is forgiven. But above all we can celebrate because the Lord’s Supper, the event that was a precursor to his death, cannot be separated from his resurrection. We have so much to be thankful for as we leave the table.

As we reflect on the fact that we celebrate communion in light of remembrance , confession, forgiveness, and thanksgiving, the Lord’s Supper has shed the trivial nature that we sometimes treat it with. We see that the table means so much more then we give it credit for. Let us now come to the table with an open heart, seeking the Lord, and the grace he bestows upon us.

Amen.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Name Tags

  I was at a meeting the other night where the suggestion was made that to make the church more welcoming to visitors we all should wear name tags. Every person who regularly attends on Sunday would wear a name tag, and that makes visitors (non-name tag wearers) easier to spot. It also helps us become re-acquainted with those people who have attended the church forever with us, but whom we don't really know.
  As I silently sat at the meeting, all I could think was this is a cheap copout. We're pretending to know people whom we really don't know. Our name is something unique to us and cannot be severed from our personal stories. Our first name holds the story of our life - with its trials, ambitions, and wonderful moments. Our sir name tells an even longer story of our heritage and family. Our nicknames tell of those private and sometimes embarrassing, but always intimate moments. But to wear a name tag skips right over all of that. It allows us to approach someone on a surface level without any intention to get to know them, to hear their story. I think we have enough of that type of shallowness in our society.
   For example: When I was at the installation ceremony for a friend of the family who was becoming a DS, we all had to wear name tags. After a while of brooding over the hated tag, I forgot about it. Until it came to the end of the service for communion and a time of meet and greet. At the alter rail the pastor serving the elements leaned over and addressed me by name. I freaked out and couldn't figure out how this person knew me, until I remembered the tag. The same things happened at the meet and greet, where instead of people asking my name and trying to get to know me, they just looked at my name tag and glossed right over any attempt for connection. 
   We live in a society where we desire everything to be easy, including getting to know people. But there is a process, that begins with asking people their name and inches forward into more intimate areas. It's a long process. Honestly, even with my closest friends, I'm still getting to know them, and there are things that I learn about my family that are new just about every day. Yet, we try to circumvent this process in the church with a name tag. Is there any hope for intimacy if we aren't willing to take the time, even to introduce ourselves and ask someone their name?

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Uneducated Elections

  I'm scared for the upcoming presidential elections. It reminds me a lot of an episode from Will and Grace. To the best of my recollection, the premise of the episode is that there were upcoming elections for mayor (or city council representative). Will, as a gay man, immediately joined the campaign for the gay man running for office, and Grace, as a Jewish woman, started backing the Jewish woman. Both Will and Grace knew nothing of what their respective candidates stood for other than their gender, religion, and sexual preferences. 
  Do you see where this is going? As the elections approach, how many people are becoming like Will and Grace, backing a candidate not on their stances or their benefit for the country, but rather on their gender, religion, and race. This could end disastrously, if voters do not educate themselves. I almost wonder if an uneducated vote is actually better than not voting at all.
  It's really not that hard to get accurate information about what candidates stand for, or at least what they are professing to stand for, online. I'm not referring to propaganda and slander either, but rather what their original campaign is composed of. Yet, out of laziness we jump on bandwagons for the wrong reason. How dishonoring to ourselves and our country.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

SEX

I went to see the Vagina Monologues last night at PSU. It was so good. But as I was sitting there I was thinking about how few of my friends could handle it because of the blunt way of talking, not necessarily about sex, but about the female body. At what point did we become ashamed of talking, with other women, about out bodies?

I have a reproductive disorder. It seems like every time I go to the doctors they come up with some new potential complication from this. And its sort of funny, because sometimes I feel like I need to be an advocate for what I have, because so many women are affected, and put themselves at risk by not seeking treatment, because no one has taught them how to identify when something is wrong with their own bodies. It's sad really. We hope that the video that you are shown in fifth grade about periods or a heart to heart with your mother will give you all the information you need. But it doesn't. And if we aren't willing to teach girls about how their body should be functioning, then we needn't be surprised when she doesn't know that she's having problems.

For me, the majority of my problems about how to view my own body and talk about sex can be traced back to youth group. We live in the age where youth leaders and pastors preach abstinence or evil. However, the categories this really leads to are total fear or rebellion. And for those of us who are abstinent but not fearful, in fact excited about having sex with our spouse one day, well we are placed right alongside the rebellious kids to be ridiculed. To talk about sex, honestly, and without the need for scare tactics like abortion or STD videos, is so needed in the church. We need to teach that sex was created by God. During the play last night some random facts would be announced like "the cliterous is the only organ in the human body designed strictly for sexual pleasure and has more then 8000 nerve endings, more then any other place in either the male or female body." Why shouldn't that be celebrated? God created us to enjoy sex. And I'm excited to share that with my husband someday. But even saying the word cliterous makes most of my friends blush and their eyes get big. It's not a bad word, people, I promise.

A few weeks ago I was told that youth groups preach to the 80% of kids that need to hear that sex is bad and establish all sorts of boundaries, but totally forget about the 20% of us who need something else completely. And that something else, while hard to define, is definitely not more boundaries. Youth group has accomplished making me feel like a bad person, even now, every time I break a boundary. And these aren't big things - like don't have sex. We're talking about little things, like you shouldn't have a best friend of the opposite gender. Your accountability partner should never be of the opposite gender. You know the rules. And I think I've violated most of the youth group social norms about people of the opposite gender, but there are still residual issues. My freshman year of college I heard a 4 week seminar on why Christian women should only befriend other women, that almost cost me my best friend at the time. And I still can't pray with someone of the opposite gender, alone, especially about things that are intimate to my heart, which is horrible a.) when you are becoming a pastor and b.) when it is one of the only remaining trust barriers between you and another person.

Part of our issue as Christians is that we blame everything on the fruit in Genesis. If Adam and Eve wouldn't have been tempted then our lives would be hunky-dory. Only we forget what the fruit was, "it was from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil." To compare this to something in the New Testament, we should see the tree like Paul's view of the law in Romans. It can point out sin, but not save from sin. So the tree pointed out the ways we can sin, thus, like the law, tempting us to sin. But here's the thing, we then go on this tangent of throwing everything and anything into the category of sin. Talking about sex, openly, with other people you can trust is not sin. There are many sexual sins, yes, but talking about it in a non-provocative (non-television glamorized) way isn't sin. And this means being completely honest, not just picking and choosing what's important.

We need to empower young women and men with knowledge out their own bodies. We need to be honest about God's love for sex, and his creation of it. And his utter sadness when we abuse it. We need less rules and more openness of dialogue. We need to be able to celebrate how God made us physically, instead of writing that off as a shameful mistake.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Sometimes we have to make decisions. Sometimes no one knows why. But sometimes you know its what you have to do, no matter what the cost. 

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Coming Back Down off the Mountain

From Matthew 17:1-9 and 2 Peter 1:16-21

Today we are going to go on a journey – in fact, we are going to go on two. First, we are going to walk up a mountain with Christ and his disciples in order to witness one of the most miraculous and hard to understand events in history. Then we are going to venture into our own memories and see how that experience has affected our own lives.

As we set up off towards our first destination imagine that you are Peter. Just three chapters earlier he had his walking on water experience with Christ. Two chapters ago he had help feed the four thousand, according to the book of Matthew. And then in the previous chapter Peter had made the proclamation that Jesus was the Son of God and Christ responded that he would be the rock upon which the church is built. Grant it Peter also rebuked the death of Messiah for which Jesus called him Satan. All in all, Peter has been on this roller coaster of a ride since Jesus called him and now he is hiking up a mountain, having no idea what to expect. And how could have any of the disciples expected this? In a split moment they saw Jesus shining before them talking with Moses and Elijah, the pillars of the Hebrew faith. Not only are they seeing this unexplainable sight, but they heard the voice of God. They…heard…the…voice….of…God. Excluding the prophets in the Old Testament, not many people could claim to have heard God since the patriarchs. And Peter knew that this was huge. We have to give him credit for that. But then, he seemed to just miss the point, by suggesting to erect three dwellings for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. And then they had to come back down the mountain, as Jesus told them not to tell anyone what they had saw until “after the Son of Man had been raised from the dead.” Judging from the happenings in Chapter 16, it’s likely that Peter still didn’t understand with this phrase meant.

All in all, this wasn’t a long experience, in fact, it didn’t even take an entire day, yet Peter was impacted enough to write about what happened to him on the mountain. Listen to the words Peter wrote again. “We had been eye witnesses to his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We OURSELVES HEARD this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.” Peter had experienced God in such a way that it impacted his world.

At first glance, as we end our first journey, it would seem that our journey, journey number two, has nothing in common with Peter’s. But that’s not true. We’ve all had mountain top experiences in our life of faith. Pause for a moment and think about a time when you undoubtedly knew that you were in the presence of God. We each have a unique story that tells of how God has interacted with and blessed up. Those moments when you feel engulfed by the total presence of glory.

When I was in Australia a group of us were at a youth group meeting and we were asked the question “how do you know God exists?” There were four of us at this meeting, and each of us answered that question in a different way. And even in the times when we seemed to have similar answers such as “I know God exists when I see the sky and know that it isn’t an accident” each of us had totally different experiences that we were thinking about in connection to our answers.

As I reflect back on some of my mountain top experiences I think about of several, but I’m only going to share three. When I was a sophomore in college I had the opportunity to travel to Israel with a group of about twenty other students from my school, most of who were people thinking about going into some type of pastoral ministry. So here I was, someone who is not too crazy about strangers, traveling with a group of complete strangers. One who I had semi-met previously. Not my idea of the ideal situation. But alas we were traveling together, and had to get along. The first Sunday we were in Israel we went hiking on Masada, a mountain where fortresses used to be kept that over looked the desert. When you reached the top of the mountain, you could see desert all around you, and it was probably one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. All of us just stood looking across the vastness that Sunday morning, not saying a word, because we were in the presence of God. God used that moment, this unexplainable moment, not only to touch my heart, but also to bind hearts together. And starting here, I formed friendships with six of the closest friends I’ve ever been blessed with.

A second moment for me came when I was camping in Australia. Camping tends not to be a good experience for me, and I was miserable. I hadn’t really slept and found myself once again to be restless. Around 6am, I abandoned all hope of rest and headed out of my tent to do devotions. And there I saw it. A sky that was a different color every way you turned. It was pink and blue and purple on one side and bright orange with streaks of yellow on the other. God had met me in my weakness in order bless me in a special way, in my moments while everyone else was asleep.

A third experience was at my first year of the Creation Concert, Christian Woodstock. As I was just letting go and singing my heart out to God during one of the Newsboys concerts, there were not one, not two, but three shooting stars that came across the sky. We later found out that the appearance of three shooting stars together rarely happens but it was a God-moment for me.

Most of my mountain top experiences involve nature. Other people involve organized events such as church camp or conferences. God has created each of us in a unique way and knows just the right way to speak to our hearts, to impact us. Pause and share our moments with one another.

However, there is a downside to mountain top experiences, we can’t stay on top of the mountain. Peter wanted to erect monuments and stay and worship what he had just experienced, but that wasn’t Jesus’ intention. Often like Peter we want to stay and worship in the moment instead of going back down the mountain, but we must descend. If the disciples had stayed up on the mountain, showering adoration on Christ, they would have missed what happens next in the gospel of Matthew, the healing of the epileptic son. As Christians we sometimes get so caught up in what we believe to be the act of worship that we forget that we live a life of worship. We need to come down off the mountain and do two things:

  1. We need to share our mountain top experiences with other people. Christ told the disciples not to share what they had experienced until after the Son of Man had risen. That’s happened. We serve a risen God. We are well beyond the time of the church using apologetics to try to “win people for the Kingdom”. God created us each to respond to stories. One of the biggest honors you can be awarded is to share your life story with someone. Go. Share. Tell people how you know God exists because of how he has acted in YOUR life. Sometimes, your story won’t be the one people respond to, because stories touch us each in different ways, but they should still be shared, because you never know if your story will be the one to impact someone’s life.
  2. We need to use our mountain top experiences to full our faith for service. There are going to be times when it is hard to serve God and follow where he is calling. Times when we feel deflated, abused, and misunderstood. In those times we need to look back to our mountain top experiences to remember that God loves us in a personal way and is calling us to serve him in a special way. Looking back to the mountain and remembering gives us the strength and courage to move forward in faith.

We also need to be aware of another pitfall of the mountain top experience. As Christians we have a nasty habit of worshiping God when we feel good and praying to God when we are in need. There is a song that I rather enjoy that says “when I cannot feel, when my wounds don’t heal, I humbly bow hidden in you….If I could sit with you a while. If you could just hold me. Nothing could touch me, though I’m wounded, though I die.” These lyrics embody the marriage between prayer and presence, especially when times are hard. We are so caught up in living in a neat-segmented world that we separate the good times from the bad with the “appropriate” spiritual responses. But a life of service, when our heart is in the right place, is a life of worship. It is our way of telling Christ that his sacrifice meant enough to us that we want to be like him, proclaiming him with our lips and our hands. But a life of service, this life of worship, cannot be separated from a life of prayer. Let’s not get so caught up in the moment of glory that we forget to communicate to God in an intimate way, thanking him for what he has done. And let us not get so caught up in the heart wrenching concerns for ourselves and others that we forget to look back and see God’s faithfulness towards us on the mountain.

In closing, may you remember the moments where God met you on the mountain and wrapped you in his presence. Those times when you felt that your heart was going to burst out of your chest with the glory of God. Use these times to fuel your desire to travel back down off the mountain and serve God, telling others of the wonderful things he has done in your life and sparking the desire to interact with the world around you to spread the love of Christ. And may our worship of the Risen king never be separated from a life of prayer and devotion to him. Amen.