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!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Gifts

For the past four months, as an additional aspect for my supervised ministry placement of Biblical Feasting, I've been working at Blooming Grove UCC in the Catskills region of NY. The church is small in numbers, but their communal spirit is ever growing. The church building itself is from the mid to late 1700s, and is beautiful, having a story that is waiting to be told. But with an average worship attendance of 10-15 people, the vastness can quench the spirit of the congregation as they spread out from one another, locked in their pews. So I made a conscious decision at the start of my time there to sit out in the pews with people. I didn't want to be set apart, especially as the intern, where I contribute to 1/10th (usually) of the congregation. I want to hear the sermon preached from the perspectives of others, let the sound of singing reverberate off of my skin. I wanted to be part of the congregation in this setting, not set apart.
Yesterday, Lise (my supervisor) made me sit up with her on the raised platform for the entirety of the service. It felt odd. I've been set apart in my home congregation, but after working at Soul Cafe, I like to sit amongst people and get up to participate when its my turn. Both/ and not either/or.
The same odd uncomfortableness settled on me during the reception that was held for me. There was a presentation of a gift, a beautiful stole that I still need to wait a few years before I am given the authority by my church to wear. And a vase of yellow roses with a beautiful story behind them. The uncomfortableness did not come from being up front to receive the gifts, but being forced to open them in front of people. Since coming back from Russia, I find myself adapting more and more to the custom of opening gifts in secret. I also like to give gifts in secret, outside of doors or sitting out for people. It's a sign of respect to not open a gift in front of the giver, but rather rejoice in the gift of the givers very presence.
I'm not sure how all of this oddness will play out in my coming appointment, but I know that it will. And that we will adapt and grow together.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Acts 16 and John 5

This past week when I was absent from our gathering, I was in St. Louis at a gathering of 8,5000 women celebrating mission in the life of the United Methodist Church (the denomination that I am affiliated with). I left that gathering with a nagging sense of disappointment, something I rarely feel about the Church. It wasn’t until I sat down to write out this sermon that I began to realize why there was such an ache in my heart from this meeting that was supposed to fill me with inspiration – missed opportunities.

I have grown up being a people watcher. One of my best friends from college, also an avid people watcher, and I like nothing better than to sprawl out on a grassy public garden or sandy beach and let our eyes explore the terrain of what takes place before us. It is interesting to see what your senses can perceive if you just allow them to take in the totality of your surroundings. In St. Louis, with my eyes opened, ears turned in to the rumblings of the city, and hand and feet touching areas that were foreign from what I was used to, I explored people with a sense of wonder. As a trained “Shalomer” or religious community organizer, I tend to look at run down buildings and people with hearts so burdened that it reflects through their eyes as opportunities to bring hope and to spark life anew. Yet, the women I was at this meeting with, people who proclaimed faith is the same God of redemption and re-creating that I believe in, did not look to re-infuse life into broken people and places in St. Louis, but rather to drain its resources. A few quick tales of opportunities passed by:

To kick off the gathering, participants had the option of signing up for a day of service at various projects around the inner city of St. Louis. Those who chose to participate had a special denotation on their nametag. While manning my particular booth at the gathering I liked to strike up conversations with the women who had participated in this particular day of service, wanting to know what they learned from the heartbeat of the city. While in a conversation with one woman, I asked her where she went, and she described a shelter about thirty minutes from the convention center. She went on to describe her task of cleaning up the “filth” that cluttered the shelter. When I asked her if she had the opportunity to talk with any of the residences, she recoiled, stating that wasn’t the purpose of her mission. All I could do was shake my head – a missed story, a missed opportunity for relationship.

One of my closest friends in seminary is Korean American. She has grown up solely in America but her parents are Korean so she was raised to be bi-lingual. While my friend and I were looking for needed school materials at the convention, one sales-assistant came up to her and asked if she wouldn’t like the book we had in our hands in Korean better. In the course of two days my friend was continually harassed by “well-meaning” people – one of whom asked her where she was from, to which she replied New York. He looked at her and said, “No, where are you really from”. Each time my friend and I were too dumbfounded to speak. We missed opportunities to educate people for justice.

Missed “thank yous” that reeked of entitlement. Homeless passed by without a second glance, thinking that those whom we don’t look in the eye doesn’t exist. Waiters and waitresses treated with disdain because women were too busy discussing missions. Missed opportunities to encourage others with the love of Christ. What is the church about if it is not seizing what is placed before her as divinely appointed?

But for every change that this group of church ladies missed to speak truth and hope into people’s lives, I saw a seized moment. Moments where a room-service attended brought up my ailing college a bowl of soup and pot of hot tea for free, out of her own paycheck, as an act of compassion. Instances where van drivers were treated horribly, but still responded with a sincere thank you. Times when the quote of Saint Francis of Assisi was lived out in its fullest reality “preach the gospel always, use words only when necessary.”

In the story in the gospel of John today we are told that Jesus was traveling to one of the Jewish festivals in Jerusalem. When he entered the city he passed by the Sheep Gate pool – a place where the forgotten of society gathered, hoping to be placed into the healing waters by a thoughtful friend. And when Jesus passed by the pool he stopped. He didn’t have to do so – he had a holy festival to attend to. Yet he stopped and asked one particular man who had been suffering for thirty-eight years if he wanted to be made well. Jesus offered healing to this one man and changed his life forever. One opportunity seized; one man who’s ability to use his legs was restored.

And what of the man? One question answered to a stranger brought healing. “Do you want to be made well?” Notice that the man, craving not only for healing water but human interaction replies not with a yes or no, but with a piece of his personal story. A story of being abandoned and pushed aside as he watched the healing of others, while yearning for his own. One question answered, one simple yet seemingly impossible command followed. “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” An act of the deepest form of trust in the face of an impossibility, trusting this strangers words to bring him healing while only a few moments earlier looking longingly at the waters. One person stopped, one question asked, one command followed, one life changed, one opportunity seized.

Embracing opportunities that present themselves is not only a theme in the gospels, but a model for discipleship found throughout the entire Biblical cannon. In Acts it is said that Paul had a dream that called him to diverge from the missionary path he was on by a dream that caused him to re-chart his course to Macedonia. And while on his way to Macedonia, he seized an opportunity to sit with a group of women whom he believed to be in prayer. One moment of Sabbath rest was transformed into the conversion of one woman, Lydia. The text says that Lydia was baptized that very day, after which she became one of Paul’s patrons for his ministry.

Is our faith so deeply rooted and reckless like Jesus’ and Paul’s that we can change people’s lives by accepting those moments that most would deem to be distractions as God ordained. Our history books may not tell some of the most profound stories of hope brought through ordinary moments. Perhaps this is because we take even these moments for grant it. We rarely hear of the individuals who changed their own personal tredgetorary in order to reach out to others. But they existed. And when we are lucky enough, we stumble upon stories like that of Haregewoin Teferra, in Melissa Greene’s book There is No Me Without You. One middle age widow found herself becoming a friend to those who were deemed social outcastes in her Ethiopian village because of HIV and AIDS. Haregewoin found herself taking in not only the untouchables, but also more specifically the untouchable children, born to be thrown away because of their parent’s pandemic disease, starting with one small child who showed up on her doorstep for food and captured her heart. Slowly she finds herself becoming not a shelter, but a safe home for hundreds of children. Like so many others, Haregewoin could have turned the child away or kept her only for a night or two, but instead she listened to the direction her heart was giving her to raise the child as her own. Opportunities opened one at a time giving children a life of dignity and wholeness.

What about us today? Would we be willing to risk our health, resources, and time in a way like Haregewoin? Could we alter our plans, like Paul, because we believed that our dreams were messages from God? Are we willing to embrace any opportunity that comes along our way, like Jesus on the way to the Jewish festival? We must remember that the story in the gospel of John does not end where we stopped reading it today. If we would continue reading through verse eighteen, we would find that this seized opportunity did not come without a cost. And the man who was offered and choose healing wasn’t the only person who had has life changed. One solitary act of compassion for one person found its way into our lives here today. Mother Theresa is quoted as saying that we are not called to do great things, but to do small things with great love. When we allow our heartbeat and steps to align with the leading of the Holy Spirit, we will find that those small things done with great love can become life changing for all involved and those who hear afterwards.

We live in a world that is constantly trying to pull our attention any and every direction. We also live in a particular society that equates business with achievement and success. Friends, let the word of God sink into you this day. We are called to follow God, wherever that path may lead. We need to be willing to set aside our plans for God’s plans. And we need to reach out and touch our neighbors with the love of Christ in any possible way, as we encounter life each day. May even our simple acts of love – words of justice spoken, a smile to a weary traveler, speaking truth to a friend in need, showing compassion to a child lost in a confusing world – bring about a domino effect of love, where our love towards one another spreads like wildfire. May we have eyes and hearts to perceive opportunities to bless others as they arise, simple or more complex. May we have physical and spiritual ears to hear God’s calling on our life, even if the direction is not what we imagined it to be. And may the words of the poet William Hale White ring in our spiritual center, “When I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for taking and did not take, my heart is like to break.” Our hearts do not need to break, Beloved of God. Will you choose to miss your God-ordained moments or seize opportunities that present themselves for the glory of God, trusting that even the simplest obedience will bear much fruit? Amen.

Preached at Blooming Grove UCC - Sunday, May 9th, 2010