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

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Godspell

   Yesterday was a bit crazy. I was supposed to go see Miss Abagail's Guide off-Broadway, but missed my train by 2 minutes then he next train was a bit late and I didn't line up with the right metro schedule, so I missed the show. Which promoted me to go to the Tkts booth in Time's Square, something I've never done more. The booth is sponsored by TDF and I usually order my tickets directly from them because they are cheap for subscribed clergy (www.tdf.org) But alas with little time, I ventured into the snaking line. While in line I was asked what I was going to see and I said that I had 3 options: Chicago, Peter and the Starcatcher, and Godspell. One of the attendants in line vigorously suggested Peter, but I ended up getting Godspell tickets a.) because it is closing today and b.) it was cheaper.
   And I was not disappointed. It is tied for the best show I've seen. Lots of thought provoking pieces that I will be using in future sermons. Two of which really struck me. First, the absolute excitement about baptism. When the water burst forth as a stream on the stage and the planks were uncovered, the characters jumped in. Jumped in. Splashed around. Had so much joy that they had to share. Do we feel that way about baptism today? Are we excited to welcome new people into our midsts? Are we excited about what baptism represents and do we yearn to share that with other people and watch their lives be transformed?
    Secondly, the power of the parable. I don't know what we've exactly made it into, but the parable isn't what it was before - a story. To be shared. To be acted out. To ask us to think deeply about life through our own context. While the Bible could be considered timeless, it only comes if we honor the different genres of scripture and treat the parable as a story to be placed in our own context. Perhaps that is what makes Godspell so good, the context changes over time and it makes the storytelling all the more powerful.
   So powerful in fact that people were moved to tears. I wanted to have an alter call at the end of it all (and I am not an alter call type pastor). Profound experience. Now how can that translate to church? How can our worship be moving and profound and life changing? How can our worship be filled with humor and love and joy that is transformative as a community? How? I don't know the answers, but I'm ready to jump into the waters and try. Amen!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

The Church Universal - Acts 10: 34-43


Throughout the summer months we are going to spend time focusing on the book of Acts,  the part of the New Testament that tells the story of the early church. While it may seem that we are far removed from what happened 2,000 years ago with the movement of the Holy Spirit, as we study these texts together, it is my hope and prayer that we discover that the Holy Spirit is still moving among the church of Jesus Christ today, calling us forward as disciples.
In order to understand today’s scripture passage we need to go back a bit. Back past Peter’s speech on Pentecost, back past Jesus’ ascension to be with God in Heaven, back to Peter’s struggles in the gospels. Peter just never really seemed to get it together, did he? Every time he seemed to be moving forward in his faith he would do or say something that Jesus would just shake his head at. Peter just could not grasp what Jesus was trying to teach him, especially this business about Jesus, the Messiah, being crucified. Maybe Peter didn’t believe it because he just couldn’t because he lacked the faith to understand, or maybe he just didn’t want to believe it because it was too hard to fathom, but in any case, Peter could not believe that Jesus would be crucified and then raised from the dead.
Then after the glorious day when Christ was raised, after all of the events leading up to Pentecost, Peter was struck with unbelief and misunderstanding again. He could not believe that this good news of Jesus Christ was for everyone. Surely it was just for the Jews, since they are God’s covenant people. Surely it is just for people like him, not the Gentles whom he had been taught were not quite as good as the Jews. But just as God turned Peter’s world upside down with the resurrection of Jesus, God shattered Peter’s beliefs  by giving him a dream whose message was clear - no one whom God deems to be clean was unclean just because Peter believed it to be so. Just to solidify the point, God sent Peter to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile centurion, someone whom Peter would not have previously interacted with, to declare the good news of Jesus Christ and baptize his entire household. 
Peter’s speech comes out of the context of struggling to figure out just who Jesus came to save. Just who was worthy of God’s love and attention. And after this experience with Cornelius, Peter proclaimed that God shows no partiality. None. Anyone who fears God and does what is right in the eyes of God has claim to be a child of God. He understood in his head and in his heart that Jesus, this man and Messiah who he had spent three years with, was sent by God through the Holy Spirit with a powerful message for all people. That God was not just the God of Israel, but the God of all nations. And Jesus has been appointed to be to one to judge and offer forgiveness to all people. 
God is big enough not to just be the God of those who proclaim to believe. And Jesus is the Lord not just of those in a certain century or a certain place or a certain ethnicity. Jesus is and will continue to be the judge of the living and the dead. Of our world and everything outside of our understanding and worldview. Not just of those who believe, of those who describe themselves as Christians, but of all. 
And all is a really scary concept for a world that likes to segment itself. This time and attention belongs to family, this to work, this to what I believe. Compartmentalizing and labeling just doesn’t work any longer, because Jesus Christ is Lord of all. All encompassing. No one or thing outside the perimeter of his love and power. And that makes Jesus Christ also the hope of all people. Universal. 
All and universal. Something that our nation and world also find scary. The idea of everyone being on equal footing with us doesn’t sit well. So we strive to separate people, to put them down, because of their gender, race, and ethnicity. The money they make or the family they come from. The language they speak or the place that they live. We need to prove that we are better then someone, anyone, and the more distance we can create between ourself and the next person in the name of achievement and success, the better.
But the problem with that is that it doesn’t reflect how God sees us and how God wants us to see each other. For God shows no partiality. For just as Christ is the judge of all people and Lord of all, he is also the source of peace for the world. And we cannot have peace with and through Christ if we constantly try to separate ourselves from the ones that Christ loves. Perhaps there is no better time to be reminded of that then this Sunday, Peace with Justice Sunday. A special Sunday that exists to remind us how God wants us to treat other people. That the Lord requires us to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. That the Church is not just those here in this place or this nation, but people around the world. That the Church is Universal, because Christ came for all. 
When Peter entered into the home of Cornelius things changed for him. The doors of his mind and heart flew open and he got something right - this message is not just for him and this movement is going to reach far beyond the people he thought deserved it or were chosen for it. This was a break through moment in the book of Acts because the Church truly became something for every person seeking to be transformed. Are we still giving that same message today? Or has the Church become something that we only offer to those whom we deem to be worthy or those whom we are comfortable with? 
I don’t think that Peter made distinctions about who Jesus came to save or what this new movement was to be about because he was mean or a horrible person. I think he was acting out of fear. Fear that if it truly was bigger then what he thought it was that it could not be contained. Fear that he was not good enough. Fear that he did not have an automatic in or status. But the perfect love of Christ casts out fear, and calls us to step forward in bold hope because of the message that Jesus proclaimed, even to the point of hanging on the cross. We too are called to set aside our fears and notions about what the church should be like and embrace the freedom to be whoever God calls us to be and to include whomever God brings our way to include. That may mean stepping away from what we have always done or known in light of Christ’s love for all. It may mean being very uncomfortable at times. But Christ did not promise his disciples, including Peter, that they would be comfortable, and he does not tell us today that this will be the case. Because the message of today’s scripture, and really the point of this entire sermon series, is that the Spirit calls who the Spirit calls and the Spirit will not be contained or silenced because of our fears. Rather the Spirit moves in power despite our attempts to contain her. For no matter how we try to separate ourselves from others, God will always draw us back together, make us look each other in the eyes and say, “this is my child. Love as I have loved. Love all.” Amen. 

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Relational God - John 3: 1-17


       Today’s scripture passage contains one of the most often quoted Bible verses, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of the water and the spirit.” Its so popular that you can even see it printed on signs along the road and in people’s yards. But when we strive to capture the message Jesus is trying to relay to this one verse we miss the beauty of the struggle in the passage as a whole.
Nicodemus is a man whom many scholars have pondered over the years. Because so little is said of him, one would think that he would be one-dimensional or easy to categorize, but this is not the case at all. John Calvin believed that Nicodemus was like Joseph of Arimathea (the man who gave his family tomb for Jesus’ body), a secret disciple of Christ, not quite strong enough to act on his convictions in the light of day, so he had to sneak under the cloak of darkness to be taught by Jesus. Soren Kierkegaard thought Nicodemus could not even be seen as a secret disciple, instead he has someone who only associated himself with Jesus when it was to his own benefit, out of fear of what other people would think. But when we try to form a complete picture of Nicodemus from today’s scripture passage or the thoughts of scholars alone we miss some big pieces about his life - that he argued against the Sanhedrin;s decision to arrest and sentence Jesus during the last days of his life and that he bought the spices to give Jesus’ a proper burial. All in all, Nicodemus was a complicated man.
And things would be very complicated for Nicodemus. On one hand he had his colleagues telling him why Jesus was dangerous to their way of life and should be silenced. On the other hand his own convictions told him that Jesus was a teacher who was sent by God with a message for the people. He believed that what Jesus was doing and saying showed that he had a relationship with God and God’s presence was being demonstrated through Jesus. Through Nicodemus’ context as a keeper of the law it appeared that Jesus was exemplifying the Law’s of Moses.
But Jesus did not consider himself to be a keeper or teacher of the law. Instead, he proclaimed that he was someone who came directly from God to tell of what he knew of God from being in relationship to God. And that was confusing for Nicodemus. If we would be honest with ourselves it would probably be just as confusing for us today. We’ve created this term and concept to try to help ourselves and explain to others just what we believe about this relationship that Jesus has with God. We hold this belief that God is three divine persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, also referred to as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. We believe that these three persons have such a deep and intrinsic relationship that they cannot be separated from one another. That they are equal and of one being. Each person is wholly and entirely God, yet wholly united and distinct at the same time. It is not logical. 
I can understand why this ill-logical idea of who Jesus is was hard for Nicodemus as a man of the law. Rules exist for a reason that can be explained. The Law of Moses existed to describe God’s character and values. And here is a teacher whom Nichodemus believes in, yet cannot fully grasp, standing in front of him, a logical and learned man, telling him to throw what he believes out the window. Telling him that when it it all said and done, logical and laws will not save him. Talking to him about being born again of the Spirit, when the only logical and proven birth is physical. Jesus just doesn’t fit into how Nicodemus understands the world. He cannot categorize or contain Jesus, and that presents a problem.
Birth that comes from faith. Life that comes from death. Three in one and one in three. Its just as hard for us to understand with our rational minds today. The love of Christ is not something that someone can teach us or argue us into believing. It is something that must be experienced and touch our hearts on the inside in order to transform our minds and spirits. If anyone should believe this it should be the Methodists for our creator, John Wesley, had such a transformational experience. He, like Nicodemus, understood rationally the law and the scripture. He could explain the theological doctrines, like that of the Trinity, but it wasn’t until years after preaching and teaching that his heart was “strangely warmed.” That faith went from being a decision of the head to a matter of the heart. 
I fear that too many Christians have not had this heart warming experience. When one does not have this experience with the relational God who changes our entire beings, it is hard to tell someone else about it. So we resort to apologetics, or making a case for our faith through logic. Logic may speak to the logical, but it is not transformative in the same way as God using our heart to speak to other hearts. The heart cannot speak to logic, nor logic to the heart. Part of Nicodemus’ struggle in today’s passage is that he is not speaking the same language as Jesus. He comes seeking answers that are concrete, maybe even plain, and definitely literal. And he enters into a conversation with Jesus speaking in words of poetry - symbols and analogies trying to pontificate about the spiritual. The part of our souls that countless have tried to capture through creative and artistic means. 
Our soul needs someone to speak to it in this language of the heart - a language that is hard to put into words and even harder to understand with our heads. Perhaps that is what makes public worship gatherings so vital yet so difficult at times. We have rituals of beauty with deep symbolism and words of poetry that are spoken, but we will not let ourselves be free to be moved by their beauty because we are so caught up in the rational instead of the relational. 
Jesus’ entire purpose in coming to this world was to save us from ourselves, and help us rediscover who we are in the image of God. And when that truly happens it is as if we have started this life all over again. And somewhere in Nicodemus’ life between this very confusing conversation with Jesus and him having enough courage to stand up and condemn his peers for what they were doing, he got it. He had a transformation of the heart that transformed his very being. He went from being someone so afraid of the stigma Jesus’ presented that he went to see him at night to someone of bold courage speaking out against injustice. From someone who was bound up by fear to someone who could publicly proclaim himself to be a follower of Christ. 
There are a lot of people who use this verse to tell people that they need to be saved, and that may be well and true. But this scripture passage is telling us the story of a man who went from being caught up in his head to being lead by his heart. Of a man who was transformed. From someone cloaked in the darkness of not understanding and caught up in questions about facts to a man of new possibilities. 
This past week I had the honor to preside at a funeral where I had the opportunity to speak about a God who loves us enough to be in the business of constantly doing a new thing in our lives. Constantly reaching out to us in new ways, just trying to break through our stubborn heads into our malleable hearts. And I see that in today’s scripture passage today as well. But I’m left asking if that is really what we want. Do we really want to be transformed in our entire beings and have our hearts strangely warmed? Do we want be in relationship with a God who is all about community and relationship, even in God’s very own being - the Father is with the Son who is with the Spirit who is with the Father. To be in relationship with the one calls us to give, and receive, and constantly be renewed and recreated? Because that is scary. It requires vulnerability and a propensity for setting reason aside. 
Friends, I do not believe that we simply make the choice to be reborn. We make a series of choices each and every day that lead us in that direction. That open us up to the stirrings of God. Just as God made a series of choices through each person in the Trinity to reveal the very self of God to us. To make himself known and heard. God now is inviting us to make a series of choices to let our hearts be bear before the throne of God, so that our entire beings may be transformed, not only in this life, but in the life to come. Do you want to be transformed by a relationship with God? Amen. 

Friday, June 1, 2012

Funeral Sermon - Fred C. - Rev 21: 1-7


       When people ask me as a pastor what happens to us after we die, I have to honestly answer that I do not know. I would have to say that I do not know the facts of what happens, or the process, or what Heaven is like, but I do know what I believe because of my experience with God’s grace and passages in scripture like today’s.
I believe that when we die we have the opportunity to experience the new heaven and the new earth. The new Holy dwelling place of God , where God dwells fully with us, and there will be no more crying or pain. A place where death no longer exists, and God is making all things new.
When many people hear this description they gravitate to the idea that Heaven will be a place without pain and suffering, where there will be no more tears of sorrow. And I believe that. But the part that resonates with me the most, is that even after we die, even in Heaven, God is in the process of making all things new. Throughout scripture, some of the verses that have resonated the most with me, have been about God recreating and renewing. God doing a new thing in spite of the people’s lack of creativity or protesting that a new thing is not possible. And in today’s passage we are told that this renewing nature of God does not cease with our mortal bodies, but continues eternally. We are continually given new chances, new times to make things right. God’s love for us transcends our mortal sense of time and place into eternity. And that gives me comfort and hope more then any other statement in today’s scripture passage.
There are very few people who can claim to have lived a perfect life. Most of us make mistakes and are in need of God’s renewing spirit within us. If we are lucky and wise, we accept that renewing spirit, that second chance, that invitation to reinvent ourselves, when we are alive on this earth. In talking to Fred’s family members, it seems that in some aspect of his life, he was this wise and renewed man. Like with his grandchildren, whom he deeply loved and strove to taught new things that he cared about, like fishing, so they could experience them together. Things may have not been perfect before or after the grandchildren, but with them he was a renewed person.
Fred was also lucky because he knew about the simplicity of life. He worked hard throughout his life traveling as a roofer and a painter. He enjoyed NASCAR and cooking on the grill. He had a dog Dusty, whom he adored to spend time with and care for. And he always could be found enjoying a good game of Yazettz, where by the sheer number of Yazettz alone, he was probably the champ.
Even with the ability to profoundly love his grandchildren and the simple things in life, Fred was not a perfect man. As none of us really have a perfect existence. But God loves us despite of our imperfections. I believe that in the life eternal, God even more boldly proclaims, “Look, I am making all things new” including each of us. Even in eternity we have the ability to be renewed by the knowledge and love of God. And I don’t know about you, but that excites me. Why who we were on this earth may be tied to the memories of those whom loved us, that does not mean that is who we are going to be in eternity! Those small moments and times when we were able to be renewed here on this earth, like Fred was with his grandchildren, will not stop. They will keep growing in heaven through God’s grace and love for us!
Today we entrust Fred into God’s care, which is filled with this love and grace. We give him back to the God that says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing.” May that give those of us left here grieving, hope and comfort. Amen.