“Growing in Christ: Meditation” Psalm 1

I only remember having a family garden one time growing up. We picked a spot away from the house. We picked out what vegetables we wanted to plant. We dug in the dirt. Planted. And waited. And waited. The yield from our garden was tiny at best. Carrots no bigger than my pinky. A handful of potatoes. There may have been some green beans. But most of the crops died.

Looking back, my brothers and I liked the idea of a garden a lot more than actually taking care of one. We didn’t cultivate the soil well before we planted. We didn’t read the instructions about the best way or time of the year to plan each crop. And we only watered our little patch of land when we felt like it and remembered. 

As sad as our little garden was, what breaks my heart more is that how we treated that garden is how most people treat their spiritual life. Not really cultivating their inner life. Only seeking to practice spiritual disciplines when they feel like and remember, instead of seeing them as vital to spiritual growth and survival. Choosing to get caught up in the busyness of the day instead of dwelling in the word of God. And the result is a parched spiritual life.

Once we neglect our souls, what happens? They start to cry out. Sometimes we even know that our spiritual lives are hurting, but we choose instead to ignore it by being consumed in other things that we think are more important. In the words of Dallas Willard, one of the prolific writers on the spiritual life, “Only once we clearly acknowledge the soul, we can learn to hear its cries.”.

For the next ten weeks we are going to do just that - acknowledge the soul. We are going to delve into scripture together to come up with spiritual practices to try as individuals and in community in order to find spiritual grounding. Some of the disciplines may not seem to be your thing, but I would encourage each of us to earnestly try them for one week, only one week, in order to find the best way to feed your soul. Who knows, maybe God is waiting to reach out to you a new way through one of these disciplines.

We are made for relationship with God. In fact, our relationship to God is the most important relationship we have. Yet, sometimes we act as if God is the least important relationship in our life, putting off the work of the spiritual life until we have more time. Or we run to God when circumstances are trying, but turn back to our old habits and schedules when things are going well. This isn’t living from the center of a healthy soul, brothers and sisters. And as a result our spiritual lives become more focused on knowing about God, instead of really knowing God personally. Spiritual practices are tools to help us connect to this first and primary relationship with God, cultivating it. No one else can do the hard work of cultivating your soul for you. No one else can practice spiritual disciplines for you. Its up to you - and flows from the importance you place on your relationship with God. 

We live in a day and age of superficiality. As a result, our faith lives have started to look like the world around us, shallow at best. We need people of faith, who reject the noise, hurry, and crowds of the world, to dwell in a deep relationship with God. Spiritual disciples are truly for everyone, not the spiritual elite. In fact, we are all called to cultivate our inner lives in order to be able to hear God’s voice and more faithfully obey God’s word. 

Today’s Psalm speaks of one of these spiritual practices - meditation. “Happy are those who...delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on his law day and night.” Meditation is one of those words that has gotten a bad reputation over the year. For some of us we may think of other religious practices when we hear chanting, and become uncomfortable, others may think of those who seem to space out of society. Still others may claim that meditation is only for those who have lots of time to fill. But at its very core, Christians believe that meditation is gaze deeply into God’s word and reflect upon God’s works. Meditation allows us to give God our undivided attention so we can more fully know about God’s nature and see God’s heart for us. 

There are many different things we could choose to meditate on in order to fall more deeply in love with God, but the Psalmist speaks on meditating on God’s law, the word of God. Scripture reflects God’s nature and purpose for us. In this Psalm, the author speaks of two different types of people - those who love scripture and use it to feed their souls, and those who aren’t grounded in the Word, so they blow too and fro. In a way the Psalmist is asking if we live by God’s law or our own? If we allow God to search us and be our judge, or if we use our own rules and logic to justify what we are doing, even if we know that it is wrong. The Psalmist is essentially asking, do you allow yourselves to be instructed by God’s word? And this is a question that still penetrates each of our faith lives today. 

Another botched planting story. When I was in elementary school we had to have science projects. Both of my projects had disastrous consequences, but for one of them I watered plants with different kinds of beverages. Some with water. Some with soda. Some with kool aid. Only one plant survived - the one that was nourished by water. The others began to grow mold and smell, so much so that we had to move them out of the main living area, to a back room so they didn’t make the whole house reek. 

Where are you getting your nourishment? From dwelling in the word of God? Or from superficial sources? Are you like a tree with deep roots, drinking from the living water, or do you think that you can absorb the word through other people instead of putting in the hard time and work yourself?

In order to find life giving nourishment in the word through meditation, we can’t just pass over a scripture superficially. Instead we have to read bits of passages slowly, over and over again, until we find the reality of what the passage is speaking to us, or in the words of Richard Foster, until “The written word becomes the living word addressed to you”.

The best way to meditate on scripture is find a time to be alone, just you, the Lord, and the Word. Plan this time daily and make sure it happens. It doesn’t have to be a long period of time, try starting out with 15 or 20 minutes. Find a passage that speaks to your heart and read it slowly. Don’t read the passage to absorb facts so much as to seek the truth it has for your life. Reflect upon it with your mind and your heart. Absorb it, letting it sink in and transform you from the inside out. Let it be integrated into your life. 

Meditation is an act of faith. It requires with drawing from the things that distract us from God, so that we can intentionally be present to our Creator, leading us into deeper relationship. Its not rooted in a desire to study, but rather a desire to love God more fully. 

But here’s the thing - meditation is hard work. It keeps us from being spiritually lazy, which means automatically there are some people who will give up on it because its difficult. But how many of you are married? Or have a child? Or a friend? All of those relationships are hard work too. Somewhere along the way, we’ve tricked ourselves into thinking that our relationship with God should be easy. But how easy can it possibly be to fill your mind with God in a world that is trying to pull you every other possible direction? No wonder the Psalmist describes those who do not meditate on the law of the Lord as chaff that the wind drives away.

What makes the righteous, righteous in this Psalm is that they dwell with God. They seek to integrate the law in  a way that helps them live with integrity, living a life that is authentic and whole. Can we say the same things about our faith lives currently? Today, do you feel more like chaff blowing in the wind, or a tree with deep roots? Do you feel like a plant that is being nourished with living water, or one that is molding and starting to smell? And, what are you willing to put into your relationship with God in order to cultivate your soul and bear the fruit of the righteous? Amen. 

“Disciples for a New Day” 1 Cor 4: 1-5

Psychologists have found that humans are constantly judging situations and each other. We may place a fancy word on it, such as discriminating, but we are still judging things and people, even unconsciously to see if they are worth our attention. We live in a day and age when we are on sensory overload, so we judge even more frequently. We have become poisoned by the judgment epidemic, to the point where we do not even realize that we are judging anymore. 

And surely there are times when judging is fruitful, preventing us from being caught up in situations we should rather stay away from. But the Apostle Paul reminds us in today’s scripture lesson that we are first and foremost to see ourselves as servant of Christ, not the judge of others, or even the judge of ourselves. 

Why would Paul even take time to talk about judging versus not judging? Isn’t that a no-brainer, God is the judge of all, not us? Perhaps we think this lesson is easily learned, yet even today we struggle with judgmental attitudes inside of the Church. Paul takes time to write to the Church at Corinth about this issue because judging has its roots in an even bigger heart issue, which is largely hidden. Issues such as insecurity with ourselves, bigotry, racism, classism, agism - the list goes on and on. When our hearts become infected with these intolerances, we find ourselves judging a group of people more quickly than we should, or making sweeping generalities based off of what people look like, instead of getting to know who they truly are. Perhaps this is why God alone is judge, because God alone knows what is going on inside of each of us.

The Church at Corinth wasn’t just having a problem with judging those outside of their fellowship, they were judging those on the inside as well. A few chapters later, Paul needs to remind them what communion is truly about, as it has become a time to separate the classes. The wealthy ate first and had their fill, while the poor were left with the scraps, if not disclosed entirely. This was not the vision of community that God had in mind.

Further, the people of Corinth were struggling with their own insecurities over their identity as well. They didn’t know who they were to be. So many different people were placing labels on them, some positive and some negative, that they began to see themselves through the lens of others instead of the eyes of God. They had to come face to face with the competing expectations they were being saddled with, and throw out those which were not of God - a hard task to say the least - that left them feeling vulnerable and questioning who they were. 

Perhaps we can have a bit more sympathy with the church at Corinth when we start to examine our own situations. We live in a world that has much to say about the Church. In fact, in a study conducted by the Barna Group, the chief religious research institution, people under the age of 40 say that above all they see the church as judgmental. Further they think the Church is self-serving and irrelevant. We, like the Corinthians, need to stop and examine just how we got saddled with these labels and if this has become our identity over and above being servants of God. 

Sometimes the labels others place on us are spot on. Other times, they come from mis-perceptions. In a world that is faced with an over-whelming amount of choices, sometimes what Christians choose, under the banner of following Christ, results in them being mis-understood. And sometimes our choices are a result of mis-understanding the command of Christ as the Church and factions result. 

So what exactly is Jesus calling us to do? To make disciples. He is remarkably clear in what we call the great commission in the Gospel of Matthew - go to the very ends of the earth to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, this commission has been carried out in harmful ways over the years - including baptism following the threat of death, fire and brimstone preaching, and even removing children from parents who refuse to raise them as Christians. But we have also made disciples in incredibly beautiful and nurturing ways. The question we need to ask ourselves, is how are we being called to make disciples in a new day?

First off, we need to remember our place. We are called to be servants of Christ, not judges. God has that covered. We are simply to go forth and live out our Christian vocation, not discriminating between who we feel is worthy to hear this message or not. We need not judge people by our standards, but rather are called to look at them with the eyes of God. 

Second, we need to be adaptable. I’ve heard time and time again that we need young people to come into the Church. But we simply think that offering an invitation, or even worse, not offering an invitation at all, will result in young adults flocking to the church in droves. Young people today want to be invested in something that is making a difference in this world that they can see and experience. Do we have places like this in our parish? If not, what do we need to change in order to make this a place that is known for ministries of healing and justice? If we aren’t living into our vocation of a shared life of mission and service, we are missing a valuable opportunity to make disciples in this new day and age, where the focus is transforming the world, not membership. 

Third, we need to live our lives in such a way that people want to know what is different about us. If the best we’ve got going for us Church is that we are judgmental, we have a problem. If that is what we are known for, what do we need to change in order to be experienced as a place where God’s grace is freely given to all and where Spirits are awakened to that grace? Why aren’t people witnessing God’s transforming power through our words and actions? Why aren’t we heard as the place proclaiming love for God and our neighbor?

Lastly, to make disciples for this new day, we need to have a living faith. The type of faith that doesn’t mis-represent itself to make others look bad. The type of faith that is honest and authentic. A faith that is vulnerable when we come before God and one another. A shared faith with our brothers and sisters who hold us accountable for our sin and ignorance, because they know us well. A faith that shares one another’s burdens.

Here’s the thing. People can throw around all sorts of statistics about why the Church is in decline in North America. But those statistics can backfire when they lead us to judge ourselves or others. Instead, what is we turned the conversation around, asking how we will reach out to so many people in our community who are not yet a disciple of Christ? What if we changed the conversation into how we can be an inviting and welcoming Christian community? Or how we will reach out to people in adaptable and relevant ways? What if we take an honest look at ourselves and see if what people are saying about us, the Church, have any roots in the truth and seek to repent so the message of Christ isn’t hindered? What if we reclaim that we are servants of God, not the judge of others?

Robert Evans once said that transformation is the conversion of the entire person and society. As United Methodists we claim that our purpose is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world - the conversion of people and society. How are we going to live into this claim in this day and age? Amen. 

“The Spirit of God” - Acts 2: 1-21

The story is told of an elderly man who had been a life long member of a local church. One day the man died and the church folks all gathered to celebrate his life, but many people didn’t know much about him. The following Sunday the church folks returned for worship only to find that the lights were off, the heat wasn’t turned on, there was still a mess in the sanctuary, and the garbage was overflowing. It ends up this man singularly took care of most of the behind the senses tasks that made the church a pleasant place to be on Sunday. He did it all without any fanfare so people didn’t realize until his absence how vital he was.

When I heard this story the first time my thoughts immediately went to the Holy Spirit. One of the claims of the Church is that God is three in one and one in three. Three distinct persons with distinct roles, yet wholly untied and all part of the Godhead. Yet, the Holy Spirit seems to be the most forgotten and least talked about part of the Trinity. Even on this Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, when we celebrate the birth of the Church, the Holy Spirit sometimes gets discounted. We forget how vital the Spirit is, until he seems to be absent from our lives, personally or corporately.

In some Bibles, in addition to scripture verses being numbered, topics are broken up and given headings - a preview of what the section is about. In my Bible, the first part of today’s scripture passage is entitled “The Coming of the Holy Spirit”. While that statement is true, the Holy Spirit has also existed with God and Jesus since the beginning of time, sweeping over the vastness that was to be created in the beginning. But now the Holy Spirit has come to form the Church, empowered by God to carry forth Christ’s mission to go the very ends of the earth baptizing disciples.

It makes me wonder, how long the Godhead had been planning this Pentecost celebration. How long had God been dreaming up this time when disciples would be gathered together, fearing for their very lives, yet would be met with a gift from Heaven that rushed through their space like a violent wind and appeared like tongues of fire? Did Christ know that the Spirit would enable his followers to speak languages they never studied, some they had never even heard before, in order to go forth in his name? Did God chuckle knowing how the people hearing these disciples would react? Asking how this was possible for them to hear Galileans speaking their own language? Or that some would be nay sayers would say that disciples were only drunk - as if alcohol would give them the power to speak different languages discernibly?

This celebration that God was planning was a giant gift to the Church that we still do not fully understand or unwrap today. We don’t understand the role of the Holy Spirit so we can’t tap into his power in our ministry. So what are some of the things that the Holy Spirit brings to the Church? The list is extensive, but I want to address four this morning. 

First, the Spirit brings forth signs and wonders. One of the things I hear from time to time that breaks my heart is that we are no longer in the age of miracles -that they don’t exist anymore. For that’s simply not true. We just don’t recognize the Spirit moving among us, bringing forth signs and wonders even today. Like the people in Jesus’ day who demanded a certain sign, only to receive something else instead, we overlook every day miracles, or worse don’t properly attribute them to the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t come in the packing we expect, so we dismiss it.

Second,, the Spirit gives us courage. The second part of this morning’s scripture has the title “Peter Addresses the Crowd” in my Bible. Peter, filled with the Spirit, has the courage to preach the first sermon of the Church. He raised his voice and told the crowd to listen to what he is saying. That those filled with the Spirit aren’t drunk, rather this is a fulfillment of scripture. Peter, who didn’t even have the courage to admit that he was a follower of Christ only a few months earlier, now is boldly proclaiming the gospel. 

Every time we claim that we aren’t brave enough to do something, or it makes us feel uncomfortable, or we can’t possibly do a certain work for the kingdom because we aren’t gifted, we are denying the courage and power the Spirit gives us. We dismiss the Spirit, thinking that he isn’t big enough to stand up to our own self-proclaimed inadequacies. What would have happened if Peter wouldn’t have seized the courage given by the Spirit at this moment? Three-thousand people would have missed out on the opportunity to be baptized. What moments do we miss when we make excuses instead of depending on the Spirit?

Third, the Spirit gives us guidance when making decisions. One of my favorite parts of the Pentecost story is the timing. The disciples were gathered in the upper room, waiting. Christ told them to wait in a certain place until a certain, undisclosed time. There is a lot of trust and hard work that goes into waiting. Yet the Spirit helps us discern the right time, decision, or plan of action, if we actually pray for these things. But all too often, we pray about something once and consider that good enough for discernment. Or we get caught up in other people’s ideas instead of the prompting of the Spirit. We lose our sensitivity to the movement of the Spirit and our ability to discern diminishes as we rely solely on ourselves instead of waiting on the Holy Spirit.

Lastly, the Spirit equips the Church for ministry. The disciples couldn’t speak these languages, they weren’t native to them. Yet the Holy Spirit came and reversed the confession that had existed since the tower of Babel. The Holy Spirit brings gifts and power to use them to the disciples. The Spirit works in creative ways to unite the nations for the mission of God, if only we would claim them.

Sometimes Pentecost is described as a Birthday party. And in some ways this is true. But some times we get too caught up in the image of a birthday party - where only certain people are invited. And at the end of the day, after the presents are opened, and the cake is eaten, people go home, back to their lives as if nothing has happened. But the birthday of the Church is something everyone is invited to, a celebration for the world if only people would RSVP. Some will dismiss the message, like the nay sayers claiming that the disciples were drunk. Others will simply come to see what all the commotion is about before return to their lives as scheduled. But there is the potential for the celebration to lead to lives being changed, if we rely on the Spirit in all of its power, creativity, and gifting. People can come to know Christ, if we have the courage to discern where the Spirit is leading and boldly follow. 

Brothers and Sisters, may we be a Church known for following the Spirit, instead of dismissing him. May we follow the gifting granted to us for the mission of making disciples for the transformation of the world, proclaiming the signs and wonders of our God, three in one and one in three. Amen.