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, September 28, 2014

Eph 4:1-16 “Who are We as the Church?”

Kenneth Carder in his book Living Our Belief writes this powerful statement: “Without a memory of what the church is called to be, the church becomes what the people want it to be.” Let me repeat that: “Without a memory of what the church is called to be, the church becomes what the people want it to be.”
While folks may claim that we need to know more about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, few would wonder think we need to discuss what it means to be the Church - who we are as the Body of Christ. Yet, as Carder points out we need to remember what it means to be the Church - remember the purpose and mission God has for us, so we do not become just another organization.
We talk about Church a lot, but how many people actually know what the Church is supposed to be? Let me ask you a question, if the Church is the tool that God uses to transform the world, how would our neighborhood be different if this church wasn’t present? Would our community even notice? Another way to phrase this question would be to ask why we need this specific Church? Adam Hamilton often speaks about the vital questions that we need to be able to answer as people of the Christian Faith. Two include - why do we need the Church universal and why do we need this specific church?
We need the Church universal because it is the way God has chosen to fulfill the mission of Christ in the World. In fact, the Church is called to be the very sign of God’s presence to the World. But sometimes we forget that. We forget that the Church, both universal and local, isn’t about us. It isn’t about what style of worship we like. Or how we prefer to spend our money. Or even about what we do or do not get out of Sunday worship. Because the Church belongs to God, not us. Its about making the mission of God visible in the world by being the light in a very dark world. 
But as a denomination the United Methodist Church takes the mission of the Church Universal one step further. We are a missional church. Which means, we exist chiefly for people who do not yet know God. We exist to do good for all people - to reach out and be an alternative community to neighbor and stranger alike. We exist to serve people in the world in order to further the mission of Christ. 
I want you to think of something this church does - anything. Do you have something in your mind? Great. Now how does that thing, be it an activity or a place we donate money to or a study we participate in, whatever it may be, serve people who do not yet know Christ or grow people who know Christ into deeper disciples. In other words how does it fulfill the mission of the United Methodist Church to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the World? Or even more locally, how does it fulfill the mission of this parish to share the power of Christ? If you can’t answer that question, we may have a problem. If you can answer that question, do you think your neighbor next to you could answer it about the same thing and give the same answer? If not, we are not on the same page with the mission and vision of God’s Kingdom that we are working towards as this local church. And that stings a little. 
In this morning’s scripture lesson we hear that the Church is the body of Christ, knitted together under the leadership of the Lord. Carder writes, “the Church is our very identify, not an organization we belong to in accordance with our preferences or connivence.” Sometimes the Church looses its way and losses it memory about who we are and whose we are. When we make it about petty things its evident that we have forgotten who we belong to.  Just whose Lordship we are under. Just who we exist for. 
But even when we remember whose we are, we may still forget what we are supposed to be doing. Paul tells the followers in Ephesus that they are to live a life worthy of their calling. Here’s the thing about calling - we all have one - we just sometimes choose to ignore it. While pastors may have a very specific calling to lead the church, everyone who calls them-self Christian are called to some time of servanthood and ministry by way of their baptism. Its just that the calling varies. But in this scripture passage we are told that we all have gifts - its just that the gifting and calls vary. 
Have you ever taken time to pray about why you are part of this local body of Christ? Because you aren’t here by accident. You are here, because Christ gives us every gifting we need in each local body to thrive, THRIVE, for the Kingdom of God. Not just get by. Not just meet the budget. But to make a difference in transforming the world.
Whenever I start to talk about the church universal, I get passionate. Because the Church universal is both visible and invisible. Is here in this place and around the globe. Its any place where the Word of God is preached, the sacraments are administered, and there is a presence of people of faith. Not just people but people of faith. People who faithfully want to be the Church. Want to be about something bigger than themselves. Want to be about the mission and work of God. Want to be about reaching new people about Jesus Christ - and move past want to action. In fact, people of faith live a life of holy, active expectancy, meaning that we are aware that God is using us to work in the world for something so much bigger than we could ever grasp.
Then when I start to talk about how local churches are living into that mission, that vision of being the Church of Jesus Christ I get really excited, and often really loud. While there are many places and organizations that do good in this world, the church is the only one that exists to transform lives both here in the present and in the life to come. Amen! That’s why we reach out beyond our walls - not make more members, but to make more disciples. To connect more people to the person and message and power of Christ! 
But the Church universal and the local church can also break my heart when we put the wrong things first. My dad was telling me when they were up to visit a few weeks ago that he teaches his Sunday School class that its not about them - there may be months when they do not get anything and thats when people sometimes give up and stop coming. But they need to be present because their neighbor may be in a fruitful season spiritually and their presence is a part of that. It breaks my heart when we forget that. When we make it all about us. When we make it about what we want instead of about the heart of God.

There is an older contemporary worship song entitled the Heart of Worship that contains powerful lyrics that I often pray for the Church universal, may we make it “all about You Jesus. I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it, but its all about You.” May we remember that we exist because of Jesus Christ. And that our mission isn’t about us, or what we get out of being the Church, but is all about furthering the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ. Our Leader, Head, and Lord. Amen. 

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Who is the Holy Spirit? John 16: 1-15

My senior year of college I took both the most challenging and most rewarding class in my degree in religion - an independent study on the Trinity. What made it both hard and fulfilling was today’s topic - the Holy Spirit. Every week my friend and I would talk for hours about the Holy Spirit’s purpose and presence in our lives. The others discussions around the Trinity we understood. We grasped God. We loved Jesus. But the Holy Spirit...well that still remained a mystery.
Most folks who claim to be Christians would fall into the same boat as my friend and I. They grasp the concept of God as the ultimate Creator. They love Jesus who modeled how to live out our faith and paid the price for our sins by dying on the cross. But the Holy Spirit still alludes them. 
I’m sure the concept of the Holy Spirit confused the disciples in today’s scripture passage as well. This is part of Jesus’s farewell discourse. He is trying to simultaneously tell his disciples that he will be leaving and give them comfort. Enter the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells them that while he hadn’t revealed it to them from the beginning, he now how to tell them that he was leaving them, but another would be coming from God. This other would only enter into their lives once he had physically departed their presence. 
Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Advocate. In the United Methodist Modern Affirmation of Faith, the Holy Spirit is described as “the divine presence in our lives whereby we are kept in perpetual remembrance of the truth of Christ, and find strength and help in our time of need.” The Advocate comforts, sustains, and empowers us. In other words, the Holy Spirit gives the disciples, and us, exactly what we need to live out our faith in this world, even when it is difficult.
And perhaps that is the image of the Holy Spirit that we like to cling to the most. When I taught confirmation a few years ago, I asked the class how they envisioned the Holy Spirit. The most common answer was as a dove. One who brings peace. But that’s only part of what the Holy Spirit does. Yes, the Spirit does comfort us and stirs up our desire to draw us closer to God. But the Holy Spirit also won’t leave us alone - won’t leave us as we are. The Spirit moves us towards perfection, holiness, sanctification, and the love of God. And that brothers and sisters is hard work. Some of the confirmation students were shocked to find out that the Holy Spirit appeared as a fierce wind and fire on Pentecost. One person even remarked that the Holy Spirit is the power behind our faith. 
That hits the nail on the head. Who is the Holy Spirit? The power behind our faith. The one who can answer the questions, “where is God now?” and “how is God active, alive and moving now?” I wonder how the disciples would have responded if that is how Jesus would have described the Holy Spirit to them at first. Would they have jumped ship? Said it was too much? Left the mission. Jesus is spoon-feeding them at first about who the Spirit is. The Holy Spirit is more powerful then we can ever imagine. I’ve been the work of the Spirit through mending broken hearts and healing relationships torn asunder. 
As Christians we do believe that the Holy Spirit is the power behind our faith, the rutter behind the ship of the Church, even if we don’t always recognize it. Have you ever noticed how many times we pray to the Holy Spirit? During baptism we ask “that the Holy Spirit work within you” and during the celebration of holy communion to “pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and wine” and “by the power of your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all of the world.” We pray to the Holy Spirit because we get that the Holy Spirit has power, we just fail to claim that power in our daily lives. Jesus is trying to both comfort the disciples and tell them to claim the power God is sending them through the Advocate. We need to claim that same power today, realizing the impact the Holy Spirit has on our life and our world. 
But notice what the text says next: that when the Spirit comes he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment. The Holy Spirit has the power to convict those both inside and outside of the Church about sin and prime our response to the gospel message! Have you ever got frustrated because you shared the gospel message with someone but they didn’t quite get it. Its okay - let the power of the Holy Spirit work in their lives and through you! Keep witnessing! For it is by the power and gift of the Spirit that we can share at all. We need to realize that the Spirit both goes before us and responds to our prayers. Keep praying. Keep acting. Keep following the Spirits prompting!
For United Methodists, our founder John Wesley believed that it is the Holy Spirit that moves us forward in our faith. The Spirit who inspired scripture. The Spirit that brings us to speak prophetic words. And the Spirit that propels the church forward through the ages. The Spirit gives gifts that are to be used both for the church and through the church to transform the world. The mission statement of our parish is to “share the power of Christ” but it is only by the power of the Holy Spirit, prophesied by Christ, and made a reality by God, that we are sent out to transform the world.
There is a video series for small groups by Rob Bell called NOOMA. It breaks basic Biblical teachings down to about twelve minutes, making them understandable and adaptable. The word NOOMA means breath and Spirit. In one of the videos, entitled Breathe, the question is asked, “with all that all of have going on every day, who actually thinks about their breathing?” Maybe that is what makes the Holy Spirit so confusing, so mysterious. The Spirit is as close as our breath, and needed for our Christian walk, yet just like our breath we take it for grant it until we stop and notice. Stop and realize that the same breath and Spirit that God breathed into dust to create Adam is the same powerful Spirit that Jesus introduced the disciples to that day. Stop. Notice the Spirit. In our prayers. In our very presence. In our service. In our witness. Go. Follow the Spirits leading. Amen. 

Sunday, September 7, 2014

“Who is God?” Psalm 81: 1, 10-16

There are some basic beliefs that Christians hold and there are ways that United Methodists interpret and live into those beliefs. For the next five weeks we will be digging deeper into some of these truths and why they matter to our lives. They are things that most people in the Church will say that they “know” but there are always new things to learn and let sink into your heart. This series will be like an introduction course or refresher to the faith we share.
There isn’t really any way to ease into this series so we are just going to start off with a big topic - who is God? Today’s psalm describes God in so many ways: as our strength, our source of joy, our deliver, the one who fills us, the one who is jealous for us, and the one who satisfies us. Big promises and concepts to wrap our minds around. 
The truth is, we will never be fully able to describe who God is to us. For we only know about God what God has chosen to reveal to us. And even in the midst of those revelations, our human understanding of God is limited at best. So we craft stories and poems to try to get language around these revelations. Language to express to others who God is and what God is doing in our lives. And that is hard. There is so much to say about God, yet we don’t know even how to begin.
Think about the person you are closest to in life. Or perhaps the person you have known the longest. How would you begin to describe them to someone who has never met them? Some of us are good at describing folks that don’t know each other to one another. I have friends who have never met, but will ask me about each other when we chat, because they feel like they know them through my descriptions. But its hard to describe our whole experience with a person - it takes many conversations, many descriptions, many stories. 
As United Methodists we place an emphasis on having a personal relationship and experiences with God. We lift up the fact that its not enough to know about God, we need to know God personally. Think back to my friends - they know about each other, but they don’t know one another with the deep sense of intimacy I do. That can only emerge over time with shared experiences. So it is with God. We may be able to start out our relationship with God finding out facts and descriptions, but that relationship will remain shallow at best if we do not progress to knowing God personally, in a way that can only develop over time shared together. 
The way that we perceive our experiences with God will ultimately influence how much we trust God and can grow in our relationship. One of the questions that blocks relationships with God the most often is ‘why would God allow humans to suffer?’ Inherent in this questions are the beliefs that God is in control and is all powerful and all knowing. Yet, we seem to forget that God created humans with the capacity for free will, which means that our decisions have consequences. And sadly, other’s decisions can have unintended consequences for us. Its as the psalmist writes: “I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsel”.  We seem to embrace the freewill that God has gifted us with, until something goes wrong - then we want God to be a puppet master, controlling each of our experiences. But that would not allow us to develop a relationship with God. On the other side of the coin - God didn’t just create the universe then step back, just to see what would happen. God walks with us through our suffering, if only we can perceive that Holy presence in the midst of chaos. God does not and will not leave us alone in our suffering. Additionally, as United Methodists we believe that God will redeem our suffering when a new heaven and new earth is created, as well as use it for Kingdom purposes while here on earth. God does not cause suffering, but God redeems it for us. Ultimately that is what God is doing - working through and with us to create this new Kingdom, both here on earth and beyond. We believe that God is not a far off deity, simply living in Heaven and not present in our lives. Instead we believe that God is active and moving and present with each of us. 
Another stumbling block for some people in how to describe who God is comes with naming God. We are limited in our human language in how we can talk about God, so we try to use human descriptions and names to capture what our relationship is with God. But God doesn’t make this easy, for the only name or title God gives us is “I am who I am.” Because of our discomfort with this description of God we search for other names, most often landing on “Father”, which is Biblically used. But the Bible has other ways to describe and name God as well: God of Abraham, Shepherd, Woman in Labor, Creator, Maker, Lord, Jehovah, King, Almighty. Ultimately God cannot be captured by any one of these descriptors, but at their very best they can help draw us into a deeper relationship and lead others into relationship with a Holy God as well. 
We cling to and describe most frequently the language around the parts of God we treasure most - but we need to realize and accept that this may not be true for every other Christian - and that does not make either of us wrong. For example, the last church I served was African American, some of whom survived Hurricane Katrina. They stressed the God of deliverance who accompanies us even through the darkest valleys of life. They see the God of deliverance in the Exodus story and lift that up, just like today’s Psalmist who writes, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the Land of Egypt.” But that may not be how you view God. Maybe you cling to the image of God expressed later in the psalm when it says, “I would feed you the finest of the wheat and with honey from the rock I satisfy you.” Or maybe you view God in a different way entirely. I once was told that trying to describe God was like looking through a kaleidoscope - we all are going to see different shapes and images, but they represent different parts of God, because God is so vast. 

Part of the first Article of Religion for United Methodists sums up the scriptural teachings about God by stating, “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible.” A description wide enough for us to find God in the midst of. A description narrow enough that we can be in relationship with this God. Who do you believe God to be and how is God alive and moving in your life in a way you can point out and describe to others? How is your life proclaiming the presence and power of God? How are you leading others to know who God is? Amen.