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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, October 25, 2015

2 Samuel 5:1-5; 6:1-5; Psalm 150 “Let this be a place of worship”

“O Worship the King, all glorious above and graciously sing of his power and his love.” This old hymn kept playing through my mind as I prepared for this week’s sermon. You would think that this week topic and accompanying story about worship, would be easy to talk about, but I’m not so sure that’s the case. As the song reminds us, worship is about recognizing both God’s power and love, and I fear that we rarely look at them in tandem in our lives today. If David was like the rest of us he probably found himself wondering about some of life’s big questions as he sat out in the field tending the sheep day after day. Tending the sheep was not a fun job. It was, instead, not well respected in ancient societies. Only the lowest of the low were shepherds. Yet, it was a much needed job, and each day men would go out into the fields and risk their very lives for their sheep. No respect and putting one’s life in danger, not for another human being, but for an animal. I have to believe this would have lead David somewhere along the line to ask the big “why am I even here?” question. Yet, David had no way when he was out in that field to know what was to come. No way of knowing that the God of Israel would lead the prophet Samuel to his father’s house to anoint him to be the future king of Israel. A scrappy boy with a disregarded job, whom God had chosen to be King. But even after he was anointed King, his life was far from easy. He would be hunted down and threatened by the current King, Saul, who would reign over Israel for several more years after the anointing of David, until the moment when God chose for Saul’s reign to end. Which is where we pick up in our story today - David is now officially King, not just in Samuel’s eyes or God’s eyes, but in the eyes and hearts of the nation of Israel. Now, the people declare, David is not a shepherd over sheep, but a shepherd of the people of Israel. He has moved from being looked down upon and ignored to being adored. But then the hard work began. For David felt in his heart that he was not only tasked in leading the people military, but also to lead them to worship a Holy God. The God of his call. The God of his anointing. The God of his Kingship and this nation. He, more than any other King in Israel’s history, believed in the power and love that could be found in the ark of the covenant - the ornate box that contained the 10 commandments and marks for the people of Israel to remember who they are and whose they are. Each time there was a battle to enter, the ark of the covenant went forth. In times of peace, it rested at a holy place as a reminder of God’s presence. In today’s passage we are told that David and all of Israel celebrated with all of their might before the ark of the covenant - before their God.I have to wonder if we have the same zeal and passion for our worship today. Do we have holy places in our lives, places where we can come before God and worship authentically, with our whole hearts. We can get so caught up in the busyness of our daily lives, that we don’t take the time to be in an attitude of worship, sometimes even on Sundays, a day set apart for rest and worship. Worship pastor at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church, Kim Miller, states that worship is of the highest worth because it is for God. The God of power and love. The God of our stories. The God that walks beside us in life. The God that hears our prayers and responds. The God of our hearts. But then she also asks a gut-wrenchingly honest question - do we act like that? Do we act like God is worthy of our praise? Do we enter into worship, be in privately or corporately, acting like it not only matters but is of the highest worth because it is for God? Can we express to other people why worship matters and how it can transform their life, because we praise the God of transformation? Just like David we need to worship in order to remember who we are and whose we are. Worship today is a reminder that we are the Church, the body of Christ with a God-sized mission to go and make disciples for the transformation of the world, just as when the people of Israel came before the ark of the covenant, they remembered their story as people God freed from slavery and oppression. Worship should shape our calling, define us, and even change us. But I have to ask, are we looking for worship to change us today? Or are we looking to make worship into something we evaluate on a “were my needs met” basis? Do you walk out of this sanctuary on Sunday’s thinking about how you communed with the Holy God or do you walk out griping that you didn’t know the hymn that was sung? We need to move away from the individualism of worship. Worship is about so much more then me or you - its about giving God the honor and worth that God is due for God s the source of our worship - not just a topic that makes us feel good. Do you find yourself preparing for Sunday worship? Do you pray before you enter this sanctuary? Do you quiet your heart before God so that you can give Christ all of your attention? For I truly believe that the attitude that we bring into worship at the beginning and leave worship with at the end of our time together says a lot about where our attention lie - on ourselves and our circumstances or on God? Worship takes the ordinary and transforms it into the sacred. Worship takes our circumstances and says that it isn’t about us, but about the God we can worship in the face of any circumstances. Worship is a matter of the heat - and I have to ask, where is your heart at today? The Psalmist expresses what worship is about with deep passion when he writes that we can praise God in the sanctuary or under the Heavens. We can praise God with the sounding of the trumpet or with dancing. But everything that has breath is to praise the Lord. When we give ourselves over to worship we are saying that we are dependent upon God, and I think that is why David gave himself over to worship in front of the ark of the covenant the way he did - not because of what God had done, but because he was dependent upon God. For even though he was King of Israel he acknowledged that he would have nothing at all without God. How is your worship life doing this morning? Do you find yourself like David and Israel, expressing how worthy God is or is your heart not quite there yet? Is your worship authentic - leading you to repent and know God more fully? Is worship changing your life as you commune with a Holy God and the people of God known as the church? Folks, I have been in many different churches for worship services. From evensong services in Anglican cathedrals to stadiums full of people singing Hillsong choruses. I’ve been in churches of five people and churches of thousands. And I’m standing before you this morning and saying that size of the church and what style of worship or whether or not I knew the words to everything did not matter. What mattered was the state of my heart and if I entered into worship wanting to praise God who is worthy simply because he is God. Let us not look to worship to meet our needs, but instead look to praise God in acts of worship that are pleasing to a Holy and gracious, powerful and loving God - the beginning and end and in between of all of our worship. Amen. 

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Stories of the Faith: I'll Go Where You Go - Ruth 1: 1-17


When I was little there were two Bibles that my parents read to my brothers and I from at bedtime. One was a picture storybook, full of beautiful paintings. The other was an individual storybooks that told the kid-friendly version of some of the most well known Biblical stories. For some reason, I still remember the cover of the book for Ruth - green robe flowing, pink head-dress, and a look of sadness and strength, poise and fear. The person drawing the cover for that picture-book could not have captured the Book of Ruth any better. For the story itself contains all of those emotions that were captured in Ruth’s face on that cover. 
Let’s set the scene. Ruth takes place in the days when the Judges ruled. The Book of Judges was a crazy time - when the people of Israel would oscillate between requesting that God give them a king so they could be like everyone else and forgetting about God entirely. The people looked around and saw all the other countries surrounding them with King and prophets and rulers with flesh, and they didn’t think their God was quite as good as those other rulers in other Kingdoms. The refrain that echoes throughout the pages is “in those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” Judges would come and judges would go, but the people escalated in their lawlessness - going from fighting other countries at the beginning of Judges to an all out civil war where the tribes turned on each other in the end. It was not a good time to live.
Yet, it was during the time that the Judges ruled, that Ruth is set. During that time when as if fleeing from God and away from the words of the judges wasn’t enough, a famine hit the land. Its a little hard for us to imagine a famine today, for so many of us have stocked pantries. Even when we have a poor crop one summer or even two in our gardens, we have a grocery store down the street and other options. But there weren’t any other options during this time. There aren’t any other options when famine hits even in many lands today. When famine comes people have to move - to try to find fertile land. To try to find a relative with some food to spare. To simply survive. And move is exactly what Elimelek, Naomi, and their two sons did. They moved from a place of safety where al their family lived, Bethlehem, to a place they didn’t know, Moab.
We don’t know how long, but after they arrived in Moab Elimelek died. Surely his family mourned him, but death was also part of life during ancient times. If men lived to be forty, it was considered to be good. I know we read lineages of people in the Hebrew scriptures with old-ages, well past what we expect to live today, listed. But those were abnormalities - not the norm. Death was so common that there was a common way that inheritances were passed down in families, so that widows knew they could be provided for. Property passed from one male to the next, generation after generation. While females didn’t inherit property, it was expected that they would be taken care of by their family, after the passing of their husband.
The true problem for Naomi erupted when her sons died ten years later. Both had taken wives of local women, Orpah and Ruth. When they died there was no longer anyone to take care of Naomi. No income to be had. No property to pass down. No way of surviving. The only glimmer of hope Naomi had came in the news that things were no longer so hard in Bethlehem, the bread-basket. She would return to the land of grain and hope that some distant kinsman would take pity on her - bring her into their home and take care of her until she, too, could pass away. 
So she packed her few belongings and provisions for the journey and turned to her now widowed daughter-in-laws, telling them to return to their mother’s households. Return to the place where hopefully someone would have pity on them and take care of them as well. Maybe, just maybe, they could find someone else to marry. But the girls wouldn’t have it. They clung to Naomi, weeping, telling her that they would go with her. Namoi replied even more boldly for them to go back. Go back to the places they knew, surrounded by family, and begin to hope and heal. For she had nothing left to offer them. 
Orpah did as she was told, kissing her mother in law one more time and turning back to her mother’s house. But Ruth, always the bold one, replied that she absolutely would not leave Naomi. She would leave her hometown, where people knew her and where she had prospects of a new life, and would go with Naomi into the unknown -  a place she had never been, with a people who spoke a different language and worshiped a different God. She would go as an outsider for the sake of Naomi.
Naomi gave one more plea - telling Ruth to go as her sister in law, Orpah did, listening to the old women’s wishes to go back. Go back to opportunity and people to take care of her. Go back tot he land she knew. But Ruth would have none of that and replied with a statement that is often used at wedding ceremonies today: Where you go, I’ll go. Where you stay, I’ll stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Ruth was truly going to be a stranger in a strange land. Leaving her people for her mother-in-laws. 
One of my favorite aspects to the story of Ruth is the fierce since of identity and inclusivity. Ruth probably had heard her husband and father in law pray to the God of Israel, but they also would have known that it was not her God - the God of Moab. But that did not discount Ruth from being part of God’s plans for God is the God of fierce inclusivity, using the most unexpected people, including people who do not yet recognize his power and might. 
While this story is set during the time of Judges it was probably written down and recorded during the time of Ezra and Nemiah. A few weeks ago during the Tuesday night Bible study at St. Paul’s someone recognized that Stephen was leaving out major pieces of Jewish history when giving his defense against charges of blasphemy, prior to being stoned. We all do that. We color history and stories with what we are currently going through as we try to make a point. So it was with those who wrote down the story of Ruth as well. For during the time of Ezra and Nemeiah, women and children who were not Jewish by birth, were being thrown out of Jerusalem. As a contrast to this exclusiveness, comes Ruth, a late in life Jewish convert, who represented everything that were held up as ideal - loyalty and devotion, especially to those who others had forgotten or abandoned. Ruth goes as far as to make a formal oath with Naomi, saying that she should die if she ever left Naomi’s side.
Something that deeply troubles me in today’s society is our natural instinct to create “in” groups and “out” groups. Think about how we speak - clumping people into groups based on religion, region, race, anything that we can think of to separate us from “them” or “those people”. Ruth reminds us that people cannot be grouped together. Her is a woman who is deep in her own grief over her husband’s death and now is voluntary dislocating herself for the sake of Naomi, yet I fear that all too often today we would just see her as “one of those Moabites” or “those people who don’t worship the God of Israel”. If we met Ruth today, someone who was fiercely loyal to someone we love but of another religion what would our reaction be? Would we feel blessed by her friendship? Or would we discount her because she is different from us, grouping her in with those we fear because we don’t know them.

Here’s the thing - God didn’t discount Ruth because of her religion, race, or region, so we shouldn’t either. God had a plan for Ruth that even Naomi, a devout Jew didn’t realize, as Ruth would go on to be in the lineage of David and Jesus. Let us not be like others in the story of Ruth who tried to pin her into a box by only referring to her as “Ruth the Moabite” - may we instead see her, and others, as the whole people they are - loyal, trustworthy, self-sacrificing, and acting in another’s best interest. May we judge her not by things beyond her control but by the oath she made “to go wherever you will go.” May we see her for who she truly is in the eyes of God. Amen. 

Friday, October 16, 2015

Food Allergies and the Church

      Recently, I had written a post about a church not dealing well with my (and other's) food allergies at an event they were hosting, however, last night was far worse. I  communicated my needs to our district administrative assistant for an event, which she graciously passed along. Neither of us heard anything to the contrary so I walked into the meeting at 6pm, expecting to have dinner like everyone else in attendance. Instead, I stopped by the kitchen to introduce myself and was met by three message:
     I asked if the district had contacted them about my needs to which they replied "the menu was already planned" along with one of the most awful looks I have ever been given. Wow. First off, you were contacted about this seven weeks ago. Second of all there are much better ways to respond to folks with special circumstances. I was thinking about it on the drive home and was wondering how they respond to new folks in worship - new folks that don't necessary respond to God through the same method and means as them. Do they do everything they can to introduce that person to  Christ or do they simply reply "this is how we like it, become like us or leave?" Because the truth is we live in a world where needs are abundant - now I am the first person to admit that not every church can be everything to every person, but at least own that, otherwise you are giving the impression, as the CHURCH, the body of CHRIST, that this is now Christ would respond.
    Next they told me to just eat the beans, except.... they had bacon in them. So that couldn't happen. At which point I explained that I wasn't being picky, but that this was related to an allergy and I would get sick if I ate meat products. The tenor sort of changed then - but should it have? Should it have mattered why I'm a vegetarian, by ethical choice, medical necessity, or family preference? Now you are changing your tune, because I didn't fit into your assumptions when a message about a dietary need was passed on to you. There are more and more folks becoming vegetarians for medical necessity - honestly, even if I didn't have the weird weird allergy, I have had doctors  tell me more than once that if not for the fact that I was already vegetarian they would recommend I become one for other medical issues that have come up.
     Then the kicker, they look down at my plate with 4 celery sticks and 2 dinner rolls and tell me that it looks like I have enough. Really? Would that be enough for you for dinner? There are 2 food groups in small quantities there.
    Church, this is one my passions and not just for my sake. When I was taking communion once at a campus ministry I noticed that folks with gluten intolerance were being excluded because of how we served. Allergies should not prohibit people from being fully part of the fellowship of the body of Christ. Period. We shouldn't make them feel uncomfortable or small or like they are a bother because they can't eat everything you can. And it wouldn't hurt to have gluten free and vegetarian options in mind anyway, as unhealthy as our pastors are as a whole. We can do better, we can do so much better.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

“Stories of Faith: Loving God with Your All” Deut 5: 1-21, 6: 4-6

When we think of where the great stories of faith in the Bible are written we think of places like Esther, Ruth, Genesis, the Gospels and Acts. Rarely do we think about the book of Deutoronmy, which we usually equate with telling us all the rules. In fact, when folks approach me to ask for a plan to read the Bible from cover to cover, I often tell them not to read it straight through because inevitably people get captivated by the stories of Genesis and Exodus, but then come the laws found in Numbers and Leviticus, and folks rarely make it Deuteronomy. But this particular book in the bible - the last of the five that every young boy in ancient Israel had to learn, is unique, for its a mix of both rules and stories about why the rules matter.
In this mornings scripture we encounter the story anew that is first found in the book of Exodus - the giving of the ten commandments. Let’s set the scene. The Israelites had been held captive for years as slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. God came to Moses, who once resided in Egypt as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, out in the wilderness and told him to command Pharaoh to let God’s people go. Let the people that were Moses birth family go. After a less than successful time presenting that message to Pharaoh, Moses did eventually though the acts and grace of God, lead the Israelites to freedom… sort of. It wasn’t quite the freedom that folks envisioned, which they made known both to Moses and God, which led them to wander in the wilderness for forty years before they finally reached the promised land.
Part of that wandering, was taking out of them their old expectations of the way things should be. To introduce them to a new pattern of life, a new way of living, as God’s people set free from the bondage of slavery. So God met Moses on the top of Mount Horab and gave to him the basic laws that would govern their way of being. Which is where we pick up in this morning’s scripture. These were the laws that would be an outward sign of their inward covenant with God. Never before had God made such a laid out covenant with the people, remember that before the covenant was made before God and Abraham and was basically, I will be your God and you will be my people. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars. I will make a nation out of you. That type of covenant is very one sided - God is doing all of the work. There weren’t really many rules surrounding it, and as a result the people wandered. To the point that at the beginning of the book of Exodus, the people had forgotten their story as God’s people. 
Now under this new covenant, there would be basic expectations. Now, I know that tends to make people nervous when we start to talk about expectations in Church. Let me be clear - God gave us basic rules or ways of living for our benefit, not for God’s. Its sort of like the rules we each had growing up in our homes. Think back - what was the purpose of those rules? For your protection! For creating the best possible environment to grow up in. So it was with the ten commandments, they were the basic rules of this new society, made of God’s chosen people, for their protection.
Before the law was even given, God boldly told them their story. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Before they were living under Pharaoh’s laws - that was their story, but now, now they were living under the law that marked them as God’s chosen people. In fact, the first four commandments, speak directly to their relationship with God. You shall have no other gods before me. You will not worship idols. You will not misuse the name of the Lord. You will set aside the day of Sabbath, the day of rest, to worship God. It is only after God gives the basic parameters around the people’s relationship to the Holy Lord, the Lord who led them out of slavery and made them a people of freedom, that they are even given the commandments that relate to how they treat each other as fellow pilgrims on this journey.
There are multiple hymns in our hymnal that talk about story. The one that kept ringing through my mind while writing this sermon was “I love to tell the story. T’will be my theme in glory. I love to tell the story of Jesus and his love.” While I appreciate the hymn writers words, I think there are two ways that we misuse them. First, we have forgotten our story so we don’t know exactly what to tell. The Jewish people know their story, they retell it every Passover when they repeat the words from generation to generation around the table, proclaiming “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”
We, as Christians, have a story just as powerful to tell about being rescued from our slavery to sin and death. Being set free from that bondage by the love of Jesus Christ. Only we seem to forget the love of Jesus part. I am an avid church sign reader - but I often find myself getting upset at the signs, signs that are supposed to tell our story, the story of Christ love, instead often find witty ways to tell people they are breaking the law of God. Now don’t get me wrong, if we learn anything from this passage of scripture it is that the law of God is important, but it is important because it re-orients people to the new life they are living in the freedom given to them by God. And it reminds them of their story - that they once were slaves under someone else’s rule, but now are the people of God. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the law that we try to make it into our story instead of using it as a powerful reminder of who we are under God’s rule. Big difference!
The second way this hymn can lead us astray is by misrepresenting the idea that we are only going to need to proclaim our story in heaven. No! We have a story to tell now. A story to testify to about who God is and how Christ’s love has changed us and continues to change us each and every day! Pastor James Moore in his book the Power of Story, reminds us that we learn about the power and love of Christ through story. The stories of the scripture and the stories that we tell each other. We proclaim that story with our actions! We have the power to attract or repel people form the story, folks. And that has eternal consequences, so we certainly can’t wait to tell the story until we get to Heaven. It’s not a story that is meant to be contained! 
Moore tells the story of how it was raining one day, and he, a new pastor in town, saw a little girl who fell off her bike, which was loaded with groceries. He asked if he could help her, and they loaded the bike and the sopping wet grocery bags into his car and he drove her home. The mother was so appreciative until she found out that he was the new pastor. Her husband had been deeply hurt by pastors in the past, and as a result, he refused to let pastors in his home. In fact, when the dad came home he threw Rev. Moore out. But wouldn’t you know, he showed up in church the next Sunday, and then again the next. When the dad was asked why he showed up, he replied “You were kind to my little girl - that got my attention”. Its our actions that get people’s attention enough that we can share our story - God’s story - not throwing the law at them. 

Which leads us to the second part of the story in Deutoromy. God doesn’t just leave the people with the law or a list of rules. God leaves them by telling them to have the commandments written on their hearts. It’s like God is saying, you are mine, and have that mark of identity written on your hearts and proclaimed with your lips. 
I often listen to Klove, the Christian music station, when I’m driving around Philipsburg. One of the songs that keeps play proclaims: “Hello, my name is child of the One True King.” What a bold proclamation of our story, our identity. The identity that is deeply written on our hearts. The identity that gives us hope and proclaims life abundant. Not life from the law, but life the law of God gives us boundaries to protect. May we go froth form this place and tell our story. The story of God’s love that brought us to the place of freedom. Amen. 

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Clergy Conflict

   I recently had a run in with another clergy person. While I would like to say that entire idea of clergy conflict is false, it is very much alive and well, it just looks different then most people. We tend to be the type of folks who try to avoid conflict in such a way that it often comes out being passive aggressive. So it is not the idea of conflict that disturbed me so much in this particular case as the underlying assumption that I had done something wrong to hurt her - in this case intentionally spreading a rumor that I never said nor actually came close to saying anything of the like.
   As I was thinking about the incident in the days that followed it was the assumption that got me the most. For if anyone should be trained around how to deal with conflict - be it corporate or personal - it should be clergy and one of the chief rules is that you do not assume. Yet, it was the assumption and how it was presented that then hurt me the most.
   Conflict and hurt are vicious cycles if not dealt with properly. How do you deal with conflict in a constructive way?

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Young Clergy

  If I had to be honest, sometimes being a young clergy person scares me. It scares me when older pastors tell me, in words and sometimes in their silence, that I'm not good enough, that I'm not a real pastor yet - I haven't walked through enough fires. It scares me that churches look at me and assume I will bring in young families by my mer presence, even if everything else stays the same. It scares me that the assumption is that I have boundless energy and never need to rest. It scares me that at this time last year I was sick with an illness exacerbated by stress. It scares me that the age limits of young clergy keep expanding because we aren't bringing in enough "young clergy". And when I am scared I simply have to stop and remind myself that being young is a gift, and that it is not my job to fulfill everyones expectations, positive or negative.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Life Lessons Learned in Airports

   Normally, I enjoy flying. My body doesn't particularly like long car trips, so flying offers an alternative. Plus, I've also thought it better to just go with the flow instead of stressing out with travel. However, days like today, days when storms are on the way, remind me of the different things that airports have to teach us, with clear sky or pending hurricanes.
   First, pack light. The less you have, the more quickly you can change your plans. A few years ago there was a bit of an uproar when companies started to charge for you to check bags, but I found it freeing. It encouraged me to pack light and not take extra things I really don't need. Thought I will also be the first to admit that it is hard for me to do more than a week on one carry on and one personal item alone. Today that came in handy when I was able to run through the security line in order to catch the only other flight leaving Atlanta towards my destination outside of the last one of the evening, which was already threatening delays.
   Second, in your packing bring something to entertain yourself during long periods of waiting. Personally, I like podcasts and books, both of which satisfy my deep curiosity. I was telling my roommate at the conference I attended, that times of travel afford me the opportunity to not only read more, but to have more time to think about what I'm reading as well. I see travel as a gift, in this regard, more than a burden.
   Third, always be willing to help other people out. Flying home, there is a part of the terminal in Washington-Dullus, where it is designed for 4 planes to board pretty close to one another, which can result in confusion. We are all in the ins and outs of travel together. Help someone out. Offer a kind word or smile. Defuse frustration.

As for now, I'm exhausted after a few long, but wonderful days. More on this topic to come.