Words that Divide

It never ceases to amaze me how careless we can all before time to time with our words. The lack of thought that goes into what we say can often cause division, even if we mean our words to unite.

Recently I was at a conference where people self-identified with titles such as "Conservative", "Progressive", "Liberal", "Fundamentalist". While these words were meant to rally like minded people, all I could wonder was what happened to the more basic levels of unity such as "human" or the in the case of this conference "Christian"?

We truly need to start thinking in terms of what unites us instead of what divides us, because honestly, there is a lot more in the first category than the later.

I Am Not a Flight Attendant

    Prior to my current appointment, it seemed like I was flying everywhere. At one point I saw more of airports than my house. But it has been a while since I've been on a plane, and as I stepped on one to travel to a conference recently, I was struck by how people were treating the flight attendants - as if she was their employee and personal problem solver. Most were a bit rude at best. Very few told her thank you. They just took for grant it that it was her job to give them whatever they want and take whatever complaint they may have, while forgetting that she was their more for their safety than comfort.
   All too often as a pastor people treat me like I am a flight attendant - there to make their lives easier and complain when they don't see me living into their expectations. They forget about all the other people on the plane, and its just about them and what they want. But I am not called to be a flight attendant, I am called to be a pastor. One who leads. One who gives direction. One who provides safety, which is often at odds with comfort. How can we bring about a paradigm shift in the perception of the role of the pastor?

“Renegade Gospel: Resurrection” 1 Cor 15: 12-14

When I was a sophomore in college I spent my first Easter away from my family. That year I traveled with a small group of students with our campus missionaries to Vladimir, Russia. Russia is a country that didn’t allow the gospel to be proclaimed for years. Bibles had to be smuggled in. Missionaries were shipped out. Yet, even in the midst of this country that legislated what faith should look like, the church grew. And years later, when I traveled with my small group, I was able to see the vibrant Wesleyan faith of young adults as part of a church that met upstairs over a Christian seminary. 

The gospel message transformed lives in the face of persecution. The gospel message caused people to come to know Jesus Christ in a personal way even when the government didn’t want it to happen. The gospel message caused resurrection even when people tried to wipe it out. That brothers and sisters is the power of the gospel message. The power of the gospel that Paul is trying to share with the church in Corinth today. 

The Corinthians were struggling with this idea of a bodily resurrection. It seemed un-natural. Un-thinkable. Illogical. So some amongst them tried to water the good news message down, talking instead of a metaphorical resurrection or trying to devise ways around the problems that resurrection can cause in the mind, by making false claims, such as Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. 

But the truth is that the disciples, from the women who found the empty tomb to the first apostles and Paul and all that would listen to them and came to believe, proclaimed that Jesus rose from the grave. That Jesus was dead. Beaten to the point where he was almost unrecognizable dead. Pierced in the side dead. Breathed his last breath dead. And yet, even after facing such death, he rose from the grave. He had a physical resurrection. He spoke with the disciples. Met with them. Talked with them. Ate with them. While we are celebrating Easter Sunday today, Eastertide is the forty day season that starts today and celebrates the forty days Jesus was alive on earth and met with his disciples until he ascended into heaven. Jesus rose from the dead. 

Christianity is the only world religion to make the claim that the one that we follow as disciples was resurrected. In fact, we not only claim it, we make it central to our faith since the very beginning of this renegade movement. It was such a truth for the early Church that those early followers did some of the most rebellious and counter-cultural things possible at that time. They defied Caesar, proclaiming that they had another King whose Kingdom was more powerful that Rome, Jesus. 

Needless to say, this statement caused tension with the government, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t care what bodily harm the government may cause them, their hope didn’t lie with the rulers of this world. Their hope rested the resurrected Christ. The same resurrected Christ that Paul was preaching in Corinth. The same one who if he did not raise, would make the Corinthians faith, and our faith, useless. 

As Christians today we seemed to have lost something about the spark and power of the resurrection. We preach the cross, Christ crucified, which is important. But it is the resurrection that makes Christ’s sacrifice have eternal consequences. Its Christ’s resurrection that makes our lives change here and now. 

When we say yes to Christ’s resurrection, it doesn’t just become something we sort of believe, it defines who we are entirely. In fact, we bet our very lives on it. Even if some of us are a bit more hesitant than the early Christians to risk bodily harm over our beliefs, there are still people around the world today that do. Why? Because Christ’s resurrection makes their faith alive, vital, and vibrant. They believe that their lives matter on this earth because it can connect other people to the power of the Gospel message. And they believe that this life is not the final world, that death will not deal the final blow, because there is an eternity waiting for them to be with the one who died and rose again. 

Hear me, now. I believe in the power of the resurrection. So much so that I followed God’s call to proclaim the gospel message each and every day. To make it my vocation. To do it even when I don’t want to and even when things get hard. But I still struggle with doubts. Most Christians do. Its hard in a world that tells you that you need to prove every little thing to realize that faith and doubt co-mingle. 

Today at Roseville we are going to confirm some young adults in the faith. They are going to stand up and say that they believe the vows made at their baptism. That they now want to make their faith their own. That they want to become members of the Church and be sold out for Christ. But during confirmation classes we also had one whole day when we talked about whether we could prove that God exists. Proving God exists is a little like trying to prove love. Its hard. Because we can’t see God, but we can see God’s hand at work. We cannot taste God, but we can savor the communion elements and remember the story. We cannot touch God, but we can hold the hand of one who is going through a tough time. We cannot smell God, but we can smell the scent of a newborn baby, created by God. We cannot hear God, but we can hear our brothers and sisters around the world proclaim the universal nature of our faith. 

Faith and doubt go hand in hand. In the words of Pastor Mike Slaughter, “Struggle with the battle between heart and mind”. Jesus’ own disciples doubted his resurrection. That’s why we call one of the disciples ‘doubting Thomas’. Even saints of the Church, such as Mother Theresa of Calcutta, had doubts. But the question I asked the confirmation students is the same one I ask you now, even if you have doubts, do they win out over your faith? Or do you have faith the size of a mustard seed. The smallest little grain that takes root and can blossom into faith? Can you trust Jesus enough to cry out, “I believe, now help my unbelief”.

The truth is abundance of faith is neither necessary nor the point. Its about what you do with that small little grain of faith. Its about not letting doubts have the final word. In the words of Pastor Slaughter, “It’s not about how much faith you have, but how much of what you have that you commit to action.”

Brothers and sisters, the early believers trusted so much in the resurrection of Christ that they changed the world. Mother Theresa set aside her doubts and claimed faith, and lives were touched. Believers around the world today are proclaiming that the gospel message marks their lives more than allegiance to family or country. That is the power of a little grain of faith. 

When we take that small step of faith to believe the power of the resurrection, we start to die to our old ways of thinking. The impossible now seems possible. We don’t need to have everything proven or worked out in order to believe. In fact, things that were impossible without God now become possible through God alone. 

By all accounts, it should have been impossible for the Christian church to come to exist in a vibrant way in Russia. Even when I went on my second mission trip there, we were not allowed to mention God or Christ when we were interviewed by a local TV station. Yet, the impossible became possible with God. The resurrection leads us to accept the irrational, because that’s faith. Faith is taking a risk and walking into the face of the impossible, all because of our little grain of faith. And its those situations brothers and sisters, that allow us to shine forth the glory of God. 

The resurrection changes us. It changes the way we think and act. It changes the way we see faith and doubt. It changes the way we see other people - enemies becomes brothers and strangers become sisters. Think of the people over the last two thousand years who claim that their lives were changed because of Jesus Christ! Is yours one of them? My hope and prayer for you this day is that you are changed by the resurrection story. Changed by the hope that was birthed by the empty tomb. And that you take whatever faith you have and go and share it with the world, setting aside your fears and doubts, in order to proclaim the power of the resurrection because that is the hope that is found in this day that we stake our lives on. Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed!

Mark 16: 1-8 - Sunrise

The Sabbath is over. The day of rest. But Mary couldn’t rest her mind during the day. All she could think of was the body of her Lord, the one she had followed for so long. She knew that his body was safe, but she wanted to care for it properly. To anoint it with spices and re-wrap it with linen. 

Proper. None of this seems proper. He was dead. Jesus was dead. She could barely bring herself to say it out loud. She had watched just a week earlier as he had road the colt through Jerusalem. Now. Now they had killed him. The same crowds that had welcomed him had cried for him to be crucified. The disciples had fled. All except John. 

The other Mary was with her - Jesus’ mother - this morning. What was running through her mind? Was she thinking about when Jesus was born in a stable? Or about him growing up and her accidentally leaving him behind in the temple? Or was she thinking of just a few days ago, watching her son die such a needlessly brutal death and just before his final breath her son entrusting her into the care of John. 

No one spoke as they walked through the darkness of day, carrying their spices. Going to anoint the body of their friend, their son, their teacher who had died too young. As they got closer to the tomb someone raised their voice, breaking the silence, “Who is going to roll the stone away?” 

Oh the stone. The stone that the Roman guards had placed over the entrance so that no one would steal Christ’s body. Did they really think they would do that? That Christ’s disciples who didn’t even have the courage to watch him die would steal his body? Didn’t they know Jewish custom? That touching a dead body would make them impure? No touching the body was women’s work, and the women certainly weren’t going to steal his body. Now that foolish stone was blocking them from what they had set out to do. 

No one answered. The question just hung in the air. Then as they reached the tomb, it became a non-issue. The stone was rolled away. A stone that would have taken several men to move was rolled away. The women bravely top another step forward, entering the tomb, where they saw a young man in a white robe.

What was he doing there? Who is this one who they had never met? He spoke those words that haunted Mary the mother of Jesus and James, “Don’t be afraid.” The same words of the angel Gabrielle. The words that seemed to echo that if they should be anything they should be afraid, for their lives were about to be turned upside down. 

And sure enough as he continued their worlds were altered - Jesus is risen! Jesus’ body was no longer there. There was no ritual cleansing and anointing to perform. For he had risen. Just like Lazarus! And they were to go tell Peter and the other disciples this news - news they could hardly believe. Oh Lord, help their unbelief. 

So the women went forth from the tomb, first in a daze then in a panic followed by a rush of excitement. They went forth as the first evangelists to proclaim the good news - Jesus, Jesus was not dead. He was risen. How could this be? He is risen! What does this mean? He is risen! How will we react when we go forth from this place? Will we too proclaim that he is risen?