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We?re just starting the second decade of the new millennium. People like to name decades after some dominant characteristic of the time?Roaring ?20s, Decade of Decadence, etc. If I were to name the decade we just finished a couple months ago, I would call it the Decade of Fear. People have always struggled with fears, to some extent. But I think this past decade stands in a league of its own. It began 10 years ago with Y2K: we were afraid computers would bring the world crashing down. People built underground bunkers full of canned goods, water, and guns. Then a year later, the 9-11 terrorist attacks changed us forever: we literally embraced fear as the only way to survive. Again, people reinforced and stocked their bunkers. We were all urged to be suspicious and vigilant and to be very afraid whenever our government raised the official threat level from orange to red. All through this decade we discovered countless new ways to be afraid? of people with bombs in their shoes or underwear, of snipers, of kidnappers, of school shooters, of H1-N1 virus, of food bacteria. The divisive politics in the last couple national elections have elevated fear to new levels. The more polarized we have become, the more our weapon of choice is fear?for both ends of the pole. People on the left have been taught to be afraid of evangelical Christians, anti-abortionists, tea party protestors, and Sarah Palin. People on the right have been taught to be afraid of environmentalists, gays and lesbians, socialists, and Barack Obama.
We are encouraged by the media not only to be suspicious, but to be downright afraid, constantly on guard against the ?enemy,? who is clearly hell-bent on destroying us, and destroying the life we cherish.
But I don?t blame big corporate media for all of this. They produce what they know we want to hear. Because if we don?t watch it, companies won?t sponsor it. Thoughtful, rational sustained discussion of differing viewpoints, doesn?t sell on cable TV. If people who disagree, sit and respectfully listen to each other, and ask questions to build understanding, it doesn?t pull in the big money. It?s just too boring for us, the American public. We want people yelling at each other, shaking their fists, exaggerating, misrepresenting, and calling each other names. We want talk show hosts who will find the most extreme case, and then tell us that everyone on the other side is just . . . like . . . that! which is why we need to be afraid of them.
It is getting harder and harder, in the Age of Fear, to find a source of news that informs, rather than inflames. _____________________
Not all fear is a bad thing, of course. When I face a situation where suddenly? life and death hangs in the balance? I, for one, am glad that God created in us a fear instinct. It?s life-giving fear that seizes us and makes us step back from the edge of a cliff, or run away from a mad dog, or take cover when bullets fly. Thank God for that kind of fear.
But the fear I?m talking about, the fear of this age, is a fear that drives us away from others. It?s a fear that makes us take on a posture of self-protection and isolation instead of openness and hospitality. That kind of fear is not life-giving. It sucks life out of us. It keeps us stuck in whatever feels safe and secure. It prevents us from going where God is calling us. It robs us of the full and abundant life God desires for us.
And it?s that kind of fear God warns us about in scripture. Fears that paralyze, that hinder, that destroy, are not the work of a good Creator, they are from the Evil One. These are the fears referred to when scripture says, ?Be not afraid.? ?Fear not, I am with you always.? ?Perfect love casts out all fear.? ?Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change.? ?With the Lord on my side I do not fear.? And from today?s reading in Ps. 27. ?The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear??
If we allow fear to turn us away from where God is calling us, then that fear is sin. And we need to confess that fear. And we need to be delivered of that fear. A lot easier said than done, but God does provide what we need to face our fears and learn to live with them.
We heard about it this morning in Luke 13. Jesus looked at the city of Jerusalem, full of people that God dearly loved, and the image that came to Jesus? mind was a chicken? a mother hen and her chicks. Jesus said, ?Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!? I love to picture that in my mind. I know chickens. I didn?t grow up a chicken farm, but we always had a backyard chicken coop when I was a kid. I?ve seen, many times, how a mother hen acts when she suddenly thinks it?s time for her chicks to gather in under her wings. She sounds the alarm in no uncertain terms, and they come running. And they don?t trickle in one at a time. They come immediately, en masse. And they all end up under the shelter of her wings, all of them together in one place, all of them under one set of mothering wings.
That?s an image to hold on to as a way to live with our fears.
Baby chicks find strength being in community, under the protection of the one that formed the community. All baby chicks, by nature?s instinct, know who they are. They are part of a brood . . . a flock . . . who all belong to a particular mother. That reality defines them. Completely. Alone, they could never survive.
That?s why Jesus used the image of a hen and chicks. That?s why the psalmist wrote poetry about finding refuge under the shelter of God?s wings.
God doesn?t want us to be afraid. God wants us to be chicken. God wants us to run, together, en masse, and seek shelter under God?s wings.
Now, don?t misunderstand. Running under God?s wings is not escapism. We?re not trying to avoid dealing with a real threat. No, God wants us there because that is the place where we can best confront our fears. That?s the place where we know clearly and experience deeply who we are and to whom we belong. When we have a community of persons to be with who trust in the same mothering God we trust in, when we are in right relationship with that God, and with each other, then we have a strong basis on which to face our fears with confidence, individually and collectively. We find that confidence with each other, under God?s wings. Being ?chicken? in that way, is nothing to be ashamed of. It?s the biblical response to the fears we face.
It?s also the precise antidote we need for the kind of fears our culture tries to instill in us. Look at almost any example of fears from the last decade? from the Y2K panic to the color-coded war on terrorism, from over-reactive journalists to over-protective parents, from H1N1 to E-Coli, from Glenn Beck to Ed Shultz. Fear-mongering is the stock-in-trade of partisan politics, of extreme activist groups on the right and left, of most mainstream media outlets, and of a lot of popular entertainment.
For certain groups, for certain powers-that-be, it?s actually profitable, good for the bottom line, if the general populace stays afraid much of the time. It helps sell the protection they have to offer.
And the way to make sure people stay afraid, is to keep them from doing what little chicks do? keep them from coming together, and drawing strength from their common identity. So they try to convince you that you really are on your own, that you are the only person you can trust, that if you don?t take of yourself first, nobody else is going to. Why else do you think gun sales are up everywhere? Why are lawmakers voting in recent weeks to make it even easier to carry loaded guns on college campuses and restaurants?
Faith in Jesus Christ calls us to resist this mass cultural hysteria. The response of faith, is not a response of suspicion, separation, and human isolation. The response of faith does not first protect my own self-interest. The response of faith moves me toward the other. And in so doing, moves me toward God. The response of faith is a response of love. That?s why we read in 1 John, ?There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear.? Fear and love are incompatible. They are opposites. Love draws us out of ourselves and toward the other. Fear draws us into ourselves, and away from the other. Love casts out fear. And followers of Jesus are called to love.
So a gathering of Christians should be the last place on earth, where people rally support for a cause by instilling fear, and anxiety, and creating distance between ourselves and those who are different from us. But I think we know all too well, that?s not always the case. The merchants of fear also operate in the church. _____________________
We are called to be a people of peace, a people secure in our identity in Jesus Christ, a people who answer to a Lord who made a habit of saying, Fear not. Peace be with you. I am with you always.
Of course, if we do find peace and security in Christ, if we are freed from our fears, that?s not a guarantee we escape injury from that which threatens us. Isaiah 43 says, ?When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.? Not if. When. God?s people will keep on passing through raging waters, and fire, and storm, and earthquake. And where is God in the storm? Where was God when the earth shook in Haiti, or in Chile yesterday?
Well, I can tell you God wasn?t sitting in a La-Z-Boy watching CNN. God was right there under the rubble. It might not make sense to us, but it?s the Gospel truth. God suffers with us. God shares our dark, cramped, and painful space of suffering.
God is with us . . . right in the middle of the place . . . where our fears are most real, most intense. We are invited to be ?chicken? in the good way. To find ourselves?and help each other find? the shelter of God?s wings, and gather under those wings together. We are invited to come to a place where we are holding on to that oft-repeated promise that God is with us . . . always, and are letting go of those persistent fears that bind us, that pull us into ourselves and away from others, that prevent us from living the life to which God called us.
I don?t know what kind of persistent fears trouble you. I only know about mine. As someone who has been a perfectionist from the day I was born, and who now leads a fairly public kind of life, I know I have to battle the fear of failure, the fear of looking foolish or stupid in the eyes of others, so I like to play it fairly safe. I?m cautious. Which is good sometimes, but probably also keeps me from stepping into the unknown, where God just might be calling me occasionally.
I don?t know your fears. Many of us fear failure, or fear loss. We fear illness and death. We fear broken relationships. We fear being alone. We fear loss of control over our lives. We fear for our emotional and mental well-being. Perhaps the stress is so great, we feel we are on the edge every day, and live with a constant fear of falling off. Maybe we fear economic catastrophe. Maybe we fear a longtime relationship with a spouse, or a dear friend, is about to slip away forever. Maybe we are facing a serious illness, the potential end of our lives, or the life of someone we love. And fear is paralyzing us.
We are invited to hold on, and let go. To hold on to the promises of a God who longs to shelter us as a mother hen with her chicks. To hold on to the cross of Jesus Christ, a symbol of the most profound suffering we can imagine, that was transformed to a symbol of the glory of God. And to let go of our fears? fears that draw us into ourselves, fears that keep us from stepping forward into whatever scary place God is calling us, a place where God is already there.
I invite us again, as we are doing each Sunday during Lent, to a time of confession, in both word and action.
In the narrow blue folders in your hymnal rack, you will find small pieces of tissue paper. If you want to participate in this act of confession, simply name the fear with which you are struggling today. You need only write a word or a few words if you wish. Then begin the act of holding on, and letting go. Hold on to Christ, and let go of your fears, by approaching the cross, this image of humiliation made into an image of glory, a symbol of fear made into a symbol of love, and come to this water bowl, representing God?s healing stream, and release your fear, written on the tissue paper, onto the surface of that water. Let it be soaked up by that water, and softened, and eventually, dissolved.
If it is physically difficult for you to make the walk forward, be bold to ask someone else to carry your confession for you.
During this act of confession, we will be singing together in the purple hymnal, Sing the Story, number 63, ?God, fill me now.?
Come whenever you are ready.
?Phil Kniss, February 28, 2010
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We celebrate Lent because we have to. We simply have to. It?s a spiritual necessity.
If our aim is to journey toward wholeness, in Christ, Lent is an essential part of that journey. It?s a needed Sabbath rest on the road to wholeness. A stop-off, to step back, survey the landscape, take stock. To cease our striving, for a season. To quit grasping.
Lent is not, as many people seem to think, a 40-day season to give up an earthly pleasure, like chocolate, or dessert, or television. Nothing wrong with that, of course. That?s a good discipline. But we ought to be making good lifestyle choices anytime of the year. Giving up one vice or one luxury for 40 days doesn?t even come close to the heart of the matter, concerning Lent.
In the church calendar, the season of Lent begins, appropriately, right after Transfiguration Sunday. When we cancelled for snow Feb. 7, it threw us off one week, because we decided to use that service the next week, and just skip what would have been Transfiguration Sunday. Not a big deal. Transfiguration was never a huge thing for Mennonites.
But I?ve appreciated that at Park View, we have often taken that Sunday once a year, to retell that Gospel story of the three disciples being overwhelmed by the glory of God being struck almost senseless by this shining vision of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah on top of the mountain, and wanting somehow to make it permanent, and build three houses for these three divine beings. I?ve appreciated that at Park View we make it a point each year to reflect on, and celebrate, those times where we have, quite unexpectedly, seen the glorious, luminous face of God, where we have met the holy, the divine.
So, not wanting to be derailed by a little bit of snow (or a lot of snow), I decided to have us read two Gospel stories today? the Transfiguration story we missed last week, and the story we usually look at on the first Sunday in Lent? the story of Jesus? temptations in the wilderness.
Somehow, it seems right to hold these two back-to-back, whether a week apart, as usual, or in the same service, as we?re doing today. The bright, shining Mount of Transfiguration and the stark, barren wilderness of Temptation, are two faces of the same reality. God is equally present in both, but is encountered in very different ways. One without the other, is a story . . . half-told.
On the Mount of Transfiguration we get a gleaming clear vision of this close connection between heaven and earth. But in the wilderness of Lent, we?re on the other side of this mountain. Here we see the shadows of our humanity, we muck around in our messy life at the foot of the mountain.
We might very well wish, like Peter did, that we can hold on to these mountain-top visions of God?s glory, that we are sometimes blessed with. I imagine, to some degree, we can all identify with Peter?s bright idea to build a shelter to house this divine glory. For many centuries now, churches have attempted to do exactly that? institutionalize the divine, make permanent and predictable the glory of God.
Lent is a season both for holding on . . . and letting go. There are some things in life that are core to who God called us to be, and what God called us to do. And there are some things in life? even things that we strive after and cling to? that are, at best, peripheral to God?s calling on our lives, and might actually distract us from the life God intends. Lent is a season to discern what is at the core, and what distracts us from the core. It?s a season to help us let go of those things we need to let go of, and hold on to that which we need to hold on to. That takes careful discernment, and the support of a community of faith.
This act of letting go does not come naturally. You know, it?s not only infants who have a strong grasping instinct. Long before a baby knows how to respond to other external stimuli it knows how to grasp. You just touch the palm of an infant, and its fingers wrap tightly around, refusing to let go. Human beings may grow out of that physical instinct to grasp. But our instinct to grasp in other ways, lasts our lifetime.
We do not by nature voluntarily let go of what we think we need for happiness. That is why Lent is a spiritual necessity. That is why the church calendar asks us to set aside today and the next five Sundays to celebrate this season. Because we may not do it otherwise, and it?s something we need to do.
It would be more to our liking to give just a slight nod to Lent, and then quickly move on to Easter, to resurrection, to joy and peace and victory. But no. We need . . . to take . . . our time . . . with this season. We need to slow down long enough to gaze honestly into the shadows. If we don?t, we cheapen the resurrection. If we don?t go to the depths, we don?t get to the heights. It?s as simple as this: If we don?t do Lent, we sabotage Easter.
God?s wonderful grace and salvation and resurrection power is all about God finding us in the middle of our brokenness and sin and death, in the middle of the wilderness, and bringing us up into the light, into wholeness of life.
So these six Sundays of Lent are not just gloom and doom theology. We won?t be beating ourselves down with ?what-a-worm-am-I? kind of thinking. Yes, in our Ash Wednesday services last week we did take time to remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. But we remember our sin and shadows and brokenness, knowing that God?s grace is, and will be, sufficient for all our sins, sufficient to transform us and bring us into the light.
You know, don?t you, that the Sundays in Lent don?t count in the 40 days? The days between Ash Wednesday and Easter add up to 40, only if you skip the Sundays. Each Sunday in Lent is a little feast in the middle of the fast. We ?break fast? on Sundays. A spiritual breakfast so-to-speak. In Lent, we rejoice when we come and worship each Sunday. We give thanks. We praise. But we praise in a minor key. We?re a bit subdued because we are more keenly aware of the reality of sin and brokenness and shadows that is part of life on the other side of the mountain. _____________________
Today?s Gospel story of Jesus? temptations in the wilderness is the story of an arduous spiritual workout for Jesus. It?s a story of Jesus deciding what to hold on to, and what to let go of.
Jesus had just been baptized by John, in the Jordan River. He has just been proclaimed, in public, by a voice from heaven that he was the very Son of God, God?s own beloved. Then, strangely, at the very moment Jesus should have been most ready to engage in his mission, when he should have had the greatest clarity, on the heels of this public affirmation and recognition, the Holy Spirit sent him into the middle of nowhere.
We usually read this short story in Luke 4, and we miss the impact. It?s only 13 verses long, takes a minute to read. But this was not a simple weekend in the Sinai, with a pesky conversation with the devil thrown in. Can we even imagine . . . what 40 days in the desert would be like? The depth of suffering . . . The excruciating physical and emotional and spiritual isolation. . . The agony of being without anything?food, shelter, company. I don?t think I could survive 40 days in my own house, with a stocked refrigerator and air-conditioning? if I was all alone, if I could not leave it, or have anyone join me in it.
But Jesus was out there alone in the wilderness for 40 days, sent there by the Holy Spirit, met there by the devil.
As painful and full of suffering as it was, it must have also been deeply clarifying for Jesus.
At his baptism he was named by his Father. ?You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.? In the desert, that identity was tested. The Deceiver was intent on convincing Jesus to walk away from his true self, away from that voice from heaven that named him. The desert deceiver failed in that attempt. And eventually gave up and left for another opportune time.
That?s what Jesus? temptations were all about. He was tempted to let go of his true self, and grasp hold of a false identity.
When he was tempted to use his power to turn stones into bread and satisfy his intense hunger, tempted with political power and influence, tempted to attract attention and glory to himself, the real underlying temptation?in all three of those? was to hold on and let go of the wrong things. To let go of his true identity, to release himself from his heavenly call, to forget who he belonged to, and to grasp hold of the intoxicating power of controlling his own destiny, satisfying his own desires, and using power over others to accomplish his agenda.
We who are called by Christ, are in exactly that position. We, too, are given a name by God. God calls us his own children, adopts us, calls us into a new community.
And we are constantly tempted, like Jesus, to let go of, and hold on to, the wrong things? to let go of that which is true to who God created us to be, and hold on to those things that distract and derail.
Lent is the season to refocus, rethink, repent, to reorient ourselves God-ward. It is the season for holding on to those things which move us toward God, and God?s kingdom. And it is the season for letting go of whatever may be in our lives, that functions as a distraction.
Like I said, it will require some careful discernment to determine what you called to hold on to, and let go of during this season of Lent. We take Lent too lightly, if we think we can just decide on a dime, the day before Ash Wednesday, what one substance or behavior to fast from for 40 days . . . and then assume that we?ve done the work of Lent. No, Lent is a season for discerning. It will take all 40 days, and maybe then some, to listen for what God is telling us to hold on to, and to let go of. It will be more than one simple material thing. I am confident of that.
Each Sunday that we gather in worship this season, we will allow time in the service to at least start this work of holding on . . . and letting go. It will come in our weekly ritual of confession, following the sermon. It will be an act in which you get physically involved in the holding and releasing. And it will be, at the same time, both completely private, and very public.
We will not be required . . . this morning, or ever . . . to reveal to anyone else what we feel called to let go of. It may be something clearly sinful we are confessing, greed or anger that?s gone awry and hurt other people, some act of violence, or infidelity, or deceit, or some sexual addiction, or food addiction, or substance abuse. It may be something that seems rather benign, television habits, or use of the internet, the way we eat, the way we treat our bodies. It may be some toxic relationship that needs to be addressed, some bitterness eating away at our spirit. It may be a general self-absorption that?s getting us off-track.
I will shortly invite those who wish to participate to a period of silent reflection and physical action. After a short time of meditation, we will physically express our holding on to Christ by moving from our seats and approaching the cross. And we will physically let go of something God may be prompting us to let go of, by literally casting it on the water, letting it float away in God?s healing stream.
On the stand here near the cross is a vessel of clear water. In the hymnal racks in front of you are the usual blue folders, but inside you will find tiny slips of tissue paper. If you want to participate, take your pen or pencil (or borrow from someone nearby) and write on one of those slips of paper what God is prompting you to release. And when you are ready, approach the cross and release that slip of paper onto the water. This is a very public demonstration of your will to hold on to Christ and let go of what?s getting in the way. But what you release into the water will not be seen by anyone. What doesn?t dissolve, will be taken out in one soggy clump and disposed of. But after today, this act of letting go will be strengthened if you share it with someone, and allow the body of which we are part, to help us on this continuing journey of holding on, and letting go.
After I lead in a prayer of confession, there will be time to silently pray and write, and then we will begin to sing from Sing the Story #63 . . . God, fill me now. Anytime during the music and singing, just come and participate in this ritual as you wish.
Let us pray. With all our heart and mind and strength, Lord, we hold on to you, to that which gives us life. But we confess that we have also stubbornly held on to things that distract us from the life you intend. Give us the wisdom, and the strength, to let go, to empty our hands before you. And the confidence that in so doing, you will fill us now . . . with you.
?Phil Kniss, February 21, 2010
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Epiphany 6: Luke 5:1-11
?Put out into deeper water and let down your nets.? This was the command from Jesus to Simon in Luke 5:4. This Simon was a common fisherman who chose to obey. This choice lead Simon to the abundance of deep waters, and provides a glimpse of the power of Jesus.
Pastor Barbara Moyer Lehman said that Jesus did not call Simon to something completely different. Rather, Jesus called Simon to a deeper understanding of what Simon was already doing.
What does it mean for us to step into deep waters in our families, friendships, or work place? Can we trust Jesus enough to leave the shallow places? What would this look like, and what are our fears?
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We are continuing in the season of Epiphany, looking at how God is revealed. We have already looked at God?s revealing work in a number of ways. Now, I?d like to step back from specific Bible stories, and look at the larger story that is the Bible.
We have heard some Bible passages read and recited this morning. My guess is that what you heard may have been familiar to you. Nehemiah 8 and Luke 4 should be familiar because Pastor Phil preached on these passages as recently as October 18 as a part of the series about being church in smaller, more intimate and accountable communities. You may recall that Phil spoke on the importance of interpreting scripture - not on your own, but in the context of a community. That continues to be an important point to hold on to.
Now, allow me to change gears a bit. Children and youth, I have some questions for you. I need you to raise your hands for me so we can see where you are. Ok, now put them down. How many of you have heard the story about God creating the world?
Have you heard the story of Joseph and his many-colored coat? David and Goliath? Jesus walking on the water? Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana? You better know that one, Pastor Barbara just preached about it last Sunday!
Adults, you all know those stories, and probably many, many more. You probably know some stories from the Bible that I don?t remember. Many of you - children, youth, and adults, have memorized verses from the Bible, or maybe even whole chapters or books!
We value the Bible. The Bible is what we believe to be God?s story, telling us about who God is and what God wants us to be. We reference the Bible as we attempt to discern - in community how God is calling us to live in our unique context. But many of us have a nagging suspicion that our biblical grounding is slipping.
According to one source, 81 % of American Christians surveyed thought the saying ?God helps those who help themselves? is a Bible verse. Jay Leno questioned some people who thought that phrase was one of the 10 Commandments. And many thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. Beyond biblical illiteracy, for those of us who do read the Bible, ok, for ME when I read the Bible, I sometimes wonder why a particular story was included in the Bible. What does it mean? Wouldn?t the Bible have been better without some of the gruesome stories?
In Nehemiah 8, the city walls and gates of Jerusalem had just been rebuilt. Israel was in exile. This small group remaining in Jerusalem had forgotten their story. When Ezra brought out the Book of the Law, people were amazed. They were weeping at what they heard. Now, it also says that they didn?t understand what they were hearing and the Levites went out and helped them to understand.
We need to hear the Bible story, and like the remnant in Jerusalem, we need help in understanding what we are hearing.
In October of last year, I went to Hesston College, in Kansas, to participate in a conference titled: Learning the Bible in Life-giving Ways: History, Hooks, and Heilsgeschichte. For years, Marion Bontrager and Michelle Hershberger have been teaching this as a required course to all students at Hesston. My experience this weekend was powerful. I was helped to understand - and put together ? what I have been reading in the Bible.
I?d like to break now, from giving a sermon, and invite you to listen in on a conversation. Kim and Eric, would you join me up here? Kim and Eric Schmucker graduated from Hesston College almost 4 years ago. While there, they both participated in the Bib Lit class that Marion and Michelle teach. We?ll talk a bit about that class.
What does Heilsgeschichte mean? What impact did this course have on you? Talk a bit about the content of the course, or the outline that people have in their bulletins. What does it mean that this is your story?
How do we approach the Bible? It is not simply a book of verses that we should learn. It is not a book of ideas and theology, which we simply need to learn in a rote manner so as to have ?right? beliefs. The Old Testament isn?t just an extended genealogy of Jesus, outlining the family into which he was born? Nor is it just a series of books with shadowy references pointing to Jesus? The Bible is certainly not a book about a God who deals with puppet-like people, pulling their strings and making them act at God?s whims. Do we view the Bible as being written by God, a book that is perfect, without error or contradiction, a book that is an exact history, and a science book following modern scientific approaches? I would say ?No.?
Can we take the perspective that the Bible was written, edited, and collected by diverse people who were inspired by God? The writing and editing occurred with divine inspiration, but the writing and editing occurred in a particular historical context, with a vocabulary, concepts, strengths, and weaknesses that were unique to that context.
As we read the Bible, look at it as the story of God?s good creation, and of human rebellion toward God. In this story, God, with amazing grace and a dogged persistence that defies logic, works to solve the problem of sin. This is a story of God?s dynamic interaction with humans humans who, at times, show amazing faithfulness and at other times, remarkable faithlessness.
It?s my story, because the story does not end with the book of Revelation. It is a story that rolls on through history, full of love. May God continue to be revealed through our reading of the Bible, and may we continue to find ourselves placed firmly within that story.
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Epiphany 2
Isaiah 62:1-5; John 2:1-11
Pastor Barbara Moyer Lehman reflected on the news of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, and Park View Mennonite Church?s experience of hosting homeless men and women sleeping in our building this week. How does this Sundays lectionary text from John 2:1-11 relate to this? The wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine, was the first of the signs through which Jesus would reveal his glory. This was meant to open peoples minds to God. What are the signs around us now? In the midst of pain and suffering and injustice, what signs do we need to remind us of God?s presence?
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...or read it now God has a claim on you. God has a claim on me. I mean that in the same sense of early American pioneers, who ventured out into the wild west, into untamed wide-open land, and pounded a big stick in the ground . . . ?staking their claim.? That?s about all it took to own a piece of land back then. If it was still unclaimed, and you were standing on it, then you could claim it, you could, at that moment, possess it, as first owner. It was legally yours, and no one else?s. If someone tried to take it from you, you had the right to defend it, to take it back.
God has that kind of claim on us. God was the first to do so. The pioneer claimant. So God has complete and prior authority to name the land, to shape it, to develop it, or leave it alone, to build something on it, or to tear down, to dwell in it, or abandon it. It?s completely up to God how God chooses to act on this claim.
But there is one problem with this analogy. A big problem. We are not just acreage. We are not property to be used or discarded. You and I and all humankind, are the crowning work of God?s creation. God created us and chose us for a unique purpose. God?s claim on us is a love claim. God?s exclusive claim on us, is the right to relate to us in love.
And that, of course, puts God in a terribly awkward dilemma. For that love to be fulfilled, it must be reciprocated. Love is not complete, until it goes both directions. So while God has an absolute and complete claim on our lives, God must give us freedom. God must allow us to choose. For God to benefit from this love claim, God must let go of the claim. As I said last Sunday, God is the Hound of Heaven who pursues us. But it?s an empty chase, if we don?t also pursue God. _____________________
But having heard the scripture readings this morning, who would not want to pursue a relationship with such a God?
The prophet Isaiah gives us in today?s text, one of the most overwhelmingly tender . . . warm . . . and passionate passages in the whole of scripture. This is God talking, the Almighty and Just and Righteous Creator, speaking to his human creatures, his lowly, fickle, frequently rebellious, often oblivious, sometimes downright mean and stupid, human creatures. And God?s obvious and deep affection for the likes of us comes through with breathtaking power:
?But now thus says the Lord, he who created you . . . he who formed you . . . Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.?
How could we not?when loved with such tender passion? how could we not love in return? How could we not gladly give ourselves over to such a lover? Okay, I?ll tell you. We have been born into, and have grown up in, and continue to be immersed in, a culture that trains us to be self-made and self-determined. It is a fundamental cultural virtue, to a be ?your own person.? I am supposed to aspire to be independent, not owned by anyone or anything. To call my own shots. To be my own boss.
I guess it?s not too surprising that people aren?t coming in droves, to give themselves over to a God who says, ?You are mine.? We instinctively assume there is something wrong, or sinister, about one who would say, ?You are mine.? We don?t seek to be possessed. We seek freedom.
But in God, you see, we can have it both ways. God has a rightful claim on us. We are possessed by God. But God, out of deep love and affection, also gives us freedom.
The challenge for each of us? and doing so will be the journey of our lifetime? the challenge is to learn how to lay down ourselves, without losing ourselves. to allow this divine possession, while becoming a more whole and a more free person in the process. _____________________
I believe this is what was happening with Jesus at his baptism. After coming through what was probably a normal childhood, normal adolescence, and normal young adulthood, Jesus was now, finally, coming to terms with his identity. He was grasping who he was called to be, and what he was called to do.
Sometimes we say this baptism was Jesus? ordination for ministry. Here, he was commissioned for service. That?s not really a wrong way to describe it. His work was ordained and commissioned by God, and after his baptism and a stint in the wilderness, he did launch his public work in a larger way. But it?s not the best way to describe it, and certainly not a complete description.
I don?t think Jesus? baptism was primarily a commissioning for service. It was primarily a ?christening,? a naming. Now, we Mennonites don?t baptize infants, so we don?t often use the language of christening. But in many long-standing religious traditions, baptizing and naming are two central actions of the priest in the ritual of ?christening.? And in the Jewish tradition, for boys at least, naming and circumcising happened at the same time, on the eighth day after birth.
So you could say, what happened to Jesus in the Jordan River that day, was a sequel to what happened when he was eight days old, being held in the arms of his teenage mother? the day he was given the name ?Jesus.? That day, even though baby boy Jesus had no clue what was going on, he was publicly named by his Jewish community, his identity was located within these people of faith. In that ritual the community was told, in effect, ?Here is one of your own. Care for him.? And the baby Jesus was told, in effect, ?You are one of us. You belong here, with us.?
So Jesus? baptism in the river Jordan was his re-christening. When Jesus rose out of the water, the dove descended and a voice from heaven named him. ?You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.? The God who gave Jesus life made a pronouncement the began with two words ?You are...!? Not, ?you shall? or ?you should? or ?you will? which are words of duty, of ordination for service. But, ?You are!? Words of identity. Words of naming, of christening.
In our culture, we don?t really think too much about the significance of being named. Names for babies come in and out of fashion. Sometimes, parents just like the ring of a certain name. Sometimes, a name comes from the family, a generation or two back. Sometimes, a name is chosen for what it means.
I?ve told you before that I?ve always been a bit envious of people who have names that mean, ?Gift of God? ?Strong one? ?Son of righteousness.? My name means ?lover of horses.? That one hasn?t really panned out. Oh, I admire horses. But I?ve been on one maybe 3 or 4 times in my life.
But you know, that doesn?t really matter. The real significance in being named was . . . who named me. I was named by David and Esther Kniss, of Sarasota, Florida. Two persons, out of their own free will, chose to love me, and take responsibility for me. They did that by naming me, and saying, in effect, to me and to the world, ?You are our son. We claim you. We have a stake in your life. Until you reach adulthood, as long as we are responsible, we will sacrifice our very selves for you.? And they did. And I am forever grateful.
You know, having the right, and responsibility, to name a child, is an awesome and powerful thing. I was blessed to have parents who fulfilled that responsibility with love and integrity. Not everyone does.
That?s really what it means in Isaiah 43, when God says with deep affection, ?Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.? God gives us our name. God lays claim to our life. God has a stake in who we become. We belong to someone greater than ourselves.
And that?s what was happening, first and foremost, at Jesus? baptism. God was declaring, to Jesus and to the world, ?You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.? God was saying to all who would hear. I claim this man Jesus. He is mine, and I love him. No matter what he may do, or what people may do to him. I love him. I claim him.
In his baptism, I think Jesus came to understand, in a deeper way than ever before, who he was, who he was called to be, and who he would yet become. On that crucial, pivotal day of baptism, Jesus was not given a to-do list, he was given a name. After that, his ministry happened because he accepted that name as his true identity, and didn?t allow anything else to rob him of that identity, or to redefine him and make him into someone he was not.
And no sooner was he baptized, that his identity was put to the test, in his wilderness temptations. Remember the lines used by Satan, to get to him, ?If you are the Son of God . . .?
Note . . . On his baptism, the voice from heaven said, ?You are . . .? In the temptations right after that, a voice said, ?If you are . . .? Interesting juxtaposition isn?t it?
Jesus was able to withstand the temptation, because he had gotten clarity, in his baptism, about who he was. If only we all had that kind of clarity. If only we were not so confused, so often, about our core identity. If only the cultural values we swim in 24/7 didn?t do such a great job telling us lies that we are what we drive, or what we wear, or what we look like, or even, what we do. And we believe those lies. We make decisions based on those lies. More than we care to admit.
But the voice of God is a truth-telling voice. ?I have redeemed you,? God says. ?I have called you by name, you are mine. I am the LORD your God, and I will be with you. I love you.? And that voice is still speaking love, and affection, and passion toward each of us, as God?s good creation. God?s voice is not silent. The question is whose voice am I tuning my ears to listen to? Will I listen to the One who created me, and the only One with the power to create and name me, who declares with affection, ?You are my beloved . . .? Or will we listen to the voice of the enemy of God, the tempter in the wilderness, who whispers, accusingly . . . ?If you are . . .? Jesus chose to listen to the baptismal voice. Which voice will I choose?
The voice of our Creator speaks love. It speaks acceptance of us, as we are, and calls us toward something even greater. We are possessed by God, and as such God has a stake in both who we are now, and who we will be yet become. Since God?s stamp is placed on our lives, God has a stake in our future. God has a claim. ?You are my child. I love you.?
Let us now, and always, tune our ears to that tender voice. And turn down the volume of all other voices that try to convince us otherwise. So that the first voice we hear when we rise in the morning, and the last voice we hear when we lie down at night, is the voice of the One who claims us, and says, ?You are mine.? Who will say to us, in our times of fear, Do not be afraid, I am with you I have called you each by name Come and follow Me I will bring you home I love you and you are mine.
?Phil Kniss, January 10, 2010
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People have found lots of interesting ways to describe God. One of the more striking, that I?ve heard, is to call God the ?Hound of Heaven.? That phrase was coined by English poet Francis Thompson, a hundred years in a poem, by that title. References to the poem, Hound of Heaven, have wound up in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, the U.S. Supreme Court, and Monty Python (I dare say, you?ve never heard those in the same sentence). The poem inspired one artist to paint a series of 23 paintings. The narrator of the poem talks about fleeing from God, and about God?s feet that followed after with ?unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy.?
Now . . . it is a profound truth that God indeed is a pursuer. God deeply desires to be in relationship? loving, mutual, unobstructed, relationship? with us human beings. God has been pursuing us ever since that fateful evening stroll in the Garden of Eden, calling to Adam, ?Where are you?? God pursued us humans everywhere from the Garden of Eden to the Land of Nod, from Egypt to Canaan, from Babylon to Palestine. God pursued us with the aid of judges and prophets, with the help of wise and compassionate widows, and Canaanites, and other outsiders. God has lovingly, relentlessly, doggedly . . . pursued us. The Hound of Heaven.
But God never intended to be the sole pursuer. There needs to be mutual pursuit. No . . . we are not equals in this God-human relationship but God never intended to do all the work to make it happen. Good relationships take more than one. For the love between God and us human beings to be complete, there needs also to be a pursuit of God.
That?s what the story behind Epiphany is all about. Its about a group of wise persons who apparently made a life out of watching for signs and pursuing them. One time they noticed something extraordinary in the heavens. They assumed God was up to something big. But they were not content to sit back in the luxury and safety of home hiding behind their star charts and academic speculations. They packed up their things and went in pursuit of God. They went in full expectation that they would find and see first-hand what God was doing, and offer their personal and material gifts of devotion. They sacrificed whatever was necessary in order to engage in this pursuit. _____________________
This is a wonderful story steeped in tradition? tradition that has, of course, been exaggerated, and romanticized, and made mysterious and ?other-worldly.? A few years ago, on an anniversary trip to Europe, Irene and I visited the cathedral in Cologne, Germany. It took them 632 years to finish what is now the largest Gothic church in northern Europe. And the whole reason this magnificent church was built, was to make a sanctuary for three gold-plated boxes, studded with over 1,000 precious jewels. A house for three holy boxes, inside of which?we were told? are the bones of the three Kings.
We all have distinct and detailed images in our heads, of what these three kings looked liked, which make for great Christmas card pictures, and fun Christmas carols . . . ?We three kings of Orient are . . .? The images of three Kings are reinforced in paintings and stories and even a famous opera. The actual story comes from the Bible of course, but scripture contains not a word of them being ?three? or being ?kings? or wearing robes and large crowns, or riding camels, or seeing a star with a long tail, or bowing to worship in a stable or at a manger. Not a word.
All we get from the Bible is that there was more than one. They were wise. They associated a particular rising star with the birth of a king. And made a long trip to get the details, and bring gifts. That?s the simple story.
But to me, there is a lot more useful and inspiring truth in that bare-bones story, than there is in any legend of three kings in purple robes riding camels.
Because here is the crux of the story, I think: They looked for, and noticed, evidence of the work of God, and pursued it. On their own accord, they chose to leave their comfort zone, and move toward whatever significant thing this was, that God was doing in this world. They were astrologers, apparently, but what they really cared about was, ultimately, not in the sky. They looked to the stars for the express purpose, of figuring out what God was doing down here. And when they discovered something, they acted on it. They got involved. They pursued the activity of God, as they observed it.
That?s more than can be said for most of us God-seekers, I?m afraid. We?re not geared to think that way about Christian faith. Especially not in our North American culture. I don?t think I?m taking too much of a leap to say, the biggest single obstacle that prevents the church today from being the kind of church God calls us to be, and keeps us from pursuing God, is consumerism.
Now that might seem random, and bold, but think about it. Consumerism is the sworn enemy of radical Christian discipleship. And it?s all around us. We swim in it like fish in water. And like fish, we?re oblivious to it. There?s an old saying, ?Whoever discovered water, most likely was not a fish.?
Now lest you think I?m just saying this in protest of the fact that we just wrapped up the biggest shopping season of the year . . . lest you think I?m just preaching against the commercialization of Christmas . . . I?m not. Yes, I think we have WAY overdone buying and giving gifts at Christmas, and we ought to work at creative alternatives. And yes, I think it?s shameful that the health of our national economy rests so much on how much stuff we buy.
But my point right now is not just our shopping habits. It?s our whole approach to life, to relationships, to family, to marriage, and to almost every arena of life including religion, including church. We have come to accept as normal, that life is really about me, it?s about discovering my needs, and feeding those needs. It?s about what I consume, what I feed on for my happiness and my need-fulfillment. Consumerism may be most obvious in reference to material things home furnishings, fashion, electronics, cars, food, housing. But I think it?s inevitable, immersed as we are in this culture, that we start thinking like a consumer, when it comes to the church. Church is about us and our self-defined needs. And at some point we completely distort the reason we exist as a church.
In the book, ?StormFront: the Good News of God,? several authors make a point that consumerism has come to define the church experience. They write, ?We confuse the gospel with an infomercial, and we confuse the community of God?s people with vendors of spiritual goods and services.?
All of us, to some extent, have fallen prey to this. We evaluate church on the basis of what we get out of it. If church is ?meeting our needs,? we?re happy as a clam. If it?s not ?meeting our needs,? we look for a church that does. _____________________
That way of thinking is not just deadly for the church. It?s deadly for our personal spiritual journey.
The God of the scriptures invites us on a life journey of participating in something much larger than ourselves. We, the people of God, are invited to participate with God, in God?s mission of establishing the reign of God on the earth. We are called to be God?s holy nation and priestly people, to serve God for the sake of the world. We, the church, are but tools in God?s hands, for God to use as God wills.
The gospel is not about us. It?s about God. That ought to be obvious, but it?s often not the way we think. The word ?gospel? means ?good news,? so we try to present the gospel in an appealing way, that it?s good news to whoever happens to be hearing it. When I prepare a sermon, I often ask the question, ?Now what is the good news for the people in my congregation, and how can I best proclaim it??
That?s not necessarily a bad question, but when the New Testament speaks of proclaiming the Gospel, it?s rarely about giving people what they want to hear. When Jesus refers to the good news, he?s nearly always talking about the reign and rule of God. When the apostles write letters to the church about the Gospel, they?re always referring to what God has done in Jesus. It?s not about us, sisters and brothers! The Gospel is about what God has done in the world through Christ, and about the Kingdom of Christ God is still bringing about. Sometimes that kingdom is welcomed. Often it?s not. Either by us, or by those outside the church.
Our mission is not to proclaim whatever sounds like good news to our ears personally. It?s about observing and investigating what God is now doing in the world, to save, redeem, restore, and reconcile. And then making the effort to pursue and participate in that work. That may not be welcome news to everyone.
Before we start working on God?s project in this world, we need to realize? the powers of this world? political, material, systemic, and/or demonic powers? consistently work at cross-purposes with God. If we are working on God?s project, beware! If God is really doing what Mary sang about in the Magnificat, bringing down the powerful from their thrones, and raising up the poor and lowly, then participating in God?s work, may not be the most pleasant work available. It may not sound like good news for those of us called to join the work.
The universal symbol of the Gospel is not a candy-cane. It?s a cross. And making it gold-plated or jewel-studded, and hanging it on a wall or around our necks, doesn?t change it. The symbol of the Gospel is still an instrument of death. It reminds us of Christ?s suffering. It reminds us of the cost involved if we choose to actively pursue, and participate in this holy gospel drama.
But our North American culture of consumerism has tamed the cross, made it something attractive, something people want to buy. As the authors of the book ?StormFront? said, ?North Americans prefer a religion of receiving more than a religion of participation.? We don?t want to think too long and hard about a gospel that calls us to lay down ourselves and our needs, and to lose ourselves in a project that?s bigger than us. _____________________
But that?s precisely what the magi did, when they saw the star rising in the east, and realized God was up to something larger and more momentous than what they could imagine. They laid down their personal need of home and security and safety, and went to participate in this thing beyond themselves. That?s the heart of the story, behind all that glittering gold.
The star is still in the sky, brothers and sisters! There are signs all around us that God is up to something bigger than us. God is still working to raise up the poor, to fill the hungry with good things, to bring down the proud from their thrones. God is still working to save what is lost . . . restore what has fallen . . . redeem what has been discarded . . . heal what is wounded . . . reconcile what is alienated . . .
There?s a star rising in the larger world, in pockets, here and there and every place . . . where followers of Jesus are living, and demonstrating, and forming new kinds of community, and proclaiming the good news of God?s whole salvation, and where the strong arms of oppressors and ethnic and religious extremists, are being weakened, undermined by radical Christians who are being beautiful fools for Christ, and do foolish things like sit down and talk with their avowed enemies, build houses for them, educate their women and children, dig wells, give comforters or school kits, stand beside families whose homes are being bulldozed.
There?s a star rising in parts of our own community? sometimes without a big flash of light. Simple and small expressions of church are sprouting up nearby to welcome those that traditional churches fail to reach. The homeless are not only given food and physical shelter, but are given love, and a sense of community, and dignity. Immigrants, though many of our neighbors fear and despise them, are, here and there, welcomed with open arms of hospitality. Representatives of warring religions? Islam, Judaism, Christianity? visit each other?s local houses of worship and dare to say we have gifts we can offer each other, if we remain true to our faith. And this despite outright hostility that exists in our community.
There?s a star rising in our own congregation? where more people are considering making radical changes in their daily routines to be faithful disciples of Jesus. They are living in a manner more fitting with values of simplicity and community and care for the earth than the lifestyles our larger culture has tried to make normal. They are deepening their experience of small groups, deciding it actually makes sense to spend more time together, rather than less, when our lives get hectic and over-filled with busy-ness. They are actively pursuing relationships with their neighbors, and with persons who are not like themselves.
There are signs that God is still doing things in our world, in our community, in our church. There are signs God is acting to draw us and others into a more holistic salvation. The star is rising. Will we be self-oriented consumers? . . . or God-oriented collaborators? Will we stay home where it?s comfortable?? hiding behind the star charts, and remarking on the beauty of that rising star. Or will we be like the magi?? pack up, saddle up, and head out in dogged pursuit of God, and whatever God is up to in our world.
Will we admire from a distance the salvation that God is bringing? Or will we participate in it? _____________________
That is the question I would like us to hold in our hearts, to ponder, as we come to the Lord?s table this morning, on this first Sunday of a new year.
We use the phrase ?receiving communion? and that?s accurate. The elements are offered, and we take them. But it?s more accurate to say we ?partake.? We participate in this re-enactment. And by so doing we participate, at some level, in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In Jesus Christ, God acted . . . in the world . . . for its salvation. God continues to act in the world today. And at the table we join in communion with God, in communion with each other; and we say, we belong to you, Lord, here we are...at your service.
Yes, we are nurtured and sustained by this ritual. But primarily, in it we offer ourselves to God. We participate in the continuing work of God.
?Phil Kniss, January 3, 2010
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?Joy? is the theme of the 3rd Sunday of Advent. Our scripture texts focused on this. Zephaniah 3:14-20 speaks of how God rejoices over the faithful remnant of Israel, and ends with a promise of God bringing the remnant home. But then we have Luke 3:7-18 where John is calling for repentance. How does this fit with Joy? Pastor Barbara Moyer Lehman explained that repentance is not just an emotion, not just feeling badly and saying ?sorry?. Repentance is about changing your life. John responded to the questions people asked by telling them how to change their lives and behavior. Pastor Barbara asked us, ?What must we do to repent and change?? Are we willing to risk asking that question individually and as a congregation? Can we view John?s call to repentance as a cause to celebrate?
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How often, reading the Bible, have we come across a bunch of names, mostly unpronounceable, and thought . . . ?Well, this is quaint.?
It?s an old, archaic way of marking time. Instead of saying, ?In the fall of 1987 . . .? like we do, the Bible says things like, ?In the third year of the reign of King Artaxerxes, when Gedaliah son of Ahikam was governor . . .? And sometimes the names go on and on and on. It?s tempting just to skip over them, and get to the part that really means something.
Maybe that?s what you thought when you heard those seven names in the first two verses of our Gospel reading. Well, I intend to help you think differently about that today. Those names do a lot more than give the story a dateline, although they do that. The writer of Luke was certainly interested in details like names and dates. But the list of names in Luke 3 hold a deeper meaning. They help the Gospel writer declare a profound truth about the way God works in the world.
These are the names of all the people who, in the time of Jesus, were getting in the way of God. They were actively hindering the fulfillment of God?s purposes for his people and for the whole world.
But to understand how they were doing that, you need the bigger picture that the Bible gives us, about the way God works in this world, and for what purpose. _____________________
From all biblical evidence, both Old and New Testaments, it seems God?s way of working in the world is to befriend a particular people, and make them his missionary people to the world.
God calls a people into being, asks them to follow his way, and structure their life as a people in a way that honors God?s priorities of love and justice and peace, and care for the vulnerable ones among them. And God calls these people to fashion a society based on those values, at sharp odds with the values of the nations of the world.
Then this community of people are to demonstrate God?s will and God?s reign in a winsome way, so that all the other peoples and nations of the earth will be blessed, will prosper, will live in harmony with each other, and will turn toward God. Then God will act to save and redeem the world, and restore the shalom, the peace and the wholeness that God created in the beginning. So God?s modus operandi in the Bible, is calling out people to work together with God to heal the earth.
And it was the children of Abraham, living in Palestine, who were God?s designated people.
But, here in Palestine around A.D. 30 or so, this people of God were in trouble. They were political refugees in their own land. They were being brutally oppressed by a foreign power that had no appreciation for their God, or for God?s purposes in the world.
As a result, God?s people themselves were getting off-track spiritually. They had forgotten their divine calling to demonstrate love and justice. Many lived in despair. _____________________
That is the context in which we hear these names. The names listed there are precisely the ones who are brutally oppressing God?s people, or . . . leading them down a path of spiritual confusion.
So what Luke is basically saying here in these opening verses, is . . .
In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius . . . when Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor in Jerusalem . . . during the reign of the brutal King Herod in Galilee . . . while Herod?s brother Philip and another king, Lysanias, ruled all the surrounding regions . . . and during the time that Annas and Caiaphas were high priests for the Jewish people, during this spiritually confusing and conflicted time . . . the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
Literally, while all hell was breaking loose in their homeland, while they were being over-taxed and under-served, while those who dared to resist were publicly executed on crosses that dotted the landscape, while their own spiritual leaders were desperately trying to survive by acquiescing to Rome, that?s precisely the time when God acted to intervene with the good news of hope and of salvation. And the news was delivered by none other than a wild-haired, locust-eating, shrill-voiced prophet, born to a couple in their senior years.
This was, to put it mildly, an unlikely and amazing development in the lives of the Jewish people of Palestine.
While all the powers that be were sitting in their seats of power, trying to control the destiny of these Jewish people in Palestine, the word of God came to some wild character out in the desert.
There were plenty of other voices during that time, in the towns and cities of Palestine, who claimed to be hearing the word of God who tried sway Jewish public opinion that their way was the best way of getting Israel out of this mess. The zealots were revolutionaries who tried to convince the people that the way out was armed rebellion. The religious rulers tried to convince the people that the way out was becoming religiously pure. ?If we only follow all God?s commands completely, as soon as we reach spiritual perfection and make God happy again, the Messiah will come and set us free.?
And while those voices were trying to get the upper hand, this hairy prophet in the desert showed up with a simple message. Repent, and your sins will be forgiven and salvation will come. _____________________
That was John?s message? a message to the lost people of God. Repent, my people. Repent. But this is not the kind of repentance that we modern Western Christians like to think of. This is not me, individually, being remorseful, regretful, being emotionally convicted of my personal sin. That might happen, as a result of hearing this message to the community. I might feel sorrow and regret, for particular ways I?ve been disobedient to the covenant. And that sorrow might, hopefully, bring me to confession and repentance. But repentance is not sorrow. Repentance is not remorse. Repentance is change. Literally, to repent means to change our way of thinking. If you break down the Greek word, metanoia, that?s exactly what it means. To think again. To change our mind about something.
Or, in the case of calling a whole community to repent, like John the Baptist was doing, I think the best way to put it in plain English is this: ?People of God, change your old ways of thinking. Think rightly about who you are, about who God is, and about how you are called to live in this world.? Repent. Think again. And your sins will be forgiven?as a people and as individuals.
Considering the community John was preaching to, that message is certainly appropriate. The people had gotten lazy in their thinking. They failed to see what the Roman domination was doing to them as a community of faith. They were losing their story as God?s covenant people. They were failing to think of themselves rightly, in relation to this powerful Roman Empire, whose pagan culture was taking over the world. Some of them were getting caught up in the political struggle. Some were in active conflict with each other over this or that bit of religious trivia. But their major failing was that they no longer thought of themselves as God?s own people. And it affected how they lived.
And the good news of John the Baptist?s message is, as they make a turn in their thinking, God will come to save. If they but change this narrow, self-centered way of thinking about themselves, and about God, and about the world around them, it will open their physical and spiritual senses to God in a whole new way. They will be able to encounter the saving presence and power and grace of God.
In the midst of the storm, God tender word comes? while Emperor Tiberius is on the throne, during King Herod?s brutal reign. They need not conspire to force God?s hand. They need not take up arms and mastermind their own freedom. They need not earn God?s favor by reaching some level of perfection. They need only change their way of thinking, and turn toward God. And God?s tender mercy will take it from there.
The salvation of our God that comes to us in the midst of our deepest struggle, is a gift of pure grace. It is God?s doing. And God?s doing alone. But it is our turning, our repenting, our deliberate willingness to think anew, to change our minds and hearts, that opens the gate to let God?s grace in. And God?s work of saving grace among us, is what empowers us to live differently. _____________________
I wonder if John the Baptist?s message would be much different if he came along preaching to the church today. Don?t we as the people of God today, also have some work to do, in terms of thinking differently about who we are as a people, and who God is, and how God calls us to live, as a people.
I wonder if John wouldn?t also call us, as a community of faith, to be a repentant community. If he wouldn?t ask us, as a church, to turn in our thinking, to think again, to examine our thought framework, in other words, to think Christian-ly. Our thought framework shapes how we act as a church. How we organize ourselves. How we make decisions. How we distribute financial resources. How we plan worship. How we do outreach. Our thought framework shapes how I act personally. Thinking, as a part of God?s people, has an impact on my behavior. On my television viewing habits, the kind of Christmas presents I give, the kind of house I buy or build, the car I drive, the food I eat, the books and magazines I read, my use of the internet, and nearly every other choice I make. Thinking Christianly, as a member of the people of God, makes a huge difference.
It doesn?t come easy, though. Thinking Christianly requires careful and diligent work of discernment. It takes a community of faith willing to engage in this hard work. The work is hard, but the grace is plentiful.
And that grace is what makes this call to repentance, not a heavy, burdensome call, but a tender word, a word of sweet salvation.
As earlier, we chanted the words of Zechariah?s song in Luke 1: ?By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.?
It is God?s tender, saving, grace-filled action toward us that makes any of this possible. It is God who calls. It is God who saves. It is God who transforms us. It is God who enables us to live and think rightly.
What we are responsible for is the turn. The deliberate willingness to change course. To let our truth be subject to God?s truth. Once the turn is made, we have done what John the Baptist asked. We have prepared the way of the Lord. God will come and God will act. The whole landscape will be changed. The mountains made low, the valleys filled, the rough places made smooth.
Not by us. But by the one who created the landscape. Remember the words we heard from the Apocrypha? From Baruch chapter 5. Not a regular part of our Bible, but a wonderful echo of the words of the Gospel.
Where John the Baptist, quoting Isaiah, talked about the way being made level for the coming of God, Baruch puts an interest twist on the image. There it says, ?For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.?
Here, God is changing the landscape, that we may walk safely. Just a reminder that salvation is God?s initiative, and God?s work. We are called to repent, to turn in our way of thinking, and walk the path laid out for us by our creator God.
And may we, by God?s abundant and amazing grace, be given courage and strength to walk this path.
?Phil Kniss, December 6, 2009
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Have you ever noticed how many worthy causes have their own official awareness month? Almost every disease, and almost every important issue has its own awareness month. And we can appreciate most of them, I think. But maybe it?s getting out of hand. Did you also know there was an official Squirrel Awareness Month? a Potty Training Awareness Month? a Mold Awareness Month? a Workplace Politics Awareness Month? a Caffeine Awareness Month? and yes, an Accordion Awareness Month?
Recently a humor magazine spoofed this trend by proclaiming December ?National Awareness Month.? to address ?our current epidemic of complete and utter obliviousness.? It was supposedly sponsored by the American Foundation for Paying Attention to Things.
After I had a good chuckle, it occurred to me. In their attempt simply to be funny, they were being profoundly theological. They captured perfectly a key message of Advent. The reality of Advent is that we really aren?t being attentive enough. Advent is our annual wake-up call to ?Be alert!? This is the main thing we emphasize every year on the first Sunday of Advent. Be alert!
You may want to take a look in your Bibles at Luke 21, our Gospel reading today. I see in this passage, at least eight different ways Luke records Jesus saying the same thing: ?Pay attention!? Scanning down the page, beginning around v. 28, I see words and phrases like, stand up . . . and raise your heads . . . Look . . . see for yourselves . . . see these things . . . Be on guard . . . don?t be caught unexpected . . . Be alert at all times . . . You might say Jesus was proclaiming National Awareness Month in Palestine.
Awareness of what? What is Jesus asking us to pay attention to? Well, it all depends on your perspective. Depends on what you?re looking for. If you fixate on all the terrible things taking place in the world? and the Jewish people in first-century Palestine had every reason to, what with being occupied by a brutally oppressive foreign regime? if you fixate on the terrible events in your world, that?s what you will notice, that?s what will fill your senses, your awareness. And Jesus gives fair warning that it?s going to get even worse. Notice v. 25 and following. There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. On earth, distress among the nations. Roaring of the sea and waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding. The powers of heaven will be shaken. And in v. 34, people react with self-indulgence and drunkenness and worrying about life.
But if, instead of fixating on the awful circumstances, instead of practicing worry and fear, you choose to practice hope, if you pay attention to God?s redeeming work in the world, you will notice something else. Jesus says in v. 28, ?Stand up! Raise your heads!? There is no reason to cower, to bow down in fear. ?Look! Your redemption is drawing near.? And again in v. 30: ?See for yourselves. The winter is ending. The summer is already near.? V. 31: ?The kingdom of God is near.? Be alert! At all times.
Advent is a season for renewing our hope. We celebrate the first Advent? the coming of God in the flesh to an oppressed and weary and sin-filled world? that coming, that Advent, has already happened, and we rejoice! We are still the beneficiaries of that first Advent. Because the Redeemer is still with us. Immanuel. God is still present with us in the midst of our messy, earthly, broken existence. God is here now, to save and redeem.
But we also anticipate another Advent. A second coming. A further, and more complete redemption. And that?s the good news we proclaim every year on the first Sunday of Advent. Which we already sang about: ?Christ will come again.?
But even while we wait on that final redemption at the end of all time, there are continuous Advents in our world today. Christ comes anew, and comes daily, to save and redeem us in this world. But we might miss it, if we don?t pay attention.
The signs of redemption are often pretty subtle. In our text, did you notice the difference in the nature of the signs? You can?t miss changes in the sun and moon, and international turmoil, and tsunamis and the like. The signs that cause fear and foreboding are obvious. They?re right out there. But the image Jesus chose to give us hope?? a fig tree, with leaves just beginning to sprout. That?s the kind of sign we can walk by every day, and never see it. That?s why there?s these urgent commands: ?Lift up your heads. Look! See! Be alert!?
Paying attention is a discipline to be practiced, and learned. And it doesn?t come natural, especially living in the times and the culture that we do. _____________________
Earlier this week, a new insight came to me. At least I think was an insight. You can be the judge. It came during our morning prayers in the office on Wednesday. We were reading Psalm 96. The psalm is a call for all peoples of the earth, all nations, to be reverent, to revere God. To paraphrase, the psalmist is saying, ?The Lord, who made the heavens, is great beyond all gods. Bow down. Give honor and glory. Ascribe to the Lord, O you tribes and nations, attribute to the Lord all that is good and beautiful. You nations, bow down and tremble and worship the only great and majestic God.?
And I found myself thinking, ?Oh yeah, right, like that?s going to happen. All the peoples of the earth suddenly getting humble and circumspect. Suddenly practicing reverence, bowing down to one greater than themselves.?
Reverence is a lost art in this world, at least in many cultures of the world? cultures like ours that are highly industrialized, militarized, capitalized, individualized. We?re too proud to be reverent. We?re too self-sufficient to be reverent. We?re too focused on our own needs and agenda? individually, yes, but especially as a nation.
We just don?t do reverence very well at all, because reverence and self-centeredness cannot coexist. Reverence requires the ability to see beyond ourselves, far beyond. Reverence is the capacity to see the divine, the transcendent, the wholly other, and to bow before it in humility.
Then as I reflected on it, I suddenly had this realization that the ability to be alert, to be attentive, is directly connected to our ability to be reverent. I can?t be deeply and truly attentive, without also being reverent.
Being attentive, and being reverent, both require shifting my focus from self to the other. They both require humility.
I cannot be a good attentive listener, for instance, if I?m always forming my next sentence in my head. I cannot really enter into the beauty and wonder of creation, if I?m focused on how I?m going to use it or manipulate it. I cannot enter into a reverent encounter with God on Sunday morning, if I get hung up on whether this or that style of music pleases me, or whether I could have done as good a job reading, or playing the piano. Reverence and paying attention require that I set aside, for now, my agenda, my needs, and worship the God who is being revealed in the other. _____________________
Many of us have in the last few years, gotten more connected to the homeless in our community, through the HARTS program, or OCP, or just on our own. And we?ve all heard it said that we can see the face of Jesus in the poor. That sounds great, sounds lofty. But it takes work. It takes discipline. It takes practice. It?s easy for me to say I see Jesus in their face. But do I really?
Because until I can look deeply into the eyes of my neighbor who happens to be homeless, or mentally ill, or chronically intoxicated, and have a genuine sense of reverence, instead of pity, I haven?t seen Jesus. Even the most pitiful and derelict of us human beings still reflect, in some manner, the divine image within us. If we are human, we reflect the image of God, however subtle, however blurred.
If I look at a desperate human being, and only feel pity, or revulsion, or disgust, I?m still focused on myself, because I am comparing my situation with theirs, my worth with theirs. I may even have genuine compassion, be moved to tears. But if all I can feel is sorrow, I am not being attentive. I am not being reverent. I am not seeing Jesus in their face. And I won?t, until I look into their eyes and are moved to worship the God being reflected there.
That doesn?t come easy, I grant you. But neither does it come easy to live in a world where the sun and moon are changing, the nations are in an uproar, the powers of heaven are shaking, and then to walk by a fig tree, and notice, with gratitude, that new leaves are sprouting.
We live in an anxious world. People are paralyzed with fear. Fear of terrorism, fear of the flu, fear of big government, fear of Islam, fear of climate change, fear of the stock market, fear of . . . you name it. God calls us, in the midst of this fearful world, to not be like those around us, who according to Luke 21, faint from fear and foreboding. We are called to another way of living. We are called to practice reverent attentiveness, to notice the signs of God?s redeeming work, to notice the signs that God?s kingdom is sprouting up. And give thanks!
And to do this, we must practice stillness . . . more often than our frantic schedules allow us to. We must practice silence . . . more deeply than our media-drenched culture allows us to. We must practice gazing . . . longer than our eyes?having been trained on momentary glances? allow us to. We must practice sustained thought and reflection . . . longer and more deeply than our brains?having been shaped by constant multi-tasking, sound-bytes, and catch-phrases? allow us to. We must seek and find freedom from that which prevents our paying full attention.
Because what we see at first glance, is not all there is. God?s promise of redemption is more sure, than any threat of annihilation. Even the prophets in the Old Testament were sure of God?s promise to redeem. In today?s reading from Jeremiah, we heard it said, ?The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah . . . I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land . . . The Lord is our righteousness.?
I suspect there?s been no time in recent memory that it?s been so easy to point here and there and everywhere, and see the signs of destruction and violence and oppression. We have every right to do that. But that is not our calling. Our calling is to see the kingdom of God breaking in to our existence, to see our redemption drawing nigh, to look for, and see, with all due reverence, God?s face in the poor, in our enemies, in our sisters and brothers.
The temptation we must fight, with all due diligence, is the temptation to be overwhelmed by the evils around us. Evil is not hard to find. It?s all around us?in front, behind, beside, under, and over us.
There is a wonderful old Celtic prayer that is the perfect way to defeat that temptation. This prayer reminds us that it is not evil that surrounds us, but Christ. The prayer says, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ under me, Christ over me, Christ on my left and my right. And that same idea found its way into a Navajo prayer, which was adapted and put to music by David Haas. A song we have sung numerous times. I invite us to sing it once again, in STS #16. Peace before us, peace behind us, peace under our feet. Peace within us, peace over us, let all around us be peace.
This is a prayer for attentiveness. In each verse, we are called to notice, with reverence, the peace, the love, the light, and ultimately, Christ himself, who is before and behind us. Who surrounds us completely. Let?s sing this as reverently, and confidently, as we can, as Karen, and the Mast family, lead us. Join in on the sign language, as you learn it.
?Phil Kniss, November 29, 2009
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This is not your grandmother?s stewardship sermon! No offense intended to your grandmother . . . or mine, God rest her soul. No offense intended to any of you who are grandmothers.
But I say it somewhat playfully, to give you fair warning. If you came this morning expecting a typical late-November, Faith-Promise Sunday sermon on tithing? Or if you came expecting a little talk that your grandmother could have given you, tenderly encouraging you to be just a little more generous in your tithes and offerings to the church, but certainly won?t be asking for an arm and a leg, or for your life-blood, or anything? well, then . . . this might be a good time for you to slip out discretely.
I really don?t favor teaching tithing, per se. I practice tithing. For all 29 years of our married life Irene and I have faithfully given our 10 percent, or more, of gross income to the church, and that?s not likely to change. But as a teaching principle, ?tithing? is a very flimsy foundation on which to build a theology of stewardship.
Yes, the Bible repeatedly talks about the tithe as an arrangement to support the worshiping community and to care for the needy among them? the Levites, widows, orphans, foreigners, and the like. Giving back 10 percent was seen as both reasonable and practical, and it was done as an act of joyful worship. Nothing has changed, to make that practice any less reasonable, valuable, and worshipful today.
But?and this is the single point of my sermon today? Our Christian calling is not to return one-tenth of our resources to God. Our Christian calling is one of ?whole-life stewardship.? We owe it all . . . arm and a leg, and life-blood included. If we don?t believe that, we have a very small view of God, indeed. _____________________
Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow, in his book, God and Mammon in America, says the relationship between our faith and our finances is far more disconnected than we think. We have engaged, he says, in compartmentalization. Keeping our faith in one compartment, and our finances in another, is expedient. It?s convenient for us. We fall back on our usual economic habits? even if those habits are ethically sound? but we don?t have to do the hard work of making our financial decisions ones of real spiritual discernment, especially discernment that involves our faith community in any way. For instance, he wrote, ?prayer very seldom leads a person to buy one brand of automobile rather than another. It just makes us feel better about the purchase after the fact.? Even teachings on stewardship in church might remind us to be responsible in our handling of money, but they rarely spell out what responsibility actually means.
Tom and Christine Sine were in our community a couple weeks ago, spending time at EMU. I had the privilege of sitting and visiting with them for a while. Tom is best known for his book Mustard Seed Conspiracy that came out almost 30 years ago now. He and his wife continue to travel the world on speaking tours. Their core message is calling the church to practice ?whole-life faith? or ?whole-life discipleship.? The primary sin of our society, that has also infected the church, is that of fragmentation. Our social lives and relationships are fragmented. Our spiritual lives are fragmented. So naturally, our theology gets fragmented. We need the healing, restoring, shalom-bringing kingdom of God to break into this fragmented world, and fragmented life we live, and make things whole. _____________________
Emphasizing a rule like tithing makes a lot of sense in a tightly-connected religious society like the people of Israel who needed to have a mechanism to ensure just and equal sharing. So the rule of the tithe, by ensuring that Levites, widows, and orphans were cared for, helped strengthen community that already existed, helped maintain shalom.
But in our fragmented world, and fragmented faith communities, I wonder whether always pushing for the tithe might have the opposite effect. Instead of building community, could it reinforce fragmentation? Many already think ?going to church? once a week satisfies what God requires in the church compartment. Haven?t we also been taught to think that if we can manage somehow to meet the biblical standard of righteousness, in this 10-percent compartment, then we have succeeded in doing what God requires of us, in terms of our finances. How we spend the other 90 percent isn?t even on God?s radar, and certainly shouldn?t be on the church?s radar, if they?ve gotten their 10 percent.
How it is we?ve gotten so comfortable seeing our money, and how we use it, as being in a completely different category than other moral and spiritual issues.
Most of us probably believe that in some way, and at some level, the church, our faith community, has good reason to care about how we relate to our spouse, how we treat our children, how we behave ourselves sexually, how we show love to our neighbors, even how we do justice in our business. But we don?t really believe the church has anything to say about how we spend our money, as long as we are being generous with our tithes and offerings.
I wonder on what biblical basis we ever came to the conclusion that money is not like other moral and spiritual matters. Does how we spend our money say any less about our faith, than how we treat our bodies, and our relationships?
If we really believe that faith and finances are connected, shouldn?t we find ways to love and care for each other in the body, in terms of how helping each other be good stewards of our material and financial resources? _____________________
We do have a God-given responsibility to be faithful stewards. And this responsibility is all-encompassing. It was given to us on the sixth day of creation, as we heard in the scripture reading. God said to humankind, ?This is all very good. The plants and trees, the beasts and birds. Now I?m giving them to you to take care of. Have dominion over them. In other words, they are your domain of responsibility. They?re under your umbrella of care. I trust you with them.? All good gifts of life, dear brothers and sisters, all good gifts of life come from God, and they are given to us not to own and manipulate, but to care for with the same love and affection that God their creator has for them.
Jesus reinforced this mandate in his parable of the talents, in the other scripture reading, from Matthew 25. One faithful servant is given five talents?a whole lot of money? and he exercises good stewardship. He invests it wisely. He doubles on his investment. He returns it to his master. And of course, he receives a reward. The second servant is given two talents?still a lot of money? and he also is a good steward. Doubles it, returns it, gets his reward. The third servant gets one talent?still a heap of money. But he is not a good steward. He buries it in the ground. When the master returns, the servant gives it back the way he got it. And the servant is severely punished.
But why was he punished? Because he failed as a financial planner? No, because he insulted the master, refusing to receive the master?s gift of trust. The master offered his slave something unprecedented, unheard of in master-slave relationships. He offered a mutually beneficial partnership. But the slave refused to recognize the gift, refused to see how much the master trusted him. So he buried the gift. The problem was not that he didn?t double the investment like the others. If he had gone out with the same attitude as the other servants, and made a good-faith effort, but failed miserably, for whatever reason, I believe the master would have been abundantly gracious. But the slave slapped his master in the face. He spurned this gift of love and trust.
We are living this parable today, and there is just as much at stake. What?s at stake is not whether we?re able to invest and make a profit from what God gives us, although it?s great if we can do that. What?s at stake is whether we see the resources we have as a trust from a generous and loving Creator, and treat them all as God?s property, under our care. God never transferred ownership to us. God still owns the cattle on a thousand hills. And God owns the hills on which the cattle graze. But they are all in our hands as a sacred trust.
Faithful servants of God will care about how they receive and manage this trust. Faithful servants of God will find ways to help each other be faithful. _____________________
Which brings us again to being church at the table. This is the last of seven Sundays where we look at different practices of the church? worship, witness, mutual care, biblical interpretation, etc.? and ask what difference it makes if we see the church consisting primarily of table-sized groups of people in deep covenant with each other. This grows out of our emerging vision of Park View, not as a church that tries to do it all as one big community, but as a community made up of smaller covenant communities of Christ, each engaged in God?s mission in the world.
It?s fitting that we end this series with stewardship, because there is no practice of the church that is more tempting to keep private, and . . . more difficult to practice in a large congregational setting.
And stewardship is so central to a life of faith. It?s far more than money management. It?s infinitely more than giving tithes and offerings.
All of life is a sacred trust from God. So every decision we make is a stewardship decision? how we treat our friends, our family, how we spend our money, how we conduct our business affairs, how we treat the created environment, how we behave in our bodies?physically, sexually, nutritionally? Those are all stewardship decisions. And they would all benefit from being brought to the table for discernment.
The table is a place where we can be connected well enough? like branches on the vine, like the various parts of a human body? connected enough to make a difference and do the hard work of being church, without copping out and walking away from those who challenge us. _____________________
If, after seven Sundays, some of you have started to worry about this table business, you can relax. Next Sunday this table goes back to the Fellowship Hall, and the pulpit returns to its traditional spot. Park View Mennonite Church as you know it, will continue to thrive, as it is thriving right now in so many wonderful ways. We won?t be turning our church structure on its head, and mandate that everyone joins a house church. We won?t be putting padlocks on the doors and boarding up the windows of this big church building.
But what I hope I?ve been able to do, however, is spark some imagination in our body here. To remind us that church is much more than a large weekly gathering of individual believers, facing the front, where the real action is being carried out by a few experts. We need each other. We need to learn how to walk with each other in mutual covenant, how to be members of each other, and to take that seriously in our daily lives, seven days a week.
We are all profoundly shaped by the culture we?re immersed in. We are deeply and continually being formed by cultural values that are self-oriented, pleasure-seeking, and materialistic.
So if we want to be formed into an alternative way of living, if we want to be formed us as disciples of Jesus, if we want to be shaped into citizens of God?s kingdom, then the church has a huge job on its hands. It?s pure nonsense to think we can accomplish that in an hour and 15 minutes once a week.
I don?t anticipate turning our structure on its head, but I do hope, and pray, that each and every one of us who call ourselves Christian, and call ourselves part of this body of Christ at Park View, will ask ourselves how we function outside of Sunday morning. I hope we honestly examine if there is any place where we are regularly telling the story of our lives to each other. I mean really telling. Giving a full and open account. That?s what accountability is, that we?ve been talking about. Accountability is never wielded as an instrument of control. Accountability is deep connectedness. It is mutual conversation. It is walking side-by-side, in support, in compassion, and sometimes in tough love.
And if, upon examination, you realize you don?t have that, and you desire it, I hope you make your desires known.
Or if one of these smaller communities at Park View, upon examination, realizes they are not really being this kind of church to each other, that they will begin to experiment with deeper church. Including, I might add, helping its group members wrestle more deeply with questions of whole-life stewardship, including how we worship God with our finances. _____________________
Generous and creative and trusting God, you have placed in our hands, for care-taking, life itself, with all its beauty, its wonder, its complexity, its abundance. We receive this gift of trust, in amazement and gratitude, and we ask for the strength we need to live our lives with radical love, and radical generosity, that we might experience the full life that you intended for us. We come now, with our offerings of money, and ourselves. Use them to further your kingdom in this world. Amen. ?Phil Kniss, November 22, 2009
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Last Sunday, when we talked about membership and belonging at the table, one of our scriptures was John 15: the vine and branches. Christ the vine, we the branches. Great image. A beautiful organic image of the Christian life. Attached to Christ, and to each other.
But like any good metaphor, it can be misused. We could see it as an excuse to be passive in our Christian life. If all life flows from God to us through the Vine, all we gotta do is hang on and enjoy the ride! Just let God do the work of growth and transformation. There is some truth in that way of thinking. All life is a gift of the amazing grace of God. We are powerless to create life, to make growth happen.
But to think we have nothing to do in this God+human equation is just sloppy thinking.
So today, our scriptures complete the picture. We just heard excerpts from three different letters written by the apostles to the early church. They were trying to steer the church away from this sloppy theology that had God doing all the work for them.
Remember that line from the letter to the church in Ephesus: But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. We must grow up into Christ. That?s worded as a command, an instruction. So we have a choice in the matter. We wouldn?t be instructed to grow, if we had nothing to do about it.
And from 1 Timothy? Train yourself in godliness, for godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. Paul was writing to his apprentice Timothy. He said, ?Train yourself in godliness.? That?s a pretty bold statement. We can train ourselves to be godly?! Like an athlete trains to be competitive? Interesting.
And from Hebrews 5? God will not overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. From the letter to the Hebrews. Okay, so God clearly does produce the results, the life and growth. But God does not overlook the effort we put in. Sounds like our work is a prompt, as it were, for God?s action. And the apostle goes on to say a couple verses later. Be diligent. Don?t be sluggish. Imitate the heroes of the faith. They took risks. They acted with courage. Imitate them.
And in Hebrews 12 it says discipline?whether painful or pleasant? yields the fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
See, the apostles are calling all members of the church to engage in a continual spiritual workout. To exercise. To train. To strengthen their spiritual muscles. This is literally what is being said here. The Greek word in these scriptures, when it says to train, to exercise discipline, to work, is (in English letters), G-Y-M-N-A-D-Z-O. It?s the very same Greek word used in gymnasium, gymnastics. Greek-style athletics were well-known to the churches getting these letters. They knew what the apostles meant when they said, ?You want the glory of victory? Work for it!?
Yes, it?s the abundant grace of God that produces the growth in muscle mass, but our workouts with the barbells have something important to do with it. It?s not cheap grace, that?s for sure. _____________________
Knowing that diligent, disciplined training is involved, makes it obvious why being church at the table is so important. Athletes working together maximize their training potential. As someone who enjoys bicycling, I know that my average speed on a bike is consistently faster, when I?m out riding with even one other biker. In a larger group, I?m even faster. In a gymnasium, when people lift barbells, free-weights, they often work with someone else, called a spotter. The spotter has at least two important functions. They cheer on the weightlifter, help them push on beyond what they can lift alone. ?Come on, lift! You?re almost there.? They also protect the lifter. When the lifter hits the limit, just before muscle failure, the spotter prevents injury, helps to catch the barbell, let it down slowly.
That what it?s like to work at spiritual growth at the table. We function as mutual trainers, spiritual spotters, helping each other stay focused and disciplined, pushing each other toward more growth than we are capable of alone. That?s what church at the table is all about? helping each other, through Christian practices, to be formed into the people God called us to be in Christ, to be trained for godliness.
This kind of training simply won?t happen by osmosis. You won?t get it just sitting in a pew. You can listen, in rapt attention, to words from a pulpit (or table). And I can preach till I?m blue in the face. My words might help you think. But they won?t help you do the heavy lifting. We need to be in smaller communities of people who will go to great lengths to support and encourage our growth, who will call us to account, who will push us to the next level.
Training, at the table, creates an opening for the grace of God to do its work. There is no need to debate the relative merit of works and grace. We need both works and grace at the table. We put forth the effort, by God?s grace. We exercise. And God?s grace produces the growth, it completes our work.
Craig Dykstra has written on Christian practices. He said, ?Practices of the Christian faith...are not...activities we do to make something spiritual happen in our lives . . . They are patterns of communal action that create openings in our lives where the grace, mercy, and presence of God may be made known to us.?
This is what table-sized church needs to focus on. Your Sunday School classes, small groups, spiritual friendships, wherever you gather with 2 or 3 or 20 in intentional, covenant relationship, this is the task we are to be engaged in: creating openings in our lives for the grace of God to enter, and to do its work. _____________________
So what are some examples of practices at the table? I could go on and on into the afternoon talking about any number of Christian practices we could engage in at the table that would result in our spiritual growth. I?ll mention just a few.
Some of these we?ve already covered in this sermon series, like the practice of worship? of sharing both the word, and the bread and cup, and celebrating Christ?s presence in our midst. or like the practice of witness? whereby we let our common life be seen by others, where we openly give witness to the gospel, and let others witness us living out the gospel in our particular communities of Christ, or like the practice of biblical interpretation, where all participate, or the practice of mutual care.
We?ve talked about those already. So let me talk about one that?s a little harder for us to do, or even talk about.
What about the practice of moral and ethical discernment, and speaking the truth in love to each other? It?s apparent that the apostles assumed this would be happening. But our culture does not approve of this way of interacting with each other. We value privacy and individual freedom, much more than being formed in community? especially if formation means we sometimes call a community member to account for personal choices.
I just heard a good story about this from Lawrence Yoder, who happened by my office on Friday. He was telling about a small group he and Shirley were part of in California years ago. A certain husband in the group was talking about his struggle to keep his hours at work under control, and how difficult it was for him to leave at 5:00, rather than stay and get just one or two more projects done. And he said it was taking a toll on his wife and children. Whereupon another member of the group leaned toward him and asked him directly, ?Which is more important? your job or your family?? ?Well,? he said, ?both are important to me.? But the answer wasn?t accepted. ?Which is more important? your job or your family?? The man hedged again. ?But . . . my job is the way I provide for my family. They need me to be working.? It was asked a third time. ?Which is more important? your job or your family?? Finally, the man said. ?Well, my family is more important.? ?Then you need to leave work at 5:00, and go home to your family. Is it okay if I call you at work at 5:00 every day, and ask if you?re ready to go home?? ?Well, yes. That would be good.? Then a third man piped in and offered to help. ?I?ll call on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you call Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.?
See what was happening there? This was a man in spiritual training. As are we all. And this was a workout. His friends were being his spotters. Helping this man push just a little harder. Exercising his muscles. I doubt they kept calling him at 5:00 forever. Once those muscles got developed, he could lift that weight easily without the spotters. And I?ll bet he in turn was able to help support the other group members with the weights they were lifting.
The more we share our lives with each other at the table, the more we can encourage real spiritual growth. But that kind of hard work is not possible in casual group relationships. It takes a deeper level of love and trust and covenant that we have with only a small number of people.
But it doesn?t just happen. Anymore than muscle development happens sitting on the sofa pushing buttons on a remote. We must be intentional about spiritual growth. We need to plan for it. We need to organize for it.
Several times I?ve been invited to participate in a discernment group. Again, just recently, when someone needed to make a momentous decision concerning a job, and was trying to discern God?s call. This person shared the journey that brought them to this point. And the rest of us around the table listened. We asked questions. We prayed. We affirmed. We cautioned. But we did not tell them what to do. Individual personal responsibility is not taken away, when we open our lives to the discernment of a group. We engaged in a communal practice of spiritual discernment. We exercised our spiritual muscles, and helped the person exercise theirs.
There are many other Christian practices made more effective when we exercise them in mutual training, with companions at the table. Like the practice of sharing resources, considering what we have?our money, property, time, talents? as not our own, but gifts from God that we share. Our ability to share is magnified, when there are others that participate in the sharing. Resources are passed back and forth between us, and shared beyond us to those with greater need.
Or like the practice of observing Sabbath rest? not just weekly, but daily rhythms of work and rest, or even annual Sabbath practices. We honor the Creator, by resting and allowing others to rest from work, and taking time enjoy God and God?s gifts.
Like the practice of peacebuilding and justice-seeking in the name of Christ. Like the practice of healing and forgiving in the name of Christ. Like the practice of being with the poor.
You know, anyone can do good works, be a server, be a helper, be a missionary. But can we build meaningful mutual relationships with those who live in a world outside our own, with those who inhabit a very different social space, who are different economically, culturally, religiously? That takes some spiritual muscle. The kind that we need spotters to help us develop. To urge us on. To keep us from injuring ourselves or others in the process.
Maybe the one slogan to take from here this morning, is ?Spiritual growth. Don?t try this at home. Alone.?
Let us commit ourselves to have relationships in the body of Christ that are robust enough to engage in this kind of mutual spiritual training. that strong enough to withstand the strain that inevitably is part of growing new muscle. No pain, no gain, is the saying in physical training. I suspect spiritual training is no different.
And let us commit ourselves to the kind of practices that create openings in our lives for the grace of God, that make possible this collaboration between our spirit and God?s spirit that produces growth.
Turn to Sing the Story #39. A song by John Bell and Graham Maule Speaks to a collaboration between Christ and ourselves. Christ calls. We answer. And then it becomes Christ in us, and we in Christ.
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name? Will you go where you don?t know and never be the same? Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known, will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
?Phil Kniss, November 15, 2009
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All these scriptures we just read are about belonging to God to and to each other in the body of Christ. They say, in different ways, that being members of the same body makes a difference in how we live, and how we relate.
Membership Sunday is one of my favorite services here at Park View. It?s church at its best, I think. It?s always a joy to welcome new people into covenant with us. But the heart of that service are their faith statements, which are personal, often profound, and always deeply moving. Those are sacred moments in the life of our church.
But I have to admit, despite the warm glow Membership Sunday leaves in me, I have a nagging discomfort afterward. It has nothing to do with the persons we receive, and their wonderful expressions of faith. Those are heartfelt, precious gifts. My nagging feeling has to do with what this all means after Membership Sunday is over. Let me make an honest confession. Church membership is something I struggle with, considerably.
I struggle because I see a huge disconnect between what scriptures like these say about being members of each other in the body of Christ, and what ?church membership? has become in most churches, including ours.
Membership in the NT was a completely organic metaphor. The apostle Paul was so eloquent, in picking up on this metaphor and expounding on it. In another text, 1 Corinthians 12, he said to the church in Corinth, ?You?re all members of one body. One of you is a hand. And another an eye. But Eye, don?t ever say to the hand, I don?t need you! And Hand, don?t say to the foot, I don?t need you. And some of you may be some less respectable part. But don?t let that bother you. We also need you to be complete.?
That sounds so right. And the church today adopts that metaphor wholesale. But the trouble is . . . that Paul was writing to house churches. He was writing to people who met in homes, frequently. Who ate meals together at each other?s tables, and then broke bread and shared the cup of Christ, often daily. Who listened, discussed, discerned, shared resources, and knew each other?s heart as they knew their own. People who were, in every way, members of each other. Members of each other.
I wonder whether we should be a little more cautious, a little more humble, when we apply that metaphor to our experience of church.
In a church of 400-plus members, if we are really honest, is there any member, myself included, who is absolutely essential to the life of this body? Is there any member that, if it became separated, would inflict a mortal wound to this body? No. There would be pain of course, as there is in any loss, but the body would go on, likely in health and wholeness.
And of course, there?s the vine and branches metaphor. One vine, Jesus Christ, the source of our life. And all of us are connected to that vine, and therefore, connected organically to each other. The life flows from the roots, through the vine, and in, out, and through each of us interconnected and intertwined branches. It?s a great analogy, and fitting, when our lives are genuinely connected to that extent, when they are truly and deeply interconnected.
But, can a congregation of 400-plus different branches, actually be one plant, in that metaphoric sense? Does what is happening in one branch, really have an impact on another branch . . . especially when that branch always sits on the other side of the sanctuary?!
These precious, and profoundly true, biblical metaphors, begin to crumble, I?m afraid, under the weight of the large, complex, and institutional church, that we have come to accept as normal for Western Christianity.
Now don?t get me wrong. I have no problem referring to Park View Mennonite Church as a ?body of Christ.? I can even talk about Virginia Mennonite Conference as a body. And Mennonite Church USA. And ecumenical groups like Christian Churches Together. And World Council of Churches.
But every step we take away from the table? and the worship and fellowship that happens at a table, with the broken bread and cup of Christ in the center, and a deep sharing of our lives with each other? every step we take further from this core function of the church, stretches this analogy. It gets a little thinner, and a little weaker.
Take the global church for instance. Mennonite World Conference met recently in Paraguay. From all reports, it was much like other assemblies I?ve been to. It?s wonderful, and glorious, and spirit-lifting, to worship in this multitude of languages and cultures. Profound connections and deep conversations happen there, and we need to keep doing that, for the health of the church.
But it is oh, so hard to take it home with you when it?s over. Those persons I worshiped with and sang with and embraced as my very sisters and brothers, how am I living with them now? How am I treating them as I would a sister or brother? I have scarcely any connection to them whatsoever.
To talk of the global church as a real body with various members, is certainly true at some symbolic level, but I think it stretches the biblical metaphor pretty thin. _____________________
But let?s bring the metaphor back home here, to Park View. How are we doing at being a body where we are members of each other? where the pain of one member radiates through all the parts? where the gifts of each are seen, valued, and used? where each and every member is known so deeply that the body actually functions as a single living being? where a disease or injury in one member can be addressed openly and honestly in a healing and restoring way? where each member actually shares responsibility for the well-being of each part and of the whole?
Which brings us to the very complicated, and slippery, and sometimes dreaded A-word: accountability. We can?t talk about membership without talking about accountability. To be a member of something is, by definition, to be accountable. What it means to be a member in an organization is usually very clear and specific. In a civic club, for instance, you are being accountable as a member when you pay your dues, you attend the required number of meetings, you meet the other specific membership requirements.
But in a living, organic body, accountability isn?t spelled out as a set of rules. It just is. It happens by nature. Accountability is inherent to life in a living organism. You never have to instruct any members of an organism to be accountable to that organism. That would be like telling the hand, ?Now listen, stay in touch with what?s going on around you! When the arm moves, you go with it. Okay??
In a living organism, belonging and being accountable are one and same. When we are close, and connected, there is always action and re-action. Whenever an action of mine causes a reaction in another, I am being held accountable. A young child growing up in a loving family knows how accountability works, without ever hearing the word. Let?s say a two-year-old girl, while playing, bites her four-year-old brother, and her brother starts crying and runs away. Well, the little girl realizes, hey, I love playing with my brother, and whenever I bite him, he stops playing with me, so I have to stop biting him. That?s natural accountability.
I love my wife Irene. But sometimes I say something that hurts her or offends her. There is no need for Irene to impose an arbitrary rules-based accountability on me to keep me from offending her. I only need to see the hurt look on her face, or her tears, and I have just been ?held accountable.? Because I love her, I don?t want to hurt her.
When we are in honest, close, and healthy communal relationships with others, accountability is not something arbitrary, or external, to be imposed. It comes as naturally as living in a healthy family.
If we truly belong to each other, if we are genuinely members of each other, then I will gladly, and regularly, give an account of my life to you, and you, in turn, will be ready whenever needed, to lovingly ask for an account from me. Accountability is mutual conversation. Accountability is honest exploration. Accountability is looking for deeper truth together. There is no such thing as true community, without true accountability.
That?s what Matthew 18 is all about, the famous text Shirley read. This text is often just pulled out and slapped onto a situation that doesn?t really fit it. I?m not sure this is a text about institutional church discipline. Jesus is appealing to his followers to deal with conflict and sin in the body in a way that?s natural, and true to this organic connection we have with each other.
If I?ve been offended against, I will be honest, and without hostility, simply let the offender know. If that offender loves me, and loves the body we are both part of, there will be a positive response to my loving approach. There will be confession and forgiveness and reconciliation.
But maybe the offender already feels alienated from the body, and they get defensive, try to deny the offense. In which case, I am invited to lovingly expand the circle to 3 or 4, and engage in communal discernment and accountability. That discernment might shed light on what?s really going on. Maybe I simply misunderstood. Maybe I was unnecessarily offended because I was feeling alienated. A group of 3 or 4 people who are part of the same healthy close community, who are committed to stay in healthy relationship and not run away, will in almost every case be able to sort through these things.
If that doesn?t work, then the whole community gets involved. Remember, these were table-sized, house-church-sized communities. These were the communities the Gospels were first written for. The whole community, at the table? small, committed, diverse, inter-generational? engages honestly and openly with each other in the struggle to stay in relationship.
If even then, after the offender has been listened to carefully and repeatedly, the offender stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the pain they have caused the body, and refuses to make amends, then they are held to account by their own community. The community is told to relate to them as a ?Gentile? or ?tax collector.? And, of course, you know how Jesus related to Gentiles and tax collectors? He ate with them. Laughed with them. Healed their sick. And raised their dead. Plain and simple, he loved them, reached out to them, sought a way to include them.
There must be accountability with membership. That?s not the issue. The issue is when accountability is imposed from a distance, and not out of a living relationship. I wonder if it shouldn?t be a principle, in the body of Christ, that accountability should never be imposed from any distance greater than the relationship itself. We should be close enough both to see and to feel deeply the hurt look on the face, and the tears.
Jesus called for close accountability. He said, when your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. He didn?t say, when another body?s right hand causes sin, cut off that body?s hand.
I really don?t have this church membership thing all sorted out, as I said earlier. I am left with searching questions. And I invite you into these questions with me. Come to the table, and let us wrestle with the questions together, let us seek a more authentic way of being a body.
One of my questions, for instance, is how eight elders and pastors in a church of 400-plus members, can ever know enough about the spiritual well-being, about the beliefs and doubts, about the hidden sins, the forgiveness and victories in anyone?s daily walk as a disciple of Christ, that they can grant or withhold membership in that body. That?s a lot of spiritual weight on me, and a few others. Might that be a case of exercising accountability at a distance greater than the relationship? Yet that?s just how churches do membership.
And that?s how conferences and denominations hold accountable their member congregations and conferences. Votes are cast and counted. Sometimes by people who never met or spoke to those they hold accountable. Now that?s not inherently wrong or unjust as a way to define membership. But I think that model comes more from organizational theory, than from the biblical metaphor of the organic human body, that Paul chose to describe the church.
Hierarchy has its place, even in the church, I suppose, but I wonder if we don?t need to be much more cautious, and more humble, when we deal with questions of who belongs to the body.
Might there be a more biblical, more faithful, way in the body to become and to remain members of one another? Can we bring the question of membership back to the table? Literally? So that those who hold one accountable, are also in deep relationship with that one.
I don?t have it all worked out, how this would operate, especially as you get more distance from the table. I?m not precisely sure how this would work at the conference or denominational level, though I have some ideas. But I do wonder whether we, at PVMC, might be a small enough body to ask the question of ourselves, and rethink how we define membership, and how we apply it in this body. I invite us to the table to talk about that. We certainly won?t resolve the question today. But we could begin talking about it. Using the scriptures we read as our guide.
Now I wish we had an hour for talk-back, but we don?t. I won?t even be able to participate in my Sunday School discussion of the sermon today, because Irene and I are leaving for Ohio right after the service, for a family funeral. But I am serious when I say I want this sermon, and the others in this series, to be just the first contribution to a long, extended conversation in the Park View Mennonite Church body.
But in lieu of a talk-back, let?s do a sing-back. HWB 420 ?Heart with loving heart united.? When it comes to what church membership means, this song brings it all together. Our source in God through Christ, our deep commitment to each other in the body, and our commitment to join, as a body, in God?s mission in the world.
?Phil Kniss, November 8, 2009
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This service is more about song and scripture and silence and symbols, and less about a sermon . . . so I will be brief. Though brief, some words are necessary, because . . . if we celebrate All Saints Day, without thinking clearly and carefully about what we are doing, it can be hazardous to our spiritual health.
The reason it can be hazardous, is that on All Saints Day we walk a tightrope, between the divine or holy, and the human or earthly. We walk the rope with a balancing pole in our hands, wobbling between these two realities. If we?re not careful we fall off one side or the other. We need hold the two together simultaneously. On All Saints Day we celebrate both the hallowed and the human.
The church has a history of falling off the rope, on both sides. The Reformation in the sixteenth century was an attempt to get back on the rope. Because the church had come to venerate the Saints so much, that it bordered on idolatry, and magic. They were not like us. They were holy. Icons and statues became the object of people?s worship.
So Protestant Reformers, including the first Anabaptist reformers, participated in a radical cleansing of the sanctuaries, ripping the icons off the walls and burning them, pulverizing statues of the saints, and essentially stripping the worship spaces, destroying all the religious art they could get their hands on. Thus falling off the rope on the other side. They scorned these reminders of the saints who had gone before them, to the extent that they failed to see themselves as part of a larger stream of Christian history, and they missed out on the spiritual benefits of remembering and honoring the faithful ones who have gone before us, and whose lives still have the power to teach us.
So here we are in a Mennonite congregation, as spiritual descendants of the icon-destroying Anabaptists, trying to walk the rope between the hallowed and human. _____________________
When we celebrate All Saints Day at Park View, we reject the notion that the saints we honor, both the saints of old?St. Paul, St. Peter, St. Francis? and the recent saints of our own community? Ruth, Bob, Mary Florence? were fundamentally different from any of us. We honor them, precisely because they were just like us. They were our friends, our neighbors, our fellow church members, who lived ordinary human lives that were hallowed?made holy?by the grace of God.
That?s why we do All Saints Day here at Park View. We celebrate the hallowed grace of God revealed in the very human lives of those who have gone before us. We call them to mind. We name them aloud. We honor them. But we don?t make them special. We don?t put them in a holier place than we are.
We need heroes of the faith, of course. Heroes inspire us, push us to greater heights. But in a celebrity-driven culture, we are too quick to make other people larger than our lives. We tell our children over and over that they are special. But if we?re not careful, we soon have them convinced, that they inhabit a world somewhere above those who are not special.
I hate to burst the bubble, but none of us are special. Unique, yes. Loved, yes. But not special. We are all, everyone of us, cut from the same mold. That mold being the holy, divine image of God. We are all human beings with a hallowed imprint. We are daughters and sons of God, and we are children of the earth. Hallowed and human.
That?s why we celebrate this day. It?s not about our holy ancestors and their great accomplishments. It?s not about us, and our potential to be great. It is about the wonder, the mystery, of God?s choice to put God?s own holy image into the likes of us human beings, and then to dwell with us.
In Revelation 21, at the end of the service today, we will hear these words, which should cause us to fall on our faces in gratitude: A voice came from the throne of God, ?See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.?
Our calling on earth is not to strive to reach God in heaven. Our calling is to receive, in deep gratitude, God?s striving to be with us, God?s desire to make his home with us.
It is not our striving that creates saints, past or present. It is not our doing that brings together the hallowed and human. It is God?s design, and God?s doing.
And for that, in amazement and wonder, we, ?Sing with all the saints in glory, sing the resurrection song!?
?Phil Kniss, November 1, 2009
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Sitting at the table on the stage at the front of the sanctuary with the worship leader and song leader, and sipping tea with them, Pastor Barbara Moyer Lehman used a conversational tone to talk about what it means to offer mutual care in the context of a "community of communities." 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22 was the text that she referenced, but she also called upon those sitting with her and in the congregation, to explore mutual care. The challenge at the end of the sermon was to reach out and get to know some new people and practice caring for each other.
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Here on the table is a wedding gift Irene and I received, over 29 years ago. My mother, who has always taken pictures of family events, and filled dozens of fat photo albums over the years, went through all her albums before our wedding, and picked out pictures significant for me? from birth to just a few months before our wedding? made reprints, and put them all in this album with detailed captions. What she wrote made clear this was not just a gift for me, but would help Irene discover a bit more about who I am.
In this album are snapshots of me as a newborn, showing my facial deformities in early childhood, and photos of my face all bandaged up after a couple of the plastic surgeries. There are pictures of me playing with some of my best friends in my elementary school years, camping in the Smoky Mountains as a family, big extended family reunions. There are pictures of me as a pimply-faced and stringy-haired adolescent, including the shot of my 15th birthday breakfast. The picture shows an empty Wheaties box, and the mixing bowl in which I ate the entire box full, to make good on a boast. They said I couldn?t do it. I said I could. The proof is in the picture.
Flipping through this album, is not just about being nostalgic. It?s about remembering who I am. Every one of these pictures sheds light on who I am, and who the people are that my life has depended on. It tells me who I belong to, and who I?m indebted to. Each time I look at it, I remember something or someone I had forgotten about, and my life gets put into perspective. I get grounded.
It?s kind of like reading the Bible. As we flip the pages of the Bible, or a photo album, we see ourselves in it. We see our sisters and brothers. We see the community from which we came, and to which we still belong. We see our ancestors. We see God.
And sometimes we come across a picture that?s not very clear. The old yellow snapshot?s a little wrinkled, out of focus, the caption is obliterated. We squint our eyes look at it this way and that, but we still aren?t sure what we?re seeing. We need someone to help interpret it. Maybe the one who took the picture, or someone who was there at the time.
Not everything we read in the Bible is in sharp focus, either. Sometimes the pictures are blurry. We can?t always tell for sure what happened, and why. We don?t always know precisely what truth the author intended to communicate.
So we gather around the open Bible . . . as a community. Just like a family gathers around a kitchen table looking at old pictures. Each one has a perspective to offer, that helps someone else at the table understand and identify with the picture, helps them enter into that story, and make it their own.
People say it takes a village to raise a child. I say it takes a village to read the Bible. Oh, we can read it alone, sure. We must. But we should not read it without regard to the community of faith in which it is grounded, in which we are grounded. The Bible is the book of the church. _____________________
Our confession of faith, Article 4, says, ?The Bible is the essential book of the church . . . We commit ourselves to persist and delight in reading, studying, and meditating on the Scriptures. We participate in the church?s task of interpreting the Bible and of discerning what God is saying in our time by examining all things in the light of Scripture. Insights . . . we bring are to be tested in the faith community.?
Reading and interpreting the Bible is the task of the church, in which we all have an obligation to participate. This is not a job we delegate to the preachers and professors and theologians.
And this is certainly not a job we can just ignore, if we want to call ourselves a church. I have sometimes heard sincere church-attending professing Christians essentially cop out on this task of wrestling with scripture. Maybe they don?t understand it enough to appreciate it, maybe they read things in it that don?t jive with what they believe, maybe they just don?t feel this ancient book means much anymore, or that it holds any authority in today?s complex world. They would rather trust what they experience, and believe what they can figure out using sound logic. And the Bible gets pushed to the side, as little more than a source of some inspirational stories, some poetic beauty, and some formal language that sounds great in public liturgy.
My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be. We would not exist, as a community of God?s people, without this formational book. And we could never sustain our life without it. To deny scripture its central place in the living community of Christ today, is like me trying to deny that the pictures in this photo album are not really me, and not my family, and not the ones who gave me life. This is the book of the living community of Christ. This is the book of the church.
That doesn?t mean it?s always easy to understand and apply. That?s why we need to work so hard at it. That?s why we need to study its original context, intent, and audience. And even when we have a pretty good picture of what was said, and what was meant, we still have to figure out what it means for us. And there is often more than one way to look at it. More than one meaning might be arrived at. So we need to get together and struggle through it. With the Holy Spirit?s help, we need to fight it out, in a healthy way, to argue, to struggle, to ask, to probe, to listen, until deeper understanding comes.
But we never have the luxury of pushing it aside, and saying it?s a nice book, but it doesn?t really speak to us here. This is the book that is read in community, tested in community, and given authority in the community.
And when I speak of community, it most certainly includes the table-sized community. In fact, when the people of God gather in mutual covenant, when they know each other intimately, when they share their lives with each other regularly, when they have diverse perspectives, but deep unity, through Christ, in the Spirit, when they are committed to speak honestly and openly, and stay in the struggle no matter what it takes, then that is the place, I would argue, that is best suited to do good biblical interpretation.
That is also the way of our Anabaptist tradition. God?s word and will are not proclaimed to us from on high. Truth is not handed down to individual believers by an authority figure. Discernment is the task of the community, at all levels.
So if we are a community of communities doing this discernment, then the communities also need to stay connected to each other. They need to be aware of, and listening to, and testing the discernment happening at other communities, and at other levels of our communal relationship.
Each little table group doesn?t do their work in isolation, and then declare their version of the truth the final word. One community?s interpretation is referenced with, and accountable to, the interpretive work of the larger community of communities. _____________________
We heard two stories from the Bible this morning. And they were both stories about the Bible, about how it functioned in midst of a community.
In Nehemiah 8, there was a grand reading and celebration of the book of the law. This was after the people had mostly returned from exile in Babylon, and rebuilt the walls of the destroyed city. Nearly 50,000 people were there, most of whom had lived in Babylon for many generations, and had completely forgotten who they were as a people.
So the newly rediscovered book of the law, the Torah, their scripture, was brought out and returned to the people. But they didn?t pass out 50,000 leather-bound pocket testaments, and say, now go home, read it, and obey it. They did not have the 50,000 people give their email addresses so they could send out an inspirational verse-of-the-day, every day for the rest of the year. They did not even have the resident expert, Ezra, just read it and preach to them about what it meant.
Ezra, and twelve other people, six on his right, and six on his left, read the text out aloud to the people, for six hours. Then those 12, and 14 additional helpers, Levites, worked with the people in making sense out of what they heard. All these interpretive assistants are listed in Nehemiah 8 by name, all 26 unpronounceable names. We skipped those verses as an act of mercy for our reader.
Exactly how the 26 did their work, we don?t know, but the text implies that they fanned out among the people, and worked in smaller groupings, worked together at the task of interpreting and discerning. In any case, it wasn?t a private reading for private inspiration. It was the combined work of the whole people, a people moved by the Spirit of God, to seek the word and will of God together. And the result was so powerful, that 50,000 people spontaneously fell on their faces . . . and wept. The emotion of remembering and reconnecting with something deep within them that they had lost, was simply overpowering. _____________________
And in today?s Gospel reading, there was also a powerful and emotional moment when the scripture was read aloud and interpreted, in the midst of a local community. This time it was Jesus reading, in his hometown synagogue. He stood to read from Isaiah, and then sat down, as was customary, to give his commentary on the text. It was a nine-word commentary, ?Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.? And they were all amazed at his gracious words.
But then he started to say other things, started spelling out some implications of scripture, that pushed the edges of the community, namely, that God might care just as much about the Gentiles . . . well, that was more interpretation than they wanted to hear, and they turned against Jesus.
But Jesus was dealing with scripture according to their tradition, that is, reading it amidst the community, and then engaging the community with the meaning. Like any good Jewish rabbi, stirring up a good argument, as to what the sacred text means for us, today. That?s just the way the Bible was read. _____________________
How different than the way a lot of us read it. Reading one inspirational verse a day, like a daily vitamin pill, for a spiritual energy boost. Or reading it to reinforce what I already believe, or to prove someone else wrong.
So . . . in light of this series of sermons, the challenge I leave us with, should be obvious. If the Bible is central to the life of the church, then it ought to be at the center whenever the church gathers? whether as one large community in Sunday morning worship, or as church at the table. We are a scripture-shaped community. And we only come to see how it shapes us, as we wrestle with it in community.
So if we take seriously our vision at Park View, of being a community of communities engaged in God?s mission, then every time these smaller communities gather to collaborate with God in doing God?s work, it seems to me the Bible ought to show up in some form. Regularly, not only when we are explicitly engaged in a Bible study, or when someone?s doing a devotional. But whenever we gather.
Instead, it is often, if not usually, absent. And we suffer from widespread biblical illiteracy, in the church!
We could make a modest start, by just being more intentional about letting the Bible show up in our gatherings, letting it do its work of shaping our community life.
There are a couple Bibles in the church conference room, that always sit in the middle of the table. Right there with them is a daily lectionary, that lists a morning psalm, an evening psalm, and three other readings for each day. We use them in our daily prayers, every morning at 9:00. And I know the Church Council uses the readings every time it meets to do business. But that room gets used a lot to conduct other church business.
Is it just silly for me to imagine that it might actually have an impact, if every time people gathered in that room to do any kind of church business, they took time to listen to one of the daily scriptures.
Is it just silly for me to imagine that something good might result, if Sunday School classes never?ever?had a class session, without at least once opening the scriptures and reading them, or if small groups when they gathered, would always include someone reading scripture aloud, and others listening, and commenting as desired. Is it just silly for me to imagine those things? Or could it be that the Holy Spirit, the one whose inspiration brought us the scripture, could be putting those strange thoughts in my head?
God still speaks to us through scripture. The least we should be doing is listening, regularly, respectfully, and in conversation with each other.
There?s a John Bell song that says whenever we gather, it is Jesus who calls us here, to meet him in the Word . . . and in song, and prayer, and table. Let?s sing it together, STJ #3.
?Phil Kniss, October 18, 2009
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When we talk about Christian witness, chances are, we are referring to one of two main categories of witness. We?re either talking about the public witness of the church to society and the world, or we?re talking about personally sharing our faith with someone.
Almost any act of witness that comes to mind could be plugged into one of those two categories. The public witness of the church includes such things as . . . church planting and evangelism, community and economic development, medical missions, disaster relief, food distribution, Christian education, social service or peacebuilding, speaking to the government, or to the larger society. And personal faith-sharing can also include a wide range of acts of Christian witness: talking to a neighbor about your walk with Jesus, long conversations with a friend at a coffeeshop, showing kindness to a stranger, correspondence with a pen-pal, simply speaking freely about your faith with persons you meet.
All of these acts of witness, when carried out with sensitivity and sincerity, are important ways to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I could do two whole sermon series on public witness and personal faith sharing.
But in this sermon, on the topic of witness, I will talk about neither one. Instead I?ll lift up a third, and much neglected, category of Christian witness: the compelling witness of the living community of Christ.
I?m talking about a group of people just doing what a genuine community of disciples of Jesus does, as they navigate the ordinary challenges of life together. I?m talking about having the Christian communities we are part of, whether it?s a community of two or three, or twelve, or fifty, not being afraid to put our lives on display. To be more hospitable. To extend the table. To risk opening our lives to the outsider, and inviting them in, for a look around to see what living Christianly, is all about?Monday through Monday.
This is the flip-side of Christian witness. As we said, witnessing is seeing. When we put the ordinary life of our communities on display, we are bearing witness to the gospel, yes. But it?s the ones on the outside looking in who are witnessing. They are seeing, they are eye-witnesses, to what it means to live as a community of Christ. That is, if we ever give them a chance to get a glimpse.
Opening our ordinary lives to outsiders does not come natural. In fact, inviting people into the ordinary moments of our lives is a radically counter-cultural practice. We live in a hyper-individualistic culture that is fragmented and isolated from each other. Our homes are protective havens for ourselves. They are not wayside inns for wanderers.
Hospitality is a spiritual practice that is sorely lacking in our culture. Oh, many of us know how to put on great dinner parties. In fact, some are downright amazing in their ability to entertain, to decorate, and to cook up a storm. We often say these persons have the gift of hospitality. They very well might. Or they might not. Because hospitality is not the same thing as entertaining. Entertainers create an atmosphere, put their creative gifts on display for the pleasure of others, create beautiful art out of their home, or out of the contents of their pantry. They put on an event. But being hospitable is about being open, especially to the weary one, the sick, or the stranger. It?s about welcoming the other, without any pretense, without a need to make an impression, or make a statement.
There?s nothing wrong with putting out the best sometimes. I enjoy a well-presented meal as much as anyone. But why don?t we allow others to look in on the ordinary spaces of our lives? Why must we be so private? Why put the family rooms at the back of the house? Why keep the curtains drawn day and night? Why is it socially inappropriate in our culture to drop by someone?s house without an appointment? Well, we have to have to time to straighten up, to dust the furniture, and give the impression to others that we always have it together. Obsession with privacy not only interferes with our gospel witness to our neighbors. It interferes with building authentic community with other church members. It impedes the healthy functioning of small groups.
Even when we?re with other members of our small groups, members of our own church family, we often shield them from seeing into, from witnessing, the state of affairs in the ordinary rooms of our homes, and our lives.
I?ve quoted David Fitch before. He?s a friend, a fellow pastor, one of my seminary profs, and an author. In a chapter on what evangelism should look like in the church today, he wrote that first and foremost, we need to reinvigorate the practice of hospitality. He says it?s in our homes and at our tables where neighbors and strangers get ?a full view of the message of our life.? If we are not having neighbors in our homes we are neglecting the core spiritual practice of witness. It?s in our homes where neighbors can sit around laughing, talking, asking each other good questions. Home is where we live every day, it?s where we converse and settle conflict, it?s where we raise children. So when we invite someone into our home, we are saying, ?Here, take a look. I am taking a risk and inviting you into my life.? It?s a profound act of witness, and of allowing our lives to be witnessed. And it?s radically counter-cultural.
We need to learn how to live as real, down-to-earth, genuine communities of Christ, and let that life be seen in the everyday and ordinary, let it be open to examination, let is be subject to the scrutiny of our neighbors, and of the world, let it be witnessed. _____________________
The scriptures we listened to this morning, both from the prophet Jeremiah, and the gospel of Luke, painted pictures of communities of faith that went out of their way to invest in relationships with neighbors.
The people of Israel, exiled in a foreign country, were instructed to act like they were at home there. Jeremiah told them, ?Enter into the life of that culture and that people, and seek the welfare, seek the peace, of the city where you live in exile. In their peace, you will find your peace.? See, God?s love and compassion is for all nations. God chose a people to demonstrate that love, to embody it in community, and invite others to experience it.
And in Luke?s Gospel, a passage I?ve pointed to many times, Jesus instructed his disciples to go out in pairs, without supplies, and not just preach and proclaim right away, but first to live among. To eat from the tables of those who would receive them. To stay and make themselves at home. Learn to know their hosts. Let them witness your life among them. And then, proclaim the kingdom. _____________________
When it comes to witness at the table, as a community of communities, it won?t be one-size-fits-all. There is no inherent virtue in being small, as a group.
For some persons, in fact, the point of entry into Christian community will be in the anonymity of a large crowd on Sunday morning. But I assure you, those kind of persons are diminishing rapidly. To a typical 21st-century American, the religious language, symbols, and practices of Sunday morning church, are utterly foreign. It takes a rare kind of courage to walk into a social situation where it?s clear to you and everyone else, you?re an outsider. Just issuing more invitations to church cannot be the extent of our witness.
But neither will it be just inviting people to a small group meeting in someone?s living room, or a Bible study around a dining table. That can be just as intimidating. Our culture is not accustomed to this level of openness with our neighbors. And a church small group can be one of the most difficult social groups to break into. Even for other church members who want in. Which is understandable, and not to be judged. It takes time to build up the trust needed for deep openness and honesty. So it won?t necessarily be in our small groups, either, where our common life as Christians can be witnessed, and opened to scrutiny.
But the church, as a community of communities, is not like, say, a honeycomb, or a brick wall, where every unit is the same size and shape, and fits together perfectly, without overlap, to create the whole. The church is a whole lot messier than that. Most of us at Park View are in multiple communities, communities of different sizes and different functions. I can think of 5 or 6 I?m a part of. And that?s a good thing. The church is multi-layered network of overlapping communities. In fact, Park View is a community of communities of communities.
We need communities somewhere between small home groups and large Sunday gatherings, both of which can be highly intimidating and off-putting to one who hasn?t been schooled in the ways of being church.
In the ongoing conversations about emerging church and missional church and such, someone coined the term ?third space? witness. That is, we create new spaces?neither home nor church? for connecting with the stranger. Spaces that don?t carry the baggage of institutional church, and don?t intimidate newcomers with too much closeness. Some churches are starting off-site coffeehouses, community centers, recreation parks, and the like.
See, in creating Christian community there?s this tension we live with. The stronger the community, the more likely connections with outsiders will diminish. Some of us here could count on one hand the number of good friends we have who don?t profess Christian faith, or any faith at all. So if we want others to witness the everyday life of a community of redeemed people, we need to create authentic connections with them. So-called ?third spaces? might be one way of doing that. _____________________
Well, I?m nearing the end of my sermon and I?m about to issue an altar call . . . or is it a table call? And it won?t involve raising your hands, or walking to the front weeping.
I want to issue a specific invitation and challenge to every group, every community, that makes up Park View Mennonite Church. Or if you?re visiting, any church community you are part of.
I want you and your community, whether it?s a small group, Sunday School class, breakfast club, Bible study, or book club . . . to give some careful thought to how your life together, as a community of Jesus followers, can be seen, can be witnessed by, those who live outside the community of Christ. If Jesus really makes a difference in the way we live together, how might others witness that difference?
Maybe your Sunday School class will decide it has a missional task beyond the weekly meeting inside the church building. Or your small group will decide to break the pattern of only getting together in your living room. Whatever your community, maybe you could create a third space, create some occasional events or places, where you are together, as a community, but where everyone? or as Ron Copeland at Our Community Place likes to say? everyone with a belly-button, is invited. A back-yard barbecue perhaps? A neighborhood block party? Planting a community garden? Or maybe just some of your group members plan an event for those with shared interests, like a Sunday afternoon motorcycle ride, or bike ride, or a quilting party, or community sing, or . . . the possibilities are endless. Maybe three or four small groups could form a missional coalition. Occasionally meet as a super-group, and do something together where anyone would feel welcome. Maybe your super-group, or Sunday School class, would like to take on the mission of re-opening the Friday night Living Room Coffeehouse this winter, and find ways to welcome our neighbors into that space. Maybe just your family, and another church family that lives nearby, could decide to make your homes places of welcome, where you invite your neighbors in, and share your lives with them in some way.
In other words, how will the kind of community life we live, the table fellowship we share as followers of Jesus, ever be visible? ever be witnessed by those who have never known this way of living.
Talk about it. Plan for it. Let us know how it goes.
That?s my altar call. May the Spirit move among us. May our lives be a witness, and be witnessed. And let us walk as children of the light, in the light.
STJ #95, ?I want to walk as a child of the light?
?Phil Kniss, October 11, 2009
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It?s World Communion Sunday, and we are doing what we do best at Park View. We?re joining hundreds of individual voices together as one voice. We?re using well-chosen and well-spoken words, in litanies and prayers. We?re listening to the skillful public reading of holy scripture. We?re listening to, and making music that fills the air and lifts our spirits.
When it comes to the practice of corporate worship, of performing rituals that strengthen our identity as a body, that link us to the wider body of Christ in the world, and that lift up the saving work of Jesus Christ, we can do no better than to gather all the people we can into one big place, and celebrate the Lord?s Supper, with all our might.
The institutional church gets a bad rap sometimes. Often, rightly deserved. But for all the limitations, all the potential drawbacks, all the historical weaknesses of the large institutional church, this is not one of them! How good to be together this morning and to celebrate with one voice? one large, full voice. _____________________
Now . . . I might point out the irony, that this World Communion Sunday? a day that practically begs for a congregation to come en masse, from far and wide, into a large steepled sanctuary, and practice the high holy ritual of the Eucharist, the Lord?s Supper? would be the day we launch a worship series that, in a sense, puts a question mark after the institutional church, or at least an asterisk. And rather, lifts up the small, organic church, the body of believers that is small enough to fit around a table.
This is a series about bringing the church back to the table, literally. Back to a space where we share our lives more deeply, more intimately, more transparently. A space where people gather who are bound together in mutual covenant. A space where people challenge each other in love . . . and in safety. A space from which this covenant community becomes a place of profound hospitality to the neighbor, the stranger, the outsider, the enemy. A space, dare I say it, unlike anything else that exists in the larger community.
Today, and throughout October and November, we will be sitting at this very table, and asking ourselves questions about how the church of Jesus Christ might be revitalized, as it gathers around tables, in small, organic communities. We will ask what it might mean for Park View Mennonite Church, if we more fully implemented this vision of ourselves as not just one community, one big happy family? but as ?a community of communities.? Or more specifically, ?a community of . . . communities engaged in God?s mission.?
What would it mean for our practice of worship, if we believed the small organic community was at the center of the life of the church, and not just an optional piece, situated around the edges? That?s today?s question. In coming weeks we will ask the same thing about witness, about mutual care, biblical interpretation, accountability, and other tasks of the church. What would it mean, if this large weekly gathering of hundreds, while important, was considered church, but with an asterisk, and the gathering of believers around a table was considered church with an exclamation mark?
In my sermon three weeks ago I said we need to bring the church back to the table. If all we are is a church with a cool program, and large attendance, and great worship and music, with something attractive for all ages, then we are missing an essential part of what church is meant to be.
If we are not breaking bread together, face-to-face, in table-sized groups, with glad and generous hearts, book-of-Acts-style, if we don?t know, in the deepest way possible, the stories of others at our table, if we are not praying, worshiping, studying scripture, and seeking God?s face, if we are not demonstrating, at our tables, life in the household of God, if we are not embodying God?s kingdom . . . welcoming the stranger, sharing ourselves and our resources, sharing God?s good news of salvation and restoration with each other at our tables, then we are not really being church.
In that sermon, I wondered how a large, complex, and fairly institutional church like ours, might be a seed bed for small, organic communities. I called for us to organize ourselves in such a way that we empower the church to function at the table. I called for us to look at ourselves not so much as preservers of the institution, but as entrepreneurs, as risk-takers for God?s kingdom. _____________________
Okay, but how does this apply to worship? Isn?t this big worship event what we do best as a big church? Isn?t this the ideal environment to celebrate the Lord?s Supper?
Small groups might be best for intimate sharing and prayer and mutual support. But for worship, isn?t bigger really better?
Well, consider. Worship is, and always must be, at the very heart of being church, no matter what size. The church exists to glorify God. We were created to offer ourselves as living sacrifices, given over to the purposes of God. We are not our own.
If that?s true, why would we ever gather as a body of believers, whether in hundreds, or in twos and threes, and not consider worship task #1? I wonder why so often, small groups, organized by churches, gather in someone?s living room, or around a dining table, and enjoy good sharing, even deep sharing, and might even close in a heartfelt prayer time for each other? but never deliberately and collectively turn their attention to the worship of God; never say together, in one voice, to God, ?We are here at this table only because you have made us, and called us. You alone give us life and breath, and we bow ourselves in humble submission to You.? Even more surprising, if you looked at these groups with New Testament eyes, is why they rarely, if ever, celebrate communion, the Lord?s Supper, together?
Ah, well, that?s an easy question to answer. Because the Lord?s Supper has been so thoroughly institutionalized. There are proper ways, and improper ways, to carry out this solemn and symbolic ritual. And depending on one?s tradition, it is so elaborate and sacred a ritual, that only duly ordained clergy, who have undergone rigorous training, and apprenticeships, are capable of leading God?s people in the ritual.
John Howard Yoder, in his book called ?Body Politics,? called the Lord?s Supper one of five practices of the church that we are to do ?before a watching world.? It?s not a secret ritual we hide from outsiders. We carry it out in the normal course of living as the body of Christ in the world.
When you read the Gospels and Acts, you start to understand that. Jesus told his disciples after supper, after he served them the broken bread and the wine, ?Do this in memory of me.? Do this. What did he mean by ?this?? Jesus could not have meant ?the Mass,? or ?the Lord?s Supper,? because those did not exist yet. Rather, he meant the common meal. Meals nearly always included bread and wine. Whenever you share a meal like this together, and eat the bread and drink the wine, do it in my memory, Jesus said. John Howard Yoder said that Jesus blessed, and made a sacred memorial out of, their ordinary partaking together of food and wine for the body.
That?s what the church in Acts did. We just heard it, chapter 2. The first church daily broke bread together at home and ate with ?glad and generous hearts.? They regularly ate a common meal, with high thanksgiving, and in memory of Jesus. It?s clear that having a common meal, a full common meal, was central to the practice of worship in the early church.
Later, Acts 6, we have the first structural reorganization of the church, and it happened precisely because of this meal. A conflict developed around how this meal was distributed to the widows and those in need.
And in Paul?s letter to the Corinthians, he confronts them on their unjust practices in the Lord?s Supper. Some were going ahead and eating their fill, before the needy members of the church arrived. So they ran out of food and wine. Some were getting drunk and others were going hungry. Clearly, the Lord?s Supper was not a half-ounce of grape juice and a micro-wafer. It was a substantial meal, and it was to be shared in common with all the believers, with thanksgiving, and in memory of Jesus Christ. The Lord?s Supper was central to their worship.
Our own traditions have gotten pretty far from that. Not saying it?s bad to celebrate it purely symbolically. Nothing inherently wrong with ritualizing it, or institutionalizing it. It?s a ritual that is often full of deep meaning. Many of us could give testimony to that.
But if a substantial common meal was so important to the early church, that they ate it together regularly, and called it the ?Lord?s Supper? . . . doesn?t it at least suggest that we might get away with it, if we gathered together as believers, at tables, in our homes, and shared a meal, regularly, while giving high thanks to God, and bringing the memory of Jesus Christ to mind, and calling it the Lord?s Supper, and calling it worship, and calling it church? At least, nobody could accuse us of being unbiblical. Because that is precisely what the New Testament church did, all the time. Why did we stop? Why did we stop?
I believe the Lord?s Supper, whether a full meal or a symbolic meal, must remain central in our worship, central in the life of the church. It?s one important way we can embody the Gospel. In the Supper, we tangibly encounter the Gospel truth, that Jesus Christ gave his life for our salvation. In the Supper, the truth in our heads, becomes truth in our bellies. In the Supper, the Gospel moves from being rational to relational.
In the creeds and confessions, and in our proclamation of the word, we affirm the truth, we restate what we believe. And we need to keep doing that. It grounds us. But when we take Communion we move that truth into the realm of relationship. We don?t just confess. We commune. Did you get that? Commune. Unite with. Join together with. Have intimate interchange with. In the supper, when we eat it with thanksgiving, and in memory of Jesus, we are communing with God through Christ, and we are communing with each other.
Confessing without communing, is only doing church half-way. If we confess our faith, and then fail to commune with the One in whom we have put our faith, and the ones with whom God has called us into community, then we have not really done church at all. _____________________
I?m not saying we radically change communion practices here in this sanctuary. They are meaningful. They will continue.
What I am saying though, is if we only take a symbolic meal 3-4 times a year in a large crowd, we haven?t had the kind of deep communion we need. We need to find more ways, in more venues, on more occasions, to eat common meals. And give higher thanksgiving to God, in more intentional memory of Jesus, and be bold to call it communion.
Even a family meal, or an ordinary meal with Christian friends, or a Sunday School potluck, or small group snack time, or pizza in the dorm, has the potential of being transformed into spiritual food, into Eucharist. The word ?Eucharist? is nothing more than Greek for thanksgiving or gratefulness. Any meal shared with believers can be Eucharist, if shared with genuine thanks to God, and in memory of Jesus and his sacrifice. It doesn?t take much to add a bit of bread, and some juice or wine, and use the same symbols Jesus used. Why not have communion weekly? Or daily? It?s altogether possible, if we bring church back to the table more often.
Let?s ponder for a while what that would mean. And talk about it, at the tables you typically eat at. But today we join as one large community and with high thanksgiving, and in memory of Jesus? sacrifice, we partake of a symbolic meal. You are invited. In song, let?s express our readiness to come with joy to meet our Lord in the bread and cup.
[Hymn #459, verses 1-3] I come with joy to meet my Lord, forgiven, loved, and free, in awe and wonder to recall his life laid down for me.
?Phil Kniss, October 4, 2009
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Guest preacher on this day at Park View Mennonite Church was Byron Pellecer. Byron is the church-planter and pastor of the new "Mennonite Hispanic Initiative" in the Harrisonburg, VA area. This initiative is being collaboratively supported by Virginia Mennonite Missions, Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and area Mennonite congregations. It includes church planting, leadership development, and theological education. The new congregation was publicly launched this weekend, and will be meeting at Harrisonburg Mennonite Church.
Pastor Byron reminded us that we have 86,400 seconds in each day. God has called us to use those seconds to fulfill a mission in this world, to spread the Good News of God?s Kingdom. This is the day that God has given us. What are we going to do with it? Yesterday is gone and we cannot change it. Tomorrow is in God's hands. Today is in ours.
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";s:12:"link_replies";s:155:"http://www.pvmcsermons.com/feeds/5394027278307203043/comments/defaulthttp://www.pvmcsermons.com/2009/09/byron-pellecer-today-not-tomorrow.html#comment-form";s:9:"link_edit";s:82:"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/2419340047340611514/posts/default/5394027278307203043";s:9:"link_self";s:82:"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/2419340047340611514/posts/default/5394027278307203043";s:4:"link";s:73:"http://www.pvmcsermons.com/2009/09/byron-pellecer-today-not-tomorrow.html";s:11:"author_name";s:10:"Phil Kniss";s:10:"author_uri";s:51:"http://www.blogger.com/profile/14584052456977885511";s:12:"author_email";s:19:"noreply@blogger.com";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"0";}}i:19;a:13:{s:2:"id";s:70:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2419340047340611514.post-1533684271233443201";s:9:"published";s:29:"2009-09-20T12:00:00.002-04:00";s:7:"updated";s:29:"2009-09-23T12:42:53.005-04:00";s:5:"title";s:41:"Barbara Moyer Lehman: Hearing God?s Voice";s:12:"atom_content";s:14830:"September 20, 2009 Matthew 11:28-30; I Kings 19:1-18
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...or read it now Tucked away in the Old Testament book of I Kings, is an intriguing story about the prophet Elijah. It was a difficult time, a tumultuous time in his life and the life of his nation. And in chapter 19, we find he is running away, escaping, fearing for his life.
Why is he afraid? Well, Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab of Israel, the northern kingdom, has threatened to have Elijah killed. And she means business! The first 16 chapters of I Kings we read about the various kings of Israel and Judah in this divided monarchy, and how they are continuing to drift farther and farther away from the worship of God/Yahweh. The kings are evil. Worship of other gods is common, accepted, encouraged, especially worship of Baal, the Canannite god, who they believe is responsible for the fertility of the land.
In chapter 16 we come to the reign of Ahab, King of Israel for 22 years during the middle of 800 B.C.E. And scripture records, ?Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him.?(16:33) One of the ?not so good things? that he did was to marry Jezebel, a Phoenician princess. From a political standpoint, it might have been a good thing, but it really became a religious disaster. Her influence over Ahab, who was already evil, continued to pull the nation further away from Yahweh.
During this time Elijah, the prophet, predicted a 3 year drought. Toward the end of that drought, he proposed a contest between the prophets of Baal and Yahweh. Baal failed. In this contest it became clear that Yahweh is the one and only true God of Israel, the one responsible for the fertility of the land, not Baal or any other god. In the end the prophets of Baal are seized and destroyed.
When the people acknowledge that there is only one true God in Israel, Elijah speaks the word to end the drought.
Today?s scripture: (19:1-18)
When Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, that he had killed the prophets of Baal, she sent a message to Elijah,? You killed my prophets. Now I?m going to kill you!?
Elijah was afraid when he got her message and ran to the town of Beersheba in Judah. He left his servant there and walked another whole day into the desert. Finally he came to a large solitary broom tree, sat down in the shade and cried out to God, ?I?ve had enough. Just let me die! I?m no better off than my ancestors.? Then he lay down in the shade and fell asleep.
Suddenly an angel of the Lord woke him up and said, ?Get up and eat.? Elijah looked around and found a jar of water and baked bread by his head. He sat up, ate, drank, lay down and fell asleep.
The angel of the Lord awoke him again and said, ?Get up and eat, or else you will get too tired for the journey.? So Elijah sat up, ate and drank again until he was full. The food and water gave him strength to walk another long way. At last he reached Mt. Sinai, the mountain of God. He found a cave there and spent the night.
While Elijah was on Mt. Sinai, the Lord asked, ?So Elijah, why are you here?? Elijah replied, ? Lord God All Powerful, I?ve been working my heart out for you, obeying you. But the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed your places of worship and killed all your prophets. I?m the only one left and now they are trying to kill me!? ?Go out and stand on the mountain?, the Lord replied, ?and watch. I want you to see me when I pass by.? Suddenly a huge hurricane wind shook the mountain and shattered the rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind. Then an earthquake happened, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, then a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of sheer silence...a gentle breeze...a quiet whisper. When Elijah heard that, he threw his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. The Lord asked again, ?Elijah, so why are you here?? Elijah answered, ?Lord God All Powerful, I?ve been working my heart out for you, obeying you. But the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed your places of worship and killed all your prophets. I?m the only one left and not they are trying to kill me!? The Lord replies, ?Elijah, go back, return through the desert to Damascus. When you get there, appoint Hazael king of Aram, appoint Jehu king of Israel and appoint Elisha, to take your place as prophet. Anyone who escapes death by Hazael will be killed by Jehu, anyone who escapes death by Jehu will be killed by Elisha. But 7000 Israelites who refused to worship Baal, I will preserve for myself. They will live.?
How do we seek God?s face and hear God?s voice when we are immersed in a culture of noise? when we are faced with a myriad of images that come at us from all different directions , when we are bombarded with way too much information, when we are stressed out and overworked and overwhelmed with choices and difficult decisions? When and how do we find a place and time for God? a place of quiet rest and renewal?
When Elijah was afraid, tired, exhausted, discouraged, he ran away. (Sometimes we may feel like doing that, as well). He knew his life was in danger. He fled the situation. He found a place of rest in the shade of a solitary tree in the desert and poured out his frustration to God. (I?ve had enough. Just let me die!) Tired and alone, he heard the angel of the Lord speak. God provided for his physical needs, as well, food and drink for the journey. He continued on and found refuge in a cave. There, too, he heard the probing voice of God, asking, ?Why are you here??
In the solitude and silence of that place, Elijah heard the voice, telling him to stand on the mountain and watch, for God was to pass by. God was promising his presence. Go..stand...watch for me! And Elijah discovers that God comes..not in the wind of the hurricane, not in the earthquake, not in the fire. But God comes in the sound of sheer silence, the gentle breeze, the quiet whisper. Wow!! How awesome!
How many times have we missed God because we have been too busy, too noisy, too preoccupied, too distracted to notice God?s presence/activity or hear God?s voice?
In my adult life, especially in my 22 years of ministry, one of the most difficult challenges for me is to find a balance, a healthy rhythm between doing and being, between solitude and community, between engagement with others and alone time.
I have come to believe that most of the time, spaces of quiet do not automatically present themselves to us. I believe that we need to deliberately and intentionally clear a space for God, to plan an interval of stillness, a pause in the day or week, or month that provides space and respite from the constant and unrelenting demands of our schedules.
I have tried to build into my calendar some days of retreat. It is hard to keep them. I have found that when I do, I am in a far healthier mental, spiritual and emotional state than if I allow things to crowd them out or decide I don?t have the time this month. I agree with Thomas Merton who wrote, ?It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.? (p. 15 Dakota, by Kathleen Norris)
There is no set pattern or formula that works for everyone when it comes to making room for God. Each of us needs to discover what we need and how it can work for us in our present context and life situation. What works for a full time teacher will be different from a stay at home mom. What works for a retired person will be different from a factory worker....and so on.
Pay attention to what keeps you grounded, focused, and calm. It might be something as simple as 10 minutes of deep breathing exercises or yoga. It might be praying the Lord?s prayer or reciting the 23rd Psalm every day. It might be stepping away from the computer a certain time each day and walking around the block. It might be leaving your cell phone at home or not checking your e mails every day. It might be taking a day apart, a retreat..once a month, several days every year.
A woman from Colorado wrote, ?Taking a spiritual retreat is like fasting, not from food, but from activity. It?s time to seek God, to help me find my center and get quiet again in my soul.? (quoted in A Place for God by Timothy Jones, p. 33)
If we are honest with ourselves, some of us must admit we don?t like silence, maybe even are afraid of it. Some of us aren?t so sure we should even take a break, to get away for a day or two or a long weekend. We are so geared to doing and producing and thinking that every day and minute must count! It can?t be wasted! If that is you, then the thought of leaving being calendars, cell phones, computers, blackberries, your work and family responsibilities, may throw you into a panic attack. You?re not alone! The first time I went on a weekend prayer retreat years ago that was mostly a silent retreat, I could hardly get through it. But know I look forward to those times and moments and breathing spaces that I plan for and sometimes that do come unexpectedly.
Kathleen Norris tells a story of when she was an artist in residence in elementary schools. She would conduct an experiment with the students regarding noise and silence. She told them when she raised her hand, they should make as much noise as they could while sitting at their desk, using their mouth, hands and feet. After a while they learned to really let loose. Then when her hand came down, she told them to be as silent as they could, not making any noise. As first they were almost frightened by the eerie power of silence, but then learned to love the stillness. After the experiment, she had them write about it, to describe their experiences on paper. Describing the noise was simpler and predictable. (?herd of elephants?, ?loud train,?) Describing the silence was harder and called forth more imagination. One girl wrote, ?Silence is a tree spreading its branches to the sun.? Another girl wrote, ?Silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go.?
Can we take a break from noisy and busy lives? Jesus had crowds around him daily, as he preached, taught and healed the sick. Yet he went off, found a quiet place, a solitary place to pray. Henri Nouwen writes, ?In that place he finds the courage to follow God?s will and not his own, to speak God?s words and not his own; to do God?s work and not his own.?
I believe that we all have a hunger, at times, to be replenished in body, mind and spirit....a longing for solitude, rest and rhythm. There is a time for hunkering down, working hard, staying busy, being involved and engaged, putting out, but there is also a time for getting away, disengaging, letting go, being silent, and yes, even nonproductive. Timothy Jones writes in his book, A Place for God, ?Everyone needs the alternation of putting out and taking in, of pulling back in order to find energy to keep going. Life gets out of sync otherwise. To balance the noise of modern life we need the enriching power of at lease occasional spaces of quiet. We season our times with others with times apart.? (p. 39)
Jesus offers us rest. ?Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. ? Matthew 11:28-30
Jesus comes to us in the silence.
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";s:12:"link_replies";s:161:"http://www.pvmcsermons.com/feeds/1533684271233443201/comments/defaulthttp://www.pvmcsermons.com/2009/09/barbara-moyer-lehman-hearing-gods-voice.html#comment-form";s:9:"link_edit";s:82:"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/2419340047340611514/posts/default/1533684271233443201";s:9:"link_self";s:82:"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/2419340047340611514/posts/default/1533684271233443201";s:4:"link";s:79:"http://www.pvmcsermons.com/2009/09/barbara-moyer-lehman-hearing-gods-voice.html";s:11:"author_name";s:10:"Phil Kniss";s:10:"author_uri";s:51:"http://www.blogger.com/profile/14584052456977885511";s:12:"author_email";s:19:"noreply@blogger.com";s:3:"thr";a:1:{s:5:"total";s:1:"1";}}i:20;a:13:{s:2:"id";s:70:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2419340047340611514.post-2426654826533770621";s:9:"published";s:29:"2009-09-13T12:00:00.003-04:00";s:7:"updated";s:29:"2009-09-25T15:07:52.270-04:00";s:5:"title";s:49:"Phil Kniss: Bringing the church back to the table";s:12:"atom_content";s:17724:"September 13, 2009 Genesis 22:15-18; Luke 10:1-9; Acts 2:41-47
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I don?t know why God decided to do it this way, but God did.
God decided to put his agenda of saving a fallen world into the hands of the likes of us, a motley crew of people who believe in God most of the time . . . kind of . . . who try to live the way Jesus asked them to some of the time . . . sort of . . . and pretty often make a mess of very simple things.
God could have programmed this whole ?salvation of the world? thing in a way that made a lot more sense, don?t you think? I mean, God has been working at this salvation business for a long time, without a whole lot of progress, it would seem . . . if we look at the world around us? what with people killing one another and destroying creation at an alarming rate.
God has the power to stop it. This same God did some pretty innovative things in the past to get people?s attention and put things right? like flooding the whole earth, and saving the faithful . . . (oh, but God said he wouldn?t do that again, so scratch that option) or speaking to the people from a mountain, with fire and smoke, or parting the waters of the sea, or sending a heavenly choir to shepherds to announce salvation. God could try those things again.
But you know, if you look more closely at those great salvation stories, you?ll see God was doing all that with motley crews just like us. After being saved from the flood, Noah and his sons blew it, started doing unspeakable things. God delivered the people from 400 years of slavery, and the day after crossing the Red Sea, they started complaining about water quality. God spoke to the people from the smoke and the fire, and soon after they made a golden calf to worship. And it only got worse.
God?who wants more than anything else to see this good and beautiful creation restored to wholeness, to have wars cease, to see the lion and wolf and calf and lamb and toddler, all lie down together in the meadow to rest? has trusted the likes of us to help God get it done. In this massive project, we are invited as bona-fide partners with God. God invites ordinary people who gather together regularly, in faith, in hope, in trust, and in mutual covenant with each other and God. God collaborates, for the salvation of the world, with these earthy communities of human beings, the church.
But if you look at the way the church of Jesus Christ actually behaved over the centuries, you get a different picture. You?d think God really wants to save the world with a program, not a people. You?d think God was looking for the best organized church, with the greatest attendance, and largest missions program, and slickest marketing tools, and fattest budget, and best superstar preachers.
But no. God entrusted the salvation of the world, to a divine partnership between the Holy Spirit of God, and real-life communities of seriously flawed human beings.
Beginning with God?s first covenant with a people group (which we heard about in today?s reading from Genesis) and continuing through the company of prophets, the twelve apostles, the seventy disciples, the network of house churches around the Mediterranean . . . God has always and continually sought out a relationship with a group of people, and asked them to collaborate in God?s mission.
When the church first took root, that?s exactly what happened. Read the book of Acts. Individuals were being drawn into community, the powers of the world were being shaken, God?s salvation was sweeping through families, towns, and cities.
But over time things changed. For a while, these living and breathing communities of God?s collaborators were small enough to meet in each other?s homes, and break bread together daily, and share their resources with each other generously. For a while, they could deal with conflict by speaking with each other face-to-face, because they knew each other?s stories deeply. For a while, they could wrestle with huge moral and theological questions without coming apart at the seams. Like building a family with Jews and Gentiles, long-time enemies. For a while, they were nimble enough, as an organic body, to change patterns of leadership when that was needed. For a while, they could actually open their doors, and strangers would feel fully welcomed and at home, without being confused by foreign rituals and strange symbols and language. For a while, they were doing exactly what Jesus commissioned them to do in today?s reading from Luke 10. They not only talked, but demonstrated, what life under God?s reign looked like day in and day out.
But time passed. The Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire. Christianity became the official religion of the Empire. And the church happily became a fixture in society. It enjoyed stability. But it also suffered from a profound lack of openness to anything new God wanted to do among them. The Gospel message no longer needed to be shared, because they all had it already, they owned it. Conflicts were no longer dealt with in Spirit-filled face-to-face conversations with each other. Instead, conflicts were put down, swiftly, with the sword. Heretics were burned or drowned. And the establishment was protected. And the stage was set for the church to become a rigid, self-protective, powerful religious institution, that used its power to maintain order, to preserve its role in society, and to keep out undesirable elements.
You know . . . a whole lot of people still see the church that way. _____________________
So here we are. Today. In a congregation much larger than any envisioned in the Bible. With a lot more to protect. With a tradition to honor. A structure to maintain. Bills to pay. People to make happy.
Does God love the church we have become? Oh, of course, God loves this church, and others like it. Is there a place in the mission of God for a church that has a lot to protect and is not likely to take big risks? Yes, there has to be. Can God do good things through large, complex, and institutional churches? Of course, God can. If I didn?t believe that, I wouldn?t be here.
But would I also say, that the institutional church? like Park View and most any other well-established church? was not really envisioned in the New Testament. Church as institution developed much later, during a time when the church was deeply aligned with the Empire.
So I think it?s fair to ask . . . and imagine together . . . How might Park View Mennonite, or other churches like us, be more faithful to the vision of church in scripture? Could a church like ours be described like the first believers were in the reading we heard from Acts 2? Could we be a people who ?devote themselves daily to teaching and fellowship, to breaking of bread and the prayers,? who cause neighbors to look on in wonder, at the signs of God?s work among us, who sell possessions and goods in order to care for others in need, who ?day by day? spend time together, and in the public square, ?praising God and having the goodwill of all,? who are growing, not because an attractive program draws in church people, but because ?the Lord is adding numbers daily, of those who are being saved.?
If this is going to happen, we need to bring the church back to the table. If all we are is a fine church with an exciting program, and growing attendance, and great worship and music, with something for all ages . . . If we are not breaking bread together, face-to-face, in table-sized groups, with glad and generous hearts, and if we do not know, in the deepest way, the stories of others at our table, and if we are not praying, worshiping, studying scripture, and seeking God?s face, at tables, so to speak, then we are missing an essential part of what church is meant to be.
Jesus modeled a small-scale communal and missional life with his own disciples. And he expected them to replicate it, when they went out on their own. We just listened to the story in Luke 10. What a stark contrast between the way churches operate today, and what the disciples were told to do in Luke 10! What would you think about a church development effort, that involved believers going out in pairs, and not carrying with them any money, food, or extra clothes? Just looking for a town, and a household, that would take them in, and show them hospitality? And then just move in and stay put, eating whatever they bring you, just building a relationship. And then, after you show yourself vulnerable, once you prove to your hosts that you need them, then you share the Gospel, ?the Kingdom of God is near you.? Then you heal, and deliver, and minister God?s grace.
That?s not what we call ?doing evangelism? or ?doing missions.? That?s called ?forming missional communities.? Luke 10 is about church at the table, both literally and figuratively. The table-based communities of believers that formed did not try to protect an institution or promote a religion. They embodied . . . they gave voice to . . . the reign of God among them. They welcomed the stranger, shared bread, shared resources, shared good news with each other, listened, learned, taught, healed, and delivered.
It seems to me that if we, as a large, complex, and fairly institutional church, are going to be faithful to the mission of God, we need to learn how to help this larger entity, called PVMC, become a catalyst for forming these smaller entities where church happens at the table. We need to have a structure that empowers and enables the church to function at the table. We need to see the church not as an institution, but as a community of communities. We need to see ourselves less as preservers of the institution, and more as entrepreneurs, as risk-takers for God?s kingdom. We need to structure ourselves in a way that helps table-sized church to happen, all over the place, seven days a week. While still valuing what we can do as a large gathering once a week, and in some programs we run for the larger whole.
I?m not promoting any one model for what ?church at the table? looks like. Tables have many different sizes and styles and functions. And we already have lots of table-church going on here, praise God! Many Sunday School classes function this way, at least in part. So do many small groups. So do many informal groups of two, three, seven, or more.
When I say ?church at the table? I mean a group of people, small enough to fit around a table, who very deliberately enter into a covenant with each other, with Jesus at the center. They agree to meet together often, to enter into each other?s lives more deeply, to ?be church? together, in every sense of the word.
When I think of all the essential elements of being church? gathering in worship, disciple-making and evangelism, praying, interpreting and applying the scriptures, discerning and decision-making, forming faith through the lifespan, practicing mutual aid, practicing stewardship, practicing mutual accountability, building fellowship, embodying the reign of God? I am hard-pressed to think of any of these that a table-sized group can?t do much more effectively than a gathering of hundreds.
Of course, as a gathering of hundreds we can add significantly to what table groups do, we can add momentum, vision, excellence, we can enjoy the strength of numbers that make certain programs and ministries possible. But we cannot, nor can we ever, be a substitute for the essential function of church that is really meant to happen at tables, with Jesus at the center.
What I have said this morning, is not new to many of you. You?ve heard me talk like this before. And some of you know that we pastors and elders recently articulated this vision of Park View church as ?a community of communities engaged in God?s mission.? We came to Sunday School classes, commissions, and other groups, and engaged you in conversation around these things. We intend to keep the conversation going.
I am putting together a series of sermons for October and November that will continue the conversation. We?ll be looking at specifics of how ?church-at-the-table? does worship, discernment, biblical interpretation, evangelism, faith formation, accountability, and the like. And I invite your responses, as individuals, and as groups who might want to go deeper in your life together, and start seeing yourselves more as church.
The church exists for one purpose? to glorify and exalt God and God?s purpose among the nations. God trusts this congregation of believers to be about that purpose. And God calls each one of us individually to stand, not alone, but in the congregation, and join in this collective praise and worship and work. Let?s rejoice in God?s call as we sing, #113 in Sing the Story, the purple book. #113.
?Phil Kniss, September 13, 2009
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The thing that sticks in my mind about work, that I seem to have learned growing up in the church, is that there were two kinds of work? the Lord?s work, and regular work.
We often had guest speakers at church?missionaries and the like? who spoke in reverent tones about ?the work of the Lord? to which they had been called, and to which they had devoted their lives. I thought, wow, that must really be something special, to have God call you, personally, to give your life over to ?the work of the Lord.?
My dad was a house painter. Had his own business. Before I was born he drove a bread delivery truck. He did regular work, not ?the Lord?s work.? Until I was in the third grade, and the Lord called him? or precisely, a Lancaster conference bishop called him? to devote his life to ?the Lord?s work.? He became a pastor of a small church in Sarasota, Florida. Unfortunately for our family, the Lord?s work didn?t pay anything. And that was on principle, not because the church couldn?t afford it. The occasional ?love offering? that was given didn?t make ends meet for his growing family. So he did some regular work on the side, helping out another house painter. Once, when the church needed to make arrangements for mowing the 2-acre property, Dad offered to the church council that his sons? me and my brother Fred? might be willing to mow the yard for a few dollars. But one of the Council members strenuously objected, because it was too much like paying the pastor. Fred and I got the job anyway, and of course, gave our earnings to our parents.
In the church of my youth, doing the ?Lord?s work? was not about having a paid job. It was about doing a specific kind of church-based or church-focused ministry. It was being a pastor, it was being a missionary, or even, it was being a devoted lay worker in the local church. So . . . being the church treasurer: Lord?s work. Being a CPA and doing someone?s taxes: regular work. Helping remodel the Sunday School wing: Lord?s work. Building houses for a living: regular work. Teaching a children?s Sunday School class: Lord?s work. Teaching in the local elementary school: regular work. Being the nurse at the church summer camp: Lord?s work. Being a nurse in a hospital: regular work.
In the last couple generations, Mennonites have warmed to the idea of ministers as staff. Churches hire pastors who are full-time, paid, trained professionals. Many also hire church musicians, educators, health ministers, counselors, financial staff or others. Depending on your perspective, that could be good, bad, or neutral. But I wonder if that?s only heightened this distinction we make between those engaged in the work of the Lord, and those engaged in regular, secular work.
And I wonder what the God revealed in scripture thinks about this distinction we make?
From the very first chapters of Genesis, to the book of Revelation, we find a God who works? who works diligently, steadfastly in this world, and who expects all God?s people to be engaged in exactly the same work. From a biblical point of view, what part of our work is not the work of Lord? If we are engaged in honorable work, why would it not all be the Lord?s work?
Let?s take a look in Genesis, to begin with. The moment God breathed life into humankind, they were also given a job. Chapter 1, vv. 27-28: ?So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ?Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.?? God worked to create everything in this universe, and then created humankind and said, ?Your job is to take care of this for me. That is your work. Care for what I have made. It is very good. Keep it that way. Make it even better. Help it grow and thrive and fill the earth.?
And then, on the seventh day, God could really rest. Because the work of creation was complete. And it was now in capable hands.
But sadly, it didn?t take but one more chapter in Genesis, for these capable hands to drop the ball. For humankind to fall down on the job, to shirk the duties of the one job God gave us.
Instead of working in a way that collaborated with God, that enhanced God?s creative work, we rebelled. We thought we could do one better!
The result of which is we inherited a wounded creation? a creation that struggles against forces of destruction, of violence, of self-centeredness. We ourselves are wounded and in need of healing. The systems of our world are broken and in need of restoration.
God is still at work in the world, working toward life, toward beauty, toward truth, toward the wholeness God created to begin with. But God has not gone back on that first decision God made in Genesis 1. To put this essential work in our hands. It remains our divine mandate to care for all that God made, even that which is now fallen. To now take all that is ugly, or evil, or false, and co-labor with God in bringing it back to its state of being beautiful, good, and true? just as God created it.
In the psalm we heard this morning, it is assumed that our work is, to do God?s work. The psalmist sings about the goodness of what God did in creation? ?When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them??
In light of God?s great work, who are we? what are we here for? The psalmist asks this rhetorical question, and then answers it. ?You have made [us just] a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned [us] with glory and honor. You made [us] rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under [our] feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea.? [Amazing! You put us in charge of your work!]
And . . . on this side of the Great Fall, God?s work is what? to sustain creation, to give life . . . to make beauty, to do good, to speak truth . . . to save that which has been lost to its created purpose . . . to heal that which is wounded . . . to make whole what is broken . . . to reconcile what is alienated.
Right there is the sole criteria we should use when we judge whether we are doing the Lord?s work or regular work. The sole criteria. It has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you?re drawing a paycheck from the church, or if you?re volunteering anywhere in the church structure. It has only to do with whether you commit your waking hours to pursuing what God is pursuing. It has to do with whether you see yourself? not between 8 and 5, Mon-Fri, or whenever your work week begins and ends? but whether you see yourself day in and day out as God?s partner in labor. Does the work you are doing? as an employee, a volunteer, a business owner, or as a neighbor, or as a member of a household? contribute to God?s agenda in this world? Or does it not?
Does your labor in some way sustain creation? or give life? Does it create beauty, or do good, or speak truth? Does it save that which has been lost to its created purpose? Does is heal that which is wounded? Does it make whole what is broken? Does it reconcile what is alienated?
Now please hear me, I am not saying every paid job you get in life, needs to have you profoundly and directly engaged in the lofty work of reconciliation and healing and salvation. It may be hard to see that happening when you are waiting on tables at Jess? or crunching numbers at Wachovia, or doing laundry at RMH, or teaching math at Thomas Harrison, or even, sometimes, sitting in a pastor?s office at Park View. But, more than we might expect, I do believe every act we engage in?at work, at play, at rest? can be measured in light of whether it corresponds, even in some small way, to God?s saving and healing agenda in the world. Or whether it pushes against it.
There?s hardly a job out there, I think, that doesn?t give a person regular opportunities to represent God, and God?s work in the world. It can be simply striving for excellence in whatever task you do. It might be nothing more than offering a warm smile or reassuring touch, to a co-worker under stress. Or . . . finding a way to use less non-renewable energy, without sacrificing your productivity. Or . . . offering your services free of charge to someone out of work. Or . . . spending several unscheduled minutes listening to a unhappy customer, or a worried patient. Or . . . throwing in an extra ear of corn with every dozen you sell. Or . . . having a 5-minute conversation with your boss at the water cooler. Or . . . staying late to help a struggling student. Or . . . happily cleaning up someone else?s accidental mess, without saying a word.
I know that many of you already see your job as a mission. I?ve talked with you about these things. I know how seriously and joyfully Tom Barner takes his job as a part-time driver for a handicap school bus. I know the kind of long hours Merle Mast puts in at JMU to run a department that trains competent, compassionate nurses. I know how deeply Edgar Miller feels about serving his employees, and helping them feel valued, even in hard economic times, in his work as a manager at Truck Enterprises. I know the love and care for beauty and excellence that Elaine Warfel Stauffer puts into candy-making. (Her work has blessed me many times.) I know Ron Yoder?s dedication in finding the delicate balance between needs of employees, residents, and the public, at VMRC. I know how much joy Bonnie Stutzman gets from being available as a chaplain to patients in distress at Rockingham Memorial. And some of you retirees who volunteer at Gift and Thrift? your all-out dedication to your job, is amazing. More than once, I know some of you showed up to work there, the same day you got out of the hospital. Whether you sell insurance, build houses, plant trees, teach students, play music, or balance books, many of you are people with a clear mission. And I applaud you on this Labor Day.
Some of you might have yet to fully see your job as a mission. I encourage you to start being attentive. You will find it. And as I said, it doesn?t have to do with drawing a paycheck. So even those of you with the very real and very present struggle and pain of unemployment, or underemployment, have opportunity to find purpose and meaning in your labor, as you look for ways to engage in the saving, healing, recreating, and reconciling mission of God in this world.
Not every job, of course, is easily reconciled with God?s mission. We may be treating employees or customers with kindness, we may be getting high performance marks from our boss. But if the work we actually produce is in tension with God?s mission, if it encourages our society to be more violent, more materialistic, more self-obsessed . . . if our work is diminishing our capacity to be healthy, life-giving, compassionate human beings, then maybe another kind of work is called for.
Good work, honorable work, life-giving work, in whatever form it takes, is the Lord?s work. And it is a gift and grace of God to be able to do it.
The preacher, in Ecclesiastes chapter 5, had this to say about work: ?This is a good thing it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us... [And all who] accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil? this is the gift of God. For they will scarcely brood over the days of their lives, because God keeps them occupied with the joy of their hearts.?
When our work is a collaboration with?a ?co-laboring? with? the work of God, we are being occupied with the ?joy of our hearts.? What more could we ask for?
This is what we celebrate today: The work of the Lord in which we are engaged, whether in a paying job, or simply in our daily living.
And now we celebrate that in a tangible way. We have a two-part offering this morning. Before we offer our tithes and financial offerings, we will bring the offering of our work.
You were invited to come to worship in your normal work clothes. That?s what I?m wearing today, and many of you are, as well. And you were invited to bring with you some symbol of your work, a tangible symbol of what you give to God daily in your work. If you didn?t know about this in advance, it?s no problem. You might even have something in your wallet or pocket or purse, that could be a symbol of the work you do? a business card, a pen, a smart phone, a needle and thread, a student I.D. card. If you can?t find anything, you can tear off a corner of the bulletin and write down what your gift of work is. Either your paid job, or however you are engaged in ?the Lord?s work.?
We invite you to bring that forward, and as a statement to God and to this community, lay it on the altar as an offering, that we might give thanks for it, pray for it, and dedicate it to God?s work in the world. If walking forward is difficult, you can send your gift up with someone near you.
And if your symbol is something essential, that you will need again to continue your work, feel free to come and retrieve it after the service.
You may now come, whenever you are ready, in no particular order.
?Phil Kniss, September 6, 2009
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Most of us were aware that this past week was back to school week for students, teachers and all other school personnel. We heard the school buses rumble through our streets once again on Monday or Tuesday morning. If we were out for an early morning walk, we might have seen our neighborhood children, waiting for the bus. Some looking anxious, others talking with their friends, many comparing new shoes, brightly colored shorts and shiny backpacks.
For weeks, even months, all of us have been bombarded with back to school ads, making sure we knew where in the community to shop for the best deals. A detail especially important for many families with the present economic situation. Teachers prepared their rooms, decorated bulletin boards, assembled lesson plans, created space that would be welcoming to all. For parents, teachers and students, back to school means gearing up physically and emotionally for some change. It might include earlier bedtime, a different daily rhythm, packing lunches, and even an annual ritual of taking a photo on the first day of school.
Even our local newspaper had an article on the front page on two consecutive days related to back to school. ? Miss Hartman Goes to School: First-time schoolteacher survives her first day.? This 28-year-old full-time teacher gave up working as a biologist doing research on pygmy rabbits in the desert to teach 17 second graders at Spotswood Elementary. She confessed that not only are children a bit jittery on the first day of school, but so are the teachers. Giving up research and rabbits must have been the right choice for her. She admitted, ?when I?m with students, my life is not empty.?
The next day a delightful photo captured the pure joy and wonder of a 5 year old girl on her first day of kindergarten. It was placed next to the article, ?Don?t worry, mom: county?s first day of school?s tough....on the parents?. Seeing your first child, last child or maybe only child, going off to school for the first time can bring a tear or two, a lump in the throat, along with the realization of how quickly time passes. The words of the principal of the new River Bend Elementary school expressed well the general mood, ?We?re all a little excited, a little nervous and a little happy. It?s a good day.?
Back to school time acknowledges that summer is coming to a close, fall is rapidly approaching, even if temperatures are still in the 80s. We turn the page and begin a new chapter. We paint the canvas of our minds with rust, gold, orange, deep yellow, earthy tones and hues. Gone are the pastels of early spring and summer. We return...to classroom, to lecture hall, to lab,... to study, to compose, to research, to write, to critique and analyze. If we are students, we hope it will be a good year, that we will like our teachers, that we can be with our friends or make some new ones. If we are teachers, we hope it will be a good year, that our students will want to study, to learn, and to explore, and that the trouble makers and especially challenging students will be in someone else?s room, or that God will give us the grace and patience to deal with the ones who may be in our classroom. If we are administrators and staff, we hope it will be a good year, with few personnel issues, no scandals, please no scandals, and enough money to get through another year.
And so we hunker down, put on our school shoes, grab our backpack, and enter the classroom for another year of teaching and learning.
On Tuesday, Ross, Judy and I met to plan for today?s worship service. Judy came into my office with a bright smile and exclaimed, ?Well, I made it through the first day of classes.? That was a good sign, I thought, coming from a teacher. Then I proceeded to tell her that the passage of scripture that I was going to use today from James 3, begins with these words (from Eugene Peterson?s paraphrase, The Message): ?Don?t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths.
That might not have been the wisest thing to say, at that moment. Actually I think I stopped reading after the first sentence, ?Don?t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends.? (or CEV states: ?My friends, we should not all try to become teachers.) as if that is going to happen. But there it is. Now what is that all about.
The small book of James in the NT, just 5 short chapters, is a unique book. It is a general letter addressed to Christians who were scattered throughout the Roman Empire. The book is primarily a collection of practical instructions for daily living. They are short, clear and to the point. Because these exhortations are not connected explicitly to a christological foundation, the book is considered by some to be inferior to other books in the canon, holding a somewhat secondary status. This attitude was held in particular by Martin Luther, who called James, an ?epistle of straw?. But if we allow the writer of James to write in his own way and speak his own mind for the intended purpose of conveying short, clear statements of how Christians should live, then we can appreciate and learn from this book without putting something more on it than is appropriate. James assumes certain things and then moves directly into the moral teaching itself. What he writes is helpful for all Christians who believe but do not always act in the best way. James understands that Christian communities, unfortunately, are not always model communities of good behavior. Often they are places where human misbehavior is brought out in the open, faced and dealt with.
What can we learn from this book with its down to earth teaching? especially chapter 3?
Probably the most well known passage from James comes immediately before chapter 3. James 2:26: Faith apart from works is dead, or as the CEV states: ?Anyone who doesn?t breathe is dead, and faith that doesn?t do anything is just as dead!?
The opening of chapter 3 is a new subject without much transition. The main point of the first 5 verses is the need to control the tongue ( and if written today, James might add, and contol what you write in your e mail!!) But what about the part regarding teachers. Surely teachers were needed to instruct members of the church in NT times, but apparently there was the tendency for persons to appoint themselves as teachers, and then to give advice to others. The writer is giving a cautionary word that not all people are qualified to teach, but if you are called, remember the standards are high. The responsibility is great. You will be judged more strictly than others.
Control the tongue, and if you can achieve that, you are more likely to be able to control the rest of the body, revealing yourself to be a mature person, a more complete and whole individual. Surely that is good advice for all of us, not just for teachers!!!
All of us do and say many wrong things. We make mistakes. Our words sometimes hurt people. We are all guilty. Sometimes we are on the receiving end. We know what it feels like. Sometimes we are the guilty ones, wishing so much that we could take back that word, comment or remark that slipped from our mouth. Or putting it into today?s text, how many of us wish we hadn?t sent an e mail that contained some hurtful, damaging, accusing remarks? As soon as we hit SEND, we wish we hadn?t.
James writes, ?Our tongues are so small, yet they brag about big things.? They often get us into trouble!
He gives two examples that would be familiar to people of that time. The first dealing with the small bridle or bit put into a horse?s mouth. So small, yet the rider can turn the horse in different directions simply by manuvearing that tiny bit. The small rudder on a large ship, in the same way, guides the direction of the vessel at the will of the captain. Small things, yet they have a lot of power. By controlling that one small part, the direction of the whole thing is controlled.
James writes, ?the tongue is like a spark! It can start a whole forest on fire.?
We can tame all kinds of things....animals, birds, sea creatures (think dolphins at Sea World, elephants at the circus), but our tongues get out of control! They are restless and evil and can spread deadly poison.?
But the irony and contradiction in all of this, as he goes on to say, (vs. 9-10) is that with our tongues we also praise! What a wonderful gift that is. We praise our Lord and Father, but we also curse people who are created in God?s image. And this isn?t right! This can?t go on! that is allowing our tongues to be out of control.
And so the instruction, the warning, the admonition is that we must learn to control the tongue, and by so doing that, we also learn to control the whole person.
The second part of chapter 3 deals with wisdom, another important quality that we desire for teachers/educators, but really for all of us. If we are wise and sensible people and have wisdom, then we should be living right, that is our patterns of life should show evidence of humility, kindness, gentleness, sincerity. For James, wisdom is a gift from God. It is not something that one can achieve by our own efforts. True wisdom is a divine gift. We pray for wisdom. We don?t work to somehow achieve wisdom. Earthly wisdom is selfish and self-centered and jealous. That kind of wisdom doesn?t come from above.
vs. 17 states:, ?But the wisdom that comes from above leads us to be pure, friendly, gentle, sensible, kind, helpful, genuine, and sincere.?
As another school year begins, let us pray for wisdom from above, that God will grant the gift of wisdom to our teachers, staff/administrators, but also wisdom for each of us, pastors, parents, business people, medical personnel. May each of us work at controlling our tongue, so that what comes forth out of our mouth will honor God, will build up people, not tear them down, that will encourage another, not discourage. May we learn to praise and affirm, to speak the truth, yes, but in love, with a gentle spirit, not with harsh accusations.
This congregation has a long history of valuing and supporting education at all levels, in the public and private institutions. Our ties are strong. We want and desire for our children a good education, but our hearts also ache when we realize that many children have so little. Maybe that is why there was so much excitement and enthusiasm a few weeks ago when many of you showed up early to assemble and pack up 1000school kits for MCC. Just imagine the faces of over 1000 little children in some of the poorest places in the world receiving one of those kits, opening it up and maybe for the first time in their life, having their very own notebook and ruler and pencils. And most likely those kits will be stretched further and be divided among several children.
46% of girls in the world?s poorest countries have no access to primary education.
More than 1 in 4 adults cannot read or write. 2/3 of these are women.
(info from CROP Walk material, p. 6 of Hunger Activities booklet)
Nelson Mandela said, ?Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.?
Laura Helmuth is one of our young teachers, facing the challenge of teaching a second grade in an inner city school in Baltimore, MD, where 98% of her students are from families that fall below the poverty level. Her classroom needs books. Her school library needs books. Just maybe we can glean a few books from our shelves, pick up a few extra at the book fair and help Laura fill those shelves.
May God grant wisdom to us all. May God grant courage and strength to control our tongues so that what we say and the patterns of our living will be pleasing to God.
?May these words of my mouth and this mediation of my heart, be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.? Psalm 19:14
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Using the armor of God found in Ephesians 6:10-20, Park View member and guest preacher Myron Augsburger challenged the congregation to behave our beliefs. One of the most important things we can do in our society is to maintain integrity. The armor that we put on is to enable us to move out into society. We move out open to meet others, not in self-defense but openness. Our armor keeps us from being influenced by the powers and influences of society. We belong to the kingdom of God, not the kingdoms of this world, so we can reach out across all societal lines while standing firm in God. We are called not to be admirers of Jesus Christ, but to be his disciples, moving out clad in the armor of God.
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We have sung, I don?t know how many times this morning, the inspiring mantra, ?Breathe out, breathe in, and be filled.? It?s uplifting to our spirits to sing, ?breathe out, breathe in, and be filled.? It?s comforting, it?s reassuring, it just makes us want to be filled with the Spirit of God.
You may want to be filled, but I would think twice, before you decide to do it. It?s dangerous. Really.
Let me just remind you what happened to some other people who very innocently decided to breathe in and be filled with the Spirit of God.
The Old Testament prophets?Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Micah, Amos? were often said to be filled with the Spirit. That?s what enabled their work. And that?s what got them in all kinds of trouble. By the Spirit?s breath in them, they delivered all kinds of unpopular messages? pointing out sin, condemning injustice, announcing doom and death to royalty. They were often driven out of town barely escaping with their lives . . . if they were lucky. living on the meager rations of a kind widow, or a raven sent by God.
We?re told Zechariah and Elizabeth were filled with the Spirit, as was their son John the Baptist. And what followed was a life of hardship for John, and heartache for his parents. John?s preaching, inspired by this Spirit, got him thrown into prison, and eventually beheaded.
Of course, Jesus himself was filled with the Spirit. We read in Luke 4, ?Full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.? Being Spirit-filled earned Jesus forty days of hunger, thirst, and multiple assaults by Satan in the wilderness. And right after that we are told that Jesus, ?filled with the power of the Spirit,? returned to Galilee, and began to teach in their synagogues. Immediately the opposition moved in. In the very next scene his own townspeople tried to throw him off a cliff. He escaped, but it only got worse, and we all know where it ended. Crucifixion.
The first believers in the early church were all filled with the Spirit, we read in Acts 2. They had good fellowship with each other, but a terrible period of persecution and terrorism was unleashed on members of this radical community.
Peter, while he was making his defense before the authorities, according to Acts 4, was filled with the Spirit. Immediately, they threw him in prison.
Stephen, one of the first deacons in the early church, was ?a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit? (Acts 6). He began to preach the gospel, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He was stoned to death.
And Saul, after being prayed for by Ananias, regained his sight and was filled with the Holy Spirit, it says. And over the years, his preaching and evangelistic work resulted in him being imprisoned, whipped, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, and, in his own words from 2 Corinthians, ?in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked.?
So, you want to breathe in and be filled with the Holy Spirit! . . . It?s a noble thought. But maybe you?d like some more time to think about it. It?s not safe, being filled with the Spirit.
A few weeks ago when I shared excerpts of sermons from Columbus, you heard Jim Schrag, retiring Executive of the denomination, call on us in the church to ?unfurl our sails? to open the sails of our church, and expect the wind of God to blow, to fill those sails, and move us along.
But that?s risky business, because the Spirit of God blows where it will. If we open our sails to the wind of God, there?s no way of knowing where we?ll end up. We can?t predict or control the wind. We may get blown away. We may be dead in the water.
So, you want to breathe in and be filled with the Spirit? Take heed . . . watch out . . . you?re putting your life on the line. Which, when you think about it, is really the whole point of being filled with the Spirit. It?s laying down your self-centered life, in favor of living a life under the control of the Holy Spirit.
We would much prefer to think of breathing in and being filled with the Spirit as being something completely reassuring, gentle, peaceful. The soft flutter of the wings of a white dove, is so comforting, so tender. And I?d be tempted to believe that, if it wasn?t for the way the Bible talks about the Spirit.
Even at Jesus? baptism, when a dove did descend from heaven, the scene was not accompanied by harp music and a softly glowing sky as a backdrop. It was actually an explosive scene. Mark says when Jesus came out of the water, ?he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove.? That Greek word for being torn apart, to split, to divide, is only used one other time in Mark?s gospel? when the veil of the temple is ripped from top to bottom, at the moment of Jesus? death on the cross. Interesting . . . that at the beginning of Jesus? ministry, and at the end, something was ripped open violently, and the barrier separating the divine and the human was taken away. That?s what happens when the Spirit blows in. The barrier that makes us feel safe and secure, is ripped apart.
Oh, but it?s a wonderful, exhilarating ripping apart. Because this wild and wonderful Spirit of God that blows in and takes us where we weren?t planning to go, is the very same Spirit whose nature is to give life and truth and beauty and goodness.
In Genesis 1, at Creation, the Spirit of God blew on the dark and formless and chaotic waters of the cosmos. And the result was life?true, magnificent life. God blew his breath into a lump of clay, and a living, breathing, human soul was born. God wants our lives to be filled with God?s breath. So that we will live . . . truly live as God intended when God created us in God?s own image. _____________________
But we have a lot working against us, when it comes to being filled with the Spirit. Our lives are already filled . . . with all sorts of other things that distract us from life. They masquerade as life, but in actuality, they diminish life. Nothing new, of course. This is precisely what the apostle saw happening in the church of Asia Minor, which prompted the letter to the Ephesians.
The church was being drawn away from a full life in God, because they were allowing themselves to be filled with other things. And you can?t be filled with two things at once. You have a one-pint container filled with water, and you pour in a cup of oil, you?re going to lose a cup of water. The water will be displaced.
I think that?s sort of what the apostle was telling the Ephesians, in chapter 5, vv. 15-18. ?Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit.?
There is a lot in this world to distract you from the life God has in mind for you, Paul was saying. So be careful. Be wise. Be discerning. Understand what the will of God is, and live in it. Surround yourself with that which is worthwhile. Make the most of the time, because the days are evil. Be filled with the Spirit, because, simply, it will displace the evil that otherwise might overtake you.
Another way of saying this might be, don?t be overcome by fear of all the evil around you. Displace the evil with the Holy Spirit. Invite the Spirit of God to take its place. Open yourself, breathe in . . . invite the Spirit to fill every space, and breathe out, releasing whatever is life-diminishing, releasing whatever there isn?t room for anymore, releasing what the Spirit displaces.
These words from Ephesians are tremendously encouraging, life-giving, and burden-lifting. It?s a refreshing approach to life in a sinful, broken, and violent world. Yes, the days are evil. We need not look far to realize that. All around the world nations are falling apart, awash in the evil of oppression, of poverty, of natural and human-caused disasters. There is also real personal evil all around. Individuals who rebel against all that is good, and wreak destruction and havok in other people?s lives.
Some people live in a near-constant state of panic, in the face of all this overwhelming evil. Afraid their own lives will crumble under the weight of it all. Some people . . . many people . . . deal with the pain and evil that life brings, by trying to hide from it, conceal it, numb themselves to it. That?s what v. 18 is about in Ephesians 5. ?Do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.?
You cannot find freedom from pain and evil by running from, trying to cover up, or escaping into a drunken semiconsciousness.
No, you find freedom from evil, by displacing it. Crowding it out. Being filled with what is life-giving, and life-forming. Vv. 19-20: ?Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.?
That?s the way to live in an evil world. Don?t wallow in ways of this world, the fear-mongering, the hand-wringing, the foolishness of living by your fears, drinking yourself into numbness and oblivion. No, the way to deal with the evil world, is to get together and sing! Sing!! Yes, that?s what Paul says. Sing out the evil, by singing in the Spirit.
This is communal spiritual engagement against evil, and the evil one. You sing away the devil. The Ephesians text we looked at last Sunday said don?t let the sun go down on your anger, because ?it makes room for the devil.? The devil can?t live where there?s no room, so to speak. The gathering together of Christians to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs displaces the devil . . . because singing the music of the Spirit invites the Spirit to fill us.
I?ll tell you what. The next time you turn on the news and get depressed by it, the next time you find yourself in an emotional funk, because you see no way out of the mess this world is in, the next time you get discouraged and hopeless by the violence in the Middle East, by the abuse of power in Washington, by the wanton destruction of polar caps and rainforests, by the millions of war refugees around the world, by the chronic homelessness in Harrisonburg, by the institutional paralysis of the church, the next time any personal, or systemic, evil starts pulling you down . . . I have a concrete suggestion for you. It will work every time. Guaranteed.
Get on the phone, call up some friends from church, invite them over, and tell them to bring their hymnals. I mean that literally. Have a little community hymn sing. I can assure you, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, the Holy Spirit will be present in your singing, and the spirit of death and destruction and evil that would like to overtake and overwhelm us, will be displaced. It will be crowded out.
And no, this is not an escape mechanism. Not at all. We don?t sing so we forget about the evil. We don?t sing to distract ourselves from it. We sing, so we are equipped to deal with it. So we are not overcome by it, but able to confront it, and transform it. When the last chord of the hymn dies away, we still have our work to do, or rather, God?s work to do.
But singing will reorient us to the truth of the gospel. That in Jesus Christ, God saves, redeems, transforms, and reconciles. And we are invited to collaborate with the Holy Spirit in that saving mission of God.
So let?s not delay another moment. Let us sing the Spirit into us right now. Into our personal beings. Into our collective being as a church.
Turn to #349 in Hymnal: A Worship Book. ?Spirit of the living God fall afresh on me.? I invite us to sing it through once, as written, for ourselves . . . then sing it a second time, as a collective body. ?Spirit of the living God fall afresh on us. Melt us, mold us, fill us, use us.?
?Phil Kniss, August 16, 2009
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