Stories: A Sermon for Christmas

The other day a news story came out that Pope Francis was blasting the Vatican with a list of spiritual ailments.  One of them was about humor.  I understood him to say that we misunderstand what it means to be serious.  Serious doesn’t mean to be stern and severe, but to seriously express the joy of being found in Jesus Christ.  He said to keep a healthy dose of humor.  And translated from the Italian, Francis called it the Disease of Funeral Face.  I hope it’s not catching.

So here you go, Pope Francis.  Little Eddie went to his grandfather’s church on Christmas Eve, and while he was waiting for the service to start, he looked at all the announcements in the bulletin, and he saw all these pictures of young men in uniform.  So he asked his grandfather who all these men were, and his grandfather said to him, “Well, those pictures are there to remind us to be thankful at Christmas of the great gift that they freely gave us.  These are all our boys who died in the service.”  

Little Eddie then got very serious, and he gulped and said, “Grandpa, which service was that?  The Christmas Eve service or Sunday morning?”

We love stories.  We love to hear about adventures that take us out of the moment to far away lands and about things that we don’t believe we would ever be able to do ourselves.  We love to hear stories that make us feel good, we love stories that scare us, stories that inspire us, stories that challenge us.  

I heard a story just the other day from a young woman who called into K-Love radio to tell a miraculous story about herself.  She said that she was a cutter, someone who cut on herself.  She was, basically, suicidal, and one day she took a box cutter to her wrist and she sliced and sliced and pressed that blade as hard as she could because she had had enough and just wanted to end it all, but nothing happend.  The blade didn’t even scratch her arm.  

Of course she was discovered and an intervention was made and so she was actually calling the radio station from inside the hospital.  What was so miraculous, she said, was that later her father took that same blade and tested it on a piece of copper wire, and it sliced cleanly through it, but it hadn’t even scratched her soft flesh!

It changed her life.  She knew that God himself had saved her, and so she gave herself to him there in that hospital.

It’s an amazing story, but the story doesn’t end there.  This isn’t about making a bad choice and getting over it and moving on.  This young woman recognized that this is her unique story, and that she needs to allow her story to become a part of her, not to simply put it behind her and pretend it never happened, but to allow it to change her in ways that are unique to her and in ways that can bring healing to others as she herself has found healing.  

So she said that she now has a dream to someday open a Christian cutter’s hospital.  In our misguided and depressed society, cutting on oneself is really not that uncommon, but it’s a symptom of a much deeper psychological condition that this young woman is in a unique position to help other people find healing from.  

Her story can help other people to find hope.  Her story gives her a unique gift that not many other people have.  It gives her a unique credibility as a witness to the power of healing.  What I mean is that, I can tell people that there is freedom from depression.  I can say that all I want, but I’ve never experienced clinical depression, so my credibility is not the same as one who has walked that road and understands the pain and the fear and the feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness that are depression, which people face day after exhausting day.

That’s not a part of my story.  So I wouldn’t be as effective as a depression counselor as this young woman who can identify with debilitating depression and so make real connections with other people who experience this terrible condition.

But we all have a story that makes us who we are.  

These past five Sundays, we’ve been talking about the stories of many of the different characters that are found in the birth narrative of Jesus.  We talked about Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, who didn’t believe the testimony of the angel who said to him that he will become the father of the one who goes in the spirit of the Prophet Elijah to prepare the way for the coming of Messiah, Jesus Christ.  

Zechariah didn’t believe him, he and his wife were too old to have children, and so as punishment, he was stricken deaf and dumb, but this only made his story more credible, but then when John was born, he began to hear and speak praises to God, proclaiming the prophecies that the Angel had foretold to him.  Zechariah’s story of disobedience ended up giving him a unique credibility because of his witness to the power of God working in the world.

We heard the stories of the shepherds, simple men of the country who were not educated, not well-paid, and probably thought of as hillbillies.  But the angels came to tell them the good news of Jesus’ birth in the manger in Bethlehem, so that they went to see for themselves.  Shepherds had a unique place in society.  They were watchers, it was their job to keep very careful watch over their flocks so as to protect them, because there was no one else around, so when shepherds came to town and had news of something they saw, it was usually taken seriously.  Shepherds don’t care about gossip, they only told what they saw, and they were often a reliable source of news in an age without telephones or mail.

And so when they witnessed the baby Jesus in the manger, they went out into the streets shouting the good news to anyone who would listen about what the angels had said to them about this baby boy.  The shepherds’ story gave them a unique credibility, it put them in a unique position to be trustworthy as the very first evangelists of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We read all these and other stories in the bible, and we think that they are all about Jesus being born, about the miracle of God coming down from heaven, but they’re not.  These are stories about us, about people just like you and me.  The miracle is not that God came down from heaven, you can look into just about any religion in the world and find stories like that.  The miracle is that God’s coming into the world can shape our own stories.  

Our own, personal, gospel message grows out of our own, unique story, the story of our lives.  I’m not saying that we should be glad that some bad, horrible thing happened to us years ago, but I am saying that we need to stop being defeated by that bad thing, and recognize how Jesus can use it to turn our story of bad news into a story of good news.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ for that young woman is that a lost, depressed, suicidal girl became a disciple of the Lord with a vision to help other people in ways that only she can, because Christ gave her the power to defeat a disease which would have otherwise defeated her.

Jesus Christ was born into a world very much like our own.  The people we read about in the Bible are very much like you and me.  Just people.  They did things they regretted, they struggled through life just as we do.

Which is why God became one of us.  God became a human being.  He did it for us, so that we might see in Him the credibility that we look for in one who has been there, who understands our pain and our struggles.  

That is Good News.

May you learn to see the light of Jesus Christ in the dark places of life.  May you not be defeated by the shared suffering of this life, but May God show you how to harness the power of your unique story for His glory.  

In the Name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Memento Mori, Memento Vivere

"Where shall I look for Enlightenment?" the disciple asked.

"Here," the elder said.

"When will it happen?" the disciple wanted to know.

"It is happening right now," the elder said.

"Then why don't I experience it?" the disciple asked.

And the elder answered, "Because you do not look."

"But what should I look for?" the disciple wanted to know.

And the disciple smiled and answered, "Nothing.  Just look."

"But at what?" the disciple insisted.

"Anything your eyes alight upon," the elder continued.

"Well, then, must I look in a special kind of way?" the disciple asked.

"No," the elder said.

"Why ever not?" the disciple persisted.

And the elder said quietly, "Because to look you must be here.  The problem is that you are most certainly somewhere else."

Lately I've been reading a book on Benedictine living for those not in monastic communities.  St. Benedict's Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living, by Jane Tomaine, has certainly been one of the most practical books on Benedictine spirituality for non-monastics that I have ever read.

For example, she writes, "Those outside of a convent or monastery might think of the vows as values...that can guide our lives."  p. 43

The vows (values) that she refers to are the three vows which a Benedictine professes upon being received into the the community as a brother or sister.  These are: stability, obedience, and conversion of life.

Tomaine is an Episcopal priest, and not an oblate or associate of any particular Benedictine order, but strives to live according to her own understanding of the Rule of Benedict, that ancient manual for Christians living in community, which has endured in monasteries and convents and beyond for over 1500 years because it has the ability to adapt to whatever environment the community is in - and Jane Tomaine points out that we are all living in community, even though all our communities are not the same.

So I've taken some notes on the three vows (values) illuminated by St. Benedict's Toolbox:

Stability: from the Latin stare "to stand, to stand up, or to be still."  "Stability says stay put physically and emotionally (p. 64)."  "We need to stay connected to others and to commit to these relationships fully (p. 53)."

Obedience: from the Latin obaudire "to listen thoroughly."  "Listening is what the vow is all about (p. 78)."  "Set aside what you are doing.  Focus your attention on the person before you to discern what God is asking you to do (p. 64)."  "True obedience, healthy obedience, comes when we place God in the center of our lives to help us balance our needs with the needs of others (Pp. 65-66)."

Conversion: from the Latin conversatio morum "conversion of life."  "Change and grow.  Be transformed by the Spirit (para. p. 84)."  There seems to be some recent scholarship on the root of Benedict's writings on conversion.  It has also been translated conversio morum.  Their are different meanings associated with both.  Conversatio is also the root of conversation.  I've found significant discussions on both of these translations and how they are different, but here are my thoughts on this: We are changed (conversio) by actively participating (conversatio) in our relationships with God and with each other in community.  "Conversion of life encourages a positive and constructive response to  change (p. 87)."

How do the three vows (values) work together?

Benedictine community is about people ministering to each other.

"One of the most important tools...is to listen for God in our daily lives and to find God in the people and in the world around us.  To do this we need to be present right where we are at any given moment.  Benedict asks us to live in the present moment.  He says, stay put (stability), listen to the people and to life around you and respond to who God is calling you to be and what God is asking you to do (obedience), and be open to the ways in which God will transform you as you live the Christian life (conversion of life).  Benedict wants us to live in the present moment, fully alert to the now and ready to respond, whether we are at work, with our family, with friends, or with God in prayer (p. 183)."

Memento Mori, Memento Vivere.

Brokenness

"I have pondered over my ways and returned to your will" -Ps. 119

Do you ever feel like you are a failure at being a Christian?  You try to change, commit to change, resolve to change, and run out of ways to make the same promises over and over again.  You are not alone.  Consider these words from the psalmist, who was probably writing from a place of brokenness.  "I can't do this on my own anymore, Lord!"  He cries. "It's up to you, now."  This is not an end, it is a beginning.  Now we are ready to grow in Christ.  As long as we are the ones making the decisions to change in ways that we feel we should (I need to do more of this or I should be doing that...), we are not allowing God to overwhelm and overshadow us with his presence.  But when we are broken, we let go of our illusions of control, and that is when the Holy Spirit truly begins to work in our lives.

Listening for God

"The beauty of listening for God in ordinary daily life is that each day can become a vibrant creation when we trust that God is always present, when we look for God in every aspect of our lives, especially in the commonplace and the ordinary.  We see God as we listen to our life and recognize that each of us is precious to God.  Life itself is a gift and holds endless promise when we open ourselves to living with the Holy One, our Creator.  Only God knows the treasures that are in store for us.  Only God can foresee the grace that we can be for others when our eyes are on God." - Jane Tomain, St. Benedict's Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Living, p. 11.

"Listen carefully my son (and daughter), to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart."  - from the Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue.

To Be a Slave

What does it mean to be a slave?  What does it mean to be a servant of Jesus Christ?  Author and singer Michael Card notes that almost half of Jesus’ parables involve slaves or slave-like characters.  The Apostle Paul typically referred to himself as a slave of Christ, and used the term “Master” when speaking of the Lord Jesus.

In our society, the word slave has really only a negative connection: suffering, hard labor, loss of human rights.  But the truth is, we are God’s creations.  We have been purchased by the blood of His Son Jesus Christ, and we belong to Him.

We are slaves, whether to our earthly passions or to Christ.  Whether we admit it or not.  Whether we believe it or not, we are slaves.  Addiction is slavery.  Lust is slavery.  Work-aholism is slavery.  Fear is slavery. 

In Christ, there is a freedom to be found in serving Him alone as our Master.  In his book A Better Freedom, Michael Card notes that many African-American Christians call Christ “Master,” which is a holdover from the days of slavery in this country, when the slaves often called Jesus Master, to remind themselves that Christ is their true master, and they are enslaved to Him. 

Their earthly masters, though they may have had control over the bodies of those slaves, did not have eternal ownership.  That belonged only to Jesus Christ.

We often feel trapped by addictive behavior.  We seek pleasure, money, peace, health.  But these things are fleeting, and just when we think we have found what we are looking for, it vanishes, and a new desire burns within us, a new concern arises that instills fear within us, which is Satan’s favorite method of control over us (If you keep the people afraid of you, they will be easy to manipulate).

We seek freedom, but in Christ, there is a better freedom, and that is in slavery to Him.  

Jesus Didn't Save Him

From K-Love:

Jesus didn’t save him.
One criminal on his cross was hurling abuses at Jesus, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”. Jesus didn’t save him. This criminal didn’t want salvation, but self-preservation. He wanted his life to continue as normal and the “inconvenience” of his cross was in the way.
The other criminal recognized the righteousness of Christ, and his unrighteousness. He cried out to Jesus and Jesus promised him paradise that day.
One criminal fought the cross and died. The other criminal surrendered to his cross AND the cross of Christ and lived. He was truly crucified with Christ at that moment.
“If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it” (Matt. 16:25).

Okay, so this is a repost, but I had to share.

The 3rd Sunday of Lent: Peter Denies Christ

This passage of the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of John is one of the most powerfully real moments of the Passion of Christ for me.  Everything else, it seems, plays almost like a novel or a movie, in which we can get swept up by the plot, but it’s kind of larger than life.  Peter’s Denial, however, changes all of that.

Now, we skipped about 5 chapters from last week to this, but when preaching a lectionary we must make sacrifices and skip around a bit.  I suppose I could try to preach the entire Passion Narrative someday, but that would probably take the better part of a year, and seems rather depressing to me.  It is, however, very much worth taking the time to read for yourselves at some point during Holy Week, beginning with John 13 and reading all the way through the end of chapter 19, with Jesus’ burial; and then you will be ready for Easter Sunday, the Resurrection of the Lord.

But anyway, we are at Jesus’ trial before the High Priest Caiaphas, and Annas.  Verse 15 tells us that Peter actually followed Jesus into the courtyard, along with only one other disciple.  The other disciple was able to enter into the court to witness Jesus’ trial, because he was known to the high priest, but Peter could not, so he remained out in the courtyard by the fire alone, without any of his friends.

I believe that his denial was a surprise, even to him.  I believe that he believed that he would stand up for Jesus, his Lord and Master, to the end, as he professed.  At the end of Chapter 13, Jesus foretells Peter’s denial, although Peter says to him, “I will lay down my life for you.  Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me?  Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times.”

Of course, we have the luxury of looking back through history and knowing that both Jesus and Peter were right.  History shows that Peter died as a martyr for his faith at the hands of the Roman Empire.  But Jesus’ prophecy about him came true as well.  

What is also significant to consider in this, as always in the Scriptures, is the context in which we find Peter denying his relationship to Christ.  Just hours before Peter’s denial, at the time of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas led the Jewish authorities to surprise and capture Jesus.  Immediately, Peter draws his sword and launches an attack on the soldiers, but Jesus  stops him, saying to him, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

Peter was a Zealot.  And while that word today simply means that someone is very active and passionate about something, in the time of Christ, the Zealots were a militant political party whose goal was to incite a military uprising to throw out the Romans.  Peter believed that Jesus was the one to finally bring about that rebellion and finally cast off the yoke of Roman rule and oppression.  Judas may also have been a member of the Zealots, and it is argued that he believed the same thing as Peter, which was the true motivation behind his betrayal of Christ, that he was forcing a confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish authorities in order to spark a revolution.

But when we are surrounded by friends, and our leaders seem to be in positions of power, we also feel strong and bold to act.  Take all that away, however, and force us into a place of vulnerability, with no friends in sight to support us, and how we will we stand the testing of our convictions?  That is what really speaks to me from this passage.

So I have to ask?  Are we going to be Peter?  Quick to speak out in defense of Christ, or quick even to spring into action when it appears that we have the upper hand, but also quick to deny the convictions of our faith when the chips are down and peer pressure is high?

Still, it was only Peter and that other disciple who remained with Jesus throughout his trial at all.  Where were the others?  After Jesus’ arrest, there is no more mention of them whatsoever until after His resurrection, when they were hiding out in an upper room of an inn, terrified that they would also be arrested and put to death.  Peter and the other disciples can be seen as the most faithful of all the disciples because they stayed with Jesus the longest.  

And maybe that is why Peter’s denial was the hardest and most remembered of all the disciples.  “I am not,” he said to the servant girl who asked if he was one of the twelve.  “I am not,” he said to the people standing around at the charcoal fire, who asked the same question.  And it is at that very moment, as Peter was denying his relationship to the Lord, that Jesus himself was denying nothing, and in fact was standing behind everything he had done and said during his ministry.  

What is this “I am not?”  I am not the holy man that you think I am, he was saying to them.  I am not so certain and secure in my convictions as to be unshakeable in my faith.  A moment of weakness reveals to us that the great Apostle Peter, to whom Jesus said, “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Mt. 16:18);” this Peter is very much like all the rest of us.  

Jesus, however, knew this as well, and having loved Peter, he loved him to the end.  Later, after the resurrection, Jesus confronts Peter at another charcoal fire.  He asks him three times, “Peter, do you love me?” at which Peter becomes a bit offended, and says, “Yes, Lord.  You know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”  

Jesus knows that Peter loves him, and Jesus loves Peter no less for his betrayal.  But why does Jesus choose Peter, who is broken and weak, to lead his church into the future?  I believe it is because Peter is broken and weak that Jesus chose him.  Peter’s soul is empty and ready to be filled; he is, as he says himself years later, in a letter to the Church, like a newborn infant, longing for the pure spiritual milk, that by it he may grow up into salvation.

The Psalmist says, “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise (51:17).”  
The story of Peter’s denial reminds us that we are a broken people, with a broken church, living in a broken world.  And while it is very Presbyterian of me to point out that obvious truth, I believe that we must always keep our brokenness before us, acknowledging the lordship of the only Physician who can heal us and make us whole.  In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Prayer: Beginning a Lenten Journey

Throughout the last several years, I have struggled with my personal prayer life.  Not that I don't pray, but I have not structured my prayer life in such a way as to set aside time each day in order to more fully immerse myself into the school of prayer.

Prayer, when it is spontaneous and free, has a sort of continuous quality about it.  Paul said, "pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 15:17)," and I think that sums up very well the kind of spontaneous prayers that keep Christians in constant communion with God, ranging from, "God please help me," to praising God for the beauty of a sunrise that paints the morning sky on our way to work.

That kind of prayer is, I think, the first and most natural way that we learn how to pray, as Christians.  It is certainly the easiest, but there is so much more to explore, a vast treasury of prayer that unites Christians across the spectrum of time and place, prayer that Christ himself learned from, which gradually can teach us to articulate our own, more spontaneous prayers in ways that we otherwise would not be able to do.

As a pastor, I find that, when I pray "off the cuff," my prayers tend to follow a certain pattern, and I find that I often say certain things and pray in a sort of pattern.  However, by following a more structured, liturgical form of daily prayer, my own "free" prayer has begun to grow in its depth of expression so that I am learning that there is a need for both kinds of prayer: structured as well as free.

I refer to the Psalter, which is a cycle of praying through the psalms, along with other readings from Holy Scripture and devotional texts.  When I first began ordained ministry, I was blessed by a priest friend with a copy of the Liturgy of the Hours, and was instructed by him in its use.  Immediately, I saw what an amazing resource this was, whether or not one is Catholic, and but over the years, as I have explored other written prayer resources, my observance of the divine office has grown rather slim.

As Lent began, therefore, I once again committed myself to daily prayer, using the Liturgy of the Hours.  Perhaps one day I will have the discipline to pray all seven of the hours, uniting my spirit with the Psalmist, who said "Seven times a day I praise you (Ps. 119:164)."  Right now, however, I am enjoying the inspiration and satisfaction of "going to church" every morning and evening with the Liturgy of the Hours.

Coincidentally, the devotional reading for Friday was precisely for me, at this stage of my journey in Lent.  I will include it here for you:

"From a homily by Saint John Chrysostom

"Prayer and converse with God is a partnership and union with God.  As the eyes of the body are enlightened when they see light, so our spirit, when it is intent on God, is illumined by his infinite light.  I do not mean the prayer of outward observance but prayer from the heart, not confined to fixed but continuous through the day and night.

"Our spirit should be quick to reach out toward God, not only when it is engaged in meditation; at other times also, when it is carrying out its duties, caring for the needy, performing works of charity, giving generously in the service of others, our spirit should long for God and call him to mind, so that these works may be seasoned with the salt of God's love, and so make a palatable offering to the Lord of the universe.  Throughout the whole of our lives we may enjoy the benefit that comes from prayer if we devote a great deal of time to it.  

"Prayer is the light of the spirit, true knowledge of God, mediating between God and man.  The spirit, raised up to heaven by prayer, clings to God with the utmost tenderness; like a child crying tearfully for its mother, it craves the milk that God provides.  It seeks the satisfaction of its own desires, and receives gifts outweighing the whole world of nature.

"Prayer stands before God as an honored ambassador.  It gives joy to the spirit, peace to the heart.  I speak of prayer, not words.  It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by man but by God's grace.  The apostle Paul says: We do not know how we are to pray but the Spirit himself pleads for us with inexpressible longings.

"When the Lord gives this kind of prayer to a man, he gives him riches that cannot be taken away, heavenly food that satisfies the spirit.  One who tastes this food is set on fire with an eternal longing for the Lord: his spirit burns as in a fire of the utmost intensity.

"Practice prayer from the beginning.  Paint your house with the colors of modesty and humility.  Make it radiant with the light of justice.  Decorate it with the finest gold leaf of good deeds.  Adorn it with the walls and stones of faith and generosity.  Crown it with the pinnacle of prayer.  In this way you will make it a perfect dwelling place for the Lord.  You will be able to receive him as in a splendid palace, and through his grace you will already possess him, his image enthroned in the temple of your spirit."

We Are Made By What We Make

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation of the British Commonwealth, used to have regular bible study with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.  Blair said to Sacks one day that he was reading in Exodus and had "just come to the boring bit."

Of course Rabbi Sacks had to ask him, "Which boring bit?"

"You know," he said, "the passage about the Tabernacle at the end of Exodus.  It does go on, doesn't it?"

Exodus Chapters 25-31 and 35-40 deal directly with provisions for construction of and worship elements in the Tabernacle.  The Tabernacle pre-dated the Temple in Jerusalem.  After the Hebrews left Egypt, they wandered in desert forty years, finally settling Israel.  They were, essentially, a nomadic people, and so the Tabernacle, for them, became a sort of Temple which could be moved and set up like any other tent.

Except it wasn't like any other tent.  It covered 11,250 square feet, had a courtyard, a separate tent within it which contained the Ark of the Covenant.  There were multiple altars, multiple rooms, and everything was made out of gold and bronze and acacia wood.

Rabbi Sacks pointed out to Tony Blair that the description of the building of this Tabernacle in Exodus takes up about 500 verses, whereas the creation story in Genesis only takes up 34 verses.  His point was that "it is not difficult for an omniscient, omnipotent God to create a home for humankind.  What is difficult is for finite, fallible human beings to create a home for God.  This tells us that the Bible is not man's book of God, but God's book of humanity."

In the Bible, we see God fashioning for himself a community of people who create community.

But first, he takes a group of people who were victimized and enslaved and who lament their fate that God has abandoned them.  God sets them free and leads them out of Egypt, but the people complain and grumble against God, saying that it would have been better in slavery to the Egyptians.  There's no food, they say. There's no water, they say.

So God provides for them.  Manna from heaven, water from a rock.  Meat.  Freedom.

When Moses leaves them to go up Mt. Sinai to commune directly with God, the people complain and grumble, and decide that they don't like Moses' God anymore, and they don't know what's become of him anyway, so they make a new god for themselves.  An idol, a Golden Calf.

These are a people to whom God has given and given and given.  These are a people who are too immature to come together as a unified nation.  They're only worried about themselves, their own wants and needs, and what they can get, rather than what they can give.  And so they remain a nation of slaves.  They are enslaved by their worship of the god "Me."

It's not until God gives them the instructions for building the Tabernacle, with all its complexity of design and function that a fantastic change begins to come over the people.

Rabbi Sacks says, "It is as if God had said to Moses: if you want to create a group with a sense of collective identity, get them to build something together.  It is not what happens to us, but what we do, that gives us identity and responsibility."

Through this experience, the Hebrew people truly begin to grow into the nation that is Israel.  Why?  Because they worked together.  And during that entire time while constructing the Tabernacle, there is no mention of grumbling or complaining.  When Moses asked the people to contribute to the construction, either through material gifts or by donating their skills, he actually had to restrain them from giving!!

In our reading of Holy Scripture, in our service to our churches, to the community, to our families, I think we often miss this, or at least we forget it: "The most effective way of transforming individuals into a group is by setting before them a task they can only achieve as a group."

Why are churches and volunteer fire departments and social organizations that promote volunteerism dying out in our society?  I believe it is because the concept of the group is being replaced with the idol of self.

At the moment, while I write this, a song came on the radio.  A man is singing about how we look around at the state of affairs in the world and say to God, "Why don't you do something?"  God, then, replies, "I did.  I created you."  The artist then issues us a challenge, "it's time for us to do something.  If not us, then who?"

God has given and given and given to us.  Now it is time for us to give back.

I do believe very strongly that there are some people who try to do too much in their group, and by doing so, they actually end up having very little effectiveness over all.  That is a problem in and of itself.  But there are many more who are completely content contributing so little that they end up taking more than they give to the group.

God has called us out of slavery to be a community of givers and doers and builders, not takers, and so to lead others to do the same.

"When leaders become builders, they create peace; otherwise they merely create dissent."

What are you building?

__________________
Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are from Sacks, Jonathan. "Nation-building: Ancient Answer, Contemporary Problem," in Covenant and Conversation Exodus: the Book of Redemption. Pp. 289-295 (Maggid Books, 2010).

How can a church be the Church?

Last Sunday, in a sermon that I preached, I talked a little bit about how we grow as people and as a church.  One of the things I said was this:

"Relationships involve a growing trust which leads us to be more and more personal and vulnerable with Christ, allowing Him to gently confront us with ever deeper truths about ourselves, without judgment, from which we can grow and find new strengths.  Let us help one another to build relationships like that with Jesus Christ, and with one another, because that is the only way the Church will grow."

Today I read, from William Barclay's commentary on Galatians:

"A Christian Church cannot continue to be a Christian Church if in it there are any kind of class distinctions. The labels which men wear amongst men are irrelevant in the presence of God. In the presence of God a man is neither Jew nor Gentile, noble or base, rich or poor; he is a sinner for whom Christ died. if men shared in a common sonship they must be brothers; they have a new kinship which cuts across all earthly barriers because they are now sons of the one Father, even God."

I believe that one of the biggest problems that the Church faces today, in terms of its decline, is that the church is no longer the Church. If the Church (note the capital 'C') is to be the Body of Christ, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, then it seems to me that we are missing some very important and necessary first steps toward achieving that goal. We are not a church, we are a Church, and we must be the Church by actively pursuing growth individually and by supporting and encouraging others to grow as well. We must learn to let go of our preconceived judgments about people whose differences from us make us uncomfortable, and we must learn to open our minds to new ideas and perspectives.

The church (note the lowercase 'c') has become a social club; it seems to exist today mostly to serve a consumer-driven society that is largely interested in what it can get, not what it can give.

As a newlywed, I've been learning a lot about the differences between married life and single life. As a single person for 36 years, I only really needed to be concerned about myself and my own well-being and growth. Now, as a married person, I must also consider the well-being and growth of my family. Of course, I cannot do that unless I am health first, but the interconnectedness of family dynamics means that a part of making me healthier is to contribute to their health.

Our relationships with Christ is a lot like a marriage. Christ serves us in much the same way that we serve our spouse. And we can and must serve Christ, not because he needs us to, but because we need to. By serving Him we serve ourselves.

Expanding this idea into the family dynamics of a church, we find much the same thing. We grow by helping others to grow. This is how the church becomes the Church; this is how churches grow.

Just a thought.

New Year's Resolve

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more…and he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.” –Rev. 21:1-6

Do you ever want to just start over?  Do you ever want to put everything behind you and wipe the slate clean and begin anew?  For many of us, that is what the New Year’s celebration is all about.  Putting the old to rest and starting over.  It’s a chance to let the past stay in the past.  It’s a new year, anything can happen.  I can change, and not be bound by the mistakes of last year.

In the Christian Church, there is a tradition of holding watchnight services at certain times throughout the liturgical year, like the Advent/Christmas season, and during Holy Week.  Many churches do the same on New Year’s Eve.  It is a vigil of prayer and resolution to begin the New Year with a new dedication and commitment to growing in one’s faith. 

(I know that it would mean skipping out on those wonderful New Year’s Eve parties, but there is usually plenty of pork and sauerkraut leftover anyway!) 

The focus is on renewing the covenant with the Lord who calls us to live in the world but to not be of the world.  We can acknowledge and contemplate the past, but we can also put it away from us.  The past can educate us and shape who we will become in the New Year, but the sins of the past cannot be undone, they can only be forgiven, and the Lord forgives us who are penitent, so let us forgive others who have wronged us as well.

And so the assurance of the watchnight service, of the New Year, is the hope that is renewed for who we can grow to become as children of the Lord, followers of Jesus Christ in 2014.  It is that Christ “is with us always, even to the end of the age (Mt. 28:20).”

At any time, in any place, for whatever reason, we can begin anew, we can start over.  Because of a God who makes all things new.