Saint

My mom got me thinking the other day about my Grandma.  She asked about my sermon (see the previous post for "Palm Passion Sunday: Highway to the Danger Zone") and I told her my points and sermon illustrations and admitted that my third point was the weakest, "grieve when it's time to grieve," and she reminded me of when Grandma died and my husband, my sister, and I went up to PA that first weekend, anyway, even though there was nothing going on.  No viewing, no church service; her memorial service wasn't til the next weekend.  But we went, anyway, to be with family and to hang out with family and grieve together.

My grandmother was not a perfect saint, no human is.  She loved singing hymns in church, especially ones written by Charles Wesley.  The fact that she didn't often sing on key never slowed or quieted her down.  Grandma knew she was going to be a pastor's wife when she married a banker.  What faith!  She knew Grandpa was going to be a preacher before God called him; God had already called her.  Grandma grew up and always stayed in the Methodist Church as it went through all its changes, ordaining women in 1956, joining with the Evangelical United Brethren to become The United Methodist Church in 1968.  Grandma never left the church.

Half the time I picture Grandma, it's in the kitchen.  That seems to be where the ladies in my family hang out when we get together - some will be cooking and baking and the rest of us sitting and chatting and occasionally helping.  Not that we have to be there, but we're not dumb - that's where the food is!  And the taste-testing!  And many of us actually enjoy cooking and baking!  (For my part, I'll taking baking and leave cooking.)  But it's where family stories are handed down, it's where various skills are passed along (I think I paid more attention when baking than cooking), it's where you learn things about childcare and living.  And you get to eat, or at least snack, while doing it.  Table fellowship, where the table is an island counter top in a kitchen.  Maybe that island is what's missing in my kitchen.  I'll have to remedy that before my daughter gets much older so that the ladies in my family can continue this life-giving tradition with her and tell her about her Great-Grandma :)

Palm Passion Sunday: Highway to the Danger Zone

Palm Passion Sunday

March 24, 2013

Luke 19:28-40; Psalm 31:9-16

“Highway to the Danger Zone”

            After I preached last month, my husband asked me what ‘80s movie I would use for a sermon illustration next time and suggested ‘Top Gun.’  I told him, “Are you crazy?  I’m preaching Palm Sunday!  What does ‘Top Gun’ have to do with Palm Sunday?!”  He thought for a moment and then said, “Highway to the Danger Zone!”  Well… he’s right.  Palm Sunday, Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is a highway into the danger zone, and Jesus is well aware of it.  He knows he’s going into dangerous territory.  He knows the Passion is coming.  He does this joyful procession with palms and hosanna’s and everything, knowing that Good Friday is coming.  Now, his disciples don’t know.  They’re excited, caught up in the moment, thinking it’s about time that the Messiah has come to Jerusalem!  Now Jesus is going to inaugurate his kingdom!  Now, finally!  They never did understand when Jesus tried to tell them otherwise.  Jesus tried to tell them what was really going to happen, but they never listened.  And so, in our Gospel story, they are praising God loudly and joyfully and they upset the Pharisees because they quote from Psalm 118, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”, and in doing so they’re being blasphemous and treasonous.  But they’re so excited!  And Jesus lets them be excited.  He knows this is a momentous thing for him to enter Jerusalem. 

            Jesus knows that you gotta celebrate when it’s time to celebrate.  Many of you know that before seminary I served in Nicaragua for about a year.  My first trip home during that year was after I’d been gone for nine months and it was for my sister’s wedding.  I remember talking with my sister about her wedding plans and she commented that I probably thought it was wasteful that they were spending all this money on the wedding when there’s so much poverty and hunger in the world.  And it’s true; Nicaragua is the second poorest country in this hemisphere.  I had trouble with culture shock when I went to a workshop in Costa Rica after about six months of living in Nicaragua because of the relative wealth in comparison and not just paved roads, but roads with painted lines on them!  My sister’s wedding was at the Chapel of the Cross here in town and the reception was at the Carolina Inn, so it was a fancy affair.  However, what I told her was that the money was being spent on celebrating and that this was a time to celebrate.  She wasn’t going overboard with it, but trying to create a nice, classy event and atmosphere, which she succeeded in doing.  You gotta celebrate when it’s time to celebrate. 

            Speaking of weddings, Jesus himself uses a wedding analogy when explaining to John the Baptist’s disciples why his disciples don’t fast.  He says, “Wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”[1]  When the bridegroom is around, that’s Jesus, you celebrate, but you will not always have the bridegroom with you.  This is just one of many times Jesus tells his disciples and others that he won’t always be around.  Jesus entered Jerusalem amidst great celebration, knowing that his passion was coming. 

            In fact, one of the many ways Jesus is described throughout the Gospels is as “setting his face to go to Jerusalem.”[3]  Think about that image.  “Setting your face like flint.”[4]  It calls to mind words like determination and focus and even stubbornness.  But just because Jesus knows what is coming and is unwavering in his commitment to go through with it… doesn’t mean that he likes it.  It doesn’t even mean that he wants to do it!  Instead, he’s steeling his will, setting his face like flint, getting up his guts ready to do it.  Remember that prayer from the garden of Gethsemane?  “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.”[5]  Jesus knows it’s coming, he knows it’s what he’s gotta do.  He knows that you gotta face what you gotta face. 

In June of 1939, at the urging of his friends, Dietrich Bonhoeffer found himself back at Union Seminary in New York, where he had done post-doc work a few years before.  His doctorate in theology was from Berlin University in his native Germany.  By 1939, Bonhoeffer was a leader of the Confessing Church of Germany, a branch of Protestantism that had sprung up in Germany in opposition to the Nazi government’s attempt to influence the Church.  However, no sooner had Bonhoeffer arrived in the U.S. than he wrote, “I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people... Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security.”[6] Bonhoeffer returned to Germany on the last scheduled steamer to cross the Atlantic in July 1939.  In April 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned at a Nazi concentration camp.  He was executed in April 1945.  Bonhoeffer could have avoided his death.  He could have stayed in New York where he was safe.  But he knew he had to go back to Germany.  That ocean passage was a highway to the danger zone.  And you know what?  He never regretted that decision.[7]  He faced what he had to face. 

It’s interesting, because one of Bonhoeffer’s more well-known quotes, from his book The Cost of Discipleship, is “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”[8]  In facing what you gotta face, you may, in a sense, have to die.  In obeying Christ and becoming his disciple, you often have to let go of other things.  You often have to do things you don’t want to do.  Whether it’s a friendship or a favorite pastime or something else that is not life-giving, something that does not aid you in your faith journey, you have to let that thing go to follow Christ.  Or it may be something else that has to die, whether a dream job or your ideal place to live.  Following Christ means we don’t always get what we want. 

Now, I’m not saying you pretend you’re not upset about it or that you don’t grieve giving it up.  It’s ok to weep when it’s time to weep.  We know Jesus wept when he visited his friend, Lazarus’, grave site.  Shortest sentence, in the Bible, right?  “Jesus wept.”[9]  And Jesus even weeps as he faces Good Friday.  You know when he prays in that garden in Gethsemane about the cup passing from him and yet not his will being done but God’s, he instructs his disciples: “I am deeply grieved …even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.”[10]  Of course, they promptly fall asleep, which is part of why Jesus gets so upset with them.  This is a time to grieve and be upset… and they can’t keep their eyes open!  You may or may not always want company in your grief, but eventually, you probably will, because at some point you will want to share your story, you have to share your story to heal, and when you do, you want whoever’s with you to listen! 

            I was telling my mom about my sermon for today and she reminded me of when her mom, my Grandma, died.  Grandpa didn’t have the memorial service right away; he chose to wait about ten days.  However, that first weekend, Lee, my sister, and I went up, anyway.  My mom was there and a couple of her brothers.  It didn’t matter that nothing official was going on, there was no viewing, nothing at the church, no event at the house, nothing, but we wanted to go up, anyway, to be with family, to grieve with them.  And then we went up again the next weekend for the memorial service.  So, please, grieve when it’s time to grieve.  And Good Friday that’s coming up, the Passion story we will live through this week, is a time to grieve. 

My husband and I have recently become Whovians.  I haven’t quite come to terms with this nickname yet, but we do love “Dr. Who.”  “Dr. Who” is a British science-fiction TV show, produced by the BBC, about the time travels and adventures of a “time lord,” who is called simply, The Doctor.  It has been running on and off for fifty years and we started watching on Netflix the most recent incarnation of it, which began in 2005 and recently we watched the Christmas special from 2011, entitled “The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe.”  Crazy otherworldly shenanigans always seem to be inflicted upon London at Christmastime.  In this particular case, Dr. Who travels to World War II London and befriends a family whose dad is away fighting in the war.  The mom has just received notice that he was killed in the line of duty, but she does not want to tell her kids yet because she doesn’t want them to associate this memory with Christmas.  Dr. Who talks with her about her inner turmoil as to whether or not to tell the kids yet.  And he says, “…every time you see them happy, you remember how sad they’re going to be, and it breaks your heart.  Because what’s the point in them being happy now if they’re going to be sad later?  …The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.”

Now, Palm Sunday is a time to rejoice and celebrate.  And next Sunday, Easter, will also be a time to be happy as we celebrate Jesus' resurrection.  However, in the meantime, we have to travel through the Passion; we have to journey with Jesus to the cross.  We can be happy now and celebrate now because we are going to be sad later.  The good news as Christians… is that Good Friday is not the end of the story.  We know Easter's coming.  We know our weeping will turn to joy.[11]  But you can't get to Easter without going through Good Friday.  In the meantime, and where we live most of our lives, is between Jesus’ death and resurrection.  So don’t rush the grieving.  Be sad when it’s time to be sad.  And be happy when it’s time to be happy.  Face whatever it is that you gotta face.  Amen.

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[1] Matthew 9:15, NRSV

[3] Luke 9:51, NRSV

[4] Isaiah 50:7, NRSV

[5] Luke 22:42, NRSV

[6] From the Memoir by G. Leibholz in The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Touchstone, 1995), p. 17-18, emphasis mine

[7] Ibid.

[8] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone, 1995), p. 89

[9] John 11:35, NIV, KJV (but not NRSV, interestingly enough)

[10] Matthew 26:38, NRSV

[11] John 16:20, NRSV

A Path in the Wilderness

Isaiah 43:19 - "Look!  I'm doing a new thing; now it sprouts up; don't you recognize it?  I'm making a way in the desert, paths in the wilderness."

I love that verse, and while it sounds great, "a new thing," a way where there used to be no way, what we forget in our enthusiasm is that new is not easy.  There is hard work to be done in clearing the path.  Sometimes God opens a door and boom! there you go.  But sometimes God shows you the end in sight and hands you a shovel or a machete or a plow.  I now understand about the birth pangs of a new creation in a way I didn't used to.  Sometimes it's easy to make something new; sometimes there are a lot of bramble and thorns and underbrush to clear first. 

...But then, after the hard work and the blisters, you get to look back at the path God gave you the strength to clear and you praise his holy name and testify that with God's help, it is possible.

Papers, Please

February 24, 2013

2^nd Sunday in Lent

Phil. 3:17-4:1

Papers, Please

(The 3 B’s of (Christian) Citizenship)

            About halfway through “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” Indiana Jones and his dad, Henry Jones, Sr., find themselves aboard a dirigible trying to escape the Nazis. The Nazi chasing them boards the giant balloon and is about to confront Henry when our hero, Indiana, posing as the conductor, taps him on the shoulder and asks, “Ticket, please,” and promptly throws him out the window.  He then turns to the rest of the passengers and says, “No ticket.”  The other passengers eagerly pull out their tickets to show him.  Perhaps you haven’t been aboard a dirigible, but traveling by train and you are asked, “tickets, please” or traveling internationally, “passports, please.”  And then there’s that moment of fear that the country won’t let you in, or on an overnight train in Europe when the conductor asked for and kept our passports – he gave them back to us in the morning.  What happens without passports or tickets?  You might get thrown off a dirigible.   Or get arrested.

            In November 2011, a police officer in Tuscaloosa, Alabama stopped a rental car that had no tags.  The driver had only a German identification card and so he was arrested and taken downtown.  He was charged with not having proper identification: no papers.   The man was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver’s license from his hotel.  He was a German executive for Mercedes-Benz.  Alabama’s tightening down on immigration papers continued the next month, December 2011, when police ticketed a Japanese executive of Honda, at a checkpoint.  Mr. Ichiro Yada even had with him an international driver’s license, passport, and U.S. work permit!  You see, Alabama enacted a law in September of that year requiring police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally.  They dropped the charges against Mr. Yada after being shown a copy of his Japanese driver’s license.[1] 

I think we’re going a little crazy here.  Papers, please.  Tickets, please.  Passport, please.  We just read in Philippians that our citizenship is in heaven.  What documents do we have to support that?  Perhaps you have the certificate from when you baptized, or confirmed.  Maybe you often wear a cross necklace or carry a Bible.  How do you show that you belong to God? 

            Citizenship has to do with belonging, who belongs and who doesn’t.  If we are citizens of heaven, then we belong to Christ.  In baptism we are sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever, to quote the old liturgy.[2]  Everything we do stems from our baptism.  It was our entry way into belonging to Christ and becoming citizens of heaven.  If our citizenship is in heaven, then it is not here.  Here, in this space where we worship God, we are all here at God’s invitation and so we all come as equals, not at the mercy of immigration officials but at the mercy of the Holy Spirit.  If we belong at all, it is by the grace of God.[3]  The Holy Spirits works within us and through us, names us and seals us.  We do not do that work ourselves.  And this space serves us, we do not serve this space.  This space belongs to God and he and he alone makes it holy so that where we are standing is holy ground.  Each worship space becomes a foreign land that we call home and we do not have to show papers to enter.[4]  As Christians, our notions of who belongs and who doesn’t are a little different from society’s standards because we say everyone is welcome.[5]  When we celebrate communion, we believe everyone is invited and welcome to participate.  It’s not my table or Pastor Ken’s table, it’s not Orange’s table or a Methodist table, it’s the Lord’s table and we are all invited guests, Pastor Ken and myself included.  So citizenship is about belonging, and we are all invited to belong to God.

Citizenship is also about boundaries.  We know that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, but what separates us from people who aren’t Christian?  How do you know if someone’s a Christian?  We don’t all wear cross necklaces.  There’s the 1960s song, “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love,” but people who aren’t Christians do good things, too.  We don’t have the monopoly on doing good.  What’s different for those of us who belong to God is the reason why we love, the reason why we serve, the reason why we do good things.  And the answer isn’t “because we’re supposed to.”  The answer isn’t “because that’s just what we do.”  The answer isn’t “because if I don’t, then no one else will.”  The answer is because God calls us to.  God calls us to love him.  God calls us to love our neighbor.  God calls us to come and worship him.  God calls us to serve. 

A couple weeks ago, Pastor Ken shared a story we heard at the district clergy meeting with Bishop Hope Morgan Ward.  She also related to us a conversation with a lady who taught preschool Sunday school at a small church she pastored.  This lady was feeling burned out because she’d been the preschool Sunday school teacher for a long time and wanted to quit, except she felt like if she did, then no one would teach the little kids.  Bishop Hope advised her not to worry about that and the lady promised she’d pray about it.  The church was going through a time of connecting all the members with different ways of serving at the church and had them all listed on cards that they passed out.  The lady took her card home and prayed about it.  When she turned it in the next Sunday, she had marked preschool Sunday school teacher.  Bishop Hope was surprised and asked her why.  The lady said she didn’t really want to be a trustee or cook in the kitchen or lead worship or any of the other options listed on the card.  When she’d prayed about it, God was calling her to continue teaching the preschool Sunday school class.  So let’s not worry about “if I don’t, then no one else will,” but let’s work on how God is calling each of us to serve.  Because God is calling.  You don’t get to say, “I’ve done my bit.”  God is not done with you until you reach heaven.  We gather once a week for worship.  Many of us are involved in small groups during the week.  If you’re not, I highly encourage you to join one.  The final part of our 3-G motto, Gather, Grow, and Go, is to serve.  The only question is how and where.  We have lots of opportunities at the church to serve, many weekly and monthly ways to serve in the community.  What is God calling you to do?  How is God calling you to serve?

Being citizens of heaven does not mean that we live in an alternate reality or that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with the problems and crises of this world.  Rather, it means that we engage this world with completely different set of values.[6]  We don’t serve because it’s a good thing to do.  We’re not involved in prison ministry or with the homeless shelters because it’s something we’ve always done and we’re nice people.  We do it because it’s what God is calling us to do.  One mark of your citizenship is that you are answering God’s call on your life, whatever that is.  And on the outside it may not look any different from someone who isn’t a Christian, but you know why you do what you do and you can share that reason with anyone who asks. 

            The Disciple’s Path bible study started this past week and in Week One there is a chart of Spiritual Practices, divided into individual ones that we do on our own and communal ones that we do with others.[7]  The “Personal Spiritual Disciplines” were Prayer, Scripture Meditation, Financial Generosity, and Invitational Evangelism.  The definition of that last one, Invitational Evangelism, was knowing the Gospel story and knowing your story and some in the group confessed that they didn’t know their own story very well.  You can’t tell others why you do something, can’t tell them what makes you different as a citizen of heaven, if you don’t know your own story, if you don’t know what God is calling you to do.  If you need help with that discernment, Pastor Ken and I would love to pray and listen with you.  Just let us know.

            Regardless of the specific ways you live out your calling as a citizen of heaven, there is one thing God is calling all of us to and that is becoming like Christ.  Citizens of heaven are always striving to become more like Christ.  This is the Christ who said that the first and greatest commandment is: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”[8]  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  This is the Christ who is transforming us to become like him, a process which continues for the rest of our lives, as we are going on to Christian perfection. 

The folks participating in A Disciple’s Path bible study also told me that Pastor Ken and I are doing a good job preaching on prevenient grace, God’s grace that comes before we know him, calling all of us into relationship with him, but that we preach less on justifying grace and sanctifying grace, at least by those names.  Justifying grace I think you all are familiar with, even if not by those words.  It’s saving grace, it’s being justified by grace, being made right with God through the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  The last one, however, is the one I’m talking about in becoming like Christ, and that’s sanctifying grace.  This is the sustaining grace as “we continue to grow in the likeness and image of Christ through the perfecting work of the Holy Spirit.”[9]  You see, we never stop growing.  God is never done with you.  You may at times feel that you are done with God, or need a time-out, but God is never done with you.  “Sanctifying grace is where we figure out that it’s not ‘all about me’ and begin to participate in God’s redemption in the world.”[10]  As citizens of God’s kingdom, we work with him in this transformation process.

            You know, I started off thinking that our two Lenten studies were very different.  A Disciple’s Path is about growing in your faith through the five parts of our membership vows and is steeped in Wesleyan theology.  Becoming the Church Together is about looking at the issue of immigration through the lens of faith.  The two studies aren’t quite so different after all.  Working for justice, serving with the poor and marginalized, which many immigrants are, obeying God’s call on your life, loving your neighbor, some of whom are immigrants right next door to the church, these are all part of a disciple’s journey, all part of being citizens of heaven, all part of becoming more like Christ.  Part of what I love about Methodism is the balance of personal piety with social action.  It’s not all about you and studying the Bible.  It’s not all about works of mercy, either.  The Christian life, Christian citizenship is about both as we continue to grow and serve and love God and love neighbor and become more like Christ.  There are no passports, no papers to prove you’re a citizen of heaven.  You don’t need a ticket to get there, and you won’t get tossed out the window if you don’t have one.  God invited you here, and he invites you to continue your relationship with him, growing your love of him and loving your neighbors, papers or not.

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[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/02/alabama-car-boss-immigration-law

[2] The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p. 308

[3] Claudio Carvalhaes, lecture, Festival of Homiletics, Atlanta, GA, May 17, 2012

[4] Ibid.

[5] Becoming the Church Together: Immigration, the Bible, and Our New Neighbors, North Carolina Council of Churches, p. 13.

[6] Alejandro Botta, “Second Sunday in Lent” in Preaching God’s Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year C, Dale Andrews, Ronald Allen, Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm, Eds., p. 131

[7] James Harnish, A Disciple’s Path, Daily Workbook, p. 29

[8] Mark 12:29-34

[9] James Harnish, A Disciple’s Path, Daily Workbook, p. 23

[10] Ibid.