REST

7^th Sunday after Epiphany

February 24, 2019

Exodus 20; Matthew14:13-24; Matthew 11:28-30

Drawn In: Week 6

I love that the final theme for our series on creativity, rest, falls on the Sunday after I spent the week in El Salvador. Traveling is not necessarily restful, especially when your flight is at 3 in the morning, as it was when we flew down there. But I tend to find my time in Central America to be restful. It is a break from life in the U.S., the fast pace, the hurry, the attention to deadlines and the clock. It’s a break from the 24 hr news cycle, where so many news items seem so urgent and so important and so full of angst. You learn the world can and will continue without you. And in Central America, like in some other parts of the world, time has less meaning. One colleague joked that in Zimbabwe, where he has traveled many times with the Conference, time doesn’t exist. I’d say for Central America, time is more of a suggestion. You’re told you’ll be picked up at 8 means your ride could show up anywhere from 7:45 to 8:45 and you don’t have any control over it. This week I rested from control. There were only a few meals where I had a menu to choose my food; all the other meals were chosen for me. The schedule was already planned, but was also more of a guideline. We were along for the ride, wherever the Bishop of El Salvador took us. That is the kind of rest that Central America is. It’s a rest from control and a rest from the pressures of time.

Now, rest does not mean quit. It does not mean you never return to work again. Retire doesn’t even really mean that; you just make space for other work instead. The fourth of the Ten Commandments is to keep the Sabbath, to remember it and keep it holy. We work six days and rest on the seventh in order to be ready to return to work on the eighth day. We work from rest; not rest from work. If you’re resting from work, you’re doing it wrong. Start with rest, so that you’re ready to work. Because you know what happens on the eighth day? Creation is completed. God began to work again. If you ever see a baptismal font that has sides to it, it will have eight sides, for the eighth day of creation, to symbolize new creation, new life in Christ Jesus. God created and continues to create and re-create. Yet work without rest is not sustainable. “Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.”[1]

I don’t know which day you take as Sabbath, whether or not it’s Sunday. And I don’t know what you rest from on that day. My mom takes it as a day when she doesn’t do any chores or housecleaning. I take Mondays as a day off from the church. I don’t do any church work; I try not to even answer email or the phone. I do check voicemail, however, if you leave me a message, in case it’s something urgent. But otherwise it can wait until Tuesday. That’s the thing about Sabbath. You learn what’s really urgent and how many things can really wait one more day. Jesus took time off, too, as we read. He took time away, by himself, apart from the crowds, and sometimes even apart from his disciples. He went to pray and to rest and be drawn in by God.

And it never says that someone died because Jesus rested. There’s the story of Lazarus where his sisters sent for Jesus because Lazarus was really sick, but Jesus took his sweet time getting there.[2] Lazarus was already been dead and buried three days by the time Jesus finally got there. Jesus didn’t take so long to get there because he was chilling at a spa and having some me-time. Jesus knew, unlike the sisters, that this wasn’t urgent. Remember, God has his own timing, which is not ours. Jesus knew Lazarus’ sickness and death were not urgent. A matter of life and death, yes, but not urgent. When Jesus arrived, he declared himself to be the resurrection and the life, those who believe in him would receive eternal life and he asked the sisters if they believed. They said “yes, Lord.” And Jesus resurrected Lazarus and brought him home to his sisters. Rest helps us discern what’s urgent.

Rest also allows the brain time and space to breathe and rest, to get off the treadmill. It’s giving yourself permission to take a break. And, when your brain rests from whatever you’ve been knee-dip in, then you start to dream again and the creativity cycle begins again. Dreaming was where we started this series six weeks ago and dreams come from rest. They come when you’re quiet and contemplative, which means you have to make the time and space to be quiet and contemplative. There are many dreams recorded in the Bible; I’m going to share with you one I learned this past week.

The Evangelical Methodist Church of El Salvador currently has 13 churches, of which we visited 6. One of the rural ones we visited was in a community called La Gloria and the pastor, who is from La Gloria, is also named Gloria. Pastor Gloria has a dream for her community. She has a vision to help the people where she lives. And she had a dream for the details of the church building, too, which gives me the chills. When the Methodist Church first got involved in La Gloria twelve years ago, it did not have electricity or water and you entered either on foot, down a steep 245 steps, because it’s on the side of a mountain, or by a dirt road, which also wound its way down the mountain. Pastor Gloria said that for each step, the church fasted and prayed. They prayed for the government to put in electricity, and they got power. They prayed for running water, and the government put that in, too. They prayed for a paved road into the community, and that happened only three years ago. The Bishop said it was one of many times where the government saw the church getting involved, and because the church had gotten involved in the community, then the government did, too. Now, even once they had electricity, water, and a paved road in, the church still didn’t have a building. They started building, and got an L shape wall constructed, and then had to stop for quite a while. The building wasn’t finished until October 2017.

As I said, Pastor Gloria had a dream for this building and what it would look like and include and even the layout of it. In the first designs, however, the parsonage was to be built off a different section than Pastor Gloria’s dream. And she said ok, maybe she got that detail wrong. But then it turned out they couldn’t build the parsonage where they had planned, it was going to be moved to a different spot – the exact spot where Pastor Gloria had dreamed it! Pastor Gloria spends lots of time in prayer and God has given her a vision. There is a kitchen in the church, right now just waiting for God to provide the equipment somehow, and Pastor Gloria knows what she wants to make with the women for them to sell in the nearby city and be able to earn money. The gangs are not out of La Gloria, but they are no longer active in the area immediately surrounding the church. They leave it alone. Pastor Gloria’s main ministry is with women and children, because that’s who are in the most need in La Gloria.

When you have rest, when you have time away, when you’re unplugged and not trying to be productive every single second, then your brain can wander and imagine and dream. I found myself wondering about us partnering with one of the churches in El Salvador as a sister church. It’s an idea that would not have to include any economic exchange. The Bishop said it could be simply committing to praying for each other and sharing worship together on Skype once a year. Or it could include more. Just something to think about and dream about.

Finally, listen to Jesus’ invitation to rest: “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, 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.”[3] What does rest for your soul look like? What does it feel like? Let Jesus draw you in to him, learn from him, and you will find rest for your soul. Part of rest for your soul means taking a regular rest from everything going on. The world will go on without you. You do not have to be productive and try to optimize everything every moment! What we learn from Jesus is that he had a rhythm. Six days of work, one day of Sabbath, and on the Sabbath Jesus went to the synagogue. He went to teach, to listen, to be renewed, to reconnect his soul back to God, to reflect on the last week and be ready for the coming week. It’s the rhythm of dream, hover, risk, listen, re-integrate, and rest, to then return to dream again.

In Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase from The Message, he wrote, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” I love that phrase, “learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” God’s rhythm isn’t forced. God doesn’t push through. There’s a story the actor Hume Cronyn tells of working with Alfred Hitchcock and Hitchcock wouldn’t let them push through. He says, “One time, we were working on a problem with a scene. There were a lot of things to consider—lighting, staging, pacing, and the like. We were up very late struggling to find the right way to do it. Finally, when we seemed close to the solution, Hitchcock came in and started telling jokes, silly junior high–type stuff and got us all lost again. Later I asked him why, when we were so close to solving the problem, did he choose that moment to get us off track by joking around? He paused and said something I’ll never forget. He said, ‘You were pushing. It never comes from pushing.’”[4] Hitchcock wouldn’t let the cast and the crew force the outcome. He had them take a break and then come back to it later.

This week, let’s “learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” Don’t push through this week. Don’t force something. Let it wait until morning. Don’t build up so much adrenaline and angst in yourself that you’re in an unhealthy place mentally and emotionally, and possibly even physically if you’re sustaining yourself with caffeine or carbs. Be a bit more relaxed. Find the ebb and flow and follow it. Rest, not just your body but also your mind. Seek that rest for your soul. Reconnect your soul. I am so glad I had that week away last week because my Facebook feed is full of the angst of General Conference, which started yesterday in St. Louis. Being away last week meant I was able to keep a healthy distance from that anxiety and not let myself get swept into it. Don’t just find rest, but make it part of your regular rhythm. Where do you need to rest? When? From what? And don’t force it. If you try one way and it doesn’t work, try something else instead. When I first started I tried taking Fridays as my Sabbath, but there were two problems. One is that I was tired on Monday and felt like I was pushing through from Sunday to Tuesday. The other is that on Friday, I felt like what I had left undone was hanging over my head and it was hard to mentally rest. Resting on Monday works for me. Things can wait until Tuesday. And what’s not done Friday can wait until either Sunday or Tuesday. Let’s learn together “the unforced rhythm of grace” and find rest for our souls, so that we can again dream, plan, risk, evaluate, share, and rest again. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down [and rest] in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters,” a place of rest. “He restores my soul.”[5] Rest leads to restoration, so that we can begin again when the day is new.

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[1] Exodus 20:11b

[2] John 11:1-44

[3] Matthew 11:28-30

[4] Drawn In: A Creative Process for Artists, Activists, and Jesus Followers by Troy Bronsink, p. 94, kindle edition

[5] Psalm 23:1-3a

RE-INTEGRATE

6^th Sunday after Epiphany

February 17, 2019

Jeremiah 29:4-14; 1 Corinthians 12:12-19

Drawn In: Week 5

I would be remiss in a series about creativity to not mention one of the greatest dreamers and creators of the 20^th century, Walt Disney. It began with a dream as a boy to become an artist. Yet, his art teacher severely criticized his work, when, for example, “instead of drawing a bowl of flowers as instructed, he drew a bouquet with human faces and arms for leaves.”[1] Yet Walt stayed interested in cartooning, and then in animated cartoons. He took risks, some that were stepping stones some that were more stumbling blocks, in seeking to become an animator. He first created the Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City and when that venture ended, rather than head to New York where the animators of his day lived, he went to Hollywood and opened The Disney Brothers Studio with his brother and a friend. In 1926 “they decided one name was more appealing to audiences, and The Walt Disney Studio was born.”[2] Disney created Oswald the Hare, Mortimer the Mouse, and Mickey Mouse, working on short features. Then he took a huge risk and planned the first ever full-length animated movie. Some in Hollywood called it “Disney’s Folly.” Even his own wife didn’t believe it could succeed. We know it as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and it was a huge hit in 1937. The next four movies, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, and Dumbo, are now considered classics, yet none of them did well when released. Walt had to circle back and figure things out again, one of which was an animators’ strike in 1941 that was caused by salary cuts after Pinocchio bombed in the theaters. In the 1950s the studio came back with Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp. And on the story goes, ups and downs, yet the ups keep getting higher, as Disney is now a multi billion dollar enterprise because they’ve been there on the cutting edge of every major breakthrough in animation. It’s really quite remarkable. Walt Disney fits all the categories we’re going through in this Drawn In series except for the last one, which is next week when we talk about rest. Walt Disney didn’t rest and died in 1966 at 65 years old.

It’s interesting to read his biography and see how different parts of his life shaped him so dramatically. Marcelina, Missouri is not where he was born or where he lived the longest growing up, but it was the place he lived that had the biggest developmental impact on him. It was a farming community, and there are quite the variety of animals in movies. 70 trains passed through each day on their way between Chicago and Kansas City, and Walt had a bit of an infatuation with trains as you may see, for example, at Disneyland. Everything that he created, he shared. Such is the life of an artist, if they have any hope of earning a living as an artist. What they make, they share.

And this is the thing for all created things: they’re all meant to be shared. Creation originated as God sharing it with the creatures, including us humans. Creation is meant to be shared. You may charge a price for it because you’re a business, or trying to make ends meet. Take, for example, the sunflower field next door to us last fall. Even if you didn’t pay the entry fee to go walk through it, even just driving by it was a joy. It was planted, it was created, in order to be shared. Jesus says to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good deeds, [the good things you have created,] and praise God.”[3] We are not to hide it, under a bushel or anything else. We’re to share what we have, including what we make.

While cleaning out at the end of last year, I was flipping back through my planner and sometime last spring I’d come up with this whole idea of an hour of creation. My original idea was for it to be the hour before church, kinda to replace adult Sunday school, yet make it open to all ages, and it had two requirements: to make something, and to give it away. I talked with a couple people about it, but it never gained much traction, and, obviously, we never started it. Perhaps I had the time wrong, and we need to offer it on a Thursday night or something. But simply offering a time to make something to give away, whether writing a note or making a picture or sewing a prayer shawl. I still think it’s a good idea. If you think it’s a good idea, too, and want to help set it up, let me know.   

Something else that many of y’all have created, nurtured, and shared are your farms and love of farming. I shared on Facebook last week that one night both my children said they wanted to be farmers when they grow up! Not long after I started, Mr. Patrick drove me on a tour around here, showing me his farms. Since then, many of the rest of you have shared your farms with me as well. I love coming to see what you love. I love it when something well-loved is shared. It’s like a little kid offering their favorite blanket or bear when someone else is sad. It’s a very warm feeling when something loved, which most of our creations are, are shared.

However, more than creation, we’re also called to share God’s love. Jesus gives us the great commission to “go and make disciples of all nations.”[4] At the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles Jesus says we “will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on [us]; and [we] will be [his] witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”[5] The Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is to be shared as well. It’s not just for a select few but for the whole world. God gave his son because he loves the whole world. God’s dreams do not belong behind closed doors, not even the doors of the church. God’s dream of love and the fullness of creation are meant for all of creation.

In order to do that, we need all the parts of the church. The body needs the foot and the nose and the hand and the eye, and not just needs them, but needs them getting along. Otherwise the hand is going to poke the eye out and a smelly foot is disgusting to a nose. Or, for a different analogy, how about that of a choir. The sopranos can’t sing louder than the tenors and the bass have to keep to the same tempo as everyone else. Yet soprano, alto, tenor, and bass each have their part to play, and something is missing when you don’t have one of them. That’s why Nora asked me to join the choir when we were down to one soprano. Each singer creates their own note, and then shares it, in harmony with the rest. And they know whether it’s in harmony because they practice, not just all together but separately as well. Each part practices their part together so that they don’t get lost when they join the whole choir and they know their note to sing. Harmony means the notes all sound well together.

I was asked recently an idle wondering about why we have so many small churches around here. Perhaps it’s so that each of us learn and know our own part. However, it does mean we have to come together from time to time to join parts to form the body together. We seem to do all right joining with Jennings Chapel and Poplar Springs, perhaps it’s time to draw the circle wider, to include the parts of other churches in our community. It’s good to know your part, and the sopranos could probably hold a concert on their own. But it’s so much richer when you have all the parts working together, creating together, and sharing together.

In the passage we read from Jeremiah, God gives instructions to the exiles in Babylon. “The God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”[6] Wherever you may find yourself, in exile or at home, put down roots. Settle down. Plant yourself where you are and seek the peace and prosperity of the place where God put you. To do that, you have to share yourself. You have to share the produce from your garden, you have to share your children, you have to share your prayers and your creations for that place to prosper.

While the analogy of the kingdom of heaven being like a choir with all the parts is my favorite one, another analogy that I’m growing to appreciate and understand more is Jesus’ comparison of how the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.[7] A mustard seed is itty bitty, one of the smallest seeds there is. A mustard plant does not look or feel very big, yet mustard bushes can grow up to 20 feet tall with a 20 foot spread.[8] And when it is that big, birds can come and make their homes in it. There is shade underneath it. A mustard bush has a lot to share. It starts as one itty bitty seed, and look at what it can become. So, too, is the kingdom of heaven. One tiny idea, a dream, thought about, planned out, tried, evaluated, and then shared with the world. That’s how sermons progress. That’s how projects progress. That’s the kingdom of God, created to be shared with the world.

One of my favorite “trick” questions I was once asked was about the good news that Jesus preached. As in, what was it? It wasn’t his death and resurrection, because that hadn’t happened yet. The good news that Jesus shared was that the kingdom of God is here. It’s that tiny seed, waiting to be planted and nurtured and raised into a big, magnificent tree to be shared with the world.

Walt Disney was the fourth of five sons. His family moved around from Chicago to Marceline to Kansas City. His art teacher criticized him. He was so broke that at his first studio, he hired high school boys interested in animation and offered them free training in exchange for their help, because what he wanted to make he couldn’t do by himself. He never quite got the financial footing he needed until he got the help of his brother, Roy. The two of them, along with a friend named Ub Iwerks, were the ones to get Mickey from a drawing to being recognizable practically the whole world over. It took a lot of collaboration, a lot of risking, a lot of dreaming, and a lot of sharing, which is also a kind of risk. Sharing is being vulnerable because you don’t know how your creation will be received. Disney’s had ups and downs over the past century. The Church has had ups and downs over the past two millennia. Yet we are still called to share our creations, not to hoard them and keep them only to ourselves or a select few. We are still called to share God’s love, the good news of Jesus Christ, crucifixion and resurrection, and the kingdom of God being here. It starts as a tiny seed and grows. And grows. And grows. It’s pretty cool.

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[1] The Wonder of Disney magazine, Updated 2019 Special Edition, p. 13

[2] Ibid., p. 14, 16

[3] Matthew 5:16

[4] Matthew 28:19

[5] Acts 1:8

[6] Jeremiah 29:4-8

[7] Thanks to the new children’s book, “The Marvelous Mustard Seed” by Amy-Jill Levine and Sandy Eisenberg Sasso

[8] https://www.google.com/search?q=mustard+plant&oq=mustard+&aqs=chrome.5.69i57j0l5.4270j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

LISTEN

5^th Sunday after Epiphany

February 10, 2019

Drawn In: Week 4

Acts 16:6-15; Matthew 13:9-17

What happens when you get stuck on a project?

You’ve had an idea/dream

You collected your materials

You hovered, took a deep breath and dove in

You took a risk to see if you could turn those materials from dream into reality

But then you got stuck. Something didn’t work how you expected it to. The glue wasn’t strong enough. The wood split. The mixing of two colors didn’t turn into the 3^rd color you had thought it would.

What do you do then?

Sometimes we keep pushing through. You will make the materials work how you want them to. You pull out the pliers or the hammer or the superglue. You try to force it.

And sometimes that will work.

Other times it doesn’t and it’s more like spinning your car wheels in mud, trying to get out but only digging a deeper hole with your tire.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Yet even in the last round of snow I saw a lady revving her engine over and over trying to get her front wheel unstuck from the snow bank she had parked in.

When that happens, all you do is make yourself more stuck.

One option would have been for her to wait 24-48 hours for the snow to melt. However, I doubt she had that kind of time.

Which means her other option would have been to try something different. She couldn’t go forward, because there was a curb. But turning the wheel, putting a piece of cardboard under it, or just asking for help all might result in something different happening. As it happened, someone else from the store walked out to go help her.

So, when you get stuck, what do you do?

Do you walk away and give it time?

Do you ask for help or otherwise look for new ideas?

Or do you consider it an utter and completely failure and total negative? This last one, by the way, is what happens when we think we have all the answers and we know best and it’s our way or the highway.

But as Christians, we know that God knows best, we know we don’t have all the answers, and we know, as humans, that we can be wrong.

That means we’ve got to listen to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and nudging. Remember, God can do more than we can imagine. With God all things are possible. That includes things we haven’t even thought of yet. So, we don’t know best. Things can happen in lots of different ways.

Even the Apostle Paul didn’t always know best. He travels around with his companions to share the good news of Jesus and it’s a bit like Dr. Who traveling with her companions. Sometimes they arrive where and when they planned to go and sometimes they don’t. And when they don’t, the Doctor always pops out of the TARDIS for a look-see to find out where they ended up and what’s going on there. In a similar way, twice in this passage from Acts Paul has a plan of where he wants to go and he is blocked by the Holy Spirit. I imagine it’s something like giant angels with flaming swords like the ones God placed east of Eden to prevent Adam and Eve from going back into the garden. Or maybe it’s like Gandalf from “The Lord of the Rings,” holding a staff in each hand and bringing them together as he declares, “You. Shall. Not. Pass!” Either way, it says Paul and his companions were “kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia” and “when they came to the border at Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.” So they passed Mysia and went down to Troas. Paul doesn’t view a blocked path as a negative. He doesn’t keep trying to go to Bithynia. He changes course and tries something else. Because Paul allows himself to be redirected by the Holy Spirit, because he listens to the nudgings of the Holy Spirit, he ends up in Philippi and has this unlikely encounter with a woman named Lydia. All because Paul listens to the Holy Spirit and doesn’t insist on his own way, lives are changed.

Lydia is the one who we’re told is actively listening in the encounter with Paul and his companions. After they arrive in Philippi, they hang out until the Sabbath day and then they go down by the river where they’ve heard there’s a prayer meeting. The prayer meeting turns out to be all women. One of them is Lydia, who is described as a “worshiper of God, from the city of Thyatira, and a dealer in purple cloth.” Lydia didn’t know Paul and his companions would be there, yet she listens to what they have to say and the Lord opens her heart to listen eagerly to what Paul says. Lydia is yearning for something more in life, and so she comes to the prayer meeting. Since she comes to worship and listens, God opens her hear to listen eagerly. Then, she and her whole household are baptized and she shows radical hospitality by inviting Paul and his companions to stay at her house for as long as they’re in Philippi.

This all comes from listening. Lydia was stuck, and so she went down to the river to pray. Paul was stopped on his journey and so he changes direction and goes to a different city. Lydia and Paul listened, they paid attention, perceived what was going on, and discerned, following the lead of the Holy Spirit. Neither of them try to force something or use sheer willpower to make something happen. They let it unfold. God drew them in to pray, and they went, without having their own agenda, open to the Spirit’s leading.

For an example to the contrary, consider the story of the Old Testament prophet, Balaam, and his talking donkey. This was back in the book of Numbers and God was angry with Balaam because he had become a yes-man to the king rather than speaking God’s truth. So God sent an angel to block Balaam’s path, which Balaam’s donkey saw, but Balaam didn’t. Balaam had stopped listening to God and had become so confident in himself and was sure he was right, he actually beat his donkey to get her to move. After this happened three times, God made the donkey speak.

She said to Balaam, “What have I ever done to you that you’ve beat me three times?”

Balaam said, “You’ve made a fool out of me! If I had a sword, I’d kill you right now!”

The donkey replied, “Am I not your trusted donkey whom you’ve been riding for years? Have I ever done anything like this to you before?”

Balaam said, “No.” And then he saw that there was an angel standing in the middle of the road. It took a talking donkey to make Balaam realize he wasn’t listening to God and he was acting like he had all the answers. Balaam told the angel, “I have sinned. I didn’t realize you were blocking my path. I will go back home, if that’s what you want me to do.”

The angel said, “You may continue on your way to meet with the king. But only say what I tell you to say.” And that is what Balaam does. He starts listening again to God and speaking God’s word rather than his own.

Balaam is an example of Jesus’ quote from Isaiah, that people “might see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn [so that Jesus] might heal them. Balaam chooses to see and hear and understand and he repents and is healed. Others choose to keep their hearts hardened and think they have all the answers. But we are heirs to the ones who have been blessed with eyes to see and ears to hear. We have inherited what Jesus calls “the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.” Our eyes and our ears are blessed because we see and hear, not just external sights and sounds, but listen with our hearts. So we must pay closer attention to what’s going on, to the moving of the Holy Spirit, to discern when God is telling us to go another way or to another place. We must look more deeply and resist the temptation to just plow ahead.

Sometimes when we get stuck, our first reaction is to just try harder, think harder, use more elbow grease, but that response is based on anxiety, not faith. Spinning your wheels in the mud and trying to force something to happen are the equivalent of beating your trusted donkey. Instead, let’s stop, and listen to what’s going on.

Years ago Dan Rather interviewed Mother Teresa and asked her about her prayer life. He asked, “When you pray, what do you say?” She replied, “I don’t say anything. I just listen.” So he asked, “Well then, what does God say?” And Mother Teresa replied, “Oh, nothing, he just listens, too.” (Drawn In by Troy Bronsink, p. 33)

“Whoever has ears, let them hear.” How often do you pray by listening? How often, when in conversation with someone, do you listen, simply to understand, without judging, correcting, editorializing, resolving, or focusing on what you’re going to say? This week I encourage you to listen. Listen to what’s going on around you. Listen to and with God. Listen to your neighbor. Listen to someone who’s very different from you. Listen to yourself and your own life. Where is God trying to redirect you? Where are you spinning your wheels in mud? When you realize you’re yearning for something more, spend time in prayer and pray by listening. Not with your own agenda and presuming you know best, but listen and wait for the nudging of the Holy Spirit, who is at work in your life if you have eyes to see and ears to hear. May God grant us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand so that we might turn to the Lord and be healed. Amen.

RISK

4^th Sunday after Epiphany

February 3, 2019

Drawn In: Week 3

Esther 4:6-16; Matthew 25:14-30

(an outline)

Intro – Our brains need crafting and creativity, not optimizing

https://www.sciencealert.com/modern-life-is-brutal-here-s-why-craft-is-so-good-for-our-health?fbclid=IwAR1IP2dPuQ1UAHl9qM99oEPqN9KtkyO6Nmde2cqXPAprUZ31kxaRXcGIXSE

1.     Creativity requires risk –

a.      Don’t know how it will turn out, how it will be received, if it will have meaning or worth or help us on our way toward our goal

b.     We assume creation for God was without risk

c.      Art and life = lessons in risk

d.     What if we change language to experiment? Try? Risk is a scary word

e.      Robert Gruden (author): Creativity is not comfort of safe harbor but thrill of reaching sail

2.     Risk makes you turn focus off yourself and onto others –

a.      Ex: God at creation went from interrelatedness to other-relatedness;

b.     Ex: Esther by herself safe but risks for sake of people – “If I perish, I perish”

c.      Ex: 3^rd servant never turned focus off himself and fear for himself

3.     Risk is less scary when you’re rooted in God

a.      Confidence to risk is rooted in deeply in experience of God’s love that draws us in and won’t ever let us go (God’s deep love is source of our confidence)

b.     Unplug from your safety nets – like disciples who leave everything; like us moving to MD from NC

c.      1^st two servants took risk to see what they could do for their master

d.     Vision/dreams we’re talking about aren’t motivated by shame or fame but from deep-seated knowing/trust

God is involved in risk with us

If we truly trust Jesus, then even failure is okay because it’s the step in faith that counts (Rosie Revere, Engineer – perfect first try)

“What can you do to risk what God has given you to expand love and grace in the world?”

HOVER

3rd Sunday after Epiphany

January 20, 2019

1 Kings 19:8-13; Luke 4:1-13

Drawn In: Week 2

(an outline)

I'm part of the bridge between Gen X and Millenials - "xenial." Sometimes I identify with Gen X, sometimes with Millenial. An article came out at the beginning of this month on BuzzFeed called "How Millenials Became the Burnout Generation" - written by a millenial. I identified with a lot of it, especially about optimization. A couple days later a response by a millenial pastor came out on Ministry Matters website - "What Can the Church Do for the Burned Out Generation?" The church is guilty, too - ex: ashes to go on Ash Wednesday; our new evening service --> we try to make the church easy to engage with. BUT the truth is that the work of discipleship is slow. It takes time to build relationships. Transformation can't be optimized - it just is - can't rush. The change we want in our church/community/world can't be optimized. There's no easy fix or magic bullet or class to take. Instead we're at the second wave of being drawn in - hover.

What comes to mind when you hear the word 'hover'?

In the Bible, it's in the second verse - Gen. 1:2 

verse 1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"

verse 2 - "The earth was a formless void and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters."

Before God acted, spoke, or began creating, God hovered.

Hovering is not optimized time because it takes waiting and patience. It is the deep breath before diving into a project, when you've got all your materials out and you pause before starting. I do it at the beginning of a sermon. It's soul-searching, which is what Elijah and Jesus both do in today's Scriptures.

Before today's passage, Elijah had been through a lot. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel had killed all the other prophets; Elijah was the last one left. He has a major showdown against the prophets of Baal, which he wins by a landslide. Jezebel threatens Elijah's life and he runs away. He's grieving, overwhelmed, scared, unsure, and burned out. God provides food for his journey, some rest, and time for hovering as he listens for God to pass by in the small, still voice. Then, after that time, then God tells Elijah to go back and God gives him a helper, Elisha.

Our Gospel passage was Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. He's been baptized by John in the Jordan and the Spirit leads him out into the wilderness for 40 days. This is a time of soul searching for Jesus and figuring out what his priorities are. Satan offers him food, because Jesus is hungry, but Jesus says, "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Satan offers him power over the world, and Jesus has to realize he already has this and says, "Worship God only and serve only God." Finally, Satan tempts him by saying, "Throw yourself down and the angels will catch you," quoting scripture. But Jesus says "Do not put God to the test." Satan offers short cuts and easy ways out. Satan wants you to rush things that can't or shouldn't be rushed. Jesus hovers, and says no.

What one thing do you need to focus on now? Get rid of your never-ending to-do list; not only millenials have those. Stop optimizing. Not only millenials do that, it's become society-wide. Stop optimizing. Hover. Don't rush. Hone in on one thing. Take time this week to do that. Pause. 

Anonymous Quote: "Practice the pause. When in doubt, pause. When angry, pause. When tired, pause. When stressed, pause. And when you pause, pray.”

DREAM

2^nd Sunday after Epiphany

January 20, 2019

Drawn In: Week 1

Genesis 1:1-2:3; Luke 4:13-21

            Before Disney adapted the fairytale of the Snow Queen into the hit movie “Frozen,” they released their version of Rapunzel’s story in a movie called “Tangled.” Instead of a prince, it is a young thief named Flynn who helps Rapunzel escape her tower. Their first stop is a shady tavern called the Snuggly Duckling Inn, where the other patrons recognize Flynn from his wanted posters.  In order to get them to release Flynn, Rapunzel asks them if they’ve ever had a dream and off starts one of the funnier songs in the movie. The guy with the hook for a hand has always dreamed of being a concert pianist. 

Another guy, who acknowledges he’s got some very weird physical features, dreams of making a love connection. Others dream of being a florist, an interior designer, a mime, a baker, and so on, all these activities you wouldn’t normally associate with these big, rough-looking guys. Rapunzel gets them all to recognize that everyone has a dream and Flynn is helping her to reach her dream of seeing the floating lanterns. The guys sneak Rapunzel and Flynn through a secret tunnel and encourage her to live her dream.

            There are times Disney gets it right, and everyone does have a dream. Whether you’ve thought about it in a while, or acknowledged it. or buried it, or lived it is up to you. But everyone has a dream, because that’s where everything starts. Mr. Patrick told me his grandfather had a dream for his family to be in church and that’s why he gave the land across the street for the first Lisbon UMC building. The village of Lisbon started as the dream of Caleb Pancoast in 1810.[1] Creation all starts with a dream. Before you make something, you have an idea for it. You may not know all the details or how exactly it’s going to turn out, but that’s because dreaming is large scale. Dreaming is big; it’s a vision. And we dream and have visions because we’re created in the image of God, our creator.

            In the beginning, God had a dream. “All creation began with the dream of God, the will and intention for life to exist in the void.”[2] God dreamt, and then God spoke, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And then there was sky and land and seas and vegetation and living creatures. Last, God made us, in his own image, and we were instructed to take care of the earth. In Ephesians 2:10, Paul says, “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Other versions say “we are God’s masterpiece.” We were created in Christ Jesus to do good things, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. We are God’s dream come true.

            Jesus is also God’s dream come true. In Luke’s Gospel he begins his public ministry with this visit to Nazareth, his home town, where he goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, as he usually does. Jesus volunteers to read the Scripture for the day and the scroll for Isaiah is handed to him. He skims down to Isaiah 61:1-2a, and reads, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus rolls the scroll back up and hands it to the attendant. Then he adds a line by saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  In other words, this dream is now come true. The Spirit of the Lord is on me, to proclaim good news, to bind up the brokenhearted and heal the sick, to release those held in darkness, to proclaim this is the year that God is acting. And if you read a little bit further in Isaiah, Jesus was also sent “to comfort all who mourn and to provide for those who grieve… to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” This is why Jesus came: to offer hope, to heal, to speak a good word, to banish the darkness, to proclaim freedom and release. A lot had happened to God’s creation since Genesis 1, a lot of water under the bridge, a lot of people not in healthy relationships with each other, with themselves, with God, or with the rest of creation. Jesus offers hope that it doesn’t have to be that way. That God’s dream can be restored.

            God provides for this restoration throughout Scripture. God’s dream takes the long view of things. Remember, dreaming is big, large scale. In Jeremiah 29:11-14, God says, “For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you… and will bring you back from captivity.” Release for the captives, right there. God knows the plans he has for you. It’s similar to Psalm 139:16, where the psalmist tells God, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” God’s got a plan for his dream, and it was written down a long time ago. In Isaiah 43:18-19, God says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” There are lots of places where God says, “I’m making a way where there seems to be no way. I’m moving mountains. I’m opening windows. Don’t dwell on the past. Look at this new thing I’m doing!” God’s dream and creation always have room for re-creation, for redeeming, for being made new.

            This is the God who made us, who created us to also be creative. Look at all the creativity here among us – we have people who make candy, people who make soap, we have knitters and crafters and woodworkers and bakers. We have people who restore broken things back to how they were created and people who take old things and make something new out of them. We have among us far more talents and skills than I am yet aware of even after a year and a half of living among you and walking with you. God draws us in, just as God creatively draws in all things. And when you’re drawn in to something larger, when you live as part of the larger grand creative work of God, when you’re connected, then you find creative inspiration and productivity.[3] Then we have new things happening in our midst. Then God can do his new thing, perhaps through you!

            Everyone has a dream. What is your dream? Where does your dream meet God’s dream? And, more likely than not, there’s scripture that goes with your dream. In Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous “I have a dream” speech he quoted from Amos 5:24, “let justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” and from Isaiah 40:4-5, “every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all people will see it together.” That was, in broad strokes, his dream, for racial equality and justice.

If you ask me, I have two guiding scriptures, Isaiah 58:6-7, “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” That was the Scripture that I tried to make come true when I served in Nicaragua, to say, “Today, this is fulfilled in your hearing.” The other one, that became important during seminary, is John’s vision from Revelation 7:9-10, “I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’” It’s people from all different backgrounds, all worshipping God together; even while speaking different languages, still all worshipping together. It’s become a vision, a dream, for how do we all be the church together? Even when we disagree, even when we have different viewpoints or politics or preferences, we can still worship together. We can still be the church together.

            If you were to ask me about our church, knowing our values of hospitality and community, there are two Scriptures that come to mind. One is Hebrews 13:1-2, where we’re encouraged to “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” I’ve been told, by the leaders of our church, that this is a place where everyone is welcome. Entertaining angels unawares, as the old King James puts it, because we welcome strangers, is a dream come true. Another Scripture for our church is Hebrews 10:24-25, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.” I preached on this a while back, and I’m not giving you a second sermon today. Simply that encouraging each other, spurring each other on toward love and good deeds, and meeting together are also a dream come true.

            I have shared quite a few different dreams. Let’s go back to the question, what’s yours? Before we enter into silent prayer, I want to encourage you to dream, to put words or pictures to a dream, to write down your thoughts on your bulletin or elsewhere, to comb Scripture to find the verses that verbalize your dream. I have a song we’re going to play while we do this, and when the song is over, we will simply move into silent prayer, to offer up our dreams and thoughts and hopes to God. Afterward, I’ll invite you to join me in intercessory prayer with the response printed in your bulletin and then we’ll end together with the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s dream…

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon%2C_Maryland

[2] From Week 1, Dream, Drawn In: Living Out the Creative Life with God worship series by Dr. Marcia McFee

[3] Drawn In: A Creative Process for Artists, Activities, and Jesus Followers by Troy Bronsink, p. 7

High and Dry - Or Not!

Baptism of the Lord

January 13, 2019

Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

            What does the phrase “high and dry” bring to mind? Good things? Bad things? The origin of the phrase had to do with ships that were beached. They had run aground and then the tide went out, leaving them high, because they were up on land rather than down in the water, and dry, because not only were they out of the water but they had been for a while and could expect to stay there. In late December, after Christmas, of 2004 a 100 foot high tsunami in the Indian Ocean hitting especially hard into Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand . It was the 10^th deadliest natural disaster in recorded history.[1] I was in Thailand the following August for training with the mission agency before going to Nicaragua. One of the pieces of the training was learning how the mission agency and other groups were responding in the aftermath of the tsunami and we met survivors, heard miraculous stories, and saw the ruins. One of the most amazing sights was of this ship two kilometers, or a little less than one mile, inland. 

A picture of the picture I took of the beached ship, August 2005, Phuket province

It washed in with the tsunami, and there it was, high and dry, with no hope of getting back to sea on its own. This is what ‘high and dry’ has evolved to mean today, that you are stranded in a difficult situation and unable to do anything about it.

            The odd thing about ‘high and dry’ is that there are times it’s a good thing. You want to be high and dry during a flood or hurricane or tsunami. You don’t want to stay there forever, just until the water has calmed down. It’s like Noah and his family and the animals on the ark. That was a good time to be high and dry. When the waters went down, the ark was lodged in the mountains. When the land was dry, Noah, his family, and the animals all came out of the ark to go out into all the earth, down off the mountain. The thing about the times when high and dry is good, is that those times don’t last. They are temporary. And then it’s time to go back down to life, which is messy and hard and complicated.

            The passage we read from Isaiah 43 is one of my all-time favorites, in my top three favorite Scriptures. But before we get there, I want to look at Isaiah 42. In this section, Isaiah is speaking to God’s people in exile. They were forced to leave their homes in Israel and go to Babylon, where they have set up new homes and had children who don’t even remember Israel. Life may not necessarily be good in Babylon, but it is stable. It is what they know. The move to exile was a long time ago. The effects of the move, though, are still being felt. Isaiah 42 says, “This is a people plundered and looted, all of them trapped in pits or hidden away in prisons. They have become plunder, with no one to rescue them; they have been made loot, with no one to say, ‘Send them back.’”[2] The exiled people were high and dry. There was no one to rescue them. They’ve adjusted, made ‘high and dry’ into a new normal. Life is stable again.

            And then listen to the very next chapter, “But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;   the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… You are precious and honored in my sight… I love you… I am with you; I will bring your children… and gather you… everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.’”[3] Do not be afraid. It is time to come home. I know you’ve been left high and dry, but now.  Now it is time to rebuild. Now it is time to leave the stability of your life in Babylon and return to the rubble of your old home, or your parents’ home, or your grandparents’ home. Now you are no longer high and dry, without help. God has redeemed you. God has called you by name. God will be with you through the waters and the rivers and the fire. Now it is time to go down and get wet.

            And this is where baptism comes in. We use water for baptism. Whether a sprinkling or a full dunking, we baptize with water, water which washes away the old high and dry. Water, which calls you out of your temporary exile, which, in this case, gives you help, which you need not fear. In our baptism we are named as God’s own, forever. In our baptism, we become part of God’s family with a whole slew of brothers and sisters all around us. In our baptism, we step into the river and get wet.

            This year we read Luke’s account of Jesus’s baptism. In Luke’s version, there’s no conversation between John the Baptist and Jesus. John doesn’t try to talk Jesus out of it. Instead, Jesus’s baptism is tagged on at the end, almost like an afterthought. When everyone was being baptized, Jesus was baptized, too.  Nothing special about it, until the Holy Spirit comes out like a dove and descends on Jesus, with that voice from heaven, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” And the next thing Luke does, before Jesus is sent out into the wilderness for forty days, is to list off Jesus’s genealogy, from Joseph back to God. Matthew does this at the very beginning of his Gospel; Mark and John don’t include it at all. Luke puts it here, right after Jesus’s baptism. Jesus is baptized, the voice from heaven speaks. And Luke says, “Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli…” and so on, “…the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.” You and I are God’s children, also. In baptism we are named and marked as God’s sons and daughters, with whom he is well pleased. And then, just like Jesus, we are sent on our way.

            If you’re not high and dry, then you’re … down and wet, down and dirty, in the trenches. You don’t stay on the sidelines or up in the ivory tower. God doesn’t leave us high and dry but gets us wet in baptism and calls us to work and get involved. It’s the work of making things right again, of feeding the hungry and visiting the sick and clothing those who need clothes and welcoming the stranger. It’s the work of bringing love and hope and joy and peace to those people and places who desperately need to hear them, those who feel high and dry, abandoned. It’s the work of invitation for those who are tempted to stay in the stability of high and dry exile, yet whom God is calling to come home and rebuild. Rebuilding out of rubble is messy work. It’s not easy, as you figure out what can still be used and what needs discarding. You have to figure out how to graft the new pieces in with the old. You have to keep in mind what things looked like before while also keeping a vision of what you want things to look like in the future, and the future is not going to look like the past. When you bring in children and grandchildren who weren’t even there before the exile, you have to trust that they will respect and honor the generations who came before, even while adding their own touches.

            God does not leave you high and dry. Even if you’ve settled into it, it’s not a permanent state of being. I mean, can you imagine if Noah and those animals had never left the ark? When the waters go down, you’ve got to go down, too. Down to the river to pray. Down to the river to work: to keep others from drowning, to remind others that they are not alone in the river and it shall not overwhelm them. Down to the river for baptism, joining God’s family, and today, re-membering that you’re part of God’s family. God gets us wet in baptism and then out of our baptism, invites us to join his work of making things right again.

            A poem by Howard Thurman recently made the rounds on social media among my clergy friends. It’s called “The Work of Christmas”:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flocks,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among the people,

To make music in the heart.

This is what we are called to do by virtue of our baptism. Baptized with water and then sent forth to find, heal, feed, release, rebuild, bring peace, and make music. May it be so. Amen.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami

[2] Isaiah 42:22

[3] Isaiah 43:1-7