No Going Back

18^th Sunday after Pentecost

October 13, 2019

Jeremiah 29:1-7; Luke 17:11-19

            The week before last, I went on two back-to-back trips. Back-to-back trips are tough, I tell you what. The second one was a surprise one planned by my husband to celebrate my 40^th birthday. The first one was for you all. We were invited last spring to participate in a program called the Financial Leadership Academy, or FLA for short. We debated at Ad Board whether or not to do it. Then, when we approved our new mission and vision statements, we realized that the FLA would help us achieve the goal we had just set for ourselves of financial stability. The FLA is a two year program; during the first year I go up to Lancaster four times for the clergy-only sessions. During year two, you all get involved and they will meet with us on four Saturdays at a location closer to us. The FLA is intense; when I arrived, there were six books waiting for me at my table. We had homework to do before the session, and I have even more reading to do before the next session, next month. The good news is I love to read and I already had two of those six books, although I hadn’t read them cover to cover.

The reading we had to do before the first session was from a book by Gil Rendle called “Quietly Courageous: Leading the Church in a Changing World.” It was on my Amazon wish list but I hadn’t ordered it yet. The opening paragraph in our reading began, “There is no going back. This may be the most difficult lesson for the aging leaders of established organizations and institutions, including congregations and denominations. Nonetheless, the first task of leadership is to paint an honest picture of the current reality. The current reality is so deeply changed that it challenges old ways of leadership and asks for quiet, purposeful courage.”[1] That was a theme throughout the reading. There is no going back to the time when “everyone” went to church. There is no going back to the time when all you had to do was open the church doors and people would show up. Yes, “the wish to recapture the old days remains strong. For many, not being able to recapture old memories produces confusion and guilt. However, there is no going back… [And] until leaders can accept that ours is not a turnaround situation, it cannot be addressed as a move-ahead situation. It takes courage to face a reality that is difficult and can’t be turned around to reclaim an earlier day that is remembered as strong and was certainly easier from a leadership perspective.”[2]

Times have changed. You all know that. Society is vastly different now than it was 50 years ago. It’s different even from 10 years ago. And there’s no going back. There’s only going forward. It reminds me of the phrase “you can’t step in the same river twice.” That quote is attributed to Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher born in 544 BC. The full sentence is, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” The world around us changes, and we change. And even while there are times when we wish we could do the things we could do when we were younger, even though there are places we wish we could return to, we know that we can’t. Not in our personal lives. Not in the church, either. There is no going back, however much we might wish it. There is only going forward.

            This is the hard truth Jeremiah speaks to the exiles in our scripture this morning. They have been carried off by King Nebuchadnezzar from Jerusalem to Babylon, and Jeremiah sends them a letter from Jerusalem, where he is still in captivity. What kind of news would you want from someone back home after you’ve been forced to leave? Good news? News that you’ll get to go back soon? News that your exile is temporary, maybe?  “This is what the Lord Almighty, 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.”[3] In other words, settle down. Put down roots. Bloom where you are planted, regardless of your feelings about where you’re planted. If we were to keep reading in Jeremiah, we’d learn that the Lord says to expect to be in Babylon about 70 years. 70 years! Do you expect to be around in 70 years? I don’t expect to be around in 70 years. My kids, yes; me, no. This means there is no going back for these adults. Their children can look forward to it, but the adult exiles need to adjust to and accept their new circumstances. There is no going back, so they’d better make the most of it. After all, God tells them, “your wellbeing is tied up in the wellbeing of this strange land.”

            While most of us do not live in physical exile today, we do sometimes find ourselves in a strange land. Instead of Babylon, it may be called widowhood or divorced or chronic disease or an accident or some way that life has irrevocably changed in a way that was not your choice. When you find yourself in that strange land, there is no going back but only forward. Seek the wellbeing of your new situation. You can’t alter your new circumstances to become like the old ones. So, where you find yourself now, look around. See who’s around you. Get to know your new circumstances. And then bloom in the place where you find yourself now planted. Seek the wellbeing of this new place.

            Many of you all know that the most obvious example for me is my rheumatoid arthritis. Would I like to go back to being 26 again, before the RA? Yes! It would be great to do whatever I wanted and not have to worry about how my physical actions affected my body. Instead, the rheumatoid arthritis affected pretty much everything in my life, from the shoes I wore, making sure they had enough support, to the car I drive, an SUV because on bad days it’s hard to get up out of a sedan. I’ve been exercising since the beginning of summer, but every exercise I have to evaluate to see how it affects my joints and I do a lot of modifications. But it’s better than not exercising at all! God says, work for the good of whatever situation where you find yourself. Pray to God for the good of that situation, because in its welfare, you will find your welfare. Or, to use a different word than welfare or good, seek the wellbeing, seek the health, seek the happiness of the situation you’re in, because in its wellbeing, in its health, in its happiness, you will find yours. This is how we move forward when there’s no going back.

And remember that when you find that health, or, rather, when you are made whole, remember to find Jesus and thank him. There was a sign on a bulletin board at my sending church to promote the wellness ministry and it said, “Wellness happens.” The sign drove my mom nuts, and she would try to hide it every time she saw it. My mom’s a nurse. She knows that health doesn’t just happen, like magic, or out of thin air. You have to work at health. You have to rehabilitate your knee. You have to take medicine. You have to go to therapy. You have to keep your relationship with God right. You have to work to stay healthy. It’s much easier to get or stay sick. You have to work to get healthy, you have to work to stay healthy. So, after you’ve been sick for a while, or after you’ve been hurting for a while, as you might if you find yourself somewhere you don’t want to be, be sure to thank Jesus when you’re restored to health.

            Today’s Gospel lesson is about the ten lepers who ask Jesus to have mercy on them. Jesus does, and he heals them. Except to be fully healed from leprosy, you have to be restored to your community again. Lepers were thought to be so contagious they were kicked out of town in order not to get others sick. That’s why Jesus tells them to show themselves to the priests to show that they are no longer leprous, that they are physically healed and are ready to be socially healed as well. The ten lepers do that, and then only one returns to Jesus to thank him. And Jesus says, “Get up and go. Your faith has healed you.” In other words, don’t turn back. Keep going forward. Your faith has healed you.

Faith puts trust in God alone. Faith works for the well-being of wherever you are. And faith remembers where healing and wholeness come from. Salvation does not come from anywhere else but from God alone. Healing and wholeness comes from God alone. It may be mediated through others, such as a doctor or a pastor or a friend or even a stranger. God can work through anyone. So make sure you give God thanks!

I remember a story that Corrie ten Boom tells in her memoir, “The Hiding Place.” Anyone familiar with Corrie’s story? Corrie and her family are Dutch and were in the Netherlands when the Nazis invaded in 1940. They felt compelled by their Christian faith to help their Jewish friends and they hid many in a secret room in their house. After a time, they were discovered and Corrie and her sister were sent to a concentration camp. In the camp the sisters used a hidden Bible to teach their fellow prisoners about Jesus. They were always in fear of being discovered, yet never were and eventually found out why. Their camp had a horrible rat infestation, and Corrie’s sister was always thanking God for the rats. Corrie had a strong faith, but never understood why her sister would thank God even for the rats in their camp. It turned out that the high rat population kept away the soldiers from inspecting their camp too closely, which is why their hidden Bible was never discovered. Corrie’s sister died in the camp; Corrie went back home to the Netherlands at the end of the war. Of course, “home” was not the same as it had been before the war, and instead of continuing her family’s 100 year history of watchmaking, she opened a rehabilitation center for survivors and went on to become an author and public speaker. There was no going back to life before the war.

            There’s a song you may know; it’s in the small, black “The Faith We Sing.” It’s called “I have decided to follow Jesus.” The refrain repeats, “no turning back, no turning back.”  It’s hard. It may not be what you want. But together, with quiet courage, like the title of that book, we can move forward. I invite you to sing with me, if you’d like. It’s #2129.

I have decided to follow Jesus,

I have decided to follow Jesus,

I have decided to follow Jesus -

no turning back, no turning back.

The world behind me, the cross before me,

the world behind me, the cross before me,

the world behind me, the cross before me -

no turning back, no turning back.

Though none go with me, I still will follow,

though none go with me, I still will follow,

though none go with me, I still will follow -

no turning back, no turning back.

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[1] Page 19

[2] Pages 20-21

[3] Jeremiah 29:4-7

#40isgonnalookgoodonme

September 24, 2019

Why would God care what I had for breakfast?
Because God cares that I take care of my body.
Because breakfast is the most important meal of the day. (I learned that on Sesame Street approximately 35 year ago!)

I had a pumpkin spice shakeology and pumpkin purée shake for breakfast today. Ever since I started exercising in late June, I’ve been drinking protein shakes on days I work out. For 9 weeks I worked out 6 days/week. On 2 weeks I traveled, to Indy and to OK, and worked out less - not at all on the week in Indy and for 3 days in OK I only did stretches in my hotel room. Then the better part of a 3rd week I was sick - with what turned out to be allergies. But I felt so bad I thought it was a cold the first 4 days, and slept most of 2 of those 4 days. I lost 4 days of work-outs to that, too. Last week I only worked out 5 days, because on the 5th day I took a fitness class in person and it was an hour long, twice as long as my usual work-outs, so I took the next day off. This week will only be 4 days, because of the fitness class again and an early meeting Thursday morning. Next week - Lancaster for 2 days and then Puerto Rico!!!!!! Yay!!!! I had marked my 40th birthday (on Oct 3) as the goal/end mark of all this. Except, I will still have protein shake mix left. And I don’t want to lose the muscle tone I’ve developed. That’s really been the point of it this time - not weight loss (although I’ve lost 10 pounds), but getting stronger. Now, I want to maintain my strength. I’m still working on figuring out how...

Waiting... and Counting...

15^th Sunday after Pentecost

September 22, 2019

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; Psalm 56; Luke 16:1-13

            I don’t know about your week, but my week was one of those where by Friday, I started counting. By Friday morning, I was up to 5 doctor visits between me and the kids, 4 church meetings, 2 pastoral visits, 2 community visits, 1 community member helped by the Samaritan Fund, and, most excitedly, TWO new ministries in the works here at Lisbon. On Tuesday I ate lunch with SEVEN pastors who serve churches here in the area of western Howard County and southern Carroll County. We are working on forming a coalition among us so that we can share our resources and ideas and together better serve our community. For our next gathering, we even listed 8 more pastors to invite to join us! Then, on Wednesday I met with Ms. A., the principal at Lisbon Elementary to discuss how the church and the school can partner together, since we’re next door neighbors. We talked about a couple obvious ways, like sponsoring a needy family over the holidays to provide a special meal and gifts for them. But then as the conversation continued, Ms. A. realized that what would really be a huge help would be for us to offer childcare during one-time special school events when they really don’t want parents to bring younger siblings, like when the kindergarteners and 5^th graders make candy houses in December and during 5^th grade graduation in June. We looked into it Thursday morning, and all we have to do is hold a training for our church members who are interested in helping, run background checks on anyone working directly with the children, and have the parents sign a waiver. So, we’re moving forward with it! It’s been a very full week, although a good week, which is why by Friday morning, I found myself counting the different things I’d done during the week.

            Counting is a theme in our Scriptures this week as well and we’re going to start with the dishonest counting we just read in Luke. Jesus told his disciples the parable of the dishonest manager, or sometimes called the shrewd manager. The truth is he was both dishonest and shrewd; it’s really strange. He was about to get fired because of his dishonesty, and so he became shrewd so that when he lost his job, he’d still have some place to go and friends who would take him in. The manager met with each person who owed his master money and had them alter their bills so that they didn’t owe as much. In other words, he forgave their debts. The master heard about it and commended his manager! “Why? Because he knew how to look after himself.” Jesus in effect says here that “Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.”[1] Here’s the parallel with us: what we have doesn’t really belong to us, either. We are stewards, or managers, of our wealth and our property. They belong to God, and are entrusted to us while we are on this earth. Our stewardship in this life must be faithful, as in we must use those things rightly and according to God’s will. Otherwise, why would we be trusted with true riches, which is eternal life? “If you’re honest in small things, you’ll be honest in big things. If you’re a crook in small things, you’ll be a crook in big things. If you’re not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store?”[2] The answer is no one. And wealth is not neutral. Either you use what you have for God’s purposes or you don’t. We can either serve God, or we can serve money. “The way we live now has consequences for how we experience God’s future. The way we live, the values we hold, the relationships we form today are vitally related to God’s future.”[3] How you count matters. Make sure you do it honestly and faithfully, always remembering that “all things come of thee, O Lord,” and we are just the temporary caretakers.

            Now, in Jeremiah, the people have been counting honestly, but not counting money. They’ve been counting the seasons: the springtime harvest, the dog days of summer, and now it’s fall, but the people are still hurting. They’ve had a long wait and things have only gotten worse instead of better. They’re counting until healing comes, and are still counting. It’s interesting, the verse in Jeremiah is in the form of a question, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” and the song we just sang answers that question in the affirmative, “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole.” In Jeremiah’s time, there was literally a balm from Gilead; it was resin from the Styrax tree, for which Gilead was famous. It was used medicinally and was exported widely. Yet there are times when it feels like there isn’t a balm, when you’re waiting for things to get better and they don’t. That’s what’s going on here in Jeremiah. The people are waiting for salvation… and still waiting. And Jeremiah is hurting with the people. He’s not happy to be proven right about his prophecy; this prophet loves his people and would have loved to be wrong, because then it would mean the people would not be suffering. Instead they suffered through springtime, they suffered through summer, and now it’s fall and they’re still looking for a healing balm and restored health. And the prophet weeps with the people. Is there any balm that might help? They’re still waiting, and counting. “How long, O Lord?”

Finally, our psalm today is not the assigned psalm, but one that fits in with counting, especially when you’re waiting to be healed. It is a psalm of lament. “Have mercy on me, O God,” that kyrie eleison from last week, Lord, have mercy. Why? Because people are hounding me, pursuing me, and oppressing me all day long. All day, they hurt my cause and plan evil against me. And you know what? It says people or enemies or flesh, but sometimes what’s hounding us may be a disease, or genetics, or our past. It may be a mental illness or a mental block of something. I’ve met a couple women whose mothers died while middle-aged, one at 46 and the other at 63, and for both of those women, it was a huge deal when they reached that age and lived past it. I have three chronic conditions myself, one that started in my teens, one in my 20s, and one in my 30s, such that I find myself wondering what’s going to happen in my 40s, and I turn 40 in about ten days. But here’s the other thing about this psalm: if you count, there are more lines focusing on trust in God than on cries for help. And the turning point in this psalm is the verse I focused on with the children. “You have kept count of my restless nights. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. Are they not recorded in your book?” 

Tear drops in a bottle, from www.lovedoesthat.etsy.com

This isn’t about us counting; this is about God counting. We’re used to the verse where Jesus says he knows the number of hairs on our head.[4] This is Jesus saying he knows the number of tears you’ve cried, and hasn’t just counted them and let them fall where they may, but collected them, and recorded them. Wow.

Contemporary Christian group Point of Grace released a song in 1996 called “Keep the Candle Burning.” The first verse says, “You think you're alone there in your silent storm/ But I've seen the tears you've cried falling down and trying to drown/ The flame of hope inside.” The reason those tears aren’t actually drowning out the flame of hope and extinguishing it is because God’s catching them. And not just wiping them on his pants or a tissue, but putting them in his bottle and recording each one in his book. That’s how that candle keeps burning. That’s why a psalm of lament talks more about trust in God than about anything else. The tears are not lost. Nor do you cry in vain. The thing about psalms of lament is that they often move us from a past way of being through a profound disorientation where you don’t know which way is up, and land us on the other side not the same as before but with a new orientation, a new testimony, a deeper understanding of God and faith. We are transformed in a way only made possible by God, who causes new life where none seems possible, who keeps that candle of hope burning, who counts our tears and waits with us as we count the time until we are transformed.

“Is there no balm in Gilead?” Yes, there is a balm in Gilead. His name is Jesus. “How long, O Lord?” Uh, well, time works differently with the Lord. Psalm 90:4 says, “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” Yet that same psalm also says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” One commentary I read said that “number our days” does not refer to the whole span of one’s life, but to a specific preset period of time. Moreover, we need to accurately, honestly count the number of days of that time period so that we might understand that there is indeed an end to it.[5] Whatever days you are counting, whatever season you’re in that you’re waiting and waiting and waiting for it to end, keep counting. Count faithfully, as in accurately and with faith and hope. There is an end to it. When? I don’t know. I don’t know how long. What I do know is that the Lord is collecting your tears and recording them. They are not in vain. Your struggles are not in vain. “In God I trust and am not afraid,” no matter what may be hounding me or knocking at the door. No matter what season I’m in, whether it’s a fruitful one or a season of drought. I will be faithful with what has been entrusted to me.

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[1] Luke 16:8-9, MSG

[2] Luke 16:10-12, MSG

[3] Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, p. 48

[4] Matthew 10:30

[5] The Book of Psalms, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, p. 695

A Hot Wind Is Blowing

14^th Sunday after Pentecost

September 15, 2019

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; 1Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

            There are two themes tying together our Scripture readings this morning. The first one is sin. In Jeremiah, God’s people are about to be on the receiving end of divine judgment because of their sin. Jesus is charged with welcoming sinners and eating with them. (How dare he! He’s supposed to be eating with the good people, with us.) And then Timothy says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am chief.”[1] We know what Paul wrote to the Romans, that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”[2] None of us is perfect, no matter how we appear to the outside world or how much we cultivate our social media profiles. We all sin. We all are in need of a Savior. We are all in need of gathering in, like we just sang, at some point in our lives or another. We all need seeking out, just as the shepherd went after the one lost sheep and the woman went after her one lost coin. We all need to know that we matter and are loved, even when we’ve gone astray, even when we’re lost, even when we’ve sinned and completely made a mess of things. We need to know that someone will look for us, someone will welcome us, someone will still make room for us to sit with them at their table. We need to know we’re not beyond redemption, not beyond hope. And God does that, but not before first God sends a wind.

            In Jeremiah, God sends a hot wind, kinda like the one we had on Thursday. I could feel it standing at the afternoon bus stop – 90 degrees, full sun, and a hot wind was blowing. Through Jeremiah, God says, “A scorching wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward my people, but not to winnow [as in to separate the wheat from the chaff] or cleanse [a refreshing wind; no] a wind too strong for that comes from me.”[3] A wind that is too strong to winnow or to cleanse or to refresh leaves, what? A wind that scatters? A wind that pushes?

 I remember one Sunday afternoon in Nicaragua, I was at the home of an American missionary family, when the sky in one direction turned brown. We all went inside, which in those houses means the bedrooms. All the other rooms are open air; the bedrooms are the only ones with all four walls and a ceiling. And this huge dust storm blew through. The air turned windy and much cooler. Within 20 minutes, maybe half an hour, everything was covered with a half inch of dust that then took hours to clean up off the floors and everything that had been exposed to it. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even a hurricane, because there was no rain, just dust.

This is just a stock photo showing a dust storm. I did not take a picture of the one I experienced in Nicaragua.

In the Mediterranean they have a wind called the sirocco. (This is your vocabulary word for the day.) It is a hot, devastating wind that can reach hurricane speeds and brings dry and dusty conditions, much like what I experienced in Nicaragua. The sirocco starts in the Sahara desert in the middle of Africa and blows north into Northern Africa and across the Mediterranean Sea into Southern Europe.

These are the hot, scorching winds from the desert that God sends to God’s people. It’s not refreshing. It’s not cooling. It’s not blowing away the pollen. It’s blowing in dirt and sand. When I went home for the first time after nine months in Nicaragua, it felt like it took me the whole two weeks to scrub all the dirt and dust off me and out of the creases in my elbows and out of my ears and every other crevice. When I returned to Nicaragua you know what the top comment I received was? “Heather, your feet are so clean!” They hadn’t been exposed to this dust and dirt of the ages for two weeks!

There is a Greek phrase that some churches use during their communion liturgy, it’s “kyrie eleison.” Sound familiar to anyone? It means “Lord, have mercy.” The 1980s rock band, Mr. Mister, released a song by that title in 1985.  The first verse begin, “The wind blows hard against this mountain side/ Across the sea into my soul/ It reaches into where I cannot hide/ Setting my feet upon the road…” This is a strong wind. It blows hard; it’s not refreshing or soothing. It goes across the sea and gets into your crevices, deep into your soul, where you cannot hide. Kyrie eleison, Lord, have mercy, indeed. This is a wind that seeks you out, that will not let you go until it has found you and puts you on the road you must travel. “Kyrie eleison, down the road that I must travel/ Kyrie eleison, through the darkness of the night.” In those parables that Jesus tells about the lost sheep and the lost coin, we’re not the shepherd or the coin collector. We are what has been lost and is in need of finding. And God sends this hot wind, that is not going to feel good, to come find you and bring you back.

Because, don’t forget, the Hebrew word for wind is the same word for breath and the same word for God’s Spirit. This is the Holy Spirit moving. Not in ways that are comforting, but in ways that are discomforting. This is the Spirit moving over the waters at the beginning of creation, yet this is not a time of creating, or even a time of separating the crop from the weed, or a time of refreshing and renewal.  You may not want to be found. You may like the dark cave you found, or stumbled upon, on your own. But God’s Spirit seeks you out. And there’s comfort in being found and the reminder you are loved. And you also have to clean up afterward, ‘cuz you’re filthy from whatever hole you fell into like the sheep or the dust you accumulated hiding under the furniture like the coin. You have to take stock of where you are now, because you are not the same as you were before.

And here’s the second theme word found in all three of these Scriptures: grace. Even in Jeremiah pronouncing this divine judgment, God says, “I will not make a full end.” And you are still my people. You are still my child. I will not destroy completely. There is still hope. Timothy phrases it as “I received mercy,” the answer to that prayer of kyrie eleison. “I was shown mercy and… the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly.” Grace overflowed. Amazing grace. Jesus came to save sinners, which includes you and me. We want to think we’re exempt. We want to think we have our lives all together. Look at your neighbor. They don’t have everything in their lives all together, either.

You might think the shepherd’s got 99 sheep, surely one more doesn’t matter. It might even seem foolish to leave 99 to go looking for the one. 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” To those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

I got involved in international missions through my mom. When I was in 6^th grade she, as a nurse, joined a medical/dental team out of Maryland that made yearly trips to Honduras and Guatemala. They had team shirts every year, with whatever design on the front. On the back, the shirts always said, “Dios te ama,” Spanish for “God loves you,” and a starfish. Do you know the story of the starfish?

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” “Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!”After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…” I made a difference for that one.”

            We can’t do everything. We can’t help all people. But God’s not asking us to. God’s asking us to love the people given to us to love. God’s asking you to love your neighbor as yourself. When you find yourself blown with a hot wind onto another road that you did not choose, it’s not a problem to solve, because there is no going back to where you were. The only way to go is forward. Adjust to your new surroundings. Learn about this new road. Pray kyrie eleison, Lord, have mercy. And when things are different, when you’re in the wilderness, the key questions to ask are: “How will we now be with God? How will we now be with one another? Who are we now? What does God want us to do now? Who is our neighbor now?”[4] There may not be easy answers. The answers may be not what you want to hear. But this is the time when the questions are more important than the answers. Winds have blown through this church, many kinds of winds including a hot, devastating wind. The wind blew the couple joining our church today here to us, just as it blew each of us here. The good news is that this wind, even in this form, is still God’s Spirit at work, moving, moving us, blowing through our church and our community, not leaving us the same yet not leaving us alone or forsaken or abandoned, either. This is God’s Spirit in the form of a 2x4, saying, “Get moving!” Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy.

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[1] 1 Timothy 1:15

[2] Romans 3:23

[3] Jeremiah 4:11-12a

[4] Gil Rendle, Quietly Courageous, p. 28

The Importance of Being Formed

13^th Sunday after Pentecost

September 8, 2019

Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-18; Luke 14:25-33

            In January of 2009 the big news story was what was called “the miracle on the Hudson.” Does the phrase ring a bell? If not, how about Captain Sullenberger? He became a household name that day. Captain Sullenberger was one of two pilots flying a plane that had just taken off from La Guardia airport when the plane struck a flock of Canadian geese and lost power in both engines. Captain Sullenberger and his co-pilot safely landed the plan in the Hudson River and everyone on board survived. Everyone deemed it a miracle and the good Captain was called a hero. Hollywood even made a movie about it starring Tom Hanks and directed by Clint Eastwood. But do you remember Captain Sullenberger’s reaction to all the accolades? He said he was just following his training. It wasn’t anything special. He was just doing what he had been trained to do as a pilot. His attitude was a lot like what Jesus describes in Luke 17:10, when Jesus tells his disciples, “When you’ve done all you should, then say, “We are merely servants, and we have simply done our duty.” That was Captain Sullenberger’s response to the whole thing. I simply did my duty; I did the work I was trained to do.

            The image we have from Jeremiah this morning is that of a potter working at the wheel forming a clay pot. But it wasn’t coming out right, it wasn’t taking the shape the potter wanted it to have. So, the potter kept working, re-forming the clay and reshaping it until it turned out right. After this description we learn that the potter is the Lord, and we are the clay. And the Lord works in us and through us to shape us as God’s people. Yet we also have free agency, and so we have to choose to be shaped and formed as God’s people. Most of the things we do every day are out of habit. The numbers vary depending on the study, but somewhere from 40% to 95% of human behavior is done out of habit. That makes your habits and routines very important. It makes it important that you have formed good habits. And not just physical habits like eating vegetables and brushing teeth, but mental habits and spiritual habits as well. You have to be intentional about forming those habits to take care of your body. You have to be intentional about your spiritual formation as well. 

            This is the basis for the Christian ethics that I learned in seminary, which is different from what you will hear from other clergy who trained in other seminaries. We were told that this understanding of virtue ethics is part of what makes Duke Divinity School unique. You see, a lot of ethics is a dilemma, right? You’re faced with a decision, like do you steal the expensive medicine you can’t afford for your wife or do you let her die? Well, what I learned from Stanley Hauerwaus and Sam Wells, who are the two big names in this field, is that what matters is how you’re been spiritually formed. So, Christian ethics are ethics that define us as Christians. It is how we act, think, and respond because of who we are in Christ Jesus. We are people who have been shaped by Holy Scripture and so our ethics are grounded in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. There is no decisional ethics and crisis moment of deciding what to do. The choice was already made when we decided to follow Jesus. We already chose the way of love, peace, and gentleness; therefore, we will act, think, and respond in ways that are loving, peaceful, and gentle. In other words, we will respond how we’ve been trained.

Christian ethics are first concerned with the life that is made possible in Christ for Christians. We look first to the transformation brought about in Christ and not to society for the source of our ethics. Our ethics are formed by our habits of communal worship, prayer, and reading the Bible. If ethics is about choice, then the only choice that matters is God’s choice and God chose to be for us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. So, Christian ethics are about people, not decisions. Most people live their lives by habit, not by choice. If we are formed in Christ Jesus and steeped in his Word, then we live lives that bear fruit worthy of our calling in Christ Jesus. While good people can make a bad choice, it is more important to shape our character appropriately so that when a situation arises, we respond in a manner that is second nature. In other words, we are trained on how to act and think in a Christ-like manner. Does that all make sense?

            I shared some about this a couple weeks ago after my trip out to Oklahoma City. It was a worship planning retreat, and we went through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and Lent. For Holy Week, we went to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. We toured the museum and then were allowed out on the grounds. We shared communion, for Maundy Thursday, under the Survivor Tree. We wrote short prayers on strips of cloth and held them as we sat vigil for Good Friday – we were allowed to sit on the chairs that are part of the memorial, one chair for each person who died. Then we tied our strips onto a chain link fence where others had left mementos and tokens. Across the street was a statue the Catholic Church had erected, called “Jesus wept.” It was very powerful. And part of the power wasn’t just in the memorial but in the response for healing and moving forward. And moving forward was about building character, especially in our children and youth.

We as adults already know the importance of building character muscles like respect and kindness and caring and responsibility. This is what we teach our kids. But sometimes as adults we don’t always act that way. We shirk responsibility and say, that’s someone else’s problem. We talk about little white lies that won’t harm anyone. As adults, we’ve gotten used to what we can get away with, with minimal accountability, and some of the good character traits we had as kids have gone by the wayside. But most of what we do is out of habit. Which means we might have had better character as kids, when parents and teachers were holding us accountable, than we have now. This is part of why God’s not done with us yet, and why John Wesley believed you could lose your salvation. That’s how the clay pot that starts off so promising starts taking a weird shape, and the potter has to remold it back to the right shape.

Spiritual formation affects how we live and our everyday choices. Or, really, I should say, our everyday habits. The good news is that you always learn a new habit. Old dogs can learn new tricks. So take a look at your everyday habits. Do they include time set aside for prayer? Do you read your bible every day? Do you work to cultivate patience and gentleness and peace? Those are some of the fruits of the Spirit that grow when you allow yourself to be formed and shaped by Jesus. Do you share what you have? Do you take care of the sick? Do you take care of yourself? What influences you the most? Your number one answer ought to be Jesus, so that was a trick question. What influences you second most? Consider the merits of it. I hope it’s a good role model and a positive influence, and if it’s not, then consider picking a better number two.

It’s not me you have to answer to. It’s God. That psalm we read this morning is one of my top favorite psalms. “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” This isn’t meant to be a creepy stalker psalm; this is the Lord, who made you and formed you, who created your inmost being and knit you together. The Lord knows you, because he made you and he is always with you and will never forsake you. Just like clay pots, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You know, a few weeks ago my son asked me how he was made. I wasn’t getting into the birds and the bees with a 4 ½ year old, so I told him he was fearfully and wonderfully made. And he looked at me, didn’t say a word, and went off to play. Actually, knowing him as well as I do, he might still be thinking about it and I may not have heard the end of it. But it’s true, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. The question then is what are you doing with what God created you to be? Are you becoming who God created you to become? And if not, the start of a new season and new school year for our children is certainly a good time for a new start. That’s the good news. Our spiritual formation and training is never completely over. The potter is more than willing to continue the work in you that was begun at your creation, if you’ll let him.

In an interview, Captain Sullenberger said: “One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education, and training. And on January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.”[1] Are you making small, regular deposits in your bank of spiritual experience, education, and training? They don’t have to be big, but regularity is important in order for the habit to form, in order for the work to be done so that when you’re called on, you’re ready. One of my seminary professors once said that what we do in seminary is in case of an emergency. It’s training, just like coming to worship regularly, reading your bible regularly, praying regularly, so that when something happens and you’re called on to use your training, there is no crisis moment or decision to be made. You’re already ready and you know what to do.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesley_Sullenberger

"Okay!": A Reflection

We use "ok" to mean so many different things in so many different settings.

"Ok" means yes.
"Ok" means average.
"Ok" means we understand.

It's a typical answer to the question "How are you?", although for me it means I'm not doing great. If I'm truly ok and all right, then I say "good." If I'm not good, I say "ok" or "hanging in." I don't know that many people pick up on that nuance between "good" and "ok," and I'm all right with that. To me, it means I'm still giving an honest answer while not giving an answer that's going to elicit more conversation. With most people and at most times, I don't really want to get into how I'm doing. It tends to be a courtesy question and so I give a courtesy answer. Except I don't want to lie. So I have to give an honest courtesy answer which will be accepted at face value and each of us can move on. 'Cuz most people don't really want to know how you're really doing. They're just asking to be polite or as a greeting.

But I never mind when someone gives me an honest answer. And then I'll ask "What's going on?" And they'll either say they don't want to talk about it, which is perfectly acceptable, and I'll drop it and we'll move on. Or, they'll share more about what's really going on with them, which is perfectly acceptable, too.

But somehow when I give a more honest answer and the person follows up, when I don't want to go into it, they'll rarely let me drop it and move on.

That's why I say "ok." It may mean literally "I'm ok," or it may mean "I'm not good and I don't want to talk about it."

What's in a Prayer?

7^th Sunday after Pentecost

July 28, 2019

Luke 11:1-13

            One of the first sermons I can remember, if not the very first, comes from around middle school, or maybe late elementary school. I’m a little fuzzy on some of the details, except I know it was at the church we went to when my family lived in Germantown, MD. And this wasn’t a sermon by the pastor of the church; it was by one of the leaders of the church who’d been asked to fill in while the pastor was out. Glenn had only recently begun deepening his faith and walking closer with Jesus. I remember the concern other adults had about how Glenn’s faith was growing, while his wife’s wasn’t. And I don’t know the end of the story. What I know is that Glenn gave a message about the Lord’s Prayer. He was a runner, and while he ran, he said the Lord’s Prayer, and repeated it. The beginning of his message was about how one day he set out running and started saying the Lord’s Prayer, and he heard God tell him to slow down. God didn’t mean to slow down his running, God was telling him to pray slower, to take time and savor each phrase, each word of that prayer. Pray slower. Pay more attention to what you are praying. And then Glenn went through each section of the Lord’s Prayer for the rest of his message, taking it slower than we usually say it.

            “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place.” Isn’t that an interesting detail? We’re always praying in a certain place, in a pew, from our bedside, in a car. Jesus had certain places where he liked to go pray. Are there places or times you intentionally go to to pray? Glenn prayed while running. I have one friend who has a prayer corner, with an easy chair, a lamp, a notepad and pen, a bible, and an arrangement of crosses on the wall facing the chair. Other folks have prayer closets. Do you have dedicated space for prayer, or an activity when you dedicate that time to pray? If not, consider starting one. Mine is the breakfast table. Usually. The kids have mostly learned not to interrupt me when they see my prayer book out. The disciples didn’t interrupt Jesus, either, but waited until he was done before asking, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” This is Jesus’ cousin John, better known to us as John the Baptist, who also had disciples and a following before Jesus showed up on the scene. Then some of John’s disciples defected and started following Jesus![1] Anyway, Jesus’ disciples know that John has taught his followers how to pray, and they ask Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

            Jesus’ answer is what we call the Lord’s Prayer. Or, at least most of it. Okay, maybe just some of it. It’s been elaborated a little bit over the years. The answer Jesus gives them is the basis for our Lord’s Prayer. It’s short, sweet, and to the point. “‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.” It’s quite the contrast to the standard Jewish prayers of the day, which were quite long and complex. But Jesus is here saying, it doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to be clever, you don’t need a rhyme scheme or be a great public speaker in order for your prayer to be efficacious and heard by God. What you need, as we learn from the stories Jesus tells after this prayer, is perseverance. Sometimes, persistence in prayer is where we must begin.[2] Later in Luke, Jesus tells the story of the unjust judge and the widow. The intro to this parable is that Jesus told it to his disciples “to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” It’s the same thing with the person knocking on their friend’s door at midnight. Pray constantly. Persist in praying. Keep praying!

            Why? Why is prayer so important? Because prayer is the essence of our relationship with God.[3] Without prayer, you do not have a relationship with God. Without prayer, you cannot have a relationship with God. “Prayer is the way we create and sustain our relationship with God.”[4] It is the chief means of grace. A “means of grace” is a way you experience and know God’s unconditional love. It could be as simple as a hug or a phone call from a friend. It could be seeing God at work in creation. According to John Wesley, there are five “instituted” means of grace, meaning that they are “spiritual practices that were instituted in the New Testament and are binding for all time and in all places.”[5] He identified them as prayer, searching the Scriptures, the Lord’s Supper, fasting, and Christian conferencing. These are all ways that we can receive God’s love. The truth is that anything can be a means of grace “for those who are always open to and seeking God.”[6] Since prayer is communication with God, being open to God’s presence and love, connecting us to who God is and what God is doing, then all the means of grace are a form of prayer. Each means of grace is “a pathway for Christians to know and do God’s will.”[7]

            Praying without ceasing is also one of Wesley’s “Marks of a Methodist.” As the Methodist movement got underway in the 18^th century, in 1747, Wesley published a little book called “The Character of a Methodist.” The five distinguishing marks are that a Methodist loves God, rejoices in God, gives thanks, prays without ceasing, and loves others. Under his description of praying constantly, just like Jesus said we should, is that this does not mean we are always in church, or always on our knees, or always crying aloud to God, or always calling upon God in words. Instead, Wesley wrote that true prayer is that “[our] hearts are ever lifted up to God, at all times and in all places. In this [we are] never hindered, much less interrupted, by any person or thing. In retirement or company, in leisure, business, or conversation, [our] hearts are ever with the Lord. Whether [we] lie down or rise up, God is in all [our] thoughts.”[8] That’s what it means to pray continually. That’s why we have to be persistent about it and not give up, or let ourselves be interrupted or hindered. Lift your heart up to God, just as we say in our communion liturgy. When our hearts are directed upward, then “whatever God wants to send our way will roll directly into our minds and hearts,”[9] because we’re already attuned to God, we’re already in a posture of listening; we’re already paying attention to God. The most interesting thing I heard Pastor Bob say at Jennings last week was the idea that God has a whole lot more to say to us than we have to say to God. It’s not that what we say to God isn’t important; it is, communication has to go two-ways. But what if, for all the things we have to tell God about, our thoughts, our hurts and fears, our joys, our concerns; what if, God has even more to tell us? It’s interesting to think that “the key element to prayer isn’t what we say to God but rather what God says to us.”[10] It’s also reassuring and lets the pressure up about finding the right words or when we don’t know what to pray. All you have to do is lift your heart up to God, and God will do the rest. Romans 8:26 says, “The Spirit comes to help our weakness. When we don’t know what we should pray, God’s very Spirit intercedes with groans too deep for words.”

            So, worry less. Pray more. Continue to ask, Lord, teach me to pray. Talking to God should be like a “family conversation where you express yourself unselfconsciously with the confidence that you will be heard and understood.”[11] Remember, Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”[12] God hears our prayers, whether they’re prayers of praise or confession or thanksgiving or supplication or intercession or lament, whether they are spoken or sung, whether they have words or are silent, God hears our prayers. God never promises to answer them exactly how we want. God is not a vending machine and prayer doesn’t change God. Prayer changes you. When your heart is lifted up, when you are resting in God’s presence, when you are always open to and seeking God and asking how God is at work in the world around you, when you’re not focused on yourself but on God, your demeanor is different. Your energy is different. The way you interact with others is different.

            Let us lift up our hearts. We lift them up to the Lord.

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[1] See John 1:35-42

[2] Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, p. 288

[3] 5 Means of Grace by Elaine Heath, p. 5

[4] 5 Marks of a Methodist by Steve Harper, p. 38

[5] 5 Means of Grace by Elaine Heath, p. ix

[6] Ibid., p. viii

[7] Ibid., p. 11

[8] The Character of a Methodist in The Works of John Wesley, Vol. VIII, p. 343

[9] 5 Marks of a Methodist by Steve Harper, p. 41

[10] Ibid.

[11] Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, After Pentecost, p. 103

[12] Luke 11:9-10