Moving Toward Wholeness in a Fragmented World

Reviving my blog for "a time such as this". The following is a sermon that touches on the division of politics. It was given to multiple churches in the Christian Church (Disciple of Christ) tradition, so there is some definite "go team" language that isn't typical of most of my messages. The truth is, the "go team" stuff can apply to all Christians who are willing to move toward wholeness!

A Movement For Wholeness in a Fragmented World- Ephesians 4:25-5:2 8/9/2015

Ephesians 4:25-5:2 (NRSV)

25 So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. 28 Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. 29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. 31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5: 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Three Hundred and sixty-five days. Three Hundred and sixty-five days.

There are Three Hundred and sixty-five days until the next presidential election. Already there are political ads that I have heard on the radio and have seen on TV. Not for any specific candidate, but instead promoting the general platform of the specific party.

365 days and already the political lines in the sand are being firmly cemented into place, with people lining up in their respective parties, ready to launch attacks and defend against accusations, ready to post, share, and tweet articles and graphs and memes meant to lift up one side at the expense of the other.

365 days and already intraparty debates are being hosted to help politicians compete for the top spot in their own parties to be nominated as the preferred candidate.

365 days of mudslinging, name calling, doom and gloom predictions, lamentations, and people just fed up with the whole process.

I was not always part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In fact I was not raised in a family that attended church at all. Not even Christmas and Easter. I did, however, attend up to three vacation bible schools a summer. Three VBS programs a summer. I could insert a joke about my parents here, but I’ll let it hang. The quick takeaway is this, VBS workers, never write off the kids that just show up for VBS and are never seen again, they could end up in a pulpit near you!

I did not regularly start attending church until high school when a friend invited me to a thing called youth group. Youth group was awesome. So here is a shout out to all the people that work with our kids and youth, you all are amazing.

That youth group was a part of the Assembly of God denomination. Like I said, I wasn’t always a Disciple! The first Christian tradition I was in was the very Pentecostal Assembly of God. It’s where I first truly committed to being a Christian and where I was baptized.

It is also where I first felt a call into ministry. It was where I first became a student leader in youth group.

But I began to feel restless in that tradition. I couldn’t name it, but it was a strong dissatisfaction and I drifted away from church for a bit.

While still in high school I decided to join another friend to try out their church and youth group. It was a United Methodist Church. I fit in there well and formed a close relationship with the youth pastor there and started leading the high school aged youth when I turned 18. It was great and I learned a lot about leading youth. I entered Malone College in Canton (which is now a University- fancy) and pursued my Bible and Theology degree. But after some time I started getting restless and that deep, dissatisfied feeling again and walked away from church for a while.

I was still pursuing my calling and had a strong community of faith at Malone, but didn’t have a church home.

One of my beloved college professors was also an Assembly of God pastor so for a while my wife Christina and I (though at the time we were just engaged) started attending his church. The pastor allowed me to preach there a few times and he presided over our wedding, and he tried hard to get me to enter into the Assembly of God denomination as a minister, but I found myself unable to check all the doctrinal belief boxes to be a member or minster in that tradition, and we left.

After about 6 months or so I found a newly formed non-denominational church searching for a volunteer youth pastor to lead the youth group. It was great and I did that for about two years. At that time the church was attempting to write and finalize its constitution and bylaws and growing tension in the church cause several of the families to leave, including all but a few of the youth who plugged into another youth group at a different church. This was good for the youth to find another home but it left me feeling like I had no real purpose in that church anymore and I, too, felt unease about the way leadership was handling the formation of the constitution and Christina and I left.

This started a restless period of feeling a burning call into ministry and having no church home to grow that call that lasted around 6 years or so. I did attend one other nondenominational church during this period.

You see, I had a theology and understanding of the Bible that was changing and growing as I found an online community of Christian writers, bloggers, and social media users who were describing a lot of the experiences I was having in my faith. And my experience is that there are a lot of churches in many different traditions that don’t want you to have a growing and changing theology at all, especially not as a minister.

The last nondenominational church I attended seemed to at first offer the room for growth I was looking for, but slowly and surely as I found my faith going in one direction, the church seemed to be firming up in another direction. I found myself again faced with doctrinal statements I couldn’t check off and a lack of opportunity to serve in a ministerial position that was in line with my calling. So we left.

And then my friend Paul Appleby, now the Reverend Paul Appleby who pastors Central Christian Church Killeen, Texas , told me to check out the Disciples of Christ.

The who?

He told me to check out their website.

I did.

I told him that I still couldn’t tell what they believed and couldn’t figure out how to find the denomination’s doctrines of belief.

“Yeah, that’s the point”, he said.

Then he told me a little bit about how the church recognizes that everybody has the ability to read the Bible and come to their own belief and how they try to work out that belief in the individual church families and how each church can look very different from the other Disciples’ churches in the area.

Long story short, my wife and I joined First Christian Church Medina, I was taken under care of the Ohio Region of the church and entered seminary at Lexington Theological Seminary. In other words, I found home, here, in this faith community.

Why did I find a home with the Disciples? Because, among other things, I found a place that recognizes that we don’t all think and believe the same and yet gives everybody a place at the table, not just a place in the pews.

365 days until the next presidential election and people are already lining up to take their places on their side of the isle and gearing up to fight. TV, radio, internet, newspapers, workplace conversations, all will be filled with partisan arguments.

All of these things work to fragment our already broken world. But, my fellow Disciples, we are in a unique position to offer the community refuge from this fragmentation if we take our scripture passage to heart.

As it is written:

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”

“Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

The reason I say we are uniquely in a position to offer people refuge from this political fragmentation and all other fragmentation is because of our identity as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

For as our identity statement says:

“We are Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. As part of the one body of Christ, we welcome all to the Lord's Table as God has welcomed us”

As a denomination we are still working out how to accomplish this well with so much diversity in our churches, but there are times and places where we have really lived out our calling to be a movement towards wholeness.

I got to go to our General Assembly this year. It is a large coming-together of Disciples from all over the US and Canada as well as some international Disciples siblings. It is often described as a big family reunion and we worship together and work through directing the business needs of the church together.

While I was there I got to meet and hear Pastor Adam Phillips’ story. He had been ordained by a medium sized denomination, not the Disciples of Christ, and worked with them for nearly two decades. He served three churches and was called by the denomination to plant a new church, Christ Church, in Portland, Oregon. At the beginning of this year, after a year of working to plant this church and get it established, he was confronted by the denomination’s leadership for having an overly public and inclusive statement of invitation on their church website. In other words, they welcomed EVERYONE to full participation in the church.

The denomination declared that Christ Church was no longer compatible with their membership and removed the church from the denomination, not only severing ties but also taking the remaining two years of financial support to get them firmly rooted.

When Christian and Amy Piatt, two Disciples ministers in Portland, heard about the story they interviewed Pastor Adam about the whole situation. You may know that Christian is an author and regular publisher on the Patheos blog and Amy pastors First Christian Church Portland. They also cohost the CultureCast podcast on the Homebrewed Christianity network. After Christian interviewed Adam for his blog he invited Adam to share his story on his podcast as well.

Through this they formed a close friendship with one another. Since Adam’s church lost its funding they also lost their worship location. So what were the good Disciples of First Christian Church Portland to do other than open their space to Christ Church? So they did. Christ Church now meets in First Christian’s building every Sunday evening. But that isn’t all. Pastor Adam himself officially joined the Disciples of Christ.

Pastor Adam’s story, while different than my own, is similar in that both of us found homes in the Disciples of Christ even when it looked like and felt like we were spiritually homeless. Both of us feel unique calls to reach toward the outer edges of society and help the outcast, the marginalized, the tired and left behind people to move toward wholeness. Both of us ended up finding a home in the Disciples of Christ because this denomination is primed to reach out to and help facilitate movement toward wholeness in a fragmented society. But we ministers cannot do it alone.

There are many more Adams and many more Ryans out there waiting to find a spiritual community that fully accepts us for who we are and challenges us to grow into the best followers of Christ we can be. There are also many people out there who have never stepped into a church that are tired and worn down by the fragmentation of the world.

The next 365 days are going to only grow in divisiveness and anger and partisanship and fragmentation. And honestly, I do not think the general population expects the church to be a refuge from this fighting and fragmentation.

So let us work to put the Apostle Paul’s words into action by being filled with grace and love and words that build up our neighbors and not tear them down, even if you are on opposite sides of an issue or in opposing political parties.

Let us set our eyes on Christ and reach out to our neighbors and share the Good News that Christ has brought salvation from this fragmentation.

You can be angry, but don’t sin.

You can disagree, but don’t tear your neighbors down.

You can advocate for what you believe but remember to love one another while you do it.

This is a season that is ripe with division, so let us go out into our communities and invite people in to find a group of Jesus followers moving toward wholeness.

Again, let us remember what the Apostle Paul wrote:

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

In the Disciples of Christ we believe that ALL believers in Christ are ministers. So let us all get out there and do some ministry. God is calling each of us into some kind of ministry. Can you hear the call?

Amen

The Great Commission Sermon from 6-15-14

 

Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV)

The Great Commission

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Today is Trinity Sunday. It is the day that church recognizes the triune nature of God. That means that around the world in churches that follow the liturgical calendar, or church calendar, preachers are attempting to explain somehow the nature of the Trinity. How God is Three in One, how God is like a three leaf clover, how God is like water that can be in a frozen, liquid, or gas state. It's a very complicated topic that I just this week learned a lot of clergy stress over.

In fact, on a Facebook post just this week by the pastor of one of our local churches, he commented that he was stressing over this Trinity Sunday. Several of his clergy friends commented that they often hand this Sunday over to their Seminary students, or plan their vacation days for specifically whichever Sunday is Trinity Sunday. Isn't that kind of crazy?

By the way, for those of you visiting with us today, my name is Ryan and I am the student associate pastor here and a seminary student. Pastor Laura is on vacation. I assure you this is just coincidence, after all I am pretty sure her In-Laws, the Bairds, planned this trip. And the fact that Don Baird is a retired pastor who planned the family vacation for Trinity Sunday is strictly a coincidence. Right? Right?

If you looked at the lectionary reading for today you would see that alongside of Matthew's great commissioning, there is also Genesis chapter one. Most of us are familiar with that chapter, but let's do an interactive recap, shall we?

In the beginning God created the...

God made people in God's...

And God said all these creations were...

God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them and declared them good. But the Hebrew word of Genesis means more than just simply good. It means good, pleasing, beautiful. My mentor, Pastor Kevin Phipps, describes it as God stepping back and declaring “WOW!”.

But what does the creation story and the Great commission have to do with one another?

God created us in God's image and declared it good, pleasing, beautiful. But what does it mean to be created in God's own image? Does it mean we just sit around and look good, pleasing, and beautiful?

Humankind seemed to struggle with this very question. Throughout the stories of the First Testament, we learn that God tried over and over to help us understand what we were created for. God used Moses to deliver the ten commandments, but that didn't seem to be enough. People still struggled to live their lives and fulfill their purpose of creation. God sent prophets to the people of Israel, but the people continued to do their own thing. The Jewish people struggled with trying to serve God and created more and more complex rules and regulations on what it means to be holy and fulfill God's dream for humankind. But it did not seem to work.

We were created in God's image. God declared us as beautiful, pleasing, and good. But we have such a hard time living God's calling for us. But what is that calling? What is God's dream for us?

It's Trinity Sunday, and so far we have talked about God creating the world and making it pleasing and good. But what did Jesus do when He was on earth? Jesus revealed God's dream to us, didn't he? Jesus said he came so that we may have a life that is abundant, a life that is eternal, a life that is whole! But isn't that what God has been telling us all along? We were created in God's image, and surely God isn't ugly or bad, and surely God doesn't have a life or existence that is incomplete. So what makes Jesus' message and life different?

Redemption! The Good News! Healing, wholeness. Jesus came into a sick world and showed us that we do not have to keep living that way. When we are confronted with violence, we should confront violence with love. When we have an enemy, we should pray for that enemy. If someone is hungry or thirsty, we should meet their need. In every way we have figured out how to fall short in following God's dream for the world, Jesus provided us with healing.

The Apostle Paul commands us to have our minds renewed by God, and to not conform to the patterns of this world. The patterns of this world that demand we meet violence with even greater violence. The patterns that tell us it is ok to destroy creation to make a quick fortune. The patterns that tell us to turn our eyes from injustice. The patterns that tell us it is ok to use people to get what we want. We fight against these patterns by renewing our minds--but how?

This is where the Holy Spirit comes in. The Holy Spirit, the final third of the Trinity. When Jesus ascended into Heaven, he promised the Holy Spirit would come--which we just celebrated on Pentecost. When we commit our life to Christ we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live like Jesus.

This is where our gospel reading comes back around. We are to go into the world and make disciples. Or in other words, to go into the world and inspire other people to follow Jesus. But how?

We were created in God's image. God created the heavens and the earth and declared them beautiful, pleasing, and good. We too should go out into the world and through the power of the Holy Spirit we should also seek to create beautiful, pleasing, and good things wherever we go.

Sometimes we over-complicate the idea of creating disciples. We create trainings, classes—all kinds of programs to teach people theology and evangelism or witnessing techniques. These are all fine and good. But sometimes the first step in creating disciples is simply giving them a glimpse of the beauty and pleasing goodness of God's dream for our lives. Sometimes it's as easy as throwing a birthday party.

Tony Campolo, a sociologist and Christian writer and preacher, fulfilled the Great Commission by throwing a birthday party. I will let him take over as we watch him recount the story. 

Click here for video.
 

Are we as a church up to the challenge of creating disciples in the world, even if it is at 3:30am with a bunch of prostitutes in a diner? Amen.

Our Story is Not Over. Sermon on Luke 24:13-35

This is pretty long for a blog post, but it is my manuscript of my sermon for May 11th, 2014. Enjoy!

Our Story is Not Over

Luke 24:13-35

New International Version (NIV)

On the Road to Emmaus

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.

17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

19 “What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

September 11^th, 2001 was a day that I looked forward to greatly. Back then, new music CD's were released on Tuesdays and my favorite band of the time, POD, had a new CD releasing that day. I was in college at Malone at the time and my morning ritual was to allow my alarm to go off for about an hour. In fact, I think my alarm turning off woke me up more than it did coming on. I rolled out of bed and, like every school day, I turned on my TV to watch the news as I gathered my stuff for the day. Except that day was not like every other day.

I turned on my TV just after the first plane flew into the World Trade Center. I remember thinking that it was a terrible and crazy tragedy. How does a plane crash into a building like that anyway? I called my mom as she did the administrative work for my dad's business, so it effectively called them both, to see if they heard the news. Sure enough they did and I recall my mom and I talking about how crazy it was that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. We hung up and I went about getting my stuff together when a new announcement came across. Another plane struck the World Trade Center.

I remember staring in disbelief at my TV. How could two planes crash into the same building? That doesn't even make sense! What are the odds? What are the odds? What are... Wait. I think the newscaster suggested it could have been an attack. A what? I dialed my mom again and asked if she just heard that another plane hit. I don't remember exactly what we said but I remember her saying it was scary. Was it scary? It was a terrible tragedy. Or was it more?

I don't really recall what I was thinking as I got ready to leave but I distinctly remember hearing the announcement that one of the towers collapsed as I drove to the end of my street. The magnitude and confusion were just beginning to be evident.

When I got to school no one was yet sure if we were having classes the rest of the day. All over campus people were glued to the TVs as they relentlessly played footage of the crashes over and over again. At some point more crashes and explosions had happened but I do not really recall them. People were crying. People were in shock. America was attacked and untold thousands were dead. We don't have attacks in America. Not outside of history books. Not outside of some people here and there that caused a lot of destruction and pain, but not like this. This was different. Something else died that day. Our idea of safety, of shelter, of bad stuff always happening somewhere else. Maybe it was a naïve belief but it was real. America was attacked. We believed we were safe. It's American soil. It's safe soil. It was safe soil.

Another normal event continued that day. See, many of you may not know this, but college kids are champion sleepers. If there wasn't a morning class to be up for you could be sure there were students all over campus earning their REM degree. If you don't understand that joke, sleep on it and get back to me tomorrow. Students were waking for the first time that day for classes not knowing anything that had happened. They saw people crowded around TVs. People that should be at class. They saw people walking in blank-faced dazes. People crying. “What is going on?” They would ask. The people's at the TV heads would spin 180 degrees, the dazed people would snap to consciousness, the sobs stopped on a dime and everyone stared in disbelief. “Have you not heard the things that have happened? What rock did you just crawl out from?” There was something easier about talking about what happened without saying the actual events and when these late risers were asking what happened you were expected to relay what actually happened. But how? Planes were hijacked, crashed into buildings, we were attacked. We were attacked. America was attacked. That probably was the best way to sum it up, but instead we tried to stumble through recounting the events. Maybe it was easier to try to break it into pieces. How do you describe a series of events, that when added together, their sum is greater than their parts? Thousands of people died and it was horrible, but it was even more terrible than just that. A collective belief died, and in a terrible way. This is where we join the disciples on their journey to Emmaus.

Jesus was just crucified three days ago near Jerusalem and two disciples had left to go to Emmaus. We don't really know why, but it isn't hard to imagine they might be returning home to pick up the pieces of their lives and try to get back to a normal life. If there is such a thing as normal for them anymore. As they walked they discussed all the things that happened in the previous days. Jesus' triumphal entry. Jesus' betrayal. Jesus' trial and his death by crucifixion.

As they talked about these things, Jesus came up beside the disciples but they did not recognize him. And Stranger-Jesus asked them what they were discussing. And much like the students I described earlier, the disciples stopped dead in their tracks. Looking sad and probably frustrated and confused. “Haven't you heard? Were you the only one in Jerusalem that missed what happened? How could you miss all the things that have happened?”

At this point in time the disciples still didn't name what had happened. They were hoping to talk around it, most likely. But Stranger-Jesus pressed them further. “What things?”

So they began to recount the events, and they named many events but today we will talk about these specific events they named. The passage reads, “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”

Redeem Israel. Israel had been in captivity for hundreds of years. Hundreds. And they longed for freedom. Freedom to be self-determining, freedom to worship God more openly, freedom from being ruled by empires that practiced all kinds of sin and idolatry. They believed that a savior would come and restore Israel to the glory days of King David. They longed for a day that the Lord would conquer their enemies and there would be no doubt to the other nations that Israel's God was the God of all other Gods. They waited for God to fulfill his promises about Israel in the way they understood them. And they waited. And waited. For centuries and centuries. And many people of Israel had placed their hope in other so-called messiahs before Jesus, only to have them and all of their followers die. Often by crucifixion. Ancient historical records often were exaggerated to bolster Rome's glory but there are records of mass crucifixions around the time of Jesus, some numbering into the thousands. At the center of these usually was someone with the title messiah.

But Jesus, he was different. He preached with unique authority, he cast demons out of people, he healed the blind and made paralyzed people walk, and he even raised the dead. Jesus was different. Jesus was going to liberate Israel. Jesus was the hope they had been waiting for. Jesus was the real savior.

But then the unthinkable happened. The Jewish leaders, part of the very people Jesus was to liberate, conspired with the Romans to kill Jesus. The Romans were the ones Jesus was to defeat. But the Jews conspired and had the Romans crucify Jesus. Just like all the other so-called messiahs. Defeated by the Romans and betrayed by the Jewish leaders.

Not only was the disciples' friend and teacher horribly killed, in the most humiliating manner the Roman Empire used, but the disciples also lost their hope that day. Their faith had been crushed. They had fallen for another false messiah like the many Jews before them. The hope that the disciples would be be the ones to finally see the promises of God fulfilled was shattered.

The disciples attempted to communicate this deeply personal and communal loss to the stranger-Jesus with them on the road. And then, probably to the great surprise and shock of the disciples, the stranger-Jesus rebuked them.

“How foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have taught! Didn't you know all these things had to happen for the messiah to enter his glory, to fulfill his mission?”

Imagine their confusion at hearing this question. They had thought the messiah the prophets talked about would be a conquering King like the great King David and that the messiah would lead the victory against Israel's earthly occupiers.

So Stranger-Jesus used the rest of the trip for teaching and explaining how the prophets talked about the pain and trials the messiah had to go through and what it meant.

When they finally arrived at Emmaus, the stranger-Jesus walked on as if he were departing. The story tells us that the disciples urged him to stay with them for the night and share dinner. Such an invitation was a great honor. In the Middle-Eastern culture sharing a meal is seen as an intimate expression of friendship, trust, and peace. I have heard it called “covenant building”. The polite response to such an invitation was to turn it down a couple of times. It seems that maybe the Stanger-Jesus did this as the story tells us that the disciples “Strongly Urged” him to stay, meaning they asked him until he accepted their invitation.

So the Stranger-Jesus accepts the disciples' offer to be their guest. But while they are at the table, maybe before the meal, maybe during, maybe after we don't really know, Stranger-Jesus reversed the roles. Stranger-Jesus picked up the bread and blessed it, typically saying blessings was the role of the host, and gave it to the disciples. When he did this, the disciples recognized Jesus for the first time, and Jesus vanished before their eyes.

The disciples were over-joyed! “Did we not feel a burning in our hearts when he was teaching us from the scriptures” Jesus was not dead. Their hope was not dead. Their story was not over! They were so over-joyed that they left their dinner table and traveled at night the 7 or so miles back to Jerusalem to find the other disciples and share the good news.

Perhaps we can learn from this that when we share in the scriptures and fellowship together, and perhaps more importantly when we show hospitality to strangers, we may just catch glimpses of Jesus as well.

We are currently in the season of Eastertide. It is the time between Easter and Pentecost when we celebrate and remember Jesus making appearances to the disciples after his resurrection. The disciples were not sure what the rest of the story of their salvation would look like, but they knew one thing, hope was not dead, their story was not over, and they were just beginning to understand their story was far bigger than they thought. And we can remember that no matter how much life gets us down when we suffer tragedy, when we are in bad health, when we see long-held beliefs crushed before our eyes, when we suffer tragic events that show us we intentionally or accidentally placed our trust and hope in the wrong place, Jesus is not dead, he is resurrected. He is alive, and when we place our faith in him we become resurrection people. We may lose our hope, but Jesus can resurrect it. We may even lose our lives, but Jesus will resurrect those, too. My story is not over, and your story is not over, and our stories are bigger than we can ever imagine when Jesus is at the center. This is the good news, that our cross-killed Savior is alive and our stories continues today! Amen.

Ressurection

As Holy Week approaches (you know the week with Easter and all that) I figured it would be a good time to resurrect this blog. It has received a new name and a fresh start. As I will be writing more and doing a lot of projects for seminary, I figured this could be a good place to discuss some ideas. Anyway, this is a recent article I wrote for my church newsletter, enjoy!

"It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Bilbo Baggins- J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring

Hobbits in Tolkien’s stories had a particularly strong characteristic; keeping to themselves and living a simple life. Being too noticeable, too disruptive, too inquisitive, and heaven forbid, too ADVENTUROUS, were actions that were greatly looked down upon and would bring the whole town’s suspicion against you. Hobbits were known for never traveling very far from their houses, and likewise the other residents of Middle Earth rarely came close to where the Hobbits lived. Two Hobbits, however, broke this rule and consequently helped saved all of Middle Earth. 

 

I am a classic introvert. I used to be terribly shy. When I had to do book reports in middle school I would get nervous days in advance. I didn’t have a few butterflies in my stomach; I had hoards of migrating Monarch Butterfly colonies drinking espresso and playing tag in my stomach. Public speaking terrified me, and it took me about halfway through college to tame it. I still get butterflies, but I’ve learned to enjoy public speaking. 

 

But he (The Lord) said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

When the Hobbits in Tolkien’s stories leaned into their weakness and set out on an adventure, they started a series of events that would, in part, save Middle Earth from being taken over by the Dark Lord Sauron. As God calls me into the ministry and I lean into my weakness, I have been blessed by meeting great people and finding joy on the other side of great obstacles. I know that somehow, someway, my life and struggles are making and will make a difference, even if I don’t see it. 

 

Adventures are risky, dangerous, and disruptive and require us to stretch and sacrifice much. Adventures can also save the world. But it isn’t our inherent strengths that tend to bring victory, it is leaning into our weakness and taking the risk of trusting God to use our weakness to change the world--one step at a time. What is it that you feel like you have been called to do, but doubt you can do because of your weaknesses? Lean in, pray, and ask for help from others. You never know where the road may take you, or the dangers you may face, but you just might play a part in saving the world…

"But mom... I don't wanna go to church... It is sooo borrrring..." A blog and review of The Church Creative by John O'Keefe

If you have heard these words before, "but church is boring", you or someone you know may be suffering from Lethargic Church Syndrome. LCS has many causes, but the symptoms are clear: Lack of excitement, perceived feelings of fickleness or meaninglessness, the in-ability to reach out to others, vision problems, introversion, obscurity, opaqueness, and obsolescence, to name just a few.

Many of us have been here. We've gone to a church all our lives, or maybe just for several years, and one day we are asked "Why?", and we have no answer. Or an answer comes, but it is canned and hollow. We may say things about good music, good preaching, good youth programs, location, etc. But this hardly illustrates why we go to a given church over, let's say, a good YMCA with a summer concert series and use podcasts to listen to our favorite preachers (or more honestly, TED talks).

Perhaps this feeling of something being not quite right shows up more when your leader asks everyone to invite your friends, and immediately you are paralyzed with fear, or a whole list of reasons not to invite them goes through your head, or you find yourself simply asking why you would ever invite your friends. It could be LCS.

Any of this sounding familiar?

There is a Masonic Temple meeting place a couple blocks away from my house. At least I think there is. There is an old sign, in the historic district, and really, I am not sure if it is hanging there long abandoned or if Masons still meet there. I don't know anyone who goes there. I'm not even sure exactly how one would go inside as it is in a multi-business building, with multiple floors. I think you have to be invited in the first place to even go, but I am not sure. They are picky about who they let in. At least that is what I am told. I also heard they have weird beliefs and strange rituals. I've seen some pretty crazy stuff on the History channel. Or maybe it was SyFy. Who knows? Anyway, I don't know and haven't gone out of my way to find out.

So... why share that about the Masonic Temple? Because, that is a good snap-shot about what people who don't go to church think about churches. Even I as a seasoned church goer worry what I will encounter when I visit new churches. (Food for thought: I haven't been invited to a church since I was 20. I am now 30.) Am I dressed right? Do they do that whole stand up, sit down, kneel, stand, kneel, stand, sit down, now everyone come to the front thing? Do I know anyone here? What do they do during the week? A good sign that your church has become too lethargic is that no one outside the church knows anything about it.

This leads me to...*

Dr. John O'Keefe's book is a defibrillator shot to the chest of a lethargic church. 

What it is not: 

This book is NOT another copy-and-paste book that attempts to reproduce the success of a church you have never visited that is on the other side of the country in a demographic you don't live in. This book is not about copying all of the author's past success with step-by-step guides on how to get your best church now. This book is not your average church-leadership book.

What it is:

 This book is a great guide that does give you a how-to. That how-to is how to use creativity to learn to really reach out to the community around you. But, this is not about the typical creativity in a lot of church books that tell you to be "seeker sensitive", have relevant music, etc. It is awakening the creativity in the leaders and attenders in the church to re-think the way-they-always-do-things attitude and instead become something life-giving and engaging in their community. (Seriously, when was the last time someone described their church as life-giving? [no, I am not talking about salvation, nit-pickers]) Also, this book is great for leaders and for everyone else, too. 

Some of the things you will learn in this book are; (Forget it. I was going to list some things here, but really it was boring and didn't do justice to the book. Suffice it to say you will learn the route to becoming a genuinely creative and engaged individual in your faith-gathering, and learn how to help move your entire gathering in the same direction. You will learn to think about, for instance, your church's worship space. No, the book does not tell you how to set up your church [boring], but it does tell you the right questions to ask to set up your church in ways that are intimately connected to the specific community you serve.) QUESTION EVERYTHING!**
                                                         

Have you been feeling a little lethargic in your faith and/or church? O'Keefe's book is a great guide on your journey to revitalized faith, fellowship, and community.

*Total disclosure: I received a free .pdf file of the book to review. I was going to review another one of my friend's books, but he politely declined giving me a free copy. I politely declined to give him a free review. Actually, I don't think he asked for a review. So it goes...
** But do it in a productive, intelligent community building way. You'll be called annoying and perhaps a rabble-rouser at times, but it will be worth it.  

My addiction. Or why I am a Christian.

My good friend (The Reverend) Paul over at That Which is Central wrote a post worth taking a few minutes to read about why he is not an atheist. Paul is easily among the top 5 smartest and most read people I know and his insights are worth a look.

Anyway, his inaugural post inspired me to do one of the same nature. Why am I a Christian? I started out on a different path for this post than the one I am now taking. I was going to attempt a clearly thought out and mostly logical/rational post for the answer to this question. But I can't. I simply can't convey it in reasonable language that isn't overly verbose and ultimately fickle. So here is my newly revised answer to the question, "Why am I a Christian". 


I must admit, I am an addict. Not to a drug, nor a style of music, nor a particular food or drink. I am an addict of love, beauty, and hope. I can sense the eye-rolls right now, but bear with me, folks (I never said this blog-ride wouldn't go through some turbulence at times!). 


Have you ever caught a glimpse of something beautiful? Like a sunset on the beach, or a flower in springtime? Or perhaps something more powerful like two family members or former friends that you see in the moment of reconciliation? That moment when suddenly you are snapped from the ambient noise of the world around you to something so acutely different from everyday life that even as a distant spectator you feel as if you are intimately a part of that moment? Even fantastic works of art in various forms such as movies and songs can seem to translate us to these moments. Perhaps a good example of it is the Christmas Truce. That is the addiction that I am talking about, and the fixes come so few between. Allow me to quote a bit of C.S. Lewis...


"We do not merely want to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly by put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it... At present we are on the outside of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of the morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in." C.S.. Lewis The Weight of Glory (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco 2001), 397


So why am I a Christian? For the reason Lewis states, that Jesus seems to be constantly filled with these outpourings of love, and beauty, and light, and hope, and that through his power and spirit, that we can too, participate in these moments. These moments that are so rare but seem like they should be normal. We can't fully live into them yet, as just as quickly and intensely that they break into our lives, the moment passes, life goes on, and we can quickly forget that it even happened. I see God working in these moments, and catch a future that will come with the fulfillment of time in which we will be able to live in the ongoing revelation of beauty and love. It isn't fully here yet, but it is arriving. Maybe Emily Dickinson can help shed some light on this:

"Like lightning to the children eased / Through revelation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind"

Again, why am I a Christian? Because of love, and beauty, and forgiveness and reconciliation, because of love given towards enemies, because of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, and other the ultimate fulfillment of reconciliation between God and all of creation (us included):


Colossians 1:19-20: ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Jesus), ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
New International Version (NIV)

I am a Christian because I crave these outbursts of beauty. And though we may catch glimpses of them at seemingly random times in our lives, I have seen and experienced the most where Jesus is working and people are focused for real on him, and not on the church or the religion of Christianity.

*A quick note. I have heard it said many times that we all have a "God shaped hole" in us that can only be filled with God. I think that maybe this is part way to the truth, that people were created to love and experience what the biblical writers could only allude to as love, light, beauty, creation, fullness of life, forgiveness, sight to the blind, seeing the dead raised, singing new songs, healing the sick, etc. There is something incredibly powerful that seems to weave all these seemingly separate things together, and I believe -that- is what we long to know, and that is God. People will often talk of trying to fill this "God shaped hole" with other things, and how it never works. Again, I think this is partly true, but that what is really happening is we are trying to create beauty and love and all the things mentioned above on our own. Sometimes we are somewhat successful and sometimes we fail horribly. We might try to curb this aching with other things like drugs, hobbies, etc, but that ultimately leaves us still too empty. That is where I believe and have experienced that a relationship with God comes in and we start to understand how to work with God and his creative power to bring love into the world. Jesus talked about this as "The Kingdom of God, "Kingdom of Heaven", and as "Life in the fullest" or "Eternal Life".

One last thought: I am not suggesting we use God as a means to fulfilling our desire to see beauty and love, as a means to an end. I am suggesting that we join with God in becoming a means to a beginning.

I hope this helped give you a glimpse of insight into what drives my relationship with God. Let me know what you think in the comments.