Mark's MEssage

Second Thoughts – Monday Morning Reflections on Sunday’s Sermon

“Neighbors” - July 11, 2010
"True State of Independence" - July 4, 2010
“You Are What You Eat” - June 27, 2010
“Know Your Debt” - June 13, 2010
“Where’s the Fire?” - May 23, 2010
"God Chooses Us" - May 16, 2010
"Even the _____" - May 2, 2010
"Taking the Lord’s Name In Vain" - February 28, 2010
"What’s Our Story?" - February 21, 2010
"Extravagant Generosity" - February 15, 2010
"Snow Day" - February 7, 2010
"Intentional Faith Development" - January 24, 2010
"Passionate Worship" - January 18, 2010
"Radical Hospitality" - January 11, 2010
“Servants of the Mystery” - January 4, 2010
“Misplaced Confidence” - December 13, 2009
“Do We Want to Come Clean?” - December 6, 2009
“Why It Took the Wise Men So Long” / “Stable Stewardship”
"David 2.0" – November 22, 2009
"A Provocative Faith" - November 15, 2009
Organ & Tissue Donor Sunday - November 8, 2009
“Jesus Doesn’t Stop With the Saints” - November 1 ,2009
"Once and Done" - October 25, 2009
"The Lord’s Prayer" - October 18, 2009
“There is Only One Thing to Bring to the Throne” - October 11, 2009
"The Pioneer Age Isn’t Over" - October 5, 2009
“Smoothing the Way” - September 27, 2009

“Neighbors” - July 11, 2010

Luke 10:25-37
Amos 7:7-17

An expert in the law asks Jesus a question: “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Since the answer has to do with the law, you kind of wonder why the guy asked it in the first place – he must have known what the answer was. The Bible says he asked it to test Jesus, which is somewhat ambiguous. Maybe he was hoping that Jesus would give him a different answer than what the law said.

Because the answer from the law involves loving our neighbors and that’s kind of a broad statement. In fact, the expert in the law asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, who stops and helps the victim of a crime, after two other men pass by without helping.

The message of this parable is more than “help those in need.” The message is “in times of need, even your enemy is your neighbor.” And don’t forget the original question was about how to inherit eternal life. Eternal life is living fully in God’s presence. Jesus is saying in the parable that the first two men who passed by also passed by the opportunity to be fully in God’s presence because they didn’t stop to help. But the Samaritan, who risked his own life (robbers could have been lurking about), risked his own reputation (Samaritans and Jews were enemies so to be seen helping one wouldn’t have been all that great) and risked his own wallet (he promises to pay all of the injured man’s expenses) is living fully in God’s presence.

So when we want to determine whether we are getting closer to God, the secret isn’t to see how “holy” we are compared to our neighbors. The answer to that question lies in how much of ourselves are we risking to help our neighbors (and remember, there really isn’t any limit on who are neighbors are). Jesus risked everything for our eternal life: how much are we willing to risk?

"True State of Independence" - July 4, 2010

2 Kings 5:1-14
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

There are many things we are free to do in America and many things we are free from, and I am certainly thankful for those freedoms. But there is one thing that the U.S.A. cannot free me from and that is worry, because, as great as the U.S.A. is, it is still only a country. Its leaders and its laws have no more control over the future than my cat.

It is Jesus Christ who frees us from worry, and challenges us to accept that freedom, by turning our worries over to him.

In Luke chapter 10, Jesus sends out seventy (or seventy-two) believers to go out in pairs and proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom. Jesus is very clear that they shouldn’t bring a purse, a bag or extra shoes – they should just go with the clothes on their back. He understands what they must feel like for them: he says “I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” And with no choice but to trust that God would provide, these followers succeeded beyond their imagination in doing what Jesus had sent them to do.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, Jesus has the same expectation of you: Jesus has a calling for you. Too often we hear that calling, but we delay responding, because we feel we aren’t ready. But if we can put our complete faith in Jesus Christ, then we are as ready as those seventy(two) sent out by Jesus who accomplished great things.

In 2 Kings chapter 5, Naaman, a great Aramean general nearly refuses to do what Elisha, the prophet of God, asks of him, because it seems too simple. His servants basically say, “why not?” “Why couldn’t God just ask a simple thing of you?” Before we do what God asks of us, too often we make it more complex then it needs to be: “I can’t follow this calling until I learn more about this, or make myself better at that.” But Jesus makes it simple: “Trust me.”

The saying is true: “God doesn’t call the equipped. God equips the called.”

And we are all called by God.

“You Are What You Eat” - June 27, 2010

Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62

Pastor Mark’s movie pick of the week is Brad Bird’s “The Iron Giant.” In this movie a large metallic creature/machine crashes to earth, and suffers a concussion in landing, so he doesn’t know why he’s here. The boy who befriends him says he can be a superhero like Superman, while the government investigator is convinced he must be a dangerous weapon. The government investigator, acting out of his fear, calls for a nuclear bomb to be dropped, which will result in his own death as well. Fearful of his destruction by the Iron Giant, the man acts in a way that will bring out his own destruction.

This is something that is universally true that Paul is reminding the Galatians of when he says in Galatians 5:15,“If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” When our actions our motivated by fear or distrust, our actions will often bring about the result we fear. The Galatians are divided over church issues and no longer see their opponents as brothers and sisters in Christ, but instead see them as enemies who aren’t doing Gods work. In viewing them in that way, and in acting on those views, they are no longer acting a Christ-like manner themselves, and the result is no one is doing God’s work, and a bunch of good people are devoured by their fear and distrust.

We kill ourselves when we let fear and distrust fill our hearts, which is why we need the love of Christ to fill our hearts instead. As John says in his first letter “Perfect love casts out all fear.” If we can live Christ-like lives, with Christ in our hearts rather than fear, we will discover that instead of being eaten alive by our own fears, we will be consumed instead by God’s love for us.

Whenever we take exception to something Jesus said or did, and say that wouldn’t work for us, chances are we are acting of fear rather than love. Instead of acting out of fear that we might get hurt or someone might take advantage of us, we must act as Christ did, knowing that he would get hurt and would be taken advantage of, but also knowing that God would always be with him. We are called to build God’s kingdom, and too often we think that will be done by our being strong and keeping the upper hand, but didn’t Christ’s greatest work - his death and resurrection – come about when he trusted in God and loved the people around him, even though they would soon take advantage of him?

Near the end of “The Iron Giant” the giant is faced with a choice – whether or not to be the hero that the boy knows he can be, even though that will likely mean others will hurt him. We have the same choice: to live in a Christ-like manner as God desires us, even though that will mean sometimes we are hurt and taken advantage of, or strive to be the top dog in this dog eat dog world. One choice builds God’s kingdom, the other potentially consumes our own souls.

“Know Your Debt” - June 13, 2010

Luke 7:36-8:3

This parable that Jesus tells Simon the Pharisee in this passage from Luke always bothered me. Two debtors have their debts forgiven, and Jesus asks Simon which would love the creditor more. Simon says the one who owed more. Jesus says he’s correct, and later on Jesus says “But to the one whom little is forgiven, loves little.” (Luke 7:47)

To me that sounded like, if you were good, and didn’t commit a lot of sins, you weren’t as capable of love as a big-time sinner. That didn’t sound very fair!

But then I considered what the creditor did for the two debtors. Neither of the debtors could pay, so he wasn’t getting any money out of either of them. He could have taken some kind of legal action that would have punished each of them, but it wouldn’t have put any more money in his pocket. So, by cancelling both debts, since he wasn’t getting any more money from either of them anyway, there wasn’t really any difference between cancelling one or cancelling the other. Then looking at it from the debtor’s perspective: neither of them could pay, so the penalty for each would have been the same – debtor’s prison or the like, so when the creditor cancelled their debts they both avoided the same penalty.

If you didn’t quite follow all that, what I’m saying is, in reality the two debtors were forgiven the same amount: all of what they owed. And they avoided the same penalty. And it didn’t really cost the creditor any more to forgive one or the other. So they should have both loved the creditor equally.

So it is with us and our sins and God’s forgiveness. Whether we consider ourselves big sinners or little sinners, we are being forgiven equally – all our sins are forgiven. And it doesn’t cost God any more or any less based on what our sins are. So, we should all be equally loving of God, because in every case God has done something through Jesus Christ that we cannot do ourselves – bridge the gap between God and our imperfect selves. We shouldn’t feel guilty if we think we’ve sinned a lot, and we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking we’ve made things easier for God because we’ve sinned “a little”. We haven’t been forgiven a lot or a little – we’ve been forgiven of everything. Our debts are equal, and equally wiped away by God who loves us, and calls us to love the world in the same way.

“Where’s the Fire?” - May 23, 2010

Acts 2:1-21, John 14:8-17, 25-27

Do you secretly live in fear of the Holy Spirit, like I lived in fear? The Holy Spirit seems to like an element of chaos – wind, fire – that we can’t control.

Sometimes when we hear or read the story of Pentecost we get wrapped up in the images of tongues of fire and people speaking different languages all at once, and we kind of hope that never happens at our church. It seems like the sort of thing that would scare people away. But if we look closer (or listen closer) we see that the Holy Spirit does nothing except bring people closer.

It is the action of the Holy Spirit, particularly the speaking in different languages that draws the crowd in the first place. Yes, they were perplexed, amazed and confused, but they didn’t leave. They stayed to hear what Peter said, and after that, 3,000 people were added to the faith.

3,000 people! Even Jesus didn’t bring 3,000 people to faith in one day. Of course, that’s what Jesus had promised in John – that those who believed in him would do even greater things than he did.

You can read lots of discouraging trends about Christianity in America, about how our numbers are declining. If I could pin a major reason on why this has been the case, I would say it goes back to what I said at the start: fear – fear of losing control. Because of that fear we don’t pray wholeheartedly for the Holy Spirit to come upon us and our churches, and because our prayer isn’t wholehearted, the Spirit doesn’t come upon us in the way that it could.

Sure the Pentecost experience might have been confusing for the disciples, as the tongues as of fire appeared, and they all began speaking in different languages. But it isn’t about us – it’s about God and all of God’s children, and they could use a few more Pentecost experiences to draw them to the faith. So let us pray wholeheartedly: Come, Holy Spirit, Come.

"God Chooses Us" - May 16, 2010

Acts 1:1-11
Ephesias 1:15-23

As Christians, why is it that the thing we find most unbelievable is that God can use us to do great things?

Look at these disciples, gathered around as Jesus ascends into the heavens. Jesus has given them his final instructions: go to Jerusalem and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So, what do they do after Jesus departs? They stare up at the sky until a couple of angels snap them back to life. Jesus has just told them what to do, but instead of doing it, they linger, hoping that Jesus might just come back and do it himself.

If there is a common hypocrisy that us Christians are guilty of, I don’t think it’s pretending to be perfect when we’re not. I think it’s saying we believe God is so powerful, and then acting like God doesn’t have the power to use us. But as Paul says in Ephesians we receive as inheritance not only Jesus Christ’s heavenly riches, but also his earthly power. As Jesus says, those who do things in Jesus name will do greater things than even he did.

God chose you, and you have access to God’s power. You might look at your church/community/nation/world and want to just throw your hands up and say “take care of it, God.” But God placed you where you’re at so that you could be part of taking of “it.” God is very determined for us to be his partners in building the kingdom – I would even call God stubborn about it. If we were God, we might have given up on us, but God hasn’t. God chooses you, and God can use you. Your imperfections don’t outweigh God’s power.

"Even the _____" - May 2, 2010

Acts 11:1-18; John 13:31-35

As Christians, we should be in a perpetual identity – I don’t want to say crisis- conundrum. Who are we? What do we do as Christians to keep ourselves distinct from the world around us?

Unfortunately, we often to demonstrate our distinctiveness by putting up boundaries: rules and practices that keep us together, and keep others out. In the early church, that meant limiting inclusion to those who were already Jewish. Peter was on board with this, until his vision of the blanket descending with the different animals that he was prohibited from eating. It seems odd, I know, but from that vision, Peter understood that God was sending the Holy Spirit upon all people, and when the other leaders heard how the Holy Spirit was at work in the lives of Gentiles, they came to understand that as well.

Almost all of us should be thankful for that vision, because very few of us can trace our biological heritage back to the people of Israel: we could all be on the outside looking in, if it weren’t for that vision. On the other hand, Peter and the others shouldn’t have needed that vision to understand that Jesus wanted God’s message to go to all: he himself had spoken with, healed, and ate with people outside the faith.

So what makes us distinct, if it isn’t the rules we normally like to follow? What makes us distinct is the new commandment Jesus gives us in John 13:34: Love one another. This new command means for us to love as Jesus loved, without consideration of cost, without prerequisites. That’s not the way the world loves, and if we can love as Jesus did, we remain distinct from the world in a way that still builds God’s kingdom. Rules and such that essentially tell others to “Keep Out” don’t do anything to build God’s kingdom.

According to Jerome, a leader in the early church, when the Apostle John was quite old, he was invited on a regular basis to preach in the church at Ephesus. He had one message that he repeated over and over: “Little children, love one another, love one another, love one another.” When the leaders of the church grew tired of this simple message, they asked him why he kept preaching it. He replied. “It is the Lord’s command, and if it alone be done, it is enough.”

Are you concerned about maintaining your identity as a Christian? Love others. If that alone is done, it is enough.

(Material about Jerome’s account of the apostle John was found in The Thirteen Apostles by J. Ellsworth Kalas, published in 2002 by the Abingdon Press.

"Taking the Lord’s Name In Vain" - February 28, 2010

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 Luke 13:31-35

Our great challenge as human beings is to not let our fear of the future dictate our actions today. Our generosity is often impeded by our fear of what we might need for ourselves tomorrow. Our willingness to help others is often curbed by our worries of what resources we might need for ourselves. As Christians we profess to be believers in a generous God who has given us everything and will continue to meet our needs in the future, and yet our own actions often contradict that belief.

Abraham (Abram in his early days) struggled with this same challenge. God spoke with him, God was very present in his life, yet his fear for the future dictated his actions on more than one occasion. Twice, because he was afraid he might be harmed if he told the truth, he lied and said Sarah was his sister. These lies led to trouble for others. And even though God had promised him heirs, he and Sarah also took it upon themselves to arrange for him to have a son through Hagar. Now, even though Abraham was ultimately faithful to God and trusting in God, these times when he slipped up had negative consequences for him and others.

Jesus faced all the things we face as humans, including an uncertain future, and Jesus never let a fear for the future dictate his actions. This one time as he is teaching, some Pharisees warn him that Herod is seeking to kill him. Jesus responds that he is going to continue to do what God has called him to do. Jesus displays no fear for his future well-being, because he has put his trust in God. This is in sharp contrast to Herod, who is seeking to kill Jesus because he is afraid about his own future.

In responding to the Pharisees, Jesus laments over a Jerusalem that too often has been ruled by fear, and instead of staying under the protective wings of God by putting their faith in God, has gone its own way, and then expected God adjust to them. Jesus isn’t talking about Jerusalem: he’s talking about every tribe, nation, individual who has acted first out fear, rather than first out of faith. He is lamenting every prayer that has been instead of “thy will be done,” “make your will match my will” That prayer to the Lord is one prayed in vain.

"What’s Our Story?" - February 21, 2010

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

I always enjoyed history class when I was in school, but I never considered too much how our history affected our future. Obviously I had heard the saying “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it,” but I didn’t realize how our view of history affects our future. How we look at the past can shape our future actions.

When Moses is preparing the Israelites to enter the promised land, he gives them instructions about the offering they are supposed to bring, and the story they are supposed to tell as they bring the offering. The story is their story, from Jacob through to their entry into the promised land. It’s a story that could be told in many ways, so it is significant how Moses tells it. In Moses’ version, God takes center stage, God’s action is emphasized, God’s concern for the people is highlighted. Moses wants the people to keep their faith in God in the future, so he wants them to remember that God has always been with them in the past.

There is always more than one way we can tell the story of the events of our lives, and how we tell that story can affect what we do today or tomorrow. We all know people who don't do things or do the wrong things because how they view their own past. The version of our story that is meant to move us in the right direction is God's story - that's the version that begins not with us but with God, creating this world for us to partner with God, then sending his Son for us to redeem us from our missteps and mistakes. Then God gifted each of us in a unique way to help build the kingdom, and God has met our needs as we have done that building work. If we can look back and tell our story as God’s story, then we can have faith that God will be with us in the future, and we can more easily rely on God to lead us.

I think of this Bible passage as being one of Moses’ final gifts to the Israelites, and to us as well, a great reminder of all that God has done for us, and all that God desires to do for us as well.

"Extravagant Generosity" - February 15, 2010

2 Corinthians 9:6-11
Luke 21:1-4
Luke 12:13-21

Yesterday (thanks to the snow the weekend before) completed our 5 week series using Robert Schnase’s book Cultivating Fruitfulness. In some ways I think Extravagant Generosity is the practice that undergirds all the other practices we discussed. It is only when we give of ourselves beyond what social convention calls for that we can offer Radical Hospitality, or engage in Passionate Worship, or travel with others along the path to Intentional Faith Development, or practice Risk-Taking Mission and Service.

Extravagant Generosity can manifest itself in many ways. One way is tithing – giving ten percent back to God, as a sign of thankfulness for all that God has given you. Another way is in giving of our time and talent in ways that don’t benefit ourselves in some way. That can mean simply spending time with others who need companionship, or volunteering our skills for local needs or mission trips, or fixing a leaky faucet for a neighbor.

Extravagant Generosity is more than the basis for fruitfulness in our churches – it is also the basis for our creation and redemption. We were undeservedly put in the center of God’s creation, not because God owed us, or there was something good God could get from us, but we were put here because God wanted to share with us the joy of creation. And when we demonstrated how undeserving we were of this place, God sent his Son, God gave us his Son, for our sake, not for God’s sake. And then his Son, Jesus Christ, gave of himself beyond what he could ever receive in return, so that we might be saved.

At the heart of Extravagant Generosity is a determination to trust and a refusal to fear: based on all that God has given you, can’t you trust that God will continue to provide for you, if you are generous in His name? Based on the 100% of himself that Jesus Christ gave so that you might live, can’t you put aside your fear of tomorrow, and give all you can today?

"Snow Day" - February 7, 2010

2 Kings 5: 19b- 27
Revelation 1:9-18

As we were buried in all this snow on Saturday, I looked up the references to snow in the Bible. A lot of times, it is used as a comparison tool: things are described as being as white as snow. And what’s interesting is that sometimes it’s a good thing, and sometimes it’s a bad thing – but maybe that means always it’s a God thing?

In 2 Kings, when Elisha heals Naaman of his leprosy, Gehazi tries to profit from it, and is afflicted with leprosy himself, and is described as being as white as snow. On the other hand, at the start of John’s Revelation, he sees the Son of Man, who hair and beard are as white as snow. And then there’s Moses’ hand.

When Moses tells God he’s not sure if people will believe he’s speaking for God, God gives him three signs that he can perform to show that he has God with him. One of those signs is when he puts his hand inside his cloak and pulls it out, it is covered in leprosy – as white as snow – and when he puts it back and pulls it out, it’s fine again.

So is snow a sign of purity and power, or a sign of cursedness? Maybe, it’s like most things from God, a mixed blessing. It is shoveling and scraping, yes, but it’s also sledding and snowmen. It often forces us to change our plans, but sometimes our plans need changing. It can keep us stuck at home, but sometimes that’s the only time we see our neighbors. Snow is (as our kids already know) what you make of it. It is a gift from God that we need to sometimes work at receiving gracefully.

The snow, in this case, meant the postponement of my sermon on Extravagant Generosity until next Sunday. I hope you’ll join us!

"Intentional Faith Development" - January 24, 2010

Acts 2:42-47
Matthew 11: 25-30

Before it was my job to be a church leader, I was a little more passive when it came to people who said they were “spiritual, but not religious” or they “believed in God, but didn’t like/trust organized religion.” After all, Jesus never says church attendance or membership is required for entry into heaven – in fact, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, it seems that people who didn’t even know Jesus will get into heaven, provided they lived compassionate lives.

But even if they aren’t damned for all eternity, people who resist being an active part of a church (attending worship, being part of a small group or Sunday school class and so forth) might be making their own present or future a little more difficult. Because without the church, without some group that you can worship with and build your faith with, you are quite likely not working your hardest on those greatest commandments of God, to love God and love your neighbor. And if you haven’t been working on loving your neighbor, in your hour of need you might find yourself without the resources to get you through those difficult times.

It is my experience and observation that those who have the most peace through difficult circumstances, even as they experience, pain, sorrow and even suffering, are those who can lean on Jesus the hardest, and those who can lean on Jesus the hardest, are usually those active Christians who have experience looking for (and finding) Jesus in the good times.

The church is a blessing from God, and like most blessings of God’s it’s actually a mixed blessing (“Good news, Moses, you get to lead my people! Of, course they’re going to be a pain in your butt for the next 40 years.”). It’s a place where you will make lifelong friends, but also a place where other people will drive you up the wall. But Jesus wants us to both love our neighbors and our enemies, and in church we can get great practice at both. Every day in our church community we are encouraged to see Christ in one another, and the blessing of that is, when we need Christ the most, we have a lot of practice in finding him. In a time of pain or need, how easily does the “spiritual but not religious” person find Christ to comfort them? For the active Christian, they know Christ is all around them, because they’ve worked alongside him in the kitchen, studied the Bible with him on Monday mornings, and sat down the pew from him Sundays.

Are you weary and heavy-laden by life? The answer is in Jesus Christ, and in doing the work that he commissioned his church to do.

"Passionate Worship" - January 18, 2010

Exodus 15: 1-21

Exodus chapter 15 describes one of the first communal worship experiences in the Bible. Prior to this there have been individual acts of worship and familial acts of worship, but now the people of Israel have finally been freed from bondage and are free to worship together.

And from the start, there is more than one style of worship in evidence. We have the Song of Moses, and the Song of Miriam. The Song of Moses praises God and recounts all that God has done to free the Israelites and the only description of how it is sung is that it is sung by Moses and the Israelites. The Song of Miriam is much shorter – it is essentially the first line of Moses’ song (and we don’t know who borrowed it from whom) – and it is sung by the women, accompanied by dancing and tambourines.

The two songs model two of the more typical styles of songs that are sung in worship today. The Song of Moses, with its recounting of the acts of God, is much like what we would call a traditional hymn, with several verses telling a story. The Song of Miriam, with its repetition, with the incorporation of physical movement is much like a praise song.

To me the message of this scripture is clear: there is no one right way to praise God. From the start, people have found more than one way to express their love for God in worship, and these ways have been acceptable to God, because of the element they hold in common: Passion.

We are in worship to please God because we want to please God, not because we have to please God. Worship is not an obligation to prove our love to God, but an opportunity to demonstrate our love for God. And just as there are many ways that we can demonstrate love for the people in our lives and all have at their root our passion for that person, there are many ways we can express our love for God and all should have at their root passion for God.

When you just go through the motions in worship, or grumble about the songs, God isn’t enjoying your worship any more than you are. So keep it real, keep it passionate, even if it isn’t your favorite hymn. As I heard a radio preacher once say, church should be God-glorifying, not man-satisfying.

Radical Hospitality - January 11, 2010

Romans 15:1-17
Matthew 25:31-46
Cultivating Fruitfulness and Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations by Robert Schnase

My dad was an auto mechanic, and we used to have a comic on the refrigerator. It showed a mechanic talking to a shocked customer. In the background two other mechanics were clearly making a mess of things under the hood of the man’s car. The caption is the mechanic saying “We said we were honest and hard-working. We didn’t say we knew what we were doing.”

I know some people see the word “hospitality” and make the leap to “friendly,” but to me friendly is to hospitality as a shrub is to a forest. Hospitality is way more than a smile and a wave. Jesus practiced hospitality, not friendliness.

If Jesus practiced hospitality, then hospitality is a lot different than we usually think of it – because Jesus didn’t have a home or business or church to be hospitable in. Hospitality was a personal attitude and practice of Jesus Christ, that we are called to practice as well.

Jesus practiced Radical Hospitality, based on the 2 definitions of radical that Robert Schnase cites in his work. Jesus shared the love of God in a way that it was clear to others that the love was coming from God, and he shared that love in ways out of the ordinary, against convention. Think of all the meals that Jesus shared with people of all walks of life, people who normally wouldn’t be together.

Bishop Schnase has five practices that he says fruitful churches focus on. I think he starts with radical hospitality, because it is a key building block: before anything else, people need to feel welcomed and loved. That is how Jesus started with people – not by yelling at them, or pointing out their deficiencies, but by loving them, and letting them know they mattered.

So if we want to build God’s kingdom, if we want “customers’ to come back, let’s focus on what really matters, than rather what is easiest. Let’s push ourselves from a wave to a handshake, let’s stretch from a smile to an invitation to sit with us a while. Let’s share God’s love like Jesus did (don’t worry, we can’t run out) and let people know they matter, like Jesus did.

“Servants of the Mystery” - January 4, 2010

Ephesians 3:1-12

Matthew 2:1-12

When Paul refers to the mystery that has been revealed to him, it’s not as mysterious as you might think. For Paul (and others of his time), a mystery could be a piece of knowledge made known through divine revelation, and the particular mystery that he is speaking of is the desire of God to build a community that includes both Jews and Gentiles. While there was a desire among many of the early church leaders to restrict participation in this new movement to Jewish people only (since Jesus was Jewish, as were all the disciples), it was (and is) the desire of God not only to include all people in God’s kingdom, but to include all people in kingdom-building.

We, the church, are always struggling with finding the balance between adhering to core beliefs and practices that we believe define our faith and not becoming exclusionary. Too often we lean toward exclusivity: People are either insiders or outsiders. People are welcomed if they appear to be like us, and merely tolerated if they are different (with the hope that they will eventually change to be like us).

But if we, like Paul, are recipients of God’s grace, then we, like Paul, must be servants of the mystery, working together with people both like and unlike ourselves to build God’s kingdom.

God’s blessings have never been exclusive to any one group. The first people to be made aware of the birth of Jesus were shepherds and Persian astrologers. We in the church have no claim to all the gifts that God has to share, so we in the church must be always looking outward to build Gods kingdom, not by building higher walls around ourselves, but building more bridges to the people who have yet to join.

“Misplaced Confidence” - December 13, 2009

Luke 3:7-18

When John the Baptizer appears on the banks of the Jordan River, he’s kickin’ it old school. He’s warning the people of their imminent destruction because they aren’t bearing good fruit, and telling them they must repent for their many sins. He could have walked right out of the pages of the Old Testament. When the people ask what they should do, he says those with 2 coats should give away one, those with plenty of food should share, tax collectors should collect only what they’re supposed to, and soldiers should stop extorting money.

What John never says is, “believe in Jesus.”

In Matthew 7:21 Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (NIV)

John certainly wants the crowds (and us) to believe in Jesus Christ, but he also wants us to live our lives like we believe it, too. A fig tree isn’t a fig tree because it says so. A fig tree is a fig tree because it produces figs. A Christian isn’t a Christian because they say so. A Christian is a Christian if they are producing the fruits of the Spirit.

So, what’s Jesus for, if we have to do the work anyway? Jesus is for all the times that we aren’t fruitful. In Luke 13, Jesus talks about his power to intercede on our behalf in the parable of the unfruitful fig tree. When, by rights, the axe is at the root of our tree, because we have been unfruitful, Jesus, the good gardener steps in and says, “Let me try again to help them be fruitful.”

So, be fruitful: be loving, joyful, a peacemaker, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and under control, and know that Jesus Christ is there for you when you are out of season.

“Do We Want to Come Clean?” - December 6, 2009

Malachi 3:1-4

In the second or third week of Advent, we often have scripture readings related to the ministry of John the Baptizer, who challenged people to repent and be forgiven of their sins, as he baptized in the Jordan River.

I wonder how many people came to the river, but didn’t step in – how many people wanted to be cleansed but not in the way John wanted them to be cleansed. Because John was talking about a cleansing that Malachi was talking about: cleansing through fire. Repentance isn’t just about saying we’re sorry for how we have acted, but it is expressing a desire to change, and sometimes what we are asking of God is to refine us like a piece of silver; to burn away our impurities. That’s a more extreme cleansing than we’re used to, and that is why I’m sure a lot of people in the crowds that John the Baptizer attracted never dipped a toe in the Jordan. It’s why so many of us avoid the cleansing of repentance. We think it’s easier to live with our bad behavior, our sinfulness, that it is too much a part of who we are, and the cleansing that God requires is just too painful. The psalmist says “create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me” but we count the imagined cost, and we decline to offer ourselves fully to God.

But what of the cost of not doing it? Count the cost of the broken relationships that can’t be mended because of the work we won’t do. Count the cost of the time and energy we spend trying to hide our sins from others, rather than confessing them to God and removing them from our lives. Count the cost of letting the world dictate to us the limits of our worth and goodness, instead of letting God refine away the impurities.

What we imagine the high cost of cleansing is, the way our lives might change and the difficulty of living in a new way, is nothing compared to the cost of our sins when we refuse to repent. So let us heed the words of John the Baptizer, let us be refined as Malachi says we can be, and let the psalmist’s prayer be ours: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

“Why It Took the Wise Men So Long” / “Stable Stewardship” - November 29, 2009

We celebrated The First Sunday of Advent and Stewardship Sunday yesterday, looking at two familiar pieces of the Christmas story from a stewardship perspective. What if, when the magi saw the star, they had offered the same excuses we so often offer when God presents us with an opportunity to do something for Him? What if the animals in the stable were capable of worrying about tomorrow, like we are?

We often hear the word stewardship and think it’s about money. And even if we know that stewardship means making use of all the gifts that we’ve been given, we figure the word is being used to get us to do more work for the church or some other organization.

It’s an obvious truth that the church needs people to give of their time, talents, and money to survive, but people overlook the blessings that come from being people who give of themselves.

It was in giving of their time and their money that the magi were blessed to see Jesus. It is in giving of our time and our talents and our money that we, too, are blessed to see Jesus – in those who worship alongside us, in those who labor with us in the church, and in those that the church serves. The saying goes “It’s better to give than receive.” I think it’s best to give and receive. And that is what happens when we give back to God: we receive the presence of God more fully in our lives.

As you prepare for Christmas, as you make your lists, make sure you are giving as best you can to God. Good stewardship blesses not only the recipients of the bounty, not only the original creator of those gifts, but the giver as well.

David 2.0 – November 22, 2009

Last week I challenged people to consider how they would tell their own “before and after” story in 100 words or less. And I said that the next thing we needed to be able to do is tell God’s story in an equally brief and compelling fashion.

Is it possible to boil down the story of God into something so pithy, for someone who doesn’t already believe? I once heard Bishop Hope Morgan Ward sum up the entire book of Revelation in two words: “God Wins.” So, maybe it’s possible. But whether it’s possible or not, what I think we all need to know is not the one “God Story” but several stories of God.

Why does the Bible contain so many books? Why are there four accounts of Jesus’ life? Because our eternal God has more facets than we can imagine, and different aspects of God need to be paid attention to at different times. When the time comes when someone asks us to tell them more about Jesus Christ and God, we want to be ready with the story that’s right for them and their circumstances.

Yesterday was Christ the King Sunday, so the story of God we might draw from yesterday’s readings might relate to the rulers of this world: Maybe you know someone who has difficulty believing in God because of the deficiencies of the people who has power in this world. But the story of God is that God uses even imperfect people (such as David) to do great things, and that even corrupt people (like Pilate) can be used by God to get at the truth. And ultimately, we have the assurance that we don’t follow any human leader, but the Son of God, whose kingdom isn’t of this world.

Next Sunday begins the season of Advent, a season of preparation. As we approach Christmas, I hope you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you this season to make a gift of yourself to a neighbor who doesn’t yet have the relationship with Jesus Christ that you do. There is no greater blessing that God gave the world than his son, and there is no greater blessing for us as Christians than the opportunity to share that Good News with another.

A Provocative Faith - November 15, 2009

I spent the first half of my life believing the wrong thing about God. I thought that a relationship with God was supposed to revolve around doing all the right things, and measuring up to what God expected of me. But then through Jesus Christ I understood that I’m already good enough to partner with God, because God knows me, understands me, and loves me. And knowing that God loves me for who I am has made it easier for me to love others and love life in the way that I believe God desires us all to.

That’s my “before and after” story. Can you tell yours that briefly? You might want to work on it, because you might need to as you become the evangelist that God is calling you to be.

The writer of Hebrews challenges us to consider how we might “provoke one another to love and good deeds” and Jesus calls us all to carry out the great commission, to make disciples. It means not only living a life of love, but sharing a life of love. I talked a couple weeks ago about how we start to share that life, by as Bill Hybels calls it, “Living in 3D”: we Develop Relationships with people outside our cozy circle, Discover Stories of these people we befriend, and Discern Next Steps and consider what the Holy Spirit is calling us to do. And at some point that next step might be answering the question: What has Jesus Christ done for you?

If you think about your story of how Jesus Christ has impacted your life as a meal, when a person asks you the first time about your faith, you just want to serve them an appetizer. So in a hundred words or less, put together your story: how you were before Jesus Christ, and how you are now that Jesus is a part of your life. If you need help putting it together – e-mail me and we’ll work on it together.

We are each a part of the body of Christ, we are each living stones that build up God’s church. We each have a story that is too important to God to keep to ourselves. So, what’s your story?

Organ & Tissue Donor Sunday - November 8, 2009

Reverend Carlene Fretz preached this weekend on organ and tissue donation. She pointed out that tissue donation is part of the one version of creation in Genesis, where God uses one of Adam’s ribs to create the first woman. There is, it seems, a lengthy precedent for God blessing the giving of parts of ourselves for others.

So maybe we feel comfortable with the idea of giving our organs and tissue at the time of our death, when we can longer use them. Maybe we can even picture having the courage to donate a kidney or part of our liver while we are still living. But, Paul asks us: can we picture giving up our life for another? Not so easy to picture, is it? And while maybe we think we could make that sacrifice for someone we loved, could we do it for a stranger, for someone who might not even appreciate the gift?

That is what Jesus Christ did for you and me: the greatest gift of life given since God first created the world. All of his tissue, all of his organs, all of him, given to save our lives from slavery to sin and death. Knowing that Jesus did all that for us in the prime of his life should encourage us to make the decision now to allow the donation of our organs and tissue when we can no longer use them. In that way we can be as Christ-like as we can in both our living and our dying.

“Jesus Doesn’t Stop With the Saints” - November 1 ,2009

Isaiah 25:6-9
Revelation 21:1-6a

I think the problem we have sometimes as Christians is that we’ve fallen so in love with Jesus for what he’s done for us, that we don’t listen very closely to what he’s asking us to do for him. We emphasize God’s grace for us, and de-emphasize our responsibility as Christians to God.

One of those responsibilities is evangelism – the dreaded e-word.

First a confession – I spent a lot of years thinking this could be someone else’s responsibility while I focused on other things in the life of the church, but that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Evangelism isn’t one of those tasks that is meant to be delegated: we are all called to share the Good News.

This summer I read Bill Hybels’ book on evangelism Just Walk Across the Room, and it laid out some very clear steps to becoming an evangelist that even I could follow, and I will be sharing some of them every other week for the next several weeks. The first step is prayer. Pray to God to make you aware and open to the opportunities that God puts before you. You can’t reap the harvest if you don’t realize when you’re hip deep in the wheat!

Then Pastor Hybels encourages us to “Live in 3-D.” We are to Develop Relationships, Discover Stories, and Discern Next Steps.

Develop Relationships: This means get to know people outside your church circle. Get to know your unchurched neighbor, your agnostic co-worker, the mom who is always picking her kid up from day care when you are.

Discover Stories: Before you ever tell them the story of Jesus Christ and what he means to you, you need to know their story. Treat them as Jesus would, as a person with unique gifts and value, not as a recruiting target for God.

Discern Next Steps: Listen for how the Holy Spirit is prompting you to respond to this person. It may be in what seems to be a small way, like running an errand for them, or simply listening, or it might be bigger, like sharing your own faith story, or even the story of Jesus. Not sure how to do that yet? We’ll talk more about that in coming weeks.

As evangelists, we don’t need to change the world – Jesus Christ already did that. We just need to expand our horizons so that our lives intersect in a meaningful way with people who don’t yet know Christ, and then trust that God will use us and our unique gifts as only God can. Sometimes all we need to do as evangelists is walk across the room.

"Once and Done" - October 25, 2009

Hebrews 7:23-28 (Jesus Christ, the High Priest, sacrificed once for all)
Mark 10: 46-52 (Bartimaeus asks for, and receives his sight)

I’m sure a lot of you reading this have either read or heard the story about how a Nordstrom’s store in Washington state so prided themselves on customer service that they allowed a customer to return the tires she bought for her car – even though Nordstrom’s doesn’t even sell tires! That’s not the sort of thing we experience as a customer very often is it? Usually when we go to take advantage of the warranty on something we’ve purchased, we discover a million little loopholes that usually equal more money out of our pocket. I no longer expect perfection out of the things I buy, because I know the people who made them aren’t perfect, and I certainly know the person using them isn’t perfect either. There will be a moment (or two, or two hundred) somewhere along the way where things won’t go perfectly.

So it was in the system of sacrifices prescribed by Moses. The purpose of the sacrifices (not the offerings) was to restore people or the community to wholeness with God when they had fallen short. However, the sacrifices could never be guaranteed to be perfect, because it was imperfect people bringing them to the temple, and imperfect priests making the sacrifices, which is why they needed to be offered again and again.

Jesus Christ, however, is perfect, so he was the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice, and when he sacrificed himself on our behalf, it was once and done, because there is no improving on perfection.

So there are no loopholes in the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us. We are freed from the obligation to live sacrificially…

…but we are still called to live that way. The difference is now we can do it as we feel led (out of thanksgiving) rather than where we feel pushed (out of obligation). God still desires the sacrifices we can make on his behalf – but it is our choice. So where do you feel led? Could you sacrifice a bit of your precious time to volunteer at your church or in your community? Could you sacrifice lunch at your favorite restaurant to give a little more of your money? Could you sacrifice a bit of your pride by hanging out with one of those folks you secretly think you’re too good for? The choice is yours. The freedom to choose is a gift from Jesus Christ.

"The Lord’s Prayer" - October 18, 2009

This past Sunday was Laity Sunday (Laity means the people, as opposed to the clergy, like myself), and our Lay Leader preached a very fine sermon on prayer. One of her scriptures for the sermon was Matthew 6:5-15, where Jesus instructs the disciples on how to pray.

We had some joking conversations about the power of prayer a week and a half ago, when it started raining during the Harvest Fair, and everyone wanted to know what I was going to do about it. But in hearing Denise’s sermon on Sunday, I was reminded of the one of the underappreciated powers of prayer – what it can do for the one praying while they are praying.

My job, like most, has its stresses, and can leave me with things weighing on my heart and mind. And recently I found myself going to bed and waking up with my anxieties, and in some ways they were becoming my idols (the idols we “worship” aren’t always things we like). I was neglecting to bring them to God in prayer. Once I did, in the model that Jesus taught us, I experienced the power of prayer: not that the things I was anxious about were magically fixed, but my anxiety was taken away. The power of prayer, when we do it as Jesus taught us, is that it takes us out of the pain of our past, pulls us back from our worries about the future, and leaves us fully present with God, where God’s kingdom has come and God’s will is done. And if we can live prayerfully, we can harness the power of those moments to do some kingdom building ourselves.

I don’t know if prayer always fixes things, but it can fix us, if we do it as Jesus taught us. It can fix us by taking us to the place of perfection, which is in the presence of God. And once our broken selves are made whole, we are called, like Jesus, to go back into the world and bring the Kingdom of God with us.

“There is Only One Thing to Bring to the Throne”

Hebrews 4:12-16 (We have a great high priest (Jesus Christ) who went before us, so let us approach the throne with boldness)
Mark 10:17-31 (the rich young man comes to Jesus and asks: “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”)

I’m staring at a checklist of forms required for the end of the year, and thinking how much easier it would be if God had a checklist for us, and that was all we had to follow to get by with life. But the writer of Hebrews says “the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow…” (Hebrews 4:12 NIV).

The word of God separates us from the words of the world, separates us from what we think really matters. The rich young man who visits Jesus in chapter 10 of Mark’s gospel is apparently a pretty religious person, who follows all of the commandments. But Jesus, the living Word of God, tells him he needs to separate from his possessions. The young man leaves disappointed because he has a lot of stuff, apparently.

Jesus says “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:23 NIV), and while you might not think so, but chances are if you’re reading this you’re pretty rich. If you can afford internet access, if you have a roof over your head, some money in the bank, and some in your wallet – you’re probably in the top 10 percent of the world’s population by wealth. Thinking about that, we don’t feel so superior to the rich young man any more, do we? But do we really have too much stuff to enter the kingdom of God?

Depends on why we have what we have, and what we think about what we have. The kingdom of God is a place where God reigns, and where we are fully connected with God – which means we can be living in the kingdom right now if we let ourselves get fully connected. And this is where our things can get in the way. If we have them, because we think we need them to survive, then we’re not fully connected with God, which is what we really need. We’re not enjoying the kingdom life we could be right now, because we putting too much faith in our possessions to protect us.

It’s like the little kid in “A Christmas Story,” so bundled up for the snow that he can’t move his arms, or get up when he falls down. He’s over-insulated against life, and can’t enjoy it. If we want to live in God’s kingdom now, and be fully connected with God, we have to fear this world a little less, and take off a few more layers – whether that is actual possessions, a job we hate but we won’t leave because we think we need the money, or just our fearful mindset.

We should be good stewards of the gifts God gives us, but not make those gifts (employment, food, shelter, internet, etc.) little gods that we put our faith in. The only thing we need is faith in God’s grace.

The Pioneer Age Isn’t Over - October 5, 2009

Job 1:1, 2:1-10 (Job gets tormented by Satan)
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12 (Giving thanks for Jesus being made “a little lower than the angels” so that we might be saved)

If I had lived 300 years ago, I’d be dead by now.

I don’t mean that I’d be 300 years old, and obviously deceased. I mean that I wouldn’t have made it to nearly forty, if I had lived in the early 1700’s. I’m not a farmer, nor a hunter, and I’m not terribly handy with tools, either. Add all those (lack of) skills together, and RIP Mark Terry.

But just because I wasn’t capable of doing all those things, and just because somebody else did clear the land, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things I can do to help improve my country. And just because someone else did a lot of hard work, doesn’t mean I should expect everything to be super easy for me. I might not be a Pioneer with a capital P, but I can still be a pioneer in other ways.

In Hebrews 2:10, the writer calls Jesus Christ the author or pioneer of our salvation. As pioneer Jesus did all the groundbreaking work that makes it possible for you and I to be saved. But just as there is still a lot of work that needs to be done in our country to get things right for everyone, even though the pioneers of this nation did the hard work that, let’s be honest, a lot of us couldn’t have done, there is a lot of work for us to do as followers of Jesus Christ. There is plenty of ground to be cleared of pain, sin, evil and planted with the love of Jesus Christ, and we are supposed to be the pioneers to do it. We have no right to expect to not endure the same hardships because we are followers of Christ – even more so, we should expect to not only endure the hardships that everyone endures, but the extra ones that come from following Christ – being out of step with “Rome,” the criticism from others that don’t understand, people taking our time up, occasionally feeling abandoned by this God we believe in.

If we want to try and rest, and tell God our pioneering days are over, that things need to be easy now, we can, but we shouldn’t expect too much ease. Paul said the Christian life was like running a race, not like running a race and then sitting in the stands. Real rest comes in laboring with Christ, when we allow him to lift our hands and feet in service to God. No matter our age or station, there fields we can still plow for the Lord. The pioneer age isn’t over, until the age of the Second Coming has begun.

“Smoothing the Way” - September 27, 2009

James 5:13-20 (the importance of community to the individual)
Mark 9:38-50 (the disciples try to stop a man casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and Jesus warns against being a stumbling block)

Who were (or are) some of your favorite teachers? What made them your favorites? A lot of times it’s because they fostered a love for learning or a love for the subject matter. I play the saxophone, and I think one of the reasons I still play is because of Mr. Ventrelli and Rich Falco. They are teachers I had at different times in my younger days, but they had couple of things in common. They were both very talented musicians, and very good teachers, and sometimes it’s hard to be both. It would have been very tempting for either of them to spend their time showing off for their students, or making their students into versions of them, but instead they were both very patient and let their students explore music at their own pace and in their own way, so they might be lifelong lovers of music, and not just players of music for the time that they took lessons.

As Christians, we are supposed to be teaching others about the faith and sometimes we take that to mean we have to teach them everything we know right away, and make sure they understand and practice their faith like we do – try and teach them Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony all at once, and stop them every other note to point out what they’re doing wrong. We think we’re going to get in trouble with God, if we don’t pass along all our instructions right away. We love God so much, that we think everyone’s relationship with God has to follow the same path. That’s why the disciples try and stop the man from healing people – he’s not part of the inner circle, so there can’t be anything right about what he’s doing.

But Jesus says they’re wrong, and that they have potentially put a stumbling block in front some on their faith journey. Instruction and correction is fine, but when the instructor, the corrector, turns off their students to the faith, it would be better for them to have a huge stone hung around their neck and be throne into the sea. Our job is not to make sure that every note is correct, but to encourage everyone to sing the same song, joyfully.

In Jesus’ absence we are shepherds meant to bring the sheep into the fold – both those new to the faith and those who have fallen away. Let’s do it by demonstrating love, patience and grace first, as Jesus Christ did. We have plenty of time to work on the details after that.