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Sunday after Pentecost: A JOURNEY BEGINS BY KNOWING WHERE WE ARE

5/26/2013

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, 10-13 (New Century Version)

A Letter to the Captives in Babylon

This is the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the elders who were among the captives, the priests, and the prophets. He sent it to all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had taken as captives from Jerusalem to Babylon.....

This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says to all those people I sent away from Jerusalem as captives to Babylon: “Build houses and settle in the land. Plant gardens and eat the food they grow. Get married and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons, and let your daughters be married so they also may have sons and daughters. Have many children in Babylon; don’t become fewer in number. Also do good things for the city where I sent you as captives. Pray to the Lord for the city where you are living, because if good things happen in the city, good things will happen to you also.”.....

This is what the Lord says: “I will come to you, and I will keep my promise to bring you back to Jerusalem. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then you will call my name. You will come to me and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will search for me. And when you search for me with all your heart, you will find me!”

Today's sermon was a Congregational Discussion sermon. We are embarking on a process of re-visioning ourselves. We are a small but passionate congregation which has found itself, like many churches in recent years, spending more and more of our time, energy, and funds maintaining a building which is too large for our needs. We have come to believe that this is distracting us from the work God is calling us to do, which is to be, in some way, out in our wider community, serving the needs of God's people. We do not know what form that ministry will take but we are praying and listening and talking together. Today is only the first of several such conversations -- but one thing is clear already: Whatever we do, wherever we go we will do it together, with God's help.

These are the questions we used as conversation starters. I quite frankly stole them from the Hope/Mission Pathways webpage:

1. What is God up to in the world?

2. What does our congregation have that God can use?

3. Who is our neighbor?

4. If we are faithful to God, how will our community look different?

5. What are we called to initiate and what are we called to give up?

We will continue the conversation next week.

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Pentecost Sunday: THE HELPER

5/19/2013

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John 14:8-17, 25-27 (New Life Version)

Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father. That is all we ask.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time and you do not know Me yet? Whoever has seen Me, has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in Me? What I say to you, I do not say by My own power. The Father Who lives in Me does His work through Me.

“Believe Me that I am in the Father and that the Father is in Me. Or else believe Me because of the things I do. For sure, I tell you, whoever puts his trust in Me can do the things I am doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, I will do it so the shining-greatness of the Father may be seen in the Son. Yes, if you ask anything in My name, I will do it.

“If you love Me, you will do what I say. Then I will ask My Father and He will give you another Helper. He will be with you forever. He is the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot receive Him. It does not see Him or know Him. You know Him because He lives with you and will be in you.

“THE HELPER”

Today is Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is the Greek name for a Jewish harvest festival commemorating God’s giving of the 10 Commandments to Moses and the Hebrew people. The Jewish feast – Shavout – takes place 50 days after Passover – hence the pente (meaning fifty) in the Greek name. Since Passover and Easter coincide – Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection taking place as they did during Passover -- our Christian celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit 50 days after Easter also bears the name Pentecost.

We all pretty much know the story of the first Christian version of Pentecost. Jews from all over the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world – people speaking many different languages – were gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of Shavout. Peter and some of the other Christians were taking advantage of their gathering to do some preaching – telling the Good News of the risen Christ – when suddenly a wind came up and flames appeared and all that gathering of foreigners began to hear Peter and the others speaking to them in their own native languages – not to mention the bit of comic relief when they were accused of being drunk at nine in the morning!

It’s a heck of a story – so much color and drama it can’t help but make an impression on us. But you probably have noticed that it is not the reading I chose for today. It’s such a dramatic story ... but God’s Spirit did not come among us just for this one dramatic moment, and I think sometimes we get lost in the spectacle and the miracles and we lose sight of why the Spirit was sent to live in and with us.

All throughout scripture the Holy Spirit is known by many names: Comforter / Counselor / Advocate / Teacher / Intercessor / Witness. In the Old Testament the Spirit is associated with Sophia or Wisdom. The Spirit is the Breath of Life or Ruach that breathed out over the waters of chaos at the moment of creation. But in the reading I chose for today, Jesus has another name for this spirit: “the Helper.”

I will ask My Father and He will give you another Helper. He will be with you forever. He is the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot receive Him. It does not see Him or know Him. You will know Him because He lives with you and will be in you......The Helper is the Holy Spirit. The Father will send Him in My place and he will teach you everything and help you remember everything I have told you.

He will teach us -- and obviously Helpers are here to help. He will help us do what? Well, Jesus has the answer to that, as well: I tell you, whoever puts his trust in Me can do the things I am doing. He will do even greater things than these...with “the Helper” helping.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I find that statement to be both exhilarating and terrifying. I am supposed to do even greater things than Jesus did? And then we get the real kicker: If you love Me, you will do what I say. So – first we are told to do impossible things – and then we get the emotional blackmail to make sure we don’t try to back out – If you love me, you’ll do this.

Now, again, I don’t know about you but I am entirely clear that Cherie Marckx cannot do such things. Most assuredly I cannot do them alone. And that, in a nutshell, is exactly what Pentecost is all about. That is why the Holy Spirit has come to live within and about us here and now. It’s not about the spectacle, and it’s not about flames on our heads or speaking in tongues. It is simply that we have work to do here – work that is impossible for us to manage on our own – crazy stuff like building the Reign of God, feeding the hungry and nurturing the sick, fighting for justice for everyone, not just the rich and powerful -- and so Jesus has left us the gift of his own Spirit to be with us and enable us to do the work God calls us to do – the work that Jesus began and left unfinished so that we have been called to finish it for him.

And, if you will recall, Jesus himself did not embark on his ministry in the world before seeking the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit. It was at his first public appearance, his baptism in the Jordan at the hands of his cousin John, that “a form like a dove” descended upon him and a voice from heaven blessed him. Only with that blessing did he begin to preach and teach around Galilee. Repeatedly Jesus spoke about emptying himself so that the Spirit of the one he called Father could fill him and work through him. “Not I, but the Spirit working through me.” Even in our reading today, Jesus says: What I say to you, I do not say by My own power. The Father Who lives in Me does His work through Me.

If even Jesus recognized his need for this in-filling, why should we find it odd to be called to empty ourselves and let God’s own Spirit come in? And if we let that Spirit work in us, why should we doubt that we, too, can do great things? Not things for ourselves but the work of God’s church -- reaching out to all God’s people – not just singing and praying – but serving and building and teaching and feeding and loving. Serving the God who lives in all who share this world with us.

We have no idea what we can do with the Spirit of God working in us until we actually allow it to happen. Are we willing? Come, Holy Spirit, and fill the hearts of your faithful. Guide our hands and tongues and hearts in your love and your service, always. Amen.

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Easter 7: May They All Be As One

5/12/2013

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John 17:20-26 (New Life Version)
“I do not pray for these followers only. I pray for those who will put their trust in Me through the teaching they have heard. May they all be as one, Father, as You are in Me and I am in You. May they belong to Us. Then the world will believe that You sent Me. I gave them the honor You gave Me that they may be one as We are One. I am in them and You are in Me so they may be one and be made perfect. Then the world may know that You sent Me and that You love them as You love Me.
“Father, I want My followers You gave Me to be with Me where I am. Then they may see My shining-greatness which You gave Me because You loved Me before the world was made. Holy Father, the world has not known You. I have known You. These have known You sent Me. I have made Your name known to them and will make it known. So then the love You have for Me may be in them and I may be in them.”

“MAY THEY ALL BE AS ONE”

A couple of weeks ago we heard the story of St. Peter’s vision of the sheet being lowered before him – a sheet filled with animals of all sorts, clean and unclean – and a voice, saying “Take, Peter, and eat.” As we looked into that reading we found that, in the symbolic language of scripture, it was telling us that Jesus’ message of invitation was meant for everyone – Gentile and Jew – no one was to be excluded as unworthy or unclean.

The week before that, on Earth Day Sunday, we were reminded that “the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,” and that when God reached the sixth day of creation he pronounced it ALL to be “very good.”

And now today, we have Jesus’ impassioned prayer that “they may all be as one.” The one-ness -- unity – it would appear – has been God’s plan for us all the way from the first moments of creation, through the last moments of Jesus’ teaching among us. May they all be as one, Father, as You are in Me and I am in You. Earlier in the 13th chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus tells us: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
This became one of the primary teachings of the emerging Christian faith and the letters of the New Testament are filled with exhortations to be as one in Jesus’ name, such as this, from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians:

Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are from Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you says, "I follow Paul," "I follow Apollos," "I follow Cephas," and, "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?

We could go on all day finding New Testament references to the call to unity – but I won’t – you get the idea. This is what Jesus asks of us: Love one another as I have loved you; This is what he prays for: that they (we) may be one.

Jesus doesn’t just want this in some strange “Can’t we all just get along and hold hands and sing Kumbyah?” request. Our unity is to be the ultimate witness to the world. Through our unity, the whole of creation will see God’s truth, God’s reality: I am in them and You are in Me so they may be one and be made perfect. Then the world may know that You sent Me and that You love them as You love Me.....I have made Your name known to them and will make it known. So then the love You have for Me may be in them and I may be in them.

This is what God wants. This is what God has always wanted for this world, created in such love and beauty. This is how it was always supposed to be from those very first moments when God looked and proclaimed it all very good. (Even though we managed to screw that one up in no time at all.)

This is what the prophets came to tell us. This is why Jesus came to live among us. This is why early missionaries spread Jesus’ message over all the earth – all that we may one day be in that moment when God is truly all in all throughout the earth. And the only way we ever get there is to get there together.

So why is this so hard for us to manage? Why do we just not seem to get it? It seems, especially lately, that instead of recognizing our one-ness, we just go on finding more and more ways to divide ourselves – more and more way to see ourselves as somehow ‘better than,’ ‘other-than’, ‘superior to’ someone else. Forget Republican/Democrat, black/white, gay/straight, right/wrong, smart/dumb, man/woman, liberal/conservative, Christian/Muslim/Atheist – those of us who claim to be Christians can’t even manage to just be Christian - oh, no, we have to have names to show how different we are from other Christians - how much smarter we are than all the others – we have to be liberal-Christian, Evangelical-Christian, Bible-believing-Christian, Southern Baptist-Christian, Lutheran-Christian, Catholic-Christian, even Post-Christian-Christian - and on and on and on ..... and every one of those groups believes they are somehow more right than any of the others.

Sometimes our scriptural reading requires some unpacking – like Peter’s Vision. That one required some historical setting, some cultural context to make sense. We had to know how things had been before we could understand the magnitude of the change of view-point that God was demanding from Peter and the other early believers.

But that’s not the case with today’s reading. All that is required here is that we simply LISTEN to what Jesus is saying. I pray for those who will put their trust in Me through the teaching they have heard. May they all be as one, Father, as You are in Me and I am in You. May they belong to Us.....I want My followers You gave Me to be with Me where I am.....Holy Father, the world has not known You. I have known You. These have known You sent Me. I have made Your name known to them and will make it known.

That’s what Jesus wants from us and for us: that the love You have for Me may be in them and I may be in them. It’s really pretty simple. Just listen to Jesus.

Make us one, Lord, please – in spite of ourselves. Amen.

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Easter 6: Do You Want to be Made Well?

5/5/2013

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John 5:1-9

Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethsaida, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people—blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, “Do you want to get well?”

The sick man said, “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.”

Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off.

“DO YOU WANT TO BE MADE WELL?”

This is a story about healing – physical healing. A man had suffered – he was blind, crippled, paralyzed – the story doesn’t specify exactly what his ailment was, but he had suffered with it for thirty-eight years! For thirty-eight years he sat there by the pool, knowing that others were being healed, but unable to reach that healing for himself, until one day Jesus came by and saw him.

Try to imagine what must have gone through his mind when Jesus stopped to speak to him. Whether blind or lame or whatever, he could never manage to make it into the pool at the magical moment of healing because there was never anyone who seemed to care to help him and he couldn’t make it on his own. And now, “Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asks. We might think: “What kind of question is that?” He’s been waiting for thirty-eight years – of course he wants to be healed!

But does he? He has lived this way for – at least – the better part of his life. Do you suppose he even remembers what any other way of being might be like? Obviously, he has accommodated himself to his ailment by this time. He has managed to survive with it for a lot of years. It may not be much of a life by our standards, but it is a life and it’s what he’s used to. It’s what he knows. When you come down to it, it’s a pretty good question after all: Do you really want to be healed?

Are you familiar with the old saying: Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know? I recently read a more modern version of this same expression. This one is by Bill McKibben, who is an environmentalist leader and 21st century philosopher. He puts it this way: "There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it's not really there."

Have you ever stood at a cross-roads point in your life where something nudged at you that this was the time to take a new road? Maybe it was subtle – almost subliminal – or maybe you were faced by a clear, obvious choice between a disliked, but familiar, known path, and another new path – totally unknown and thereby frightening, even while it might hold wonderful possibilities for you?

I suspect we have all been there at one time or another. And we all make different choices as to which path we decide to follow. Sometimes we might be willing to try any new turn in the road, convinced that the road behind us is just too miserable to tolerate anymore. Sometimes the road ahead may be too shrouded in mystery – it might lead somewhere better, it might lead somewhere worse – and we find ourselves immobilized with fear, and so we settle for the devil we know. We stand at the crossway and pretend it isn’t really there.

We stay with the job we hate and tell ourselves it’s at least secure – it’s a paycheck. We stay in bad relationships because we are too afraid to start from scratch again with someone new. Or, conversely, we keep jumping from relationship to relationship because we are too afraid to ever fully give ourselves to any one relationship. We put off going to the doctor because we’re afraid of what she might find.

We dream big dreams about our lives and our talents, but we let our fears speak too loudly and we never do take a chance and act on those dreams. Sometimes we know full well that the choices we have fallen into are sucking us dry, consuming our souls, but we’re still afraid to turn onto a new way. We stick our heads deep down in the sand.

So, it’s not such a silly question after all: Do you really want to get well? Are you willing to step out and take a chance on a whole new life? Jesus could have healed the man in the story at any time, but he wanted the man to make his own decision. This man has been defined by his affliction for years. No one expects anything of him because, well hey, he’s just that blind guy, or that cripple over there. Healing will bring a whole new world of expectations to him. So Jesus asks him – Is this what you really want? Are you prepared to leave your limitations behind you and are you ready to step into something basically unknown to you?

I suspect that for the sick man – and for every one of us – it comes down to a question of whether or not we trust the one asking the question. Healing, we have learned, does not always take the form that we want it to take. When God offers healing or puts a new possibility in front of us, do we trust God enough to step out in faith? Do we really believe that Jesus is there to catch us if we stumble?

Back when I used to do Youth Ministry, the kids would ask: But how do I know if this is the right thing? And I still believe in the answer I gave them way back then: Pray about it. Give the question your best thought, looking at pros and cons. Seriously ask God to guide you. Listen the best you can for God’s answer. Then make a choice and go with it – knowing, that even if, somehow, you still haven’t chosen the best path, God will not abandon you there – God will still make it work for the best for you – if you ask God to be in this with you.
We face difficult crossroads all the time in our personal lives. This church may be facing a difficult crossroad. But God has not and will not abandon us. God is with us every step. Do you really want to be made well? Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. We do. Make us whole, in your love and mercy. Amen.

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Sunday after Pentecost: A JOURNEY BEGINS BY KNOWING WHERE WE ARE

Pentecost Sunday: THE HELPER

Easter 7: May They All Be As One

Easter 6: Do You Want to be Made Well?

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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