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FULL IN THE FULLNESS OF GOD

7/26/2015

Ephesians 3:14-21 (The Message)

My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

This past week I saw a quote someone posted on-line and I liked it so much I re-posted it on our church facebook page. It reads like this:

"It is much easier to belong to a group than to belong to God. To belong to a group, one usually has to be convinced the group is ‘right’; to belong to God, one always knows one is as wrong as everyone else."

The line comes from a Franciscan priest, named Richard Rohr, who is one of our greatest living teachers on spirituality and a longtime favorite of mine.

And then I read the readings for this week and found that the epistle for this Sunday is this letter from St. Paul to the church at Ephesus. There is in fact a good deal of doubt that Paul actually wrote this letter and even more doubt that it was written specifically to the church at Ephesus but since this is not going to be a sermon on Biblical Historical Criticism I’m not going to go into all that and I will continue speaking of Paul and Ephesus rather than trying to work around it here and boring us all to death with speculation as to who may have written it. Whoever wrote it writes as Paul, writing from his final prison in Rome – which he knows he will never leave alive – and we know the letter traveled not just to Ephesus but made the rounds of the various first century European/Near Eastern missionary churches.

If you spend much time reading the current thinking on the state of the church in the world today – as I do – you will find a lot of talk about people who claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” By this, I assume they mean they like the idea of God – some Higher Power out there – but want nothing particular to do with all the “-ologies”, e.g. theology, ecclesiology, and their ilk.

The “-ology” part of those words comes from the Greek logos which means word and so theology becomes words about (or what we know about) God (Theos), and ecclesiology is the study of ekklesia (church). Ecclesiology then is the study of how we do church and why we do it that way, and theology is the attempt to organize what we think we know about God into a coherent system. If one is not careful, these two can very easily drift out of range of any heart/spirit connection and end up completely in the realm of word games and abstract philosophy. I have to admit that while many people find Systematic Theology fascinating, just the words alone can put me to sleep inside of a minute. Personally, I have no interest in constructing boxes for my faith.

So while the ‘-ologies’ are important it is easy to see, based on how these discussions are often perceived by the world at large, why many people reject them in favor of what they experience as a more “spiritual” connection to the divine.

I do believe they are both important – spirituality and the systematic ‘ologies’ – and that, like the old song, “You can’t have one without the other.” I read an essay the other day, by a young woman named Myriam Renaud, writing as The Naked Theologian, (for some reason I have never quite picked up) which likens theology and spirituality to a honeycomb and the honey contained therein. Without spirituality, theology is just a lump of beeswax, she says, and without theology, spirituality is just a pile of sweet goo. They need each other to have both substance and form.

I think that much of what we see in the larger church today is the triumph of form over substance – a strict adherence to “the rules” and the “way we’ve always done it,” which so often stifles any effort the Spirit is making to speak a current in the church and in the world. There is something about fundamentalism which has always seemed to me to betoken a very shaky faith in God’s ability to act. All of the “you have to do this and say this and this is a sin and you can’t do that and follow these rules exactly...” has always seemed to me to be more of as effort to corral God into something manageable than to keep humankind on a straight and narrow.

I simply can’t find any possibility for God’s love anywhere in all that frantic rule following. When keeping the wax walls of our honeycomb perfect and burnished becomes more important than the honey that fills it ... when our church structure is buttressed about with strong rules, but folks are being hurt and shunned, then where is God allowed to speak and move? And is anybody anywhere listening?

To return to the quote with which I began today: It is much easier to belong to a group than to belong to God. To belong to a group, one usually has to be convinced the group is ‘right’... Living without trusting that God actually means what God says about loving us means that one’s whole salvation depends on adhering to “the rules” and it becomes ever more urgently important then that the rules of your group are the “right” rules. There is no room here for human error. For a fundamentalist, there could be no greater horror than to be brought to believe, as the Rohr quote continues, that to belong to God, one always knows one is as wrong as everyone else.

God placed us in this world and set us free to become what we would become. God set God’s own Holy Spirit into each one of us to be our guide and advocate and nudge us along to way to growth and change. It has never been God who hedged us around with rules – that has always been humanity itself – a humanity terrified of freedom and never quite able, apparently, to fully trust in God’s love.

This why Paul (or whoever) reminds us that

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

As with many things do to with our faith, it is always easier to see faults and weaknesses in others rather than in ourselves. If we take the time and thought to look into ourselves, are we anymore free off the rules and boxes than the fundamentalists? Or do we just have rules that look different? Do we ourselves truly trust God completely? Do we take the time to listen for the Spirit speaking to us? Do we take the time to listen? Do we actually live our spiritual lives as free and joy-filled as our scriptural writer today suggests?

...take in...the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.....It is possible.....God can do anything, you know.

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JOYFUL URGENCY

7/19/2015

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Mark 6:7-13

Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with the evil opposition. He sent them off with these instructions:

“Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.

“And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave.

“If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.”

Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits.

Last week, if you’ll recall, we talked about the “who does he think he is?” story – the one where we are told about the people from Jesus’ hometown, who – even though they were initially impressed with his teaching – soon discounted him as anyone to be listened to – simply because they had known him as a child and thought they knew everything they needed to know about him. Before he came to Nazareth Jesus and his followers had been traveling around, teaching and healing in the towns around the region and he had been well enough received there, but in the end, he couldn’t accomplish anything at home and had to move on again to other people in other towns.

Today’s reading picks up right where that one ended. As often happens in Mark’s gospel, though today’s story follows directly on last week’s, they don’t at first glance seem to be connected, even though they are linked together in the lectionary as a single unit.

This is the 6th chapter of Mark. In chapters 1 through 5 Jesus was baptized by John, called his disciples, traveled extensively around the countryside teaching, and healed quite a few people - of both physical and emotional problems – all of which makes last’s week part of the reading just that much more inexplicable – and, emphasizes it’s point even more. Other people and places may recognize you, but don’t expect much understanding from those who are convinced they already know all about you.

Leaving all that behind them, Jesus and his followers set out again - only this time, the disciples are sent on further still – in pairs -- without Jesus – on their own. They are given instructions that we can only wish more self-labeled “Christians” would listen to:

• don’t carry a lot of baggage with you - all you need is already inside you
• forget the luxuries - be modest in your wants and needs
• if you aren’t welcomed and heard, leave quietly - don’t make a scene

Compare that list to the “my way or die” Christians who seem to be trying their best to take over our country today, with their endless news conferences and screeching demands. They don’t have leather-bound bibles and a memorized list of every “gotcha” text therein. They don’t have theological degrees. They certainly don’t have the government’s blessing to shove their beliefs down everyone’s collective throat.

Instead, this handful of disciples went out, armed with nothing but the Christ Spirit inside them. They loved Jesus; they listened to Jesus; they were so enthralled with what they had found that they just had to tell others about it. Armed with nothing but this desire, Mark tells us they sent demons packing ..... brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, and healing their spirits.

And they did all this by going out and telling the Good News – the good news that life can be radically different. I sometimes fear that “radically different” is absolutely the last thing we want here in our comfortable lives. To listen to many church goers today, change is no longer necessary or desired because we have already arrived at perfection. For all too many, change is not only not wanted, it is actively resisted, and for many folks the ultimate goal is to even go backward to some golden age in the past.

No, these first disciples went out two by two and told the Good News – and they told it to others because they actively, actually believed it to BE good news – not just a nice bedtime story but a real achievable, here and now possibility in our own lives, in our own world – that our wounds could be healed, our guilt be forgiven, our broken hearts could be mended, that our relationships with others could be made right.

And as if that weren’t enough, this translation tells us that they did all this with “joyful urgency” ... Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different.

When was the last time you shared the Good News with either joy or urgency, much less the two together? Why not? Why not? The disciples risked everything to share this news and they did it joyfully and with a sense of urgency. They went into the world to tell people their lives could be “radically different.” Why do we – the recipients of this news sharing – not feel the same urgency? Not feel the same joy?

I think that part of the answer lies in a distaste for the pushier forms of proselytizing we have all run into in our time, and certainly a dislike for the aggressive “You’ll burn in hell if you don’t believe like me” garbage that seems so prevalent today – and yet, none of those things are what our scripture describes today.

Instead, the disciples are told to speak their piece – offer what they know – and then if it’s not received with interest to just quietly go on their way – much as Jesus had just done when he had tried, and failed, to teach in Nazareth. He demonstrated to us how to deal with those who will not hear us. He didn’t argue, he didn’t make a scene, he simply moved on to teach others elsewhere – those who will hear.

In our lives, there will be those with whom we share the journey. There will be those who honor our journey without feeling a need to join us there. And there will be those despise our journey and think us foolish. We don’t control anyone else’s response to our journey. We simply set one foot in front of the other and tell our own story of how our own lives are radically different than how they were before we met the ideas and the open-hearted love of this Jesus person - we tell our story with joy, and perhaps, some sense of urgency – not because there is a deadline, but because we are that excited about the story ourselves.

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WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?

7/12/2015

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Mark 6:1-6 * Just a Carpenter
Jesus finished his teaching tour and returned to his hometown. His disciples came along. On the Sabbath, he gave a lecture in the meeting place. He made a real hit, impressing everyone. “We had no idea he was this good!” they said. “How did he get so wise all of a sudden, get such ability?”
But in the next breath they were cutting him down: “He’s just a carpenter—Mary’s boy. We’ve known him since he was a kid. We know his brothers, James, Justus, Jude, and Simon, and his sisters. Who does he think he is?” They tripped over what little they knew about him and fell, sprawling. And they never got any further.
Jesus told them, “A prophet has little honor in his hometown, among his relatives, on the streets he played in as a child.” Jesus wasn’t able to do much of anything there—he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them, that’s all. He couldn’t get over their stubbornness. He left and made a circuit of the other villages, teaching.

With the seeming urgency of national events lately, as well as Independence Day, we’ve gotten away from the lectionary for awhile and I think it’s time to get back there again. Today’s reading is actually from a couple of weeks ago, but I want to go back and pick it up because I think it is one that needs to be discussed. In fact, there’s enough here in this one reading for two Sundays, so we will do the first half today and the second half next week.

This a familiar story for most of us -- “who is this guy? Isn’t he just the carpenter’s son?” but when I read it in this translation (The Message) I was especially struck by two sentences:

They tripped over what little they knew about him and fell, sprawling.
And they never got any further.
... and ...
He couldn’t get over their stubbornness.

Let’s take the first one first: “They tripped over what little they knew about him and fell, sprawling, and they never got any further.” Oh, boy. I can immediately think of so many instances where I’ve seen people do this – pick up a snap first impression and never move past it. They just hold that thought forever. I could tell you ... really, I could tell you so many times I’ve seen others do this ...

And then “someOne” pokes me in the back of my brain and reminds me that when I can see something so very clearly in others ... it’s probably because I’m trying very hard not to see it in myself.....

We can usually see other people’s warts so very easily - so much more readily than our own. The fact is that most of us do occasionally have changes of heart and mind where we find ourselves – based on new information – seeing a person through new eyes – and forming new opinions about them. I don’t remember this, but my husband maintains he asked me out once in high-school and I turned him down. Obviously, we are capable of changing our thinking about a person. But how often do we bother?

how often do we stick with that first impression without taking enough interest to look a second time? Maybe it’s because we are lazy, maybe because we don’t really care enough to bother – and sometimes it’s because we were taught to see people in a certain way – we were given that first impression by a third party – a parent or friend or Sunday School teacher we loved and trusted.

I have maintained for years that way too many church-goers operate from what they were told in some basement Sunday School class when they were eight years old - and have never moved any further in their thinking. And no, I am not disparaging Sunday school teachers - I was one for years followed by many more years of being a Director of Religious Education. I think most of those volunteer teachers are the greatest treasure in a church, but they only know what they themselves were told, long ago. It’s a rare church that encourages their SS teachers to think outside the purchased curriculum. Those volunteers are the main reason I am in pastoral ministry today. I could see such a wealth of wisdom and goodness in them, while they were stuck, tripping over their learned impression of themselves as unworthy and having nothing of value to offer. I was determined to one day be in a position to attempt to teach them differently.

So the people in our reading today heard Jesus talk, and they were inclined, at first, to be impressed with what they heard, commenting on his teaching, but then their past image of him as just one of the kids around the place reasserted itself, and suddenly he’s no one important any more – “That’s just Mary’s boy. We’ve known him since he was a kid. We know his brothers and his sisters. Who does he think he is?” Rather than actually engaging with the person he was at that moment, they just looked around for the handiest box that could drop him into - which happened to be their memories of him as just one of the neighborhood kids -- and then proceeded to forget about him.

Regardless of the fact that they had just been impressed with his wisdom a moment ago, they fell back into their comfortable first impressions and ended up discounting him entirely. They tripped over what little they knew about him, and couldn’t ever hear him any more. Just think what they missed.

Can you even imagine meeting Jesus in the grocery store and discounting him because he talked funny, or because he reminded you of someone who you used to dislike, or he smelled a little -- imagine just walking on by – and then finding out months later that had been, really and truly, Jesus – and you had missed him because you couldn’t be bothered to look a little deeper, past that easy, first impression. How would you feel?

This section of the reading ends by saying that Jesus wasn’t able to do much healing or teaching after that in his hometown – he just couldn’t get over their stubbornness. So he left and went elsewhere to teach and heal and change lives. Because they tripped over what they thought they knew of him, and couldn’t get any further – and they held, stubbornly, to that first impression, refusing to consider any other way of seeing him – and he couldn’t get past their stubbornness.

I suspect that sometimes that ‘stubbornness’ is just laziness – we simply can’t be bothered to pay enough attention to a person to see who they really might be – and besides, it’s hard work to try to understand someone outside the boundaries of our own comfort zone. Sometimes, though, it is actual stubbornness - we have instantly categorized and classified that person - and we know all about people in that category, so we simply don’t bother - we already know all we need to know. We shut them out, which is a tragedy. And the larger tragedy may be that in shutting them out, we shut ourselves in – and that is a loss for everyone.

Patient, loving God - remind us to take the time to look deeper, to see more clearly, to open our eyes and hearts to possibility. Teach us to put down our stubbornness and really look at each other and see the You that is inside every one of us. Help us to set aside all that we are so sure we “know” – all that is just space-filler -- all that clouds our sight and prevents us from seeing clearly. Give us the vision to see You in every part of this beloved creation – and teach us to respond to what we see with love and compassion. Amen.

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FREEDOM

7/5/2015

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Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Yesterday was a very interesting Independence Day, given the wider context in our country right now. After the SCOTUS ruling on marriage equality LGBTQs and their straight allies definitely have a new freedom to celebrate while those who claim a religious dispensation to discriminate against anyone they don’t like wailed and moaned and cried “governmental tyranny” at the tops of their lungs and worked to paint themselves as victims, and African-Americans pointed to black churches burning across the South and reminded us they are no more free today than they were last month – and while all this was going on about half the population of the east coast, it seems, having thrown their hats into the ring of our next presidential election, are running around pontificating and vying to say the most outrageous thing in order to get their faces on the 24-hour news cycle.

In the light of all this it was almost surprising to see the number of cities and small towns all over the country where ordinary folks just went about the BBQ’s and parades and clambakes and picnics and all the things that ordinary people do to celebrate the 4th of July and enjoy their freedom to gather with family and friends.

The major news sources may scream, “danger, danger, be afraid - ISIS is coming to kill us all!” but we go on beach picnics with our families. Ultra-conservative religionists cry that the world is ending and threaten to set themselves on fire if gays are allowed to marry (and then do some really fancy back-pedaling to explain they didn’t really mean that in the first place), but most of us just give thanks for our blessings and manage to co-exist pretty well with our Catholic neighbors and our Baptist neighbors, and even those folks who don’t believe in a god of any kind.

The one line from Paul’s letter to the Galatians that I chose as our scripture for today has always intrigued me. I’m sure Paul had a definite agenda in writing it but as a stand-alone verse it is delightfully ambiguous and can be applied in so many ways. We are “set free for freedom” ..... what does that even mean? I prefer to take it as face value. As God’s people we are free – free from doubt and free from fear and free from despair and hopelessness and free to just live in this beautiful world – free from the responsibility to be the whole world’s moral police, free from judging each other, free from forcing everyone to see it "my way" – free to live in kindness and love. BUT – (there’s always a but...) – as with all God’s gifts to us, freedom isn’t isn’t given us just for our own advantage. All the gifts God gives us are to be used by us for the betterment of the entire world – to help others who are still struggling to find their freedom.

When read in faith it also carries a list of things we are not free to do: oppress others, judge others, think ourselves in any way superior to others, sit back lazily on our backsides and let others drift in suffering rather than challenge our own comfort zone.

We are free to be the children of God that we are created to be.

Do we all agree with each other? Absolutely not. If fact, most of us disagree with someone somewhere on practically everything - and yet here we are - most of us -- still living and working side by side – because most of us understand that we can disagree without hating. And those of us who have chosen to declare our lives in service to God’s plan - as best we can figure that out - those of us who call ourselves Christians – understand something more. We understand that we are to rejoice in every victory that comes along – and give thanks for every blessing that appears here among us all – while at the same time we are to see and name every injustice we see still around us and we are to stand up and say “this must change” – and then we are to do whatever comes within our reach and our ability to change it.

We are not called to scream and shout. We are not called to vilify each other. We are not called to stamp our feet and throw rocks and make threats and demand that everybody has to be “just like me”. We are called to see everyone - even those with whom we disagree – especially those with whom we disagree -- through the eyes of God’s love. Plain and simple.

We are to build the reign of God together and live in peace - together. We are to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. And in a world that stridently demands that everything is “my way or the highway,” in a world that sometimes wants to fight about absolutely everything – that may be the hardest task of all.

Luckily, we are not alone in this. We are never alone. Thank God.

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FULL IN THE FULLNESS OF GOD

JOYFUL URGENCY

WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?

FREEDOM

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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