Hard Labor and Christmas Joy

Birth is hard.  Birth is painful.  Birth is messy.  Birth is dangerous.  And yet, birth is beautiful. 

A Child is Born … after

• Hours of labor; it’s called labor for a reason:  It is a lot of work.  It requires careful breathing and a lot of patience.  And yet, the less relaxed one is, the harder the labor and the slower the progress.  Birth is hard.
• Patterns of pain; pangs is hardly the word for it.  The contractions get closer and closer – and they really should be called muscle spasms; they hurt like a Charlie Horse.  Birth is painful.
• Chaos and filth;  Augustine aptly put it, “Inter faeces et urinem nascimur.”    A new life in the family structure brings discomfort in relationships and many sleepless nights.  Birth is messy.
• Injury and death; for too many death happens before the child is 12 months old. Mothers also die in child birth.  Accidents happen during birth that threaten both mother and child. Birth leads to death always.  Birth is dangerous.

Unto us a Child is born, a Son is Given….  Our struggles, pain, messiness, and danger happen after the Birth in the stable. 

• A life time of labor; it takes a lot of work, humility,  to follow the Way of Truth and Light. It requires intentional living, and a lot of patience. 
• A life time of the pain of change.  Bringing good news, justice, peace, and righteousness into this world requires we work against the current of human greed, jealousy, and hurtfulness. 
• Chaos, filth, and sleepless nights; we are not in this for the glory and it does get gory. Followers of the Christ Child are those who work side by side with the poor, the hungry, the disadvantaged; speak truth to power; and bring freedom to the oppressed. 
• Birthing God’s Realm is dangerous business. It is revolutionary. It threatens those with  power and wealth. We will probably not live to see it in the fullest of glory.

And yet, birth is beautiful.  Ours is a birth that offers the most beautiful of loves, the most extravagant of welcomes, the most grace-filled relationships. 

May Christ be born anew into your soul this Christmastide.  May God’s Realm take root in the messiness of your living.  And may the joy of Spirit-filled transformation surround you with hope. 

Ransomed, Atoned by Blood or Punishment? None of the Above

The original meaning of the word "liberal" involved being open to a variety of ideas and ways of thinking, to be intellectually generous.  I am a liberal in this sense: I am open to and supportive of many ways of thinking and believing.  For me, when things are split into issues of just the binary --black and white -- I see only division and alienation.  For some, these binary boundaries are comforting and necessary; the gray only clouds their thinking and causes insecurity.  Unfortunately, many in the church hold this either/or theology and cannot accept anything different from what they believe -- even if it is proven to be ill-based or non biblical.

What follows is something I wrote this from the top of my head... no footnotes or bibliography... an exposition on a question asked of me by a Pastoral Search Committee in 2013. 

The Question:
     "John 14:6 while Jesus was comforting his disciples he said to them, 'I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.'  This speaks to the fact that one must believe, and accept that God sent his only Son to die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and that by believing this and by His Grace alone are we saved.  Is this belief the only way we can be assured of an eternal home with Him?"

My initial response in person was something to the effect that Jesus didn’t ever say he came to die for our sins, that this is a construction of Paul’s and the later church’s.  I added that Jesus was careful to not label individuals as “sinners” when he healed them and offered them forgiveness.   I went on to say that shortly before the passage quoted is another: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2)  and that in another place Jesus says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.”  And, I said that this is good news for people who have not found hope in a particular faith.  

What some members of the committee heard me say was that Jesus never talks of sin, and that Jesus never called people sinners.  So, here is a full expository of response to this question.

In our time, we have a tendency to put the words of the whole of the New Testament into the mouth of Jesus.  “This speaks to the fact” indicates that what follows is assumed in the reading of the scripture; what follows is a theory of atonement that was developed in the Eleventh and Fifteenth Centuries and is not based upon Biblical texts.  In fact, much of the theology of this question arises from later theology, not the words or ministry of Jesus.

The challenge of the question lies in the conclusion of the second sentence.  This sentence makes a conclusion about the text of John 14:6 that is out of context with the text itself.  The question starts with the context – “while Jesus was comforting his disciples, he said to them….”  The scripture in context is part of Jesus’ response to Thomas about how they will know the way to where Jesus is going.  Jesus is instructing the disciples on what to expect after his death and resurrection.  Jesus is giving the disciples a pep talk, a comforting assurance that if they follow the way they have been taught by Jesus, they will know God; that if they are faithful to what he has been showing them, leading them, and guiding them, they will find their way to God the Father.  He says that if we know Him, we know God the Father. 

In the context of John 14, Jesus is giving the assurance that they have learned well what they need to know, that they know the Father already.

• I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father
• If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.
• I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
• Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

Then the question deviates from that context.  Jesus is not talking about the forgiveness of sins here; he is talking about the immediate future of the disciples and their finding their way in his absence.

At this point in the Gospel of John, Jesus has not yet died; he has not yet risen.  There is not any talk of death, let alone a sacrificial death, though everyone at that last meal together knew full well that Jesus was going to die at the hands of those whose power was threatened by his teaching of truth.  Jesus is saying that if the disciples want to know God, if they want to know where he is going, they need to love one another the way that he has loved them (John 15:12).

Jesus is not the author of the theory that “one must believe, and accept that God sent his only Son to die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and that by believing this and by His Grace alone are we saved.”  The seeds of this theory originate in Paul and are germinated and harvested by Anselm of Canterbury, the Protestant Reformers, and, later, Twentieth Century Evangelists.  The theory that Jesus was sent to die for the forgiveness of our sins is not found in the Gospels.  

Further, the idea that “the death of Jesus provides forgiveness of sins” and “His Grace alone” saves us are oppositional to one another.  Payment for forgiveness is not forgiveness; it is a transaction.  Forgiveness is indeed grace, but it cannot be bought by any means or it ceases to be grace and forgiveness.

Okay, having said that, I’m going to give a very long explanation.

Prior to the Eleventh Century and based upon Jesus’ statement in Mark 6:45 that he offered his life as a  ransom for many,  the (Roman)  Church taught that the ransom must have been paid to those powers that hold us captive—namely the devil and the other fallen angels. Adam and Eve turned the entire human race sinful when they listened to the serpent (devil), and therefore making the devil our owner. Jesus offered himself to the devil in as the price of our freedom from this sinful state. The devil didn’t realize that he couldn’t hold the God’s son captive in death and was therefore tricked into losing both us and God’s son.  This is the ransom theory of atonement.  It’s not particularly Biblical; but it’s logical for the era from which it arises.  

In the Eleventh Century, Anselm of Canterbury debunked this theory and developed the concept of blood atonement.  This theory springs from the Old Testament concept of sacrifice.  The underlying assumption of this idea is that the moral order, God’s justice, or something about God’s nature, requires that God punish our sin – and inflict corporal punishment upon us, classically by sending us to hell—unless some substitute can be found to pay the penalty for sin.  Anselm stressed that there is no way for mere humans to satisfy God’s need for punishing us so the need is satisfied by the perfect obedience of Jesus even to the point of dying (note the words of the Apostle’s Creed).  This is the satisfaction theory of atonement.

In the Fifteenth Century, the Protestant Reformers took this a step further and asserted that Jesus chose to take the death penalty in our stead as punishment for our sins (as opposed to obedience to God). This is the punishment theory of atonement.

Either way, satisfaction or punishment, the theories assert that violence is necessary to please God’s need for justice.

There are two places in the GOSPELS that are often used to support these theories of atonement; both are problematic.  In Matthew 26:28, Jesus says “for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”  In the same vein (pun intended), Hebrews 9:22 says that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.” The Greek word translated in these passages as “forgiveness” means release from bondage or to free from prison.  Even when understood as “release from penalty,” it merely provides an alternative means of fulfilling the same solution and life-giving role that the law and its penalties were supposed to provide.  Atonement allows God to justly release us from punishment for sin.  The idea that God requires a payment of some sort is logically in conflict with God’s forgiving our sins; true forgiveness involves relinquishing the demand that the penalty be paid.

The second is Mark 6:45, which I used in the discussion of ransom atonement.  The Mark text has to have a lot of speculation or preconceived understandings thrown into the picture in order to pull a theory of atonement from it.  We can read our concept or idea into the text and pull the meaning we desire from it; this is eisogesis:  reading our understanding or position into the text. If instead we begin with the text from Mark devoid of our preconceived understandings, we cannot arrive at a theory of atonement.  Solid Biblical study begins with the text and its context, not our own theology.

Jesus said he came to fulfill the law and the prophets; Jesus did not say that “by His Grace alone” we are saved.  Paul said this, and we read it into the words credited to Jesus.  Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God and what we must do to bring God’s reign to earth.  Jesus showed us the way, the truth and the life through his example, his teaching, and his willingness to die for what he believed is God’s way, truth, and light – which the religious and political powers of his day found threatening to their status and power.

What Jesus teaches is not about what is to come in the next life (again, that is Paul and American Civil Religion’s Prosperity Gospel); what Jesus teaches, preaches, and lives is God’s affinity for the “least of these,” the oppressed, the down trodden, the rejected, and the powerless.  What Jesus assures us of is that God’s realm is found when all people do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).  What Jesus assures us is that the high will be made low, the first last, the weak strong, the hungry fed, the poor rich in spirit. 

This is what I meant when I said that Jesus did not come (or die) to forgive our sins; he came to show us the way to God; the way of justice; the way of peace.  He certainly did offer forgiveness to people – freedom from that which binds them -- usually the people no one else would ever dream of unbinding, and always as a means to bring justice to the situation at hand.   But he does not assert that he's going to die for our sins. 

-------------------
I am not sure the member who asked this question understood my long winded explanation; I do know that she did not agree with it.  God's path for me was/is by way of another road than the one that passes that particular congregation.  And the exercise of writing out what I believe and why was excellent practice for the challenges of the place where God has called me today.  Thanks be to God.

Being Knocked Off The Top Block

Well, friends, it is confession time.

 I did something really stupid today and I'm going to be paying for it over the next week or more. I knew it was stupid before I even tried it. Heh! I knew it was stupid before I even thought about doing it. But, I did it any way.

Why? Because I'm stubbornly independent. 

 Yep. That's a huge shock to no one who has ever met me. And this time it got me into a very tight spot.

Literally. And if you know me, you know I'm pretty claustrophobic.

So, the good news is that nothing of physical reality is broken. Yes, this could have wreaked havoc in a lot of departments. But for the grace of God, the physical realities are still as they were, or nearly so at least: there will be bruises.  Many bruises. 

What is shattered is my ego.

Hah! Big deal, you say, I needed to be knocked down a few steps anyway!

Sure, but did it need to be the whole flight of attic stairs? Really?

So, my bike has been in the attic since last Fall when I put it on my "spin machine" for cold weather use. I've been meaning to get Dan to help me get it out, but we've been busy. So this morning, I decided (after Dan left for the office) that I would just take it down myself. A full size touring bike down a 24" wide set of 9" and less deep, twisting steps. Let's just say the bike decided it was going to hang on the the rail at the top and not go down with me. But momentum kept me going down past it, and down the steps to that tiny spot at the bottom of the steps where they fan out to make a 90* turn toward that closed 24" door at the bottom.

I sat for a few moments to be sure I could still account for my brain. Then I carefully wiggled each finger and toe. When I was sure I could still move each joint, I attempted to stand up. But alas, I was stuck with my derriere wedged between the door and the second step, and my legs and feet on the third and fourth steps. No hand rail to grab. The door knob would not suffice since it was above my knee and out of reach. I was stuck. In a very tight spot.

Yes, I did eventually figure out the geometric formula for extricating myself from this conundrum. How else would I be writing this?!

And when I texted Dan to tell him of this great feat of finesse, his response was this:

....Remember that only the kitties have an accounting of this episode. Who knows -- purrhaps they will write a gospel one day and this story will be at the core of their gospel and many will follow.

And they shall call it, "The Great Fall of Human - ity"

Something rings oddly true in that.

Yes, I really am fine.  But three things I have culled from this experience:  This body is no longer 21 years old. Or 31. Or 41. Or.....   Ask for help.  Riding the bike is overrated.  That's my truth and I'm sticking to it.  :-p

A Faithful Church is in Business 24/7/365

"When I moved here 12 years ago, I expected that the church would be busy on Sunday mornings.... but there is something happening there every day.... that is not acceptable; it needs to be regulated."(1)

This was spoken at a  meeting of the Village Plan Commission last evening by a member of the community.  My initial reaction was anger.  

• How could someone not know that the work of the a faith based community is non-stop? 
• Where was this person in school when the Anglo settlement  of New England in the 1600's by people fleeing religious regulation was discussed? You remember them -- the Pilgrims, who established a faith based community where the work of faith and life itself were indistinguishable?  
• Was there an extended illness when the 1740's settlement of the  west coast was led by Roman Catholic Missionaries was taught?  You remember that -- the Roman Catholic missions that housed and educated the native population and established all of the oldest communities in California.   
• Surely someone taught about the founding of public education was done by churches who opened their doors to children returning from long hours of labor in factories and mines. 

How did public education fail the person who spoke this complaint?

I understand that someone who does not practice faith might think that Sunday morning is the only time a faith community is active.  Clearly the speaker had an impression of faith communities that did not match my experience. 

• But why would a church need a building if it is  a Sunday-only association?  
• Why not just meet in people's homes?   

Clearly the CHURCH has failed in its 24/7/365 practice of faith. 

I left the meeting with my blood pressure through the roof.  I took the long way home -- walking briskly in the night air five blocks out of my way so I could think and pray about the situation.  

God has a way of turning my reactions into responses if I can just keep my mouth closed long enough. My reactions are usually knee jerk responses in anger or defense; I should never be allowed to speak after 9 p.m. when my brain operates only in the brain stem and my reactions are reptilian .  Responses are the result of trying to understand the other point of view and offering a reasoned, rational reply.  Responses come from the cortex and upper brain anatomy.  I cannot be reasoned or rational if I'm angry. 

Through the cool night air and the brisk stride, God doused the anger with another possibility. In the middle of the second block it struck me that the church this person was talking about is doing faithful ministry -- if they are doing "something everyday," if their ministry is not just on Sunday morning, they are being the Church, the Body of Christ.  If that faith community feeds the hungry, offers drink to the thirsty, welcomes the stranger, clothes the naked, visits the sick and the imprisoned (Matthew 25), they are indeed being the church.  

Celebrate with this community of faith that someone is complaining that they are faithfully following Christ is providing for "one of the least of these who are members of [Christ's} family" [Matthew 25:40).  This IS the work of the church.

If our building is not used 24/7/365, we are not being faithful.  We are not being good stewards of the blessings God has given to us through our predecessors in the faith.  We are going to do better.  We need to fill our empty space with those busy going about the work of providing for the least of these.  We need to find the vision and the energy to commission those among us for ministries.  If the Kingdom is going to come "on earth as it is in heaven," we cannot sit around and wait for it to happen; we are called to use our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits.  Let us fill the building with God's work!  Let us make busy the doors! Let us be the church to all the world. 


(1) This was the overarching complaint of a number of members of the community who stuck out the entire meeting for the purpose of voicing their concern that an amendment to the village zoning ordinances regarding the definition of "Religious Use" of buildings was removed from the agenda and not discussed.  

To the other concerns, I offer these responses:

Comment:  Churches rent their space to outside businesses and agencies so that they can increase their coffers and make their expenses.
Response:  Churches offer to share our space with agencies who are doing work that tends to "the least of these."  That may include, but is never limited to, young, aged, widowed, addicted, homeless, oppressed, unemployed, under-employed, poor, disabled, sick, naked, hungry, imprisoned or newly released, mentally ill, sinners of all sorts, immigrants and other strangers, and you.  

Sharing space is just that: space is offered so that those who are working toward the fulfillment of the Realm of God (see Matthew 25) can have a safe and secure place to do their work.  If churches make a profit of any kind, they lose their property-tax exempt status and will incur massive expenses; churches offer space at the cost of having that space -- which is far below the market rates.  Churches may recap the cost of the space, but nothing the church can do will ever re-cap the cost of building and upgrading the space; the best that can come of shared space is re-cooping the cost of heat, air conditioning, electricity, and maintenance of the space.  Churches do not make a profit at anything they do.

Comment: Not for profit is tax terminology; it does not relate to the what churches are doing.
Response:  Unlike other entities in our Capitalistic Economy, the goal of the church is NOT to make a profit or to stay "in business."  The mission of the church is to usher in the Realm of God by offering God's extravagant welcome, unbounded hope, abundant grace, and unlimited love to all who will accept it and be transformed by the realization that they are children of God. 

When this  mission is completed, the churches can and should go out of "business;" but it will never be complete in my or your lifetime.  It is ongoing and fueled by hope and the vision of a better world. The difference between the capitalist business (aka a "for profit") and a faith community rests on the benefactor of the activity: For-profits are fueled by the vision of benefit to the owner(s) (monetarily) while not-for-profits have a "benefit the other" driven vision. Not for profits "do it" at a loss -- always because we're not in it for the money; we're in it for the benefit of "the least of these." That's why we depend upon donations. 

The Lost Sermon

This morning my sermon notes were not available to my iPad because the internet at the church was down.  So I preached from memory.  I did okay, not fantastic.  Here's the text I could not access!


There are two odd things that run through the joseph story.

• He has and interprets dreams

• He keeps losing and changing his clothes.  

1. The Coat….a coat or cloak that extended all the way to the palms and all the way to the feet; hence, our translation “a long robe with sleeves.” It was clear that this was a special garment; this was a garment that betokened a certain exalted status, and that of course was one of the reasons the brothers were so angry when Joseph wore it.
2. ·The Coat taken from him.  Given back to Jacob with blood stains.  Joseph is sold half naked to a caravan of merchants, then to the slave trade in Egypt, and finally to Potaphar.   Slave Clothes
3. He leaves his clothes in Potaphar’s wife’s bedroom.   Prison, not death…. Made the servant of the Jailer – also named Potiphar. – he’s in charge of the prisoners.  Hence, he recognizes when the baker and the vinter are upset and interprets their dreams.
4. ·Called upon to interpret Pharoah’s dreams  .. He is shaven and he changes clothes again.  
5. ·He is made the governor of Egypt and he changes his clothes again… given a signet ring and a new wardrobe.
6. Changing clothes is a change of outward appearances.  It can help with first impressions. It can help us feel better about ourselves.  It does nothing for what is going on within our psyche or in our soul. The change is only skin deep.
7. Changing clothes is about us.  It’s about our ego and our self esteem. It’s only skin deep.

He has 2 Dreams.  

·in his dreams he was always the hero.  – The wheat bows to him.  The stars and moon and the Sun bow to him.  
·It’s about his own immaturity and arrogance.  These dreams build up his own self image and inflate his self importance.  

He Interprets 2 Dreams  

He listens to the dreams of others and helps them understand where they are headed in life.  It’s no longer about him – he give God the credit…. Though, he does tell the vintner to remember him when his day comes in so that Joseph can get out of prison.  

• He interprets Pharaoh’s 2 Dreams. 

1. It is no longer about him.  It’s about the larger picture.  It’s about the well being of all in his world.  He not only gives God the credit, Pharoah sees that it is God working through Joseph.  He sees Joseph as a representative to the One who is really in charge.  
2. This is no longer skin deep.  This is all encompassing. 
3. “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer” (vv. 15-16).

• There are two dangerous dreams. 

1. Dangerous because God’s dreams disrupt the way things are. Dangerous because God’s dreams threaten the status quo, the normal order of life. 
2. Dangerous because dreaming God’s dreams might get you into trouble. 
3. If your dream just confirms what already is, rubber stamping the norm, pouring out a blessing on the sociopolitical empire of the day, it’s not God’s dream because God inverts our human way of doing things, flipping life on its head. 

• § The last shall be first.
• § The least are the greatest. 
• § The weak are the strong. 
• § The foolish are the wise. 
• § To go up, you go down. 
• § To have life, you have to die.

Joseph dreams of a different kind of world. His dream constructs a vision of a new social reality.  Joseph’s dreams disturb the “pecking order” of the world

in 1976, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead sang a song penned by Mac Rebennack and first put out on a 1973 album by New Orleans R&B artist Dr. John. –It describes well what happens at the end of a dream: 

• § I been in the right place  But it must have been the wrong time
• § I'd have said the right thing But I must have used the wrong line
• § I'd a took the right road  But I must have took a wrong turn
• § Would have made the right move  But I made it at the wrong time
• § I been on the right road  But I must have used the wrong car
• § My head was in a good place  And I wonder what it's bad for

We can be in the right place at the right time, 
We can say the right things using all the right lines
We can be on the right road and take all the right turns
We can make all the right moves at the right time,
We can be on the right road in the right vehicle,
And we can have our heads in a good place, 

But if we are just operating out of a wardrobe, we’ll still end up at the end of the dream. 
If we want to really affect change in our own lives and in our world, we have to be about fueling dreams.

dreams that threaten the status quo, the normal order of life. 

• § •Dangerous because dreaming God’s dreams that will get us into trouble with the world. 
• § •Dreams that do not  pour out a sociopolitical empire of the day, 
• § Dreams that invert the human way of doing things and bring us in line with God’s Dreams.
• § We must dream of a different kind of world. 
• § Our dreams must construct a vision of a new social reality.  Our dreams need disturb the “pecking order” of the world.

So, Let’s get out of the wardrobe closet.  Let’s get into God’s bed of dreams.  

The Mask

Nearly every seat in the coffee shop is occupied.  Little boys stroll up to the door with painted faces, bike helmets as their crowns, and knee high rain galoshes hold the legs of their britches above their knees.  Little girls walk by the window with ice cream in hand and ballerina tights.  The sun shines upon the melting snow and dissipates the dust and grime.  And elderly mother and her daughter sit nearby providing a running commentary on what is happening around us.  It is not quite spring, but the weather is providing a teaser for what is to come.

People abound: 

• ,
• t'weens exploring their expanding freedom,
• mature adults absorbing the rays of the late winter sun, 
• couples walking hand in hand,
• commuters with rapid, long strides coming from the train station,
• a rough looking man with a scraggly beard baring a bouquet of flowers,
• teens side by side staring at their cell phones.  
• a woman carrying all she owns in grocery sacks on her arm.
• the men beside me speak softly in Slavic accents while a couple nearby speaks German to one another.

This is the community: diverse, vibrant, and on the move. 

The calm surrounding me is deceptive.  I've seen this community in another, less calm state.  I've heard the hurling of accusations and insults. I've listened  to suspicions and fears.  I've witnessed hatred and cold hearts. The serenity of this moment is a mask covering a teeming pool of emotion.  There is division and derision beneath the surface.  

It's one thing to disagree about something.  There was a time when disagreement did not render incivility and hatred.  There was a time when disagreeing parties could sit down together and work out a mutually agreeable solution.  There was a time.... 

What has happened to us? Why do we see things as bilateral: my way or the highway?  Why must hatred be the endgame of differences?  Why?

Saying No! and Meaning it.

 I don’t know about you, but I’m really tired.  It feels like no matter how hard I try, I cannot get ahead, cannot even keep up with some things.  There are so many things that call out for my attention.  So many special interests are vying for my energy.  There never seems to be enough {{fill in the blank here}}.  Not enough sleep, time, people… you get the idea.

“Not Enough” is a mindset our culture has been ingrained into our thinking.  It is the basis of our economy: there’s not enough to go around so the maximum profit can be made by sellers because we’ll always want for more; we don’t want to fall behind.  This mindset is the basis of our self image:  we can never be enough.  We’re never good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, efficient enough, thin enough, fit enough, strong enough, successful enough.  If we fall short, the culture shames us with its stress on being better than ordinary.  So we say “yes” to doing and having as much as possible so we don’t suffer the “shame of failure.” This mindset of scarcity feeds our greed, our jealousies, our prejudice, and our struggles in living. 

This scarcity mindset undermines the work of the Body of Christ.  Frankly, we become exhausted when we hear the call of the church to be more hospitable, do more in the community, feed the hungry, house the homeless, or free the oppressed.  We long for more community and deeper connection with God and with one another.  But we just don’t have time or energy to do anything more.  We feel depleted, exhausted, run down, tired, stressed, and overextended. We are so controlled by the scarcity mindset of the culture around us that being a disciple of Jesus is just too overwhelming of a prospect.  

If nothing else, Jesus was a counter culture revolutionary.  He stood up against the demeaning and belittling habits of the culture so as to bring people wholeness and fullness of joy.  His ministry and his teaching were about building up, supporting, and strengthening individuals in a culture that ostracized and devalued those who were not perfect in the eyes of the culture.  He did this by valuing them exactly as they were, for who they were. 

Friends, it is past time for us to stand up to the cultural mindset of scarcity.  We do not need to be successful by the culture’s standards; we do not need to measure up to the market’s standards of prosperity.  The way out of scarcity thinking is Sabbath Rest.  I’m not talking about sleeping through church!  I’m suggesting that we need to say, “NO!” to the cultural rat race that feeds of fear of failure and of falling behind.  We need to learn to say “NO!” to doing one more thing that does not build us up as disciples, that does not help to build the Realm of God on Earth.  We need to practice saying, “NO!” to those things that exhaust us and not nourish us, things that manipulate our self esteem, things that do not lead us to wholeness.

To practice Sabbath is to practice resistance.  Walter Brueggemann reminds us that Sabbath resists the spirituality of the principalities and powers--the culture around us--to nurture the physical and spiritual resources to fuel further resistance, making us increasingly available for both community and prophetic ministry[1].  Sabbath requires letting go of the shame-based fear of being ordinary as we allow the world to rush by as we settle into the humble, small and human rhythms of Sabbath. To practice Sabbath means to go quiet, to be less noticed, to rest into the ordinary.

As we move into Lent, I invite you to take Sabbath with me.  Let us take a sacred pause and find new habits. Let us seek together the Joyful Kingdom of God and find the deep joy of following Christ.  I pray you’ll find in this Lenten season fruitful, spirit feeding opportunities to grow in faith. 

[1] Walter Bruggemann:  Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now.  Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press,  2014.

Reflecting on this

I found this in the comments on one of my regular sermon prep sites.....

"[T]he church is evolving into a new form that is going to be less institutional and more flexible and moving into the world.  For most of our congregations and denominational bodies, going out to people with the Gospel is to bring them into our buildings and make them members. We are too hung up on the numbers game.  Christ told his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and teaching them everything that he had taught them.  I see nothing here in getting people to get their names on a membership roll or doing anything else than giving one's life to Jesus.

What Jesus told his disciples was simple:  "Follow me."

Where in that simple sentence does it say to believe X, Y, and Z?

Where in that simple sentence does it tell them to Testify? Obey? Convert?

fol·low

verb \ˈfä-(ˌ)lō\

: to go or come after or behind (someone or something)
: to go after or behind (someone) secretly and watch to find out what happens

: to come after (something) in time or place or as part of a series

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/follow

No matter which of these definitions we choose, what Jesus asks is that we pattern ourselves after him, that we walk his walk, look at what he does, and do likewise. 

How are we doing?

Sundays Sermon in a Wordle 

Epiphany's Love

On this Epiphany morning, the sun is reflected on the crystalline snow.
Powder iced trees produce wind blown dandruff
Squirrels prance across fence tops.
If this is my Epiphany, my heart has been iced
For the beauty of the Christ's light is aimed toward the dark and dreary
Recesses of this cold world,
Places where only Love's warmth can thaw 
       hatred
           hunger
              injustice
                 poverty
                    prejudice
                         pride
Cots upon which only the Healer's hand can bring life.
The beauty of this day is a gift;
Ours to return is the face of Love to the unloved.