Sermon delivered 

September 1, 2013 at Grace United Methodist Church in York, PA

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 (NRSV)

1. Let mutual love continue.
2. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
3. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.
4. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers.
5. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
6. So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?”
7. Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
8. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

15. Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of the lips that confess his name.
16. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
    
    
    This past week we celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington culminating in the famous “I have a Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now, I am not quite old enough to remember that time, but some of you may remember what life was like at that time in this country. Maybe you remember hearing your parents discuss the events as you came home from grade school. Maybe you remember seeing the images on television of the riots that occurred in places like Birmingham and elsewhere as protesters were met with police water cannons. Maybe you remember praying for the souls of those young african american girls who lost their lives when their church was bombed on a Sunday morning.
    
    
    I can't speak of my experience in these matters, but I am aware that how we view those events fifty years down the road is very different from the way they were viewed at the time. To think of segregating society now is anathema, it is frowned upon, to suggest it is to ostracize yourself from all social circles, and for good reason. Ideas like that are, in my opinion and in the opinion of the vast majority of Christian denominations, are the opposite of what we consider to be true, Christian moral codes. But at the moment they were occurring, there was no consensus, had there been, history would no doubt tell a very different tale. What is true in one human age is not necessarily true in another human age. Cultures change, human moral principles shift. Life adapts to place and time. It is the story of human endeavor.
    
    
    Yet, this morning here we are. We gather to praise God. We gather to rejuvenate our faith. We gather to hold up that which God holds out to us, that is His Grace. If the author of Hebrews has taught us nothing else, it is that there is a distinction between what is perfect and what is not. There is perfection in this world, but that perfection is in Christ. That perfection is in the sacrifice and blood of God's own Son for our undeserving redemption. That perfection does not lie in us, nor can it, at least not in the present. It can only be obtained by an acknowledgment on our part of the gift of Christ in our lives. Yet, even in that acknowledgment, perfection is not yet attained. We must wait! We must act in life, knowing that perfection will be obtained, but at a time not of our choosing. We must act in life, secure that our redemption is bought and paid for, but without any receipt to ensure our entrance to the Kingdom. That is faith. Faith, as Hebrews reminds us is assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. We can not see our reward, we have no physical proof that it is in our future, but we have faith.
    
    
    Now, there is a tendency that we humans have that I will admit, I have had trouble with lately. We tend to look on the past through a different lens than we do the present. It causes us to see the past as a bit more pleasant than it actually was. I honestly believe that those who are my age and complain about the state of life now will look back on this time in 50 years and tell stories about how the good old days were so much better than now. We will talk about how the kids have no respect because they wear their pants above their hips instead of below. We'll complain about the violence in the news and how back in 2013 it was safe enough to have only one lock on our doors. Oh, and the music, we will complain about the music, remembering how we used to be able to understand every third word, but now we can only make out one word out of five. But, the reality of the past is usually not as pleasant as we remember it.
    
    
    I thought about that tendency this week, while at the same time recognizing that the past, our past, has been an experience that has drawn us closer to the truth, but in so doing, presented us with a struggle that has been, at times, violent, divisive and even deadly to some. Even if we overlook the not so pleasant realities of our past, they are still there.
    
    
    As we finish up our time with Hebrews, the author leaves us with the parting words that we read this morning. They are, in essence, THE essence of this epistle. They are the answer to our eternal question of “how.” How do we live to bring about the kingdom? How do we act for God in a world that seems to be Godless? How can we live lives of promise and service when all around us seems to be a world of service to self and broken promises?
    
    
    How can we change even the block of this city we come to every week to worship? The answer is before us this morning in this final exhortation of Hebrews. You see, when the author tells us things like, “Remember those who are being tortured as if you were being tortured.” What that means is that acting out a faith that is pleasing to God is not easy. Coming to church on Sunday, singing some old hymns, praying together and shaking each others hands isn't enough. You might say, that was enough fifty years ago, or even a hundred years ago. But, I am here to tell you it wasn't enough then, and it isn't enough today and it definitely won't be enough tomorrow. Living out this promise has always been not only difficult, but when done correctly it is truly dangerous. We ask, why should we remember those who are tortured as if we are tortured? Why can't we just remember them and pray about them, because in reality, that is what we do. But the point the author is making is that if you are truly remembering them, you are being tortured, because the church is larger than anything we can imagine. The church is one unified body of the living Christ. That means if you are part of that body, you are not separate from any other part of that body. So if you are remembering those who suffer, it is more than a remembrance, it is you suffering as well. If you are showing hospitality, it can only be to a stranger. Giving hospitality to a friend, to another member of the body, it is not hospitality, it is simply sharing the life force that we have in common. We are called to help each other, but at the same time we are called to bring others into the body. Showing hospitality is to those who are not of us, yet. Those we don't know, but who God does know and who God does love. If we are loving something so much that it takes precedence over any part of the whole body, then it can infect the rest. Like a virus festering in a sore that is broken open and travels throughout the body. Friends, brothers and sisters, and compatriots of this body of Christ, if our faith is easy on us, then it is not faith. And if it is not faith, it is not pleasing to God.
    
    
    So let me tell you a story of what this faith that I speak of really looks like.
    
    
    Mariah Watkins had delivered more babies than any other woman in town. But for all she knew about babies, she had borne no child of her own. Perhaps that's why she was willing to take in the stray boy who showed up one day at her barn.
    The boy she took in was a genius, but she couldn't tell it by looking at him. True, he seemed different from other children, more frail and sensitive. But Mariah didn't see what the entire world would someday come to know about George. She just saw a child in need of a home and was willing to give it to him.
    George had come to her town to go to school. When they wouldn't allow him in the white school where he lived, he traveled eight miles to attend an all black school located just across the street from the home of Mariah and her husband, Andrew.
    The next day, George told Mariah that he was lucky to have picked her barn to sleep in that night. But the woman said, “Luck had nothing to do with it, boy. God brought you to my yard. He has work for you, and he wants Andrew and me to lend a hand.”
    At lunchtime, George would hop over the fence to help Mariah with the laundry. Besides giving him room and board, she taught George about herbs, roots, and other natural medicines. She hones his cooking and cleaning skills and even taught him to knit and crochet. One Christmas, she gave him an old, tattered Bible and made sure he read it every day. Unlike most former slave women, Mariah could read – thanks to a slave named Libby who had taught her by lamplight in spite of the beating she could get for doing it. Libby was one of Mariah's heroes, and the times George stayed home from school sick, Mariah would tell him about Libby's selfless dedication to her people.
    It was during one of these storytelling sessions that Mariah spoke to George about his place in the world. Her words lodged deep in his soul and supplied the fuel for the innumerable contributions he would eventually make.
    “You must learn all you can,” she said, “then be like Libby. Go out in the world and give your learning back to our people. They're starving for a little learning.”
    George did get all the learning he could. He sucked up every drop of knowledge in the little black school in Neosho, Missouri, then he moved on throughout the Midwest in search of other schools that would take him. For many years, he made money any way he could and then entered Simpson College to study art. While George was there, a teacher noticed something special about him and encouraged him to transfer to Iowa State to study agriculture.
    This proved to be another divine intervention.
    At Iowa State, George took graduate courses under great professors who recognized his keen mind and mentored him in the fields of botany and mycology. Then as he was nearing completion of his master's degree, a letter came from the famous black educator Booker T. Washington, a man who was known throughout the country for promising to help Southern blacks rise from poverty. Washington offered George the position of director of the agricultural school and state agricultural experiment station at his famous Tuskegee Institute. He accepted the job, which was the turning point of George's life.
    In a letter of response to Washington, George reaffirmed the calling spoken over his life by Mariah Watkins. He said, “It has always been one of the great ideals of my life to be of the greatest good to the greatest number of 'my people' possible and to this end I have been preparing myself for these many years; feeling as I do that this line of education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom to our people.”
    When George arrived at Tuskegee, the agricultural department consisted of a butter churn, several starving hogs, acres of worthless soil, and one old horse. So he and his students literally built their school from the ground up, using carved milk cartons, empty cans, and whatever else could be found to construct a working laboratory.
    For the next fifty years, George Washington Carver gave his learning back to hundreds and hundreds of “his people” and then, ultimately, to the world. He became as comfortable helping a local farmer as he was advising Ghandi on health issues for India. When the tsetse fly threatened the lives of their cows, George taught African missionaries how to feed people with peanut milk.
    His research on the peanut and other vegetables came from his prayer times, and he was famous for marrying the mysticism of religion with the logic of science. He is credited with more than three hundred products from the peanut including milk, cheese, butter, vinegar, coffee, salads, soups, printer's ink, shampoo, and wood stains. From the sweet potato, he created 118 possibilities, including rubber. From the hard southern clay, he developed paints and pioneered a new science called chemurgy – the industrialization of agricultural products, like wallboard from pine cones, banana stems, and peanut shells. He also created more than fifty dyes from twenty-eight kinds of plants.
    By the end of his life, the once-orphaned houseguest of Mariah Watkins had been showered with international acclaim as a botanist, chemurgist, researcher, painter, and inventor. He was a friend of Henry Ford and acquainted with three presidents. Throughout his life, Carver kept a strong faith by constant prayer and daily reading of the same tattered Bible that Mariah had given him as a boy. As a teacher, he sparked a bright hope in his people. And in a time of great unrest, he modeled for his race how to rise about injustice without succumbing to hatred.¹
    
    
    My friends, that is an example of faith. It is jumping out of our comfort to suffer with our people. It is the ability and desire to stand up and say, this isn't right and I am not going to stand for it anymore. True faith, of the kind Hebrews speaks, is what we see in Mariah learning to read from someone who only learned to read under a system that would have beat them to a pulp had they been caught. That is the faith we should aspire to. It is not a faith of empty words in hymns we sing because we always have but never stop to understand the words.
    
    
    If we come to worship hoping to find what we all know, then we have come for the wrong reason. If we come to worship to hear the same words we have always heard, we are not here for the right reason. If we come to worship to sing only the old standards and never the new age funk or even the great Gospel Spirituals that were written for that purpose, then we have not come for the right reasons.
    
    
    Our worship is a gift to God and only to God. If it becomes about anything else, then it is an offense to God. Our lives are a gift from God and to not use them as He commands, then we insult the giver of this greatest gift we know.
    
    
    Fifty years ago, a great preacher stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. His idea that day was to give a speech, but the people gathered were not aware they were about to go to church. That speech turned into a sermon the likes of which every pastor wishes he could give. It was a call to action based in the scriptural promise of freedom for all of God's children. We know the right way to be, we lack the will to be that way. Let us remember today and every day that in our faith, we have the conviction of that which we know to be true but cannot see. God gives us the glasses that help us see that promise even before it is realized. Let us put on those glasses today and give thanks that we have a God who is our helper. Let us give thanks that we don't have to be afraid, because if we are God's who can do any harm to us?!
    1Caron Loveless, The Words that Inspired the Dreams, (West Monroe, LA: Howard Publishing Co., 2000), 50-53.

King's Dream and God's Call

50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have A Dream" speech.
August 28, 2013

Generally I use this blog to post sermons that I have preached at Grace United Methodist Church in York, the church that I have been appointed to for the past couple of years. However, occasionally I post something other than just sermons. Since the anniversary of the March on Washington is just around the corner, I wanted to make note of it in the "Pastor's Page" part of the church newsletter.

For those who are not familiar with Grace UMC, we are a small church in Downtown York, PA. We are located in a part of the city that has changed dramatically over the past couple decades. For those who grew up near the church, it is especially difficult as they have been able to witness this change firsthand. It truly is a world that is foreign to many in my congregation as well as to myself in some ways. As a result, there is a culture gap between the congregation and the neighborhood and that gap has, at times seemed insurmountable. Yet, we try to find ways to reach out and affect the lives of our neighbors in a positive way.

This article was speaking to this reality of urban life. However, it could easily pertain to rural or suburban areas as well.

Grace United Methodist Church

Pastor Steven Cowfer

September 2013 - Thoughts on history and ministry in a changing world

“I have a dream.” These immortal words were spoken on August 28, 1963. We are just a few short days away (as of this writing) from celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the day when the downtrodden stood up and began to demand what was rightfully theirs. Just the other day I read through the text of this famous speech and something caught my attention that I hadn’t noticed before. It comes near the beginning of the speech.

“There is something I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.”

As I look around York, especially the neighborhood around Grace, and as I hear so many wonderful stories from this congregation about what things used to be like, I sometimes wonder whether or not change is even possible. I know that is not a very encouraging thought from a pastor, but we have our doubts and our fears just like everyone else. It seems a monumental task, but it is a task we try to accomplish.

I know that it is easy to look back to what York used to be and feel saddened by the reality that it is nowhere near the place that York is in today. When we do that, we also assign blame for the various aspects of our reality. Of course, that blame is always external, for all things being equal, we never would have let things come to this, we never would have allowed rental properties to so vastly outnumber those houses that are owned and lived in by the owner. We never would have let people so openly sell drugs on our streets. We never would have permitted so many churches to fail. We never would have….. (and yes, I am being sarcastic.)

The truth is that while there is plenty of blame to throw around, we also must accept responsibility in the matter. We also played a role in how we got here. We sped up the process of urban decay by abandoning the city. We sped up the process of community division by appearing to be a church unto itself. We sped up the process of distrust among neighbors by leaving the sanctuary on Sunday and being afraid something might happen between the church door and the car door. We have blame in this mess. It is not all our fault, yet we are not faultless.

Dr. King, though, reminds us that we must not let distrust continue to separate us. Because, in this journey of life, one of the only certainties we have is that we cannot walk alone. Our future and our present are inextricably bound together. What’s more is that our fear and anger over what our city has become is also inextricably linked to the fear and anger of those who live right outside the church doors.

When we look outside and lament over the diversity in the city, when we look outside and blame our neighbor for the trash on the street, when we shake our heads in despair as we hear of yet another shooting, we are giving in to the temptation that Satan has put before us. We can mask that temptation and call it faith, but that doesn’t make it faith, it simply makes it sin disguised as disinterest.

The Civil Rights movement was ultimately successful because enough people of different ethnic and racial groups were finally able to agree that we are all better off together than we ever could be apart. And therein lies the crucial element that can open us to feel the Spirit working around us. Together we are stronger. Arguing and blame get us nowhere.

Let me let you in on another secret, the way York used to be is not the way it will ever be again. We cannot use an image of York in the past as the goal for the present and future. Whatever will come is not the same as what has been. Our faith can be rooted in the past, but our future must look past and into a hopeful reality of what can be with a little more trust and a lot more able hands to help us get there.

I challenge you this year to broaden your horizon as to what is possible. The past will not come back, but I guarantee you that the future can be better than the past. With the help of the Spirit, it will be. I challenge you to volunteer for something this year that you have never done before. Participate in one of the ministries of Grace UMC, or maybe volunteer to work for a day in a Habitat for Humanity project. Do something! Do something physical, do something new, and do something now! That is what we are called to do here in this church and here in this time.

Basking in the Mystery of the Trinity - Trinity Sunday Sermon 2013

Back in June of 2003, I flew with a friend of mine to Germany where we met another friend of mine who was working for a year in Berlin. Now, we were only there for a week and we had to really plan how to travel around so we could see as much as we could in so short a time. Of course, in Europe, you have to travel by train. So we would take a train real early in the morning, and then head back to Berlin in the evening. On one of the trips back to Berlin, I was sitting and talking to my friend when we heard this commotion behind us. This guy, dressed as an attendant, came hurriedly through the train asking if there was a Catholic priest on board. Apparently, there wasn’t. A few minutes later, he came back through, this time asking for a lutheran pastor or even an anglican priest. Again, there didn’t appear to be. A few moments, later he came back through asking for a Jewish Rabbi. This time an elderly man towards the back of the car stood up and said, “Can I help you, friend. I am a Methodist minister.” At this the attendant sighed and said, of course not, you’re not going to be any help, I need a corkscrew.”

Today is the day that we celebrate the Holy Trinity. You know, that logically impossible, mathematically complicated thing that tells us that God is three distinct entities, each with its own purpose and yet, these three distinct entities are, in fact one and the same. 1+1+1=1. Plain as day. Or maybe not so much.

I preached on this topic, I think two years ago, and I looked over that sermon and came to the conclusion that I wanted to do something different, but I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what to say this morning. You see, while I don’t read a lot of mystery novels, I do enjoy them. Last week, Dan Brown came out with a new novel. I know his books are controversial, like the Da Vinci Code, and I can understand why, but at the end of the day, for me at least, it is a fictional novel and he is a good writer so I enjoy reading him. Now he only comes out with a book every few years or so and it had been awhile since his last one. When I new there was another one coming, I was counting off the days to when I could get it. I finished it this week, and I have to admit, I enjoyed it. The surprising thing is that as I got closer to the end of the book, I found myself getting upset, because I was enjoying the mystery so much, that I didn’t want to get to the end. Even though my mind was trained to sift through possibilities and find the facts, the reality is that I enjoy the mystery.

As I looked over the text I preached two years ago on this subject, I noticed that I spent a good deal of time trying to give a definition to the trinity that would give it some meaning. Because, in my mind a mystery lacks definition, by design. We can’t learn anything through a mystery. This morning, though, I realize that I may have been trying to explain a mystery thinking that clarity brings power in understanding. Yet, what if that isn’t the case. What if mystery has a power of its own that can even surpass the power that clarity can bring.

Let’s look at an example. The book of Genesis. Let me tell you two different accounts of creation and see if you can tell me which one is actually from the Bible. Option 1: man and woman are made on the same day at roughly the same time and at the end of the rest of creation. Option 2: man is made first, then God makes the rest of creation and towards the end, then finally makes woman as a companion to man.

Which one then, of these two different accounts of creation is actually the version that Genesis tells? The first version does indeed come from Genesis, specifically it comes from the very first chapter. The second version comes from the second chapter of Genesis. That is right, they both are from Genesis. They both tell of creation, and they both tell contradictory stories about how the earth was created. How can that be?

Throughout history, many people have weighed in on the issue. Some say there is no contradiction, that they are simply the same account but from a different point of view. Others say that one of them was a later addition. Still others say that it is simply a metaphorical attempt to put in words the actions God took on our behalf during creation. Even others point to this as proof that the Bible can’t be authoritative because of its contradictions. Any of these explanations could be true, but I personally don’t subscribe to any of them. And here is why.

Sometimes a mystery is ok. Sometimes accepting what we don’t know can help us to see the larger picture in a better way. There is an old story about Saint Augustine. One day Augustine was walking along the beach by the ocean and pondering the deep mystery of God the Holy Trinity. He met a boy there on the beach who had dug a hole in the sand and kept busy running back and forth from the hole to the ocean; collecting water and pouring it into the hole. Augustine was curious about this, so he asked the boy: “What are you doing?” The boy replied: “I am going to pour the entire ocean into this hole.” Augustine then said: “That is impossible, the whole ocean will not fit into your hole.” And the boy answered Augustine: “Neither can the infinite God the Holy Trinity fit into your finite mind.”

The Bible is full of many mysteries. From the contradictory accounts of creation, to the differences in the four Gospels, to the true meaning of the Book of Revelation, and of course to the concept of the Holy Trinity that we deal with today. Scripture, with all its answers and with all of the advice it gives us on how to live our lives, with all of that, it is still filled with mystery. And that is ok, because in mystery, we find ourselves opening our mind to possibilities that we may not have imagined if we simply were presented with facts. Maybe the mystery of the trinity is simply that, a mystery that was never meant to truly be understood but rather to simply be believed and lived in.

This mystery, in its complexity and in its simplicity, can help us understand God in a better way and it can also help us to grasp better what our own calling may be. Because in this three is one and one is three illogical structure we find that our lives are filled with small trinities. We find them all over. Our relationships. Our gardening. Our communities. Augustine, for example, explained the trinity as a diagram of relationship. He used the model, believe it or not, of a romantic relationship. The lover, the beloved and the love that they share. Each representing either the father, the son or the holy spirit. Others have compared it to a plant, with the seed, the roots, and the visible flower. And even in our communities we can see its presence. the church, the community and the mission work we do, for example.

All of this is what makes the doctrine of the Trinity a celebration of the triumph of the infinite hues of complexity over a monochromatic simplicity. It reminds us that the central metaphor for God for us Christians is a diversity, and within that diversity a unity. We see that biological diversity is nature’s way of preserving and propagating life. But when it comes to race or class or even sexual orientation, it can feel like a threat to our own values and lifestyles.

Sociologists tell us that in early American towns the richest person and the poorest person never lived more than 200 yards apart. They would have to walk by the other’s dwelling during the course of a typical day. They were part of the same community and they were connected in a way we can now only try to imagine.

How different is that from where we are now when we wall ourselves off from the community or gate ourselves inside. How different is it when we don’t share the same schools or even the same churches?

When we don’t experience diversity in our day to day, we begin to lost touch with one another and the social fabric that binds us together begins to slowly unravel.

Theological diversity works the same way, and maybe that is even more difficult because we are dealing with what we believe to be eternal and sacred, and when it comes to that we are not open to alternative approaches. We want our religious truths to be pure, immutable. We want to believe our particular corner on God has not other inhabitants.

Rev. Richard Bowers writes, “The fear and insecurity that draws people into rigid, propositional statements about god and creation blinds them to the reality that all theological reflection flows from particular histories and contexts that shape how we understand God and the divine work among us.

For Christians, the Trinity is the primary symbol of community that holds together by containing diversity within itself. The trinity is an attempt to express an ineffable truth using a symbol, a metaphor for the different aspects and activities of God’s personhood.

It might make for strange math. Yet, actually the Cappodocian Theologians (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, all from the 4th and 5th centuries) viewed the number 1 as no number at all because it had no diversity. It possessed no discernable strength. Isn’t that interesting?

The number 2 was weak as well in that it was only a dualism. At best, it could only be two sides of the same coin.

The number 3 was considered the first real number because it had innate stability, a complexity; a diversity, which made it durable and strong.

And the Trinity is not the only symbol of diversity for Christians. All of the Bible with its two accounts of the creation, and its four gospels, is enriched by its strikingly different approach to telling the story of Jesus and his ministry. It symbolizes a unity that is anything but uniform. These multiple viewpoints of truth help us to begin to comprehend the complexity of Jesus and the Mystery of the Incarnate Christ. the Son of the living God can’t be verified by one, lone witness. It requires a diversity of witnesses, a host of people who see that story, who witness that truth through their own individual lenses.

No matter how  we choose to explain the trinity, the reality is that its mystery gives us an opportunity to venture into a deeper understanding of what it is and what it means. In some ways, then the Trinity is the first community, the model for how we are called to connect with one another, without prejudice, without inequality, without competition, and always with perfect love.

It is not that a Trinitarian God is too complicated to understand, but rather that a Trinitarian God is too complex to be managed or manipulated by all of us who think we know better than God.

We see all kinds of issues in black and white, but we live our lives in color. the complexity of the trinity means that Spirit and Flesh live inextricably bound to one another. It means that the human and the divine are connected in an eternal dance.

In fact, the early theologians used the Greek work perichorasis which means around the circle. As we dance together and with God, we all dance to the center of life where God resides and we all move closer to one another.

Today we also celebrate those who have served our country, many making the ultimate sacrifice. While we do that, we must remember one thing in particular. Despite the army’s motto of “an army of one”, few if any veterans that I know would say that battles are lost or one by a single person, they know that it is by working together that evil can be overcome. That speaks to our lives and our faith and our mission as well, so as we celebrate those who serve, let their example and the example of the trinity itself to remind us that it is together we are strong, it is in our unity that our mission is better accomplished.

Returning back to Augustine, as he wrote to students as he was writing “On The Trinity,” his famous treatise on this topic, he wrote the following. “Lest you become discouraged, know that when you love, you know more about who God is than you ever could know with your intellect.”

It is in loving that we find love. It is in giving that we receive. It is in serving that we are ultimately served.

The Holy Trinity, it is indeed a holy mystery. It is not an entity that mathematics or physics or calculus can explain. It is not a philosophical position that can be achieved by the use of logic or reason. It is a mystery. It is one that we may never really solve, but in that we find its strength. It is not something we must see in order to believe. Rather, it is something that truly needs to believed and lived in order to see the effects it has on our lives, on our community and on our mission and calling in this world, in God’s world, in God’s creation.

Maybe we haven’t answered any questions today, yet, even more important, maybe we have learned that we can find beauty and strength without finding answers and proof. That is the mystery of the trinity. That is the mystery of God. And it is in that mystery, that, when we accept it, we come to find the loving embrace of that God, That Father, that Son, and that Holy Spirit. Amen.

May 12, 2013

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Mother’s Day/Festival of the Christian Home

Ascension Sunday

Shortly after commencement, the young seminary graduate was being considered by a pulpit committee for his first pastorate. The committee chairman began the interview by asking the candidate, “Sir, how much do you know about the Bible?” To which the young man responded, “I am a seminary graduate. I know the Bible well; Old Testament, New Testament, I know it all.” The chairmen then said, “Since you are such a knowledgeable Bible student, why don’t you share a well known passage with us from memory; one with which we lay people are all familiar. Tell us the story of the Good Samaritan.”

The seminary graduate said, “Oh, yes, I know it well. There once was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus who went down to Jerusalem by night. But he fell upon the stony ground and the thorns choked him almost to death. He said, ‘What shall I do? I know. I will arise and go to my father’s house.’ So he arose and climbed a sycamore tree. The next day, Solomon and his wife Gomorrah came by and carried him down to Noah’s ark for Moses to take care of him. But as he was passing through the east gate of the ark, his hair became tangled in a tree limb and he hung there forty days and forty nights. He was afterwards hungry, and the ravens came and fed him. On the following day, the three wise men came and carried him down to Nineveh. When he arrived there, he found Delilah sitting on the wall. He cried out, ‘Who is on my side?’ and the seven sons of Sceva came forth. He said to them. ‘Throw her down boys!’, to which they answered, ‘How many times, till seven times?’ He said, ‘No, seventy times seven.’ So they threw her down four hundred and ninety times, and she burst asunder in their midst. Afterwards, they picked up twelve baskets of the fragments were were made.’

At this point, the seminary graduate took a long pause and looked intently around the room into each one’s eyes before confronting them with his application. ‘And in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?’

The chairman of the committee thanked the young man and dismissed him from the room while they discussed his candidacy. When the seminary graduate had departed the room, the chairman turned to the rest of the members and said, ‘I think we ought to call him. I know he is young, but my soul, he really knows his Bible.”

John 17:20-26 (NRSV)

(20) I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,

(21) that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

(22) The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,

(23)I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

(24) Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

(25) Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.

(26) I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

The message in these words this morning is pretty intense. Yet, these are the words Christ prays right before he is arrested. They are words in prayer that are meant to be encouraging. Why else would they be written down? God didn’t need to know them, he already did. They were written down so that we would know them, so that we would hear them, so that we would understand them. Yet, we often forget these words and focus more on the parts of the gospel story that are easier to act upon, or so we think.

Every four years the United Methodist Church gathers together in one place and has what we call General Conference. The General Conference is the convening of the governing structure of the United Methodist Church throughout the world. Last year about this time the General Conference met in Tampa, Fl. At this meeting there are changes made to our Book of Discipline. Here is a copy. If you would like to borrow a copy let me know and I will lend you one. Then I will pray that you find something more constructive and enjoyable to do. This is not leisure reading. However, not too far in you get to what we call the social principles of the UMC. Yet, before it gets into detail it offers up a preamble. None of the social principles are binding, but rather together provide kind of a general consensus of the thoughts about how the church and society are related to each other and the importance of this relationship in societal development at a local, national and global level. I want to briefly read this preamble because I feel that it speaks to the message we hear in the Gospel this morning.

We, the people called United Methodists, affirm our faith in God our Creator and Father, in Jesus Christ our Savior, and in the Holy Spirit, our Guide and Guard.

We acknowledge our complete dependence upon God in birth, in life, in death, and in life eternal. Secure in God’s love, we affirm the goodness of life and confess our many sins against God’s will for us as we find it in Jesus Christ. We have not always been faithful stewards of all that has been committed to us by god the Creator. We have been reluctant followers of Jesus Christ in his mission to bring all persons into a community of love. Though called by the Holy Spirit to become new creatures in Christ, we have resisted the further call to become the people of God in our dealings with each other and the earth on which we live.

We affirm our unity in Jesus Christ while acknowledging differences in applying our faith in different cultural contexts as we live out the gospel.

Grateful for God’s forgiving love, in which we live and by which we are judged, and affirming our belief in the inestimable worth of each individual, we renew our commitment to become faithful witnesses to the gospel, not alone to the ends of the earth, but also to the depths of our common life and work.

We acknowledge that, because it is a living body of believers, gathered together by God from many diverse segments of the human community, unanimity of belief, opinion, practice has never been characteristic of the Church from the beginning to this day. From its earliest time, as evidenced in the letters of Paul, the witness of the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and other New Testament texts, diversity of understanding and controversy with regard to many matters has been the reality. Therefore, whenever significant differences of opinion among faithful Christians occur, some of which continue to divide the church deeply today, neither surprise nor dismay should be allowed to separate members of the Body from one another; nor should those differences be covered over with false claims of consensus or unanimity. To the contrary, such conflict must be embraced with courage and perseverance as all together continue to seek to discern God’s will. In that understanding and commitment, we pledge ourselves to acknowledge and to embrace with courage, trust, and hope those controversies that arise among us, accepting them as evidence that God is not yet finished in sculpting us to be God’s people.

We commit ourselves to stand united in declaring our faith that God’s grace is available to all, that nothing can separate us from the love of God. In that confidence, we pledge to continue to be in respectful dialogue ;with those with whom we disagree, to explore the sources of our differences, to honor the sacred worth of all persons, and to tell the truth about our divisions as we continue to seek the mind of Christ and to do the will of God in all things.”

So, you may be asking what this preamble has to do with this morning’s Gospel lesson. Well, to get to the heart of it, no pun intended, it is all about true love. What do I mean by true love? I don’t mean the true love we think about near valentine’s day with cupid and arrows and sappy love songs and well worded cards, or boxes of chocolate. Although, chocolate doesn’t hurt. True love is not the feeling you get when you see that object of your desire. For instance, maybe you love the smell of fresh cut grass on a summer morning, or maybe you love the humm of a well-tuned engine on a brand new mustang or even a tin lizzie. Maybe you love that feeling when you are at a baseball game and its the bottom of the 9th, score is tied, your team is up to bat, there are two outs, and the count is 3-2 and the next pitch is pounded out of the park and you stand up screaming as the runner rounds home base, winning the game. Maybe you love one or all of these things. And, this feeling is a good one, but it isn’t true love.

But, don’t be discouraged, because true love does exist in our world. But if these things aren’t true love, then what is? We find an example in the reading from John’s gospel. We find it in the selfless love of Christ. Here he is, praying, shortly before his arrest. He knows what is coming. Yet here he is praying, likely for the opposite than what we would pray for in the same situation. He is praying for his disciples and for us. He is praying that we will come to know him. He was praying not for us in an individual sense, necessarily; but rather for us in a communal sense. He is praying for what will become the Church. This is a prayer of sacrificial love, of true love. The love that is true love in its purest form.

We, as the church, though, have often let the differences we have come between us and a true understanding of the love Jesus is praying for. There is an old poem that sheds light on how many of us think of our faith. It goes:

I can be a Christian by myself.

Leave my dusty Bible on the shelf.

I’ll sing a hymn and pray a bit.

God can do the rest of it.

My heart’s the church, my head’s the steeple.

Shut the door and I’m the people.

I can be a Christian by myself.

I can be a Christian by myself.

I’ll break some bread and drink some wine,

Have myself a holy time.

I’ll take the offering, then I’ll know

Where that money’s going to go.

Lord, please remember, when I die.

Give me my own cloud in the sky.

After this life with all its labors,

Don’t bug me with any needy neighbors.

I can be a Christian by myself.

This is truly the opposite of the love Jesus modeled for his disciples. Jesus did not promote a cult of the autonomous individual - a law unto himself. He was not self-centered, but God-centered. People who center themselves in God are able to get their egos out of the way so they can set their first concern for others. There really is no other way to do it. You're either full of yourself and despise others. Or you're full of God and live for others. So Jesus found himself praying on the night before he died not for himself, but for us. And one of the things he prayed for is that we might be one. "I ask," he prayed, "that they may be one even as we" (that is Jesus, the Son, and his Father) "are one, perfectly one."

This unity is achieved in love.

Many theologians have focused to some extent on the importance of an individual faith. Perhaps the most well known is Martin Luther. Now, this individual faith is not only relevant, but important. Yet, it is not the only aspect of faith that must be developed. In his treatise, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, almost arguing against Luther says in response to a call to individual faith,

But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you. “If I die, then I am not alone in death; if I suffer the fellowships suffers with me.”

This morning then, we see this self-sacrificial love that Christ models for us, becomes the glue that holds together the whole church. Right before he is arrested and executed, knowing what is to come, Jesus prays for the unity of all of us. Jesus calls us to a collective understanding of what it means to live in community and to love sacrificially, to be in love with true love.

This morning, we gather together in the presence of the risen Christ, and we come to learn to model that kind of love to our friends and our neighbors. We come to learn to model that kind of love to the strangers and even our enemies, some of which might be in the walls of the sanctuary and no doubt many more are outside these walls. Yet, the love we are called to is a difficult love to live out. Sometimes it can even seem impossible. Impossible, kind of like kneeling down and praying to God for the unity of those that will make you suffer, that will secure your own death. That is true love.

However, this morning we also gather together to give thanks for the many models of this type of love in our midst. Even though it might seem that love this strong is rare, the reverse is actually true. We see it today in the eyes of so many women in our congregation today. There are millions of examples. Let me give you a few. The women here whose children have at some point decided to serve their country either in peacetime at a base in the states or in war time in dangerous places throughout the world. We see this love in the act of these mothers who, despite their fears, have supported and prayed for their children. This is one example of this selfless love. We see it in the acts of mothers who struggle with children who have become addicted to drugs or alcohol. Those mothers who worry and who pray every day that their children will come home. Those mothers who know what is inside the soul of their children even when the rest of the world can’t or won’t see it. That is an act of selfless love. We see it in the acts of mothers who have sat at the bedside of their ill child, fearful and hopeful at the same time. The mothers who have begged God to take their life instead of the life of their child. This is an act of selfless love.

This morning, we gather to celebrate the mother’s in our midst, for the acts of selfless love they commit every single day. We gather to celebrate the spirits of those mothers who are with us only in spirit, but whose lives gave us example after example of this selfless love that enabled us to grow and love in the same way. We gather to celebrate all women and men and boys and girls and grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles who without question, will sacrifice for another, modeling the selfless love of their lord, Jesus Christ.

And we come together this morning in the hope that we can see and learn to fulfill that last line of the prayer Jesus prayed. That in this love that we show, others witness and come to believe as well. This is the love we are called to live.

April 21, 2013

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Acts 9:36-43 (NRSV)

(36) Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity.

(37) At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs.

(38) Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.”

(39) So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.

(40) Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up.

(41) He gave her his hand and helped her up. then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive.

(42) This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

(43) Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

Revelation 7:9-17 (NRSV)

(9) After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

(10) they cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

(11) And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,

(12) singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

(13) then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”

(14) I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

(15) For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.

(16) They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat;

(17) for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

John 10:22-30 (NRSV)

(22) At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter,

(23) and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.

(24) So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.

(25) Jesus answered, “I have told you , and you do not believe. the works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me;

(26) but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.

(27) My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

(28) I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

(29) What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand.

(30) The Father and I are one.”

I was blessed last week to have the opportunity to sit back and worship here with you all. It is such a wonderful experience to be able to participate in worship rather than lead it occasionally. I really enjoyed Phyllis’ words as I am sure you all did as well. In addition, not having to prepare much for last week gave me the chance to work ahead a bit. A few more weeks of school and the semester will be over so these last few weeks, needless to say, I have a bit of work. Papers are coming due, projects are getting ready to be presented. Final exams are getting a bit too close for comfort. So I entered this week caught up, and dare I say, a bit ahead. I was proud of myself.

Then, Monday happened. Monday happened and, well, everything changed. I was on my way to DC when I heard the news of the bombing. At that moment, no one was real sure exactly what was going on. I don’t know if you have ever felt like that. I remember on Sept. 11, 2001, I was starting my senior year of College. I had a 9:30am class on Tuesdays, and would walk to class with my friend who lived next to me. When we left for class, there was a report of one plane crash, but that was it. We went to class, unaware of what was happening, until 11am when class let out and we went to get some lunch and it was at that point, as we walked into the cafeteria and saw TV screens on all over the place, so many people gathered round that there was no room to move.

We got out of class and realized that the world had changed. That is what Monday felt like. I heard bits of the radio and by the time I had class, I realized that something horrible was happening, but it wasn’t until I got out of class that it really hit me.

You see, guilt strikes us in different ways. Sometimes we struggle with guilt for things we did or said that we shouldn’t. Sometimes we struggle with guilt for things we didn’t do or say that we should have. Monday mornings I have a routine. It is the one day of the week that I can “sleep in.” Eimy and Ian have to get to work and school, but i can’t take them like I usually do because I leave before they get home. So, generally, I will get up to give Ian a hug and kiss goodbye since I won’t see him until wednesday night, or he comes and gives me a hug and a kiss. This monday, for whatever reason, we didn’t see each other before he left for school. I didn’t really think about that until after I got out of class and back to my room a little before 9pm and got online to check my email and the news and that is when I heard about the little 8 year old boy who lost his life in Boston.

Just like that, we struggle with guilt for things we should have done, things that didn’t seem all that important at the time, but in all reality are the most important things there are. There is a lot of guilt to go around this week. I am sure each of you missed an opportunity to let someone close to you know that you love them. It is unfortunate that sometimes it takes a massive crisis for us to remember who is important in our lives.

We are left today, with this image of Jesus as our shepherd. I don’t know about you but when I was growing up and was thinking of a shepherd, the image I got in my mind was of a lonesome boy, out on the range guarding his flock. For that reason, it can be comforting to imagine, rather, to know that while we flock together, we have Christ guarding us, protecting us, guiding us home. Yet, it begs the question, if Jesus, if God, if the Holy Spirit is shepherding us, that means they are protecting us from something. They are protecting us from some evil. As a shepherd guards, he does his best to keep his flock safe, but to a certain extent, it is in the shepherds power to protect, but not in his power to control the evil that lurks outside of his view.

If we think of Christ as our shepherd in this light, it quickly becomes scary. We know Jesus to be part of the Holy Trinity, Jesus as man, but also as God and as the Holy Spirit. We know that as part of the trinity, all that we see and experience is part of His creation. This brings us to the ever present question, if all is created by God, why is there so much sorrow and heartache and evil. Many say that God created it. This, historically, has been a popular understanding. To us, it makes logical sense. God creates everything. Evil is something, therefore it was created and since it was created it had to be created by God. See, it makes sense. There are a couple of problems with this though. First of all, this logic has been used by some individuals who use it to scare and to blame. It is this understanding of evil that gives us those individuals who say that illness, cancer, AIDS, poverty, death, and destruction are signs of God’s vengeance upon those who have sinned. It is this understanding of evil that gives us those who say that health, prosperity, wealth, influence, and power are nothing more than blessings for those individuals who have kept God’s commandments.

Yet, here is the thing. There is one fact that blows a hole in this logic. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. Despite the fact that this logic has been used more times than we can count, the truth is that this logic is just that, a human attempt to understand something that is to a certain extent beyond our comprehension. No matter how many times we hear this perspective on why evil exists, the truth is, when we read through the Bible, especially when we read through the New Testament, this understanding of evil is simply wrong. It is simply a way we have come to pretend that God is on our side. What it fails to do is ask the question, are we on God’s side?

You see, there are other explanations of why evil exists and what exactly evil is. I don’t want to get into a whole bunch of theology, because frankly, it confuses me just as it might confuse a number of you. However, let me give you what I believe is possibly the most likely explanation that I feel fits into the understanding we get through careful study of scripture.

Evil, in all its forms, is not something. It is not a substance, it is not a piece of matter. It is, rather, a state of mind. It comes into being in a very simple way. We don’t get our priorities straight. We order our lives and our beings in ways that are counter to what God intends. We can do this because God gives us the ability to choose what we do in life. God gives us the power to order our priorities in any way that we want. When our priorities are ordered in the correct way, our lives, our words, our thoughts and our deeds bring us closer to God. But the reverse is also true. When our priorities are not in the right order, we put distance between ourselves and God. More than this, it becomes a self-fulfilling circular habit. When we order our priorities incorrectly, we get further from God. As we draw away from God, it becomes harder and harder to realize how our priorities should be ordered and we just keep moving farther and farther away.

In this understanding, evil exists not because God creates it, but because we do. We create it and allow it. What makes matters worse is that over time it just keeps getting harder and harder for us to figure out how to get everything in order.

That is why that image we have of the Shepherd watching over us can be a bit misleading. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that Christ is not our shepherd. Rather, Christ being our shepherd is not simply a matter of him looking out for wolves. Rather, it is a matter of Him trying over and over to convince us that the only reason wolves are there is because we choose to see them. But, to a certain extent they are illusions. Created by our inability to answer our calls. He tells us that much today in his words, “You don’t believe because you don’t recognize the voice of the shepherd among you.”

We wondered if we tend to think of the image of the shepherd as an image of Jesus on a grassy hillside surrounded by fluffy white sheep.  Here we see a sharper image:  Jesus is the Lord who is the Shepherd of the Twenty-third Psalm:  "When you recite the psalm, 'the Lord is my shepherd,' Jesus says, "you are addressing me.  The Father and I are one, I am the Good Shepherd."

And now come the words, "My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.  No one will snatch them out of my hand.  What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand.  The Father and I are one."

Today listen for the voice of our Shepherd, calling us away from deadly things, empowering and equipping us to raise up others who long to know the power of his forgiving love.  Let's show ourselves to be alive in Christ, raising up others in the joy of our risen Lord.

Today, we struggle with the events of this past week. Today we look to God, we call to the Shepherd, we pray that we can understand why. Maybe the reason why is that we have created something we can’t control. Maybe the reason why is that we have sinned and are being punished. Maybe the reason is simply that, sometimes, bad things happen. We also know that as Christ calls us into the fold, we too, must answer. We too must share that love that brings us home.

Today, we are humbled. We are in awe of the evil that has befallen us. We are scared that more will come. We mourn for those whose lives have been taken away far too soon. We are reminded that, in life, there is little true security. That is, except in the arms of the shepherd who calls us, who searches for us, and who loves us.

If we learn nothing else from this past week, let us learn this. We share this life with family and friends. We share this life with neighbors and acquaintances. We share in this life, a planet filled with two things. First, it is a planet filled with pain. Secondly, and more importantly, it is a planet filled with millions of opportunities every day to reach out, embrace, and love. For it is in this embrace, it is in this love, that we begin to see how we have misordered the priorities in our lives. In fact, it is the one thing that can help us see clearly when we are trapped in the downward spiral that draws us away from God. This embrace and this love, gives us enough clarity to see through the evil and recognize the love. This love, brightens our path, and together, we can walk, back into the fold, where we will be blessed to share an eternity in the fold of the creator, the only place we can be where it will be impossible to confuse evil with love.