Houston! We have a problem!

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Houston! We have a problem!

The wheat will be separated from the weeds! The weeds will be thrown into the fire at the harvest where they will burn. In the fire there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!

THE WHEAT WILL BE SEPARATED FROM THE WEEDS! THE WEEDS WILL BE THROWN INTO THE FIRE AT THE HARVEST WHERE THEY WILL BURN. IN THE FIRE THERE WILL BE WEEPING AND GNASHING OF TEETH!

THE WHEAT WILL BE SEPARATED FROM THE WEEDS! THE WEEDS WILL BE THROWN INTO THE FIRE AT THE HARVEST WHERE THEY WILL BURN. IN THE FIRE THERE WILL BE WEEPING AND GNASHING OF TEETH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A couple of weeks ago I was reminded that at least during the summer, coats and ties were not required here. Well, as you can tell I am wearing a coat and tie this morning. But, I wore them to make a point. I wore them in order to do justice to the fire and brimstone preaching that I just so poorly attempted. If it is now ok, I am going to take them off.

You see, I am not, nor will I ever be, a fire and brimstone preacher! I don’t believe in it. I am not saying that I don’t believe in heaven or in hell. But I don’t believe in fire and brimstone. I don’t believe that kind of preaching does anybody any good. I don’t believe it ever has. I don’t believe it ever will.

So how can we take a passage this clear and not talk of fire and brimstone? Well, as you read, you notice that once again, the disciples don’t get it. This allegory is not that complicating. Why can’t the disciples understand it. It is not like it is the first time that Jesus has used this type of parable to make a point. So why the lack of understanding? Maybe the point of having Jesus re-explaining the parable has more to do with re-examination than with re-explanation. Maybe Matthew is telling us that we need to step back and look at what is really being said. My opinion, the fire and brimstone has nothing to do with this parable. This is not a parable about separation of good and bad by God, but rather about separation of good and bad by us, even when done with the best intentions.

We, as a people, as a church, have a very bad habit of separating the perceived “good” from the “perceived” bad. Here is the problem, we believe we perceive as God perceives, and simply put, we can’t see like God. We don’t understand “good” and “bad” as God understands them. Yet, we keep thinking that we do.

The problem, therefore, lies with perception, not intention. We think we know what God thinks so well that we can’t see the forest for the trees.

Let me relate a little story that happened to me on my vacation that may help you understand this.

While on vacation, we decided to take a vacation. We spent the first week in Quito, but decided that we wanted to go to the beach. Therefore, we made plans to go to the seaside resort town of Tonsupo, just outside of the city of Esmeraldas, in the northwest of Ecuador. Now, this is only about a 40 minute flight or so, but it is also about a 5 hour drive. The reason the drive is so long is because Quito is at 10,000 feet, approximately, whereas the beach is, of course, at 0 feet. Therefore, there are a lot of winding roads to get there. Needless to say, there were a lot of nail-biting experiences on this trip. I am sure I will share some of them in future sermons, or privately if any one of you would like to share a near death experience you have had and we can compare notes. Today, however, I want to talk about the night before the trip.

We figured on going for just a couple of days, so as many could understand we had to fill the car to its absolute maximum level of overload. The best part of course was trying to get the suitcases tied to the top of the car. Now, we each have our preferred way of doing things, but when our preferred ways differ, insanity can ensue. What should have been a job that took twenty minutes tops, took about three hours. We thought we had it all taken care of, but then my mother-in-law came on the scene. Now, I love my mother-in-law, but even Eimy will agree when it comes to planning or organizing, nothing is right until it is done her way. This of course encourages an argument by all who disagree, which inevitably results in fighting, people walking away in frustration and finally, success after much consternation and questioning whether we should even be going on the trip or not.

So there we were, almost midnight, the night before the trip. The trip we were planning on getting up at 4am to go on. Finally the car was packed, we were exhausted, everything was ready to go. We had been through the trials, the arguments, the fighting. But finally, all was said and done. We were going to go to bed in order to get back up a few short hours later. Then came the sucker punch. The one you weren’t expecting. Out of nowhere, my brother-in-law blurts out, Houston! We have a problem!

Apparently we were so intent on making the bags up top fit the right way with the right balance and the right amount of tension on the bungee cords, that none of us had stopped to consider the height of the garage door versus the height of the bags. That is until my brother-in-law stepped back from the fray to notice the problem none of us could see. All of a sudden he realized, we couldn’t get the car out of the garage!

We had spent so much time arguing over the details that we failed to see the major complication our trip had.

Think about it, how often do we look at a passage and try to understand it through our own lenses. Or better yet, how often do we look at scripture with a preconceived notion of what it says. We have a preconceived notion of who God is. And there is nothing innately wrong with that. However, when we believe we know something, we stop attempting to know more about it. We feel if we already know it, there is no use in learning more. With some things this is ok, but with God, it doesn’t work that way. We feel that since we are sure the bags are on correctly, there won't be a problem. And of course, there isn't a problem until we step back and look at the situation with a larger frame of reference and the whole situation changes. We were comfortable with our thorough job tying the bags on the roof that we couldn't see the problem because we couldn't step back for a second and look through a different lens.

With God, there is everything to understand. So much so that we don't even know the things we don't know. We never will. We cannot hope to see creation through the eyes of the creator, our viewfinder doesn't zoom out far enough. But there is a twist, for with God, there is also nothing more to understand. God is love. Just as in a marriage, we know each other, but we will never know everything about each other. It is a constant classroom where we are always trying to know our spouse better than we already do. When we get to the point that we think we know all there is to know about them, our relationship starts to suffer because one party stops participating.

This morning we talk about the separation of the wheat and the weeds. But remember Jesus explanation. Jesus gave a name for each character in the parable this morning. We read this story so often, especially when it has been used to engender fear, that we fail to recognize the character we are supposed to play. We are both the weeds and the wheat. We are both the good and the bad. We are both the Godly and the un-Godly. That is our job, to grow. Weeds and wheat both grow. Our job is to grow, and that is it. We are to grow in our relationship to God through Christ. We are not to be deciding who is wheat and who is weed. We are charged to grow in relationship with each other and with God. But more than that, just as pulling the weeds before the harvest would hurt the wheat as well. In the same way, when we try to pull the weeds ourselves, we can hurt the wheat. Such behavior turns people away from the church, not toward it. God wants the wheat and the weeds to grow together until the harvest because until the harvest it is hard to tell which is wheat and which are weeds. Physically they looks the same. A person can be a weed for most of their life and still become wheat before the harvest. Pulling the weeds early can endanger that soul.

So this morning, our story tells us not about the God of vengeance. It does not tell us about the end times. While it speaks to what we can expect at the end, it’s true meaning is for the now, not the then. Let us learn from the disciples inability to understand so many parables. Let’s stand back and really look at the words that Jesus speaks, the actions he takes. Let us stand back and look at the problem, otherwise we spend our lives packing the car, only to miss the vacation because we failed to realize that we couldn’t get the car out of the garage at all.

Christ is passionate for soccer?!?!?!?

As I write this, I am watching Mexico vs. Chile in the Copa America (America Cup) 2011 hosted by Argentina. I have been watching all of the games of this championship and just about all of them have ended with surprises. In most cases this means that they have ended in ties. Argentina tied Bolivia. Ecuador tied Paraguay. Uruguay tied Peru. Brazil tied Venezuela. And just seconds ago, Chile scored a tying goal against a much younger Mexican team. I know most Americans dont understand or appreciate soccer. We don't understand the excitement of the game, the artistry of the plays or why in the world people break out in riots because of it. And why in the world am I talking about this in a blog about faith.

Well, to put it simply, it is all about passion. Soccer teaches us about a passion for life. A passion for a sport that is likely the most physically difficult in the world. A passion for an attention span to something that, at least as Americans, we don't always understand. Soccer in many ways is a mirror for the kind of faith that Jesus calls us to. A faith of passion. A faith of attending to those we don't always agree with or understand. The difference of course can be in the division that exists in any sport between the players, the fans, the spectators. But in the end, whatever happens, we all agree that the passion for this worldly diversion can teach us about how we should live our lives in the calling that Christ gives us. Living out our faith won't always be easy. At times we will come up against that which we don't like or don't understand. But with passion and perserverance, this sport of life, can end victoriously.

As I began this blog, I mentioned that for Americans, we just can't understand how in the world a game can end in a tie. Maybe this is a concept we should become more conversant about. In reality, when we perservere in life, in faith, in the love of Christ, we are victorious, even when that around us seems to remain the same, the score tied, in our hearts we still feel the passion of Christ, the passion of love, the passion of living the service that we are called to by Christ himself.

Let's be passionate! And to end on a personal note (which will be understood by anyone who knows me), "Let's go, Argentina!!!!

Surely God is in this place!

July 2, 2011

As I write this, my family and I are enjoying our third full day in Quito, Ecuador, where we are visiting my in-laws and celebrating the high school graduation of my brother-in-law. These past couple of days have been very emotional as it is the first time in five years since we have been back here to Ecuador. Much has changed; the city my wife grew up in is very different from the place that she left years ago.

As I sat down to write this, I happened to be preparing for an upcoming sermon where one of the lectionary readings in the story in Genesis of Jacob lying down with a stone as a pillow. He dreamed of an encounter with God and woke up saying, “Surely the Lord is in this place. This is the gate of Heaven.”

These words speak to me today. Even though this is a city that has changed so much since I was here last, still, I am sure God is in this place. Ironically, since Quito is the second highest capital city in the world in elevation, the idea that I am at the gateway of heaven definitely strikes a chord.

Whether at the heights of Chimborazo, or the depths of Death Valley, surely the Lord is in this place. God is all around, everywhere. In every place we are, in the faces and smiles of all those we encounter. God is ever-present and what a great realization that can be.

Praise God!

Father's Day

This is the sermon that I delivered on Father's Day. The lectionary was the Great Commission at the end of Matthew's Gospel and it was also Trinity Sunday.

Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV)

(16) Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

(17) When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

(18) Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

(19) Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

(20) and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Good morning!

As I begin this morning, I have to ask you if any of you have ever had an experience in life where things just kind of pile up and you begin to see a meaning behind events? I mean, in seemingly common situations, things just take on a deeper meaning, like you have peeled off a layer or two and you begin to see those events at a much deeper level.

These past few weeks, that is exactly what has been happening to me. It is hard to explain, and even harder to analyze, but because of all these things going on in my mind, I feel I have to talk about that this morning, and I hope you will see the connections to the scripture this morning.

Of course, the gospel reading this morning is one of the most important of our faith. The apostles having now received the Holy Spirit are given the Great Commission. They are given direction for how to continue the work even though Jesus is no longer physically with them.

However, today is also Trinity Sunday. This is really the only day when the church focuses on the idea of the Trinity itself. As I prepared for this morning, I thought about how to talk about the Trinity. After all, it may very well be one of the most complex parts of our faith and has been written about by thousands of people throughout the ages. I thought I could find a clear, concise way of explaining the Trinity, but I soon found out, it is more complex than I had even thought. For example, Aristotle wrote probably the most influential treatise on the Trinity. His work covers 15 different volumes and is thousands of pages. Not something you can sit down and read in an afternoon. Many who have tried to understand the Trinity come away from the search with more questions than answers.  The best explanation that I could find simply defined the Trinity as a mystery. That, of course, didn’t help, because I already knew it was a mystery. Who knows, maybe that is the whole point. One explanation that I liked compared the trinity to mathematics. We tend to think of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as individual entities, which they are. So mathematically you can assume 1 + 1 + 1=3. However, that doesn’t really help, because in this case the math doesn’t work. The Trinity is not three different entities. I saw one explanation say that it is more like multiplication. 1 X 1 X 1= 1. That is a little better, but breaking something like our understanding of God into equations seems to simplify God in a way that seems disrespectful.

The trinity speaks to our own understanding of how we conceive of God. Therefore, it would stand to reason that any explanation that belittles that conception is too small, too simple to be used in our own minds to conceive of something that in reality is beyond comprehension. Kind of the same idea of how the Jewish people in biblical times refused to say the name of God. The idea was that saying the name of God would limit God, therefore contradicting the idea that God is limitless. Have I confused any of you yet? Let me step back a second and come at this from a different angle. Any understanding we have of anything has to come from our experience. So, the question then becomes, can we experience God in a way that helps us to grasp the idea of the Trinity better? In reality, that is an individual question. But over these past couple of weeks, I have had some experiences that have helped me gain a deeper appreciation for this concept. My hope is that the experiences I am going to speak of will help some of you as well.

Last week, as many of you know, Pastor Judy, Lynda and myself attended Annual Conference at Messiah College. This was my first experience of the full Annual Conference. It was amazing and wonderful and extremely boring all at the same time. But there were a few moments that I doubt I will ever forget. On Thursday night, there was a service honoring all the retiring pastors from the conference. Some of you may be aware that Pastor Bob Wallace of Calvary is retiring. I was sitting and watching each retiree go up on the stage to receive recognition for their years of service. Seeing Pastor Bob and his wife up on stage affected me more than I had expected. I think the main reason was that in some way, I don’t think I would be here this morning if it wasn’t for Pastor Bob. While we were looking for a church, I had written off the Methodist Church because I grew up in it and I wanted the church that Eimy and I joined to be one that would be neutral. But one day Eimy decided we should go and just attend a Methodist service and see what happened. After the service, Eimy was convinced that Calvary was the church we should join. Pastor Bob was a big part of that. Calvary welcomed us with open arms and provided a place for us to grow in faith with our kids in a way that filled us with a positive attitude about the importance of faith in our family life.

As I began to feel my calling to ministry anew, Pastor Bob provided support both for myself as well as for Eimy. I remember the first Mother’s Day after we started attending Calvary. Rose Ann, pastor Bob’s wife, knew that Eimy and I didn’t have any family around here. She called up Eimy and asked her to attend the Mother/Daughter Banquet with her. This meant a lot to us. And this is just one example. Needless to say, seeing Pastor Bob and Rose Ann on stage, receiving recognition was an emotional moment for me as it meant that they were no longer going to be around here, but also because to me it represented the first time I knew for sure that I had a calling and began actively pursuing it.

The next day, I sat and listened to Adam Hamilton speak. This was also important because Rev. Hamilton engages church members in a way that truly speaks to the message of the Gospel, at least in my mind. With all the problems that churches face today, Rev. Hamilton understands that we must work together in a way that brings everyone up. He understands that unless we do this, the Methodist Church will not be around for my grandchildren. It simply will have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Not because of a flawed message, but because of a change in how we, as a church, function in our communities.

Finally, I was able to see those who were to become ordained. I was able to witness one of the retiring pastors wash the feet of a young pastor who was to be ordained. I watched as she passed the ceremonial staff to him, reflecting the continuity of the church, the continuity of our communal mission, the continuity of the work which Christ has set before us.

Even though quite a bit of the conference was boring, in reality is served to encourage, motivate and impassion those who attended.

So that was one of the experiences I wanted to talk about. The next happened just yesterday. My mother decided recently that she was going to retire at the end of this school year, which was just last week. As it turned out, my brother was on the east coast for business and last week was also his 30^th birthday. Since he was going to be on the east coast, he and I had were planning a surprise retirement party. We had made quite a few arrangements when things suddenly got more confusing. My mother called me last week and said that she was going to have a surprise birthday party for my brother, on the same day that we had been planning her party. She had already invited a whole bunch of people and made arrangements for a cake and all that stuff. In addition, my brother’s partner graduated from graduate school with his masters. My mother decided that we could make it a combined birthday and graduation party. She secretly flew my brother’s partner in from California. She invited his parents who live in Scranton and invited a number of his friends as well. I then realized that we were going to have three parties simultaneously, and besides myself and my mom’s closest friend, no one knew there were going to be three parties. I didn’t know how in the world this was going to work out.  But in the end, it did. Somehow, despite my family’s infamous inability to keep a secret, miraculously, no one knew that there were going to be three separate parties at the exact same time, in the exact same place, with three separate guest lists.

I bring this up because my family, especially my brother and me, are not well known for our ability to work together. I love my brother, but we are polar opposites and we have always fought more than functioned together.

As I spent the day with my family, it hit me that we were acting, surprise, surprise, like a family. My brother was playing with Ian and Mia so lovingly, that I couldn’t believe it. He is not an overly affectionate person, and he has always been awkward with kids. But not yesterday. It was like he suddenly became the best uncle in the world. And For Ian and Mia, he was.  It was also not lost on me, that this is father’s day weekend, the second father’s day since my own father passed away. I could feel yesterday his presence in the interactions between Ian and Mia and my brother and his partner. I just knew that this is how my father wanted us to be. To be a family, that despite our differences, we loved one another first. The rest is just details.

So between the annual conference and the party yesterday, I began to see the continuity of life. The past, where I have come from. The present, what I have learned, how I live, how I interact with those around me. The future, of my ministry, of my children, of my brother, sister and mother. It was one of those times when I could see, for a split second, God at work in my life, in the lives of those I love.

This morning, we try to understand the Trinity. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. There are many explanations to help us understand this complex idea. Yesterday, though, it was all so very clear. Love. The love of God. The love of Christ. The love of a father. The love of a son. The love of family. The love of friends. When we feel that love, we can begin to glimpse the love of the Trinity.

But there is more. And this is when it gets really simple. The last lines of the Gospel of Matthew.

(19) Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

(20) and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Notice, Matthew doesn’t tell us to go to the nations and convert all people.  Matthew doesn’t tell us to go to the nation and build churches, or increase attendance. Jesus, in Matthew, could have instructed us to do these things. But he didn’t. He told us to make disciples. That is our task. That is the most important task. These are, in essence, the final words of Christ to us. Make disciples. Therefore, in everything we do, in every conversation we have, in every interaction with other people that we have, if we are not thinking of making disciples, we are not doing our job. Every decision made here at church. Every dollar we give. Every hour we volunteer. Every person we greet in here, on the street, on the phone. Making disciples has to be the focus. Anything less is our failure to fulfill this final command of Christ.

If we are concentrating on who we ask to come into our church. If we are concentrating on what type of hymns we sing on Sunday mornings. If we are concentrating on the fears we have around us. If we are doing any of these things, we are not fulfilling that instruction. We are God’s people. We are loved by God, by Christ. We have the promise of the Holy Spirit itself, to the end of the age. The presence of the Holy Spirit, the presence of Christ, the presence of God all around us, in us, in those next to us, in the words we speak, in the actions we take, in the lives that intersect our own. That is the meaning of the Trinity, that God is everywhere, all the time. If we can’t see that and act on it, then we aren’t the Church that Christ instructs us to be.

On this Trinity Sunday. On this Father’s Day. In this very moment of time, Thank God for being with us, giving us strength, guidance, protection and most of all, love so deep and so profound that we can never truly grasp it. That, my friends, is why we are here.

Beginnings

This is my first attempt at blogging, so bear with me as I figure this out.

I am keeping this blog for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, I would like to use this blog in order to analyze the intersection that exists where faith and culture meet. It is a topic that is very interesting to me, and to you as well, I hope.

Secondly, I would like to use this as a forum to post various sermons that I write for the churches I serve. The sermons cover various topics and many times relate to the first purpose of this blog.

I hope that as I discuss and analyze how culture interacts with faith, you can participate in that ongoing discussion. No man is an island unto himself, we each grow with help from others.