So, You Think You're Friendly?

Scripture: 

Hebrews 13:1

Romans 12:13

Luke 2:41-52

Soundcloud: Listen Here (note: manuscript and live recorded sermon are often very different)

So You Think You're Friendly

I’ve been asked multiple times if there will be any Star Wars references today.  Yoda have to come and find out.  But, there won’t be, I’m sorry.  I promise it won’t be a dark sermon, though, and I’ll keep things on the light side.  But I won’t force Star Wars on you.  That’s all I could master… muster… for one sermon.

WELCOME

Marhabaan  مرحبا 

Creoso    z`ViN`N

Bienvenue

willkommen

καλωσόρισμα   Kalós orísate

ברוך בואך  Baruch haba 

ようこそ  Yōkoso

bem-vindo

Dobro pozhalovat   Добро пожаловат

WELCOME

I'm a student of languages.  I find them fascinating.  Many languages express things we do not have words for in English, emotions or concepts we struggle to relate or don't even consider.  If you do a little research, you'll find that every language has the concept and a word or phrase for WELCOME.

And most websites include this phrase in their "useful phrases to know" for almost all languages.  After hello, and some important questions, it's ranked highly for communication.  While its urgency may not rank with things like, where is the bathroom or what you'd like to eat, it is important enough to us as people to create a phrase and learn it and use it.

Something within us recognizes the importance of not just greeting those we know and love, but to make even the stranger feel at home.  And this is a calling to which God calls us quite clearly.

A recent experiment... VIDEO

This was an experiment by a for-profit company.  Not a charity, not a church.  It created a space in which strangers could meet and find common ground, form the basis for friendship with a stranger through mutual love of something outside of themselves, and to go away strengthened, and encouraged.  Now... The Church is FAR more than that.  But it has to be AT LEAST that.  Is it?  Is the Church as friendly as a street corner ball pit?  Is our church?  Shouldn't it be?

Someone once said home is the place you go and they have to let you in.  Like most things, it's funny because it is true.  But what about the people who aren't family?  Don't people become family?  Aren't there neighbors you trust with a key?  With house sitting?  

Those friends of you and your kids.  At some point, they stop being front door guests and start coming in the side or back door or garage.  They knock as they open the door or stop knocking altogether.  As you sit around the kitchen table for snacks and meals and holidays, you stop asking if they'd like a drink and they head for the fridge for what you have on hand, maybe only because they stop by for it.  You moms of teenagers stock your pantry this way.

How many conversations do you have with someone before they're an acquaintance?  A friend?  A family member?  Can they become a loved one without conversation?  Is there anyone in your life you'd call a loved one with whom you've never had a heart to heart?  Heard a secret?  Shared a secret?  Been vulnerable?  Trusted?  Revealed or unearthed?  I bet there isn't.  So do you think you can form a family of faith, a community of believers if you don't converse?  Step outside your comfort zone?  Find the common?  Do you think you're friendly?  Have you tried as hard as the people in this video to make a friend, a connection to someone new here at First Pres or new to you?  Have you tried to do that often?  Every Sunday?  Today?

Most of you know David Upton.  This is David’s home.  When I visited him last week and asked if we could bring him anything to make his new room feel like home, he asked for just one thing.  A picture of the church.  This place is home to him.  You all have made it that.  Will you make it that for others?

Today, you have a ball near you, hopefully enough in each row for everyone to have one. Your color is going to be your guide.  During the offertory, you'll have a chance to go to someone new or new to you, or at least that you don't know well.  I'll know if you're cheating.  ;-)

Colors = specific question. 

Red –             Your favorite Christmas tradition – and WHY?

Blue –            Your favorite dessert or treat… who makes it or where do you get it?

Yellow –        Who loves you the most?

Green –         What do you love to do most?

Purple –         What makes you feel welcome?

In just a moment, during the offertory, you'll go find someone and get them to answer your question and you'll answer theirs.  After the service, I will once again ask you to linger and find two more people for the same assignment.  You will leave here knowing 2 new people a little better.  And you'll be known.  Meaningfully, I hope.  You'll have started something that I pray you'll continue.

Christ's clear command to us to welcome the stranger.  Christ's call is to make disciples.  Christ's disciples were his friends, those he loved, those with whom he broke bread and went through triumphs and trials, parades and storms.  Isn't that what the Church is for?  Are we a street corner or are we a ball pit?  Are we friendly enough that disciples can be made here?  Do you think you're friendly?

Do you think you’re friendly?  Will you be?  If so, say we will!

You can be.  You can do all things in Christ.  He will strengthen you.  Amen.

Let's Ruin Christmas! (Christmas Eve Contemporary Service)

Scripture: 

John 9:39

John 18:37

Luke 2:8-18

Soundcloud: Listen Here (note: manuscript and live recorded sermon are often very different)

Let's Ruin Christmas

I came to know this as a true story.  Some years ago, a little boy named Marvin wanted to be in his church's nativity play.  The boy's parents were concerned because he was mentally challenged.  But the volunteers in charge of the production took him on happily and made him an innkeeper.  His only line was simple and he rehearsed it for months, "There is no room in the inn!"

Christmas Eve arrived and parents, especially Marvin's.  He was excited to do his part.  The lights lowered, the play started.  When Joseph and a young Mary expecting a small pillow arrived at his door and knocked, Marvin answered.  The couple asked desperately, do you have a place for us to stay?  My wife is soon to deliver!  Marvin crossed his arms, puffed out his chest, scowled his mightiest, and delivered with a boom, "THERE IS NO ROOM IN THE INN!"

Audible sighs were heard, smiles beamed from his parents.  Joseph and Mary turned dejected and trudged slowly away...  Marvin looked on.  His arms uncrossed, his scowl dissolved.  His lip quivered.  And Marvin belted out with great urgency... "Oh come on in baby Jesus!  We'll find room for you!"

Marvin ruined the play.  Marvin.  Ruined.  Christmas.  Or did he really?  I don't think anyone there that night really thought so.  I don't think any of us do.  Because isn't the point of the whole blessed story to make room for Jesus?  Isn't Marvin infinitely more wise than any of us?  Wasn't he moved as we all should be moved?  Didn't he GET it like we all strive to every year?

We read the Christmas story.  We tell it.  God slips in.  God knocks.  And we have to invite God in.  Even at Easter, God must be welcomed, invited.

Invited.

So Let's ruin Christmas!!!

Let's take a page from Marvin's book and turn everything on its head.  Let's RUIN Christmas like he did.

Instead of looking for the War on Christmas, let's look for ways to undermine it all, to ruin Christmas like Marvin did, by really getting it, by refusing to play along with the script, by bravely inviting God into our home and making room, whatever it takes!

Instead of trying to shove baby Jesus into stores and advertising and holiday greetings and onto the airwaves and into our trees and football games and into the stockings and onto the shelves, let's invite the Christ child into our hearts and homes.

As a Methodist billboard recently read across a picture of red Starbucks cups... It's not their job to tell people about Christ.  It's ours.  Isn't it?

If you ask your own children to name the things in the living room that need to be present for it to be Christmas, what would they name first?  What would definitely make the list?  The tree?  Lights?  Stockings?  What about Santa's plate?  Cookies?  Milk?  Carrot for the reindeer?  We had a placemat and plate and cup and saucer.  I still remember the whole setup. 

What about a nativity?  Could they name all the characters?  Do they know anything from the story about when they arrived or why they stayed in the animal pen?  What about an Advent calendar?  Do you read a Christmas story?  Watch one?  Do you read the Christmas story?  Will you tonight?

Tonight or tomorrow, will you invite someone to join your family or will you go to someone who must remain at their care facility or home or shelter or hospital room?  Will you make room in your celebrations to be like little Marvin and ruin Christmas by welcoming Christ, even when it all seems so full?  Will you find the time to invite the lonely, the broken, the hungry, those walking in darkness to be in the light of your love this day?

Let's ruin Christmas!  Let's do all those things!  Let's pick up the phone and reconnect with a family member or friend or get to know a neighbor or find a stranger in need.

You see, Jesus, I think, would have loved Marvin's style.  I do.  Jesus was always up for ruining things.  Not to be a jerk, but to draw attention to what has been missed.  We use symbols to MAKE meaning.  They're important.  But as wonderful as those symbols are and as useful as they can be, they must be done with care or they run the risk of hiding the meaning they were created to breathe life into.

Jesus saw how his own people had buried the meaning of the Temple in systems of robbery and extortion that grew out of the loving symbolic acts of sacrifice.  He turned over tables to ruin the system because the meaning had been lost.  I'm not saying you go full blown Grinch tonight and empty the fridge, rip down the stockings, and shove the Christmas tree up the chimb-ly.  But, rearranging furniture in a not so calm manner was not outside Christ's repertoire.

Christ ruined royal entrances, riding in on donkeys instead of horses and chariots.  He ruined places of worship.  He ruined the religious hierarchy, the Jewish patriarchy, the Roman polity, and every prejudice his people and the world had every concocted or carefully crafted.  ANd he ruined Christmas.  He came in as a baby, born in a feedbox, visited first by the smelliest, poorest people in town.  And then he and his refugee family took off for Egypt immediately, fleeing threat of death, so that the Magi had to come find him in a new land.

Several years ago now, I was alone in Denver for Christmas.  I expected to wake up Christmas morning, sit around with the cat and maybe go to a gathering in the afternoon that church friends had invited me to attend with their family, knowing I'd be by myself and unable to travel to see family.

Instead, a dear friend arrived on my doorstep with baking supplies to make blueberry muffins from scratch.  We baked all morning, went and acquired a giant box of coffee and cups, and then headed out to the snowy empty streets of town to the corners where homeless people waited cold and mostly unnoticed.  We brought our baked goods, piping hot coffee, and hugs, and we listened and laughed and prayed with everyone.  We learned the stories of so many that day and for the first time felt like maybe we had gotten Christmas more right than we had in years, or ever.

My friend ruined Christmas.  My friend shook me up and got me out on the street.  Our friends and family thought we were a little nuts.  I'm pretty sure everyone's reaction was, "didn't you have plans?  Weren't you with your loved ones?  Didn't you wanna see your brothers and sisters?"

We did.  My friend is my hero.

My other hero is St. Nicholas.  St. Nicholas began his work when he noticed all the poor children who didn't have gifts to receive on Christmas, as had become a tradition.  He noticed they didn't have food or firewood either.  He loaded a sack and visited those in need.  Could there be a better example of faithfully following the call of Christ to notice our brothers and sisters, to love them, and to love them with a generosity of sharing all we have and are, the Good News we know, incarnate.

St.Nicholas, I am sure had family and friends and plans that day.  But he decided to chuck that, or at least, as Marvin would tell us... To make room for Jesus.  I like to think he invited his friends to be helpers... To not think of them-s-elves, but to fill a few bags, a few socks, a few hearts...

And can't we do that too?  Will you?  Will you make time tonight and tomorrow.  Will you make room?  Will you teach your children to make room and why?

Will you pitch in with St. Nick, with Marvin, with Jesus... Let's ruin Christmas.  Amen.

Bouncing Off the Walls

Bouncing Off the Walls

Thanksgiving Eve Worship Service, November 25, 2015

Scripture References for Sermon… (Only those with a star were read aloud)…

Genesis 12:10 – Abraham from Famine

Genesis 12:19‐20 – Abraham from Pharaoh

Genesis 14:11‐12 – Lot from Invasion

Genesis 21:14-16 – Hagar & Ishmael from Persecution

Genesis 26:1‐3 – Isaac & Rebecca from Persecution

Genesis 27:42‐44 – Jacob from Violence

Genesis 47:4 – Jacob from Famine

Genesis 36:7 – Esau from Scarcity & Conflict

Genesis 37:28 – Joseph from Human Trafficking

Exodus 12:41 – Moses & ALL of Israel from Religious Persecution & War

*Deuteronomy 10:17‐19 – How to Treat the Refugee

Ruth 1:1 – Naomi from Famine

2 Kings 17:23 – ALL of Israel from War & Conquest by Assyria

2 Kings 24:14‐15 – ALL of Israel from War & Conquest by Babylon

Esther 2:5‐7 – Esther & Mordechai from War & Conquest

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel – Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego from War & Conquest

*Matthew 2:13‐14 – Jesus, Mary, & Joseph from Political Persecution

Acts 8:1 – The Early Church from Religious Persecution

Acts 11:19 – The Early Church from Religious Persecution

Acts 8:4‐5 – Philip from Religious Persecution

Acts 12:17 – Peter from Religious Persecution

Acts 18:1‐2 – Aquila & Pricilla from Religious Persecution

*Scriptures that were read before message.

 Deuteronomy 10:17‐19
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the refugee, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the refugee, therefore, for you were refugees in the land of Egypt.

Matthew 2:13‐14
13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt.

Bouncing off the walls.  That should be normal. But I'll come back to that.

There's a reason I had us sing that silly kid song.  When you’re happy and you know it, when you’re thankful and you know it… Most of us need a reminder of what it means to express ourselves.  Unless you are a musician or "professional" artist, you do not have many opportunities in our society to express yourself... your desires, your hopes, your frustrations.  And no, road rage and Facebook are not what I mean.

We take some healthy opportunities to do this.  We pack a box for Operation Christmas Child, say yes when Kathy Sang or Bob Harris call.  But we take so few opportunities to open ourselves completely to this world and then RESPOND in healthy ways, good ways, ways that show the truth of our faith, the good news we claim, but don't always PROCLAIM.

Bouncing off the walls.

This weekend, we waited to tell Vincent we were going to the RenFest till the last min, as all parents know.  When I walked in the door, he was already bouncing off the walls.  Not about the festival.  But because it was MY birthday.  Not his.  Mine.  When was the last time you bounced off the walls for someone else's birthday?  He had a piece of notebook paper on which he'd drawn me a card and couldn't wait for me to read it.  The walls came off the house when we then told him about the festival.

There's a link going around on Facebook that advertises Google will tell you your future.  If you click, it says, if you care this much about YOUR future, what about the future of others?  What about refugees?

It's a bold question for google.  It's basically a Jesus question.  How many times does Jesus ask his disciples or the religious leaders or the crowds, what about... those people?  What about God's prophets in the whole Old Testament, God's Apostles in the New Testament?

What reaction do you have to all the news?  Sadness?  Anger?  Did you care much at all till the issues was Syrians being resettled here?  Did that change your reaction?

Bouncing off the walls.  That was Vincent's reaction because he knows and loves me.  Do we know the Syrians?  DO we want to?

If you had to guess, what is going on over there?  Do you know?  DO you care?  Do you want to?  Do you have any idea where Syria is?  What’s happening?  How many people?

I want to introduce you to your brothers and sisters in Syria a little bit.  Of the recorded deaths (experts are certain the numbers are higher), 200,000 have been killed.  That's like someone coming to the US, killing every man, woman, and child in Rowan County and Davie, and probably heading down to Concord and doing the same.  Everyone.  Then, for good measure, displacing every single person in the middle and western 2/3rds of the state, and driving the other 1/3rd into other countries.  The entire state, over 10 million people.  Do you have some idea now?

Well, yeah, Brian, but which are Christian and which are Muslim?  That is SO not the question that Jesus ever asks, nor the prophets.  In fact, the opposite.  That list of scriptures in your bulletin are the complete list of our ancestors of the faith who fled and became refugees.  Jesus and his parents are ON that list.  Take a look.

And that's to say nothing of the TWENTY TWO references in scripture to LOVE the REFUGEE in your land.  These are not commands to love the other Jewish people in the neighboring country (or Christians).  It was a GUARANTEE in that day and age that the foreigner, the refugee was of another faith, probably an idol worshipper or polytheist or something far stranger or more barbaric.  These commands are to love and welcome and defend the foreigner, the refugee.  To rescue and provide sanctuary.  And I will tell you right now that God made that command to a people who had no capacity for background checks, to people who were not protected by being surrounded by other countries and oceans and thousands of miles, but to a people right on the front lines, neighbors.

So certainly the loudest voices after these atrocities in a world so full of Christians would be words of welcome and hospitality, right???  Or at the very least, the loud voices of opposition would be from atheists or people of other faiths telling us Christians to not be so naive and foolish and risky!  Certainly any national leader or politician to be quoted in the paper or on TV as denying asylum to the MILLIONS in need would never claim the radical faith we claim and PROCLAIM through our actions of love and hospitality.  Right?

Certainly the worriers and the wise among us who have concerns would be spending all their creativity and resources on SOLUTIONS and ways to provide the love and welcome and sanctuary we are called to as Christians?

Certainly, we would consider the refusal to welcome middle-eastern families with children knocking at our door with the answer, "there's no room here," would be considered the real war on Christmas...  Right?

But Brian, I really do love my neighbor.  I do love the Lord and want to do as he calls me to do, but I'm scared.  Good.  That's honest.  And if you're not scared, you've gotten far too comfortable in your faith.  The Good Samaritan, the prodigal son, his brother, the disciples, the prophets, do we assume they were not scared?  No.  They just knew that to cling to this life more fiercely than the truth we have had revealed is to have no faith at all.  We are not a people of fear, but of faith.  And do we have a faith that we claim, or a faith we PROclaim?  Is it a faith that we intellectually assert and post about and use for guidance, or is it a faith we proclaim in word and deed?  Is it a faith that reminds us to buy a birthday card out of obligation or a faith that has us bouncing off the walls?

At a time when most of Christians are either terrified of who may arrive in our country and what they may do, or we remain blissfully unaware of our brothers and sisters knocking at the door this advent... one little boy in Texas showed a little light to remind us what it's like to be grateful for all the blessings we have and to SHOW it, to be a bouncing off the walls believer...

In the same week that the governor of Texas wrote a letter to the President refusing to accept Syrian refugees in his small state, a mosque was vandalized.  SEVEN year old, Jack heard this news and with the help of his mother, approached Naeem, a board member of the mosque, at the mosque in Pflugerville (a suburb of Austin, where I was born) with his piggy bank, the contents of which totaled about $20.  His mother said that they wanted to show them that what's not happening in Paris is NOT what is happening in Pflugerville. Said Naeem, "Jack’s $20 are worth $20 million to us because it’s the thought that counts,” Naeem said in an interview with ABC News. “Jack is a just a little older than my son, Ibrahim. If we have more kind-hearted kids like them in the world, I have hope for our future."

Jack has a bouncing off the walls faith. Jack is known all over Texas and the world now for his act of love. Will we be known for our security or our love? Our hate or our hospitality? Our fear or our faith? I don't know the name of the innkeeper in Bethlehem who let a young Middle Eastern family into his barn. Maybe history will not remember my name either. But I'd rather be nameless and famous for my compassion… than famous for my refusal to accept the refugee in my land when the prophets tell me my people were once wanderers too. So if you are thankful and you know it, SHOW it.  Don’t claim your faith only, but PROCLAIM it.  As for me and my household, we will be believers who bounce off the walls for our faith. Amen.