Regurgitated Gospel

Mark 5: 1-20

    On my way up here, I was going to pull a Jennifer Lawrence and see if you’d cut me some extra slack while I preach today.   Show of hands, how many of you got that reference?  Now keep your hands up, if you got that reference from seeing the Oscars live.  Ah, many of you didn't see that live.  For those of you who didn't get it, the winner of this year's best actress Oscar was the lovely and talented and very young Jennifer Lawrence.  On her way up the steps to the stage to accept her award, she tripped and fell on her dress.  Embarrassing, to be sure, but the old adage in Hollywood is that there is no such thing as 'bad' press.  In fact, it's possibly the most talked about moment of the evening.  And for those of you who didn't see it live, myself included, you knew about it anyways.  And now, all of you do.

    Millions tuned into the Oscars and about 5 million more watched YouTube clips of her fall in the following days.  Far fewer people saw the miracles of Jesus and while first century YouTube statistics are unreliable at best, we can assume few people caught the replay.  Everyone heard about his miraculous deeds by word of mouth.  And by and large, Jesus seemed unconcerned with bad press either.  And Jesus couldn't count on reliable PR, at least not to begin with.  His first agents were not really his disciples.  His first agents... were the recipients of his miracles and the witnesses thereof.

    Everyone who witnessed the incident with the demon-possessed man immediately began to recount to others what had occurred.  And then when the now-healed man tries to follow Jesus, he sends him out to tell others his own account.  And there's a natural human compulsion to tell others the amazing things we've seen.  And on this compulsion, Jesus relies heavily to spread the good news.  How frustrated I imagine he is then when the busyness of our lives drowns out the miracles we witness every day.  When we don't share the buzz with our neighbors, with those we love and those we are called to love, we suppress what built the Church in its first days and what could grow it now.

    And buzz is exactly what it was.  In fact, one of the earliest symbols of Christianity is the honeybee.  The imagery goes as far back as the Old Testament and lands of milk and honey.  Many monks were beekeepers.  Bees adorn paintings and art throughout the Church, even the altar in the Vatican and the robes of the Pope.  But for the early Church, and more recently, the bee has represented resurrection.  Bees hibernate and are reborn.  The beehive is full of bees with many different jobs, much like the metaphors of the body of Christ and the many functions we all perform.  The honeybee is actually an excellent example for us as Christians.

    When Jesus is tempted in the desert to make stones into bread, he responds that man does not live on bread alone but on every word from the mouth of God.  The food God provides for honeybees... is pollen.  But a bee's job is not merely to gather pollen and consume it, or even to gather and share it with the hive.  A bee does far more.  And it is the more that makes the honeybee what it is.  Bees take the pollen God provides and carry it from flower to flower.  That pollen provides life and growth.  And does some pollen naturally spread by the wind, by sheer proximity of one flower being near another?  Certainly.  But honeybees provide the means to spread that pollen far and wide in great quantity.  Apple orchards, even the small one in my parents' backyard, suffered greatly a few years ago because small bee mites were attacking honeybees.  A lack of honeybees led to a lack of pollination and apple trees did not yield their usual crop.

    And honeybees do more than encourage that growth, flowers and apples and all we can see.  Honeybees make... ______.  Honey.  Right.  Honeybees take the raw gifts from God and they digest them.  Then those bees gather and regurgitate that pollen.  Honey.  Honey... is bee vomit.  We think very negatively of regurgitating.  As humans, it’s an indication of illness at best, and of a lack of creativity at worst, in its academic sense.  In nature though, it’s typically an act of nourishment.  Mothers digest and regurgitate because their young cannot gather or consume the raw sustenance themselves. Regurgitating is in fact a creative and sacrificial act that requires emptying one’s self for another repeatedly.   The product of this creativity and sacrifice for the bee is the honey.  And honey is the first natural sweetener.  From honey, we get the first fermented beverage ever created... mead. Scientists and physicians still tout the healing properties of honey, even though they do not fully understand them.  Honey is a miracle in and of itself.

    Bees take the pollen... the gift of God, their food... and they spread it, they digest it, and they regur... share it as a community... creating the honeycomb.  What could we learn from the example of bees?  What does God provide us?  God gives us his Word, his scripture, his prophets and teachers, his Son.  God gives us salvation, the good news we learn in Sunday school and as children from our parents and elders.  Those people in our life, do what honeybees do.  Honey Bees return to the hive and do a dance to show the other bees where they found their pollen, the source of what they bear.  Holly, and her team of teachers don't just share the gospel with our kids.  They give them Bibles, they show the books, they teach them to pray.  They do the dance that shows our children how to find the source.

    Bees carry pollen on their legs.  What falls off is what is spread to others flowers as they travel.  The bees may never know what a gift it is that they visited a flower, the gift of life they leave behind just by being there.  As Christians, perhaps we too can bring life with us when we visit those in need.

    And perhaps, most importantly, and so very exciting for us as Presbyterian, deep-thinking-theologically-pondering Presbyterians... is the concept of digesting and regurgitating.  For few of us would be interested in the honeycomb if it were merely a depository of collected pollen.  You can get that by sweeping your car off in the spring.  The treasure of the honeycomb is what the bees make as a community of what God provides.  At our best, we take the words and wisdom and experience of the Gospel in the scriptures and our lives and we digest them and share the result as a community of believers.  We come together in church, in Bible studies, in Sunday school, Lenten studies, seminaries, in our homes, on the streets of our communities... and we share what God has put on our hearts and what our minds, our intellects, our imaginations, which God has given us... and we see what they have yielded.  We regurgitate the Gospel.  We regurgitate the hope and the love God gives to us in its most raw and pure form.

    I’ll resist the urge to leave you with some punny command like “Bee the change you wish to see in the world,” or “share the buzz,” or “bee-hive like the disciples and comb your neighborhood and make bee-lievers in some huge sting operation.”  But I will say that bees can teach us a great deal about balancing our workload in the Church and out in the world, about traveling far, coming home to share, to dance, to digest, and to regurgitate.  As believers, we are incomplete if we never venture out, or never return; if we never dance for others to show them the way, the source; if we never empty ourselves of what we’ve learned and how we’ve interpreted the good news and made it our own; if we never venture out once more, spreading what we gather, and gleaning from others.

    It is my deep hope that as you fly from here today, you will go far, see much, digest, and return to dance with those here and those out there... that you will never be content to simply gather pollen, but to make honey, and that you will share it selflessly with others as your gift to all of creation. And that whenever you tell someone you are as busy as a bee... you are also busy like a bee as well.  Amen.

 

Ash Wednesday - Thoughts on Mortality

                Lent, like Advent, for us as believers is a season of preparation.  In December, we talk about preparing for the birth of Christ.  We prepare our hearts and minds alongside Mary and Joseph, eager for the coming miracle.  But in Lent, we prepare alongside Christ, and the preparation is different.  Because although, like Christ, we know Easter is coming, we know there is a long road between today and the empty tomb.  Between now and then… lies the tomb itself.

                And as believers, who accept the full humanity of Christ alongside his full divinity, we face that tomb, we face death and our own mortality with the same assurances and knowledge, but also with the same fears and uncertainties.  If there is one thing we fear as human beings, as Presbyterian-flavored human beings especially, it’s change.  And there’s no greater change than from life to death.

                In many ways, it is what we prepare for all our lives and that for which we feel the least prepared.  We have expressions for death.  Robin Williams, in the movie Patch Adams, reaches a patient that no one else can, a man who has become cantankerous in his own bitterness about dying.  The two of them face death together and the man regains his humanity.  His first breakthrough with the patient is when they list together all the metaphors we have for death… kicking the bucket, dirt nap, to blink for an exceptionally long time, happy hunting grounds, six feet under, the big sleep…

                Even parents seek to shield their children from the sting of death.  It’s not uncommon for parents to tell their children that a dog or cat went to live on a farm to live out their final days or to replace a beloved fish with an identical fish.  I grew up in a farming community where many kids had experienced the death of pets and livestock hundreds of times over.  They often had the most healthy attitudes about the deaths of loved ones.  It felt natural, not scary.  They would cry, but not from shock or fear.  They grieved, but not as those without hope.           

We avoid death, and even calling it death, or just  talking about death.  We love our metaphors.  They allow us to hide from our own mortality.  We don’t have “legal documents for death and illness.”  We have “living wills.”  We don’t have “death inheritance,” but “life insurance.”  We don’t have money for “body disposal,” but “coverage for final expenses.”  My father is a financial planner.  He is always going on about how many people don’t have a will or life insurance, and many because they simply don’t want to think about or discuss death.  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get people to think about dying and what will happen when they do?!?!” he sometimes asks.  ;-)  I do, actually…

                In fact, that’s part of what we ask you to contemplate tonight.  You’re among the bravest just by showing up here, to have ashes imposed on your forehead as you hear the words, “from dust you have come and to dust you shall return.” With Christ, we look down that long road of 40 days and contemplate the cross, death, the tomb.  I have had the privilege and burden to look into the eyes of people whose stare suggested they could see their own cross, their own mortality with clarity, as it was looming for them.  And the truth is, and we acknowledge it on this night, ours could be as close or early as Christ’s was.

                Last week, a dear friend and colleague in ministry form North Carolina, died suddenly from complications of the flu.  As a pastor, I know her own mortality is something she discussed with her flock and with her husband, also a pastor, and her teenage kids.  I doubt that she spent last Ash Wednesday considering her own mortality so concretely.  However, I know how she lived, and like Christ, she lived with a purpose and a clear sense of being called by her creator that showed to all those around her that death was something she understood and did not worry about, no matter how much it may have scared her.

                A pastor once preached a fiery sermon to his congregation.  His refrain was, “One day, every member of this congregation is going to die!”  And a young man on the front pew snickered a little more each time he said it.  Finally, he called the young man out and asked what was so funny.  To which the young man replied, “I’m not a member of this congregation.”  When Azar Usman, the Muslim comedian we hosted a few months back was here, he told a story of prank calling the gentleman in the seat a few rows ahead of him on a plane and whispering, “You’re gonna die!”  He, of course, felt horrible… regretted it… and then regretted it because he might get caught.  Then he decided he had the perfect defense for the federal agents he was sure would drag him from the plane.  “Did you tell this man he was going to die?”  “Yes, I did.”  “Why?”  “Because he is.”  (pause)  Azar, as he said, was just doing his civic duty.  Wouldn’t want him to forget.  After all, we are all going to die.  And we laugh because it’s true.  We laugh because the threat that young man in church didn’t feel and the threat the man on the plane DID feel, are based on the same truth… death is inescapable.

                And on this night, we face that truth alongside Christ, not for a greater purpose necessarily of facing our fears and overcoming them, or for wallowing in our limitedness, our sinfulness, our brokenness.  We acknowledge it all.  And we acknowledge the miracle that we come from dust, and we return to it.  And as one author put it, “what is the first article of faith? That this is not all that we are.”

                The irony that a message of eternal life leads to his death is not lost on Jesus.   He does not spend his final days preparing for death, but preparing others for life.  Christ does not prepare for death, and so neither do we.  We hear the reminder of our mortality and are reminded to make use of the gifts we have in the time we have, to take strength from our creator and sustainer, to face what lies ahead, because all of this is a journey, and none of us is home… yet.  SO as we contemplate the cross, we contemplate more than suffering, more than death, but a step on Christ’s journey, on our journey… home.  And Lent, for us, becomes a time to prepare for that journey together, facing whatever lies ahead.  Amen.

Amendment:  I've been asked about my benediction at this service.  I more or or less said...
We are made of pretty complex stuff, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and so on.  Those elements exist nowhere in the universe except in stars.  Not just within stars, but specifically, they are made when a star dies and goes supernova.  It takes the act of the death of a sun to create the elements of life.  Our God makes us not just from dust, but from stardust.  All of you, and everyone you ever meet, is made of stardust.  And that is nothing short of amazing.  Go out into this world living as the son who died for us has called you to live, remembering who has made you of stardust.

The Christmas Story

This is perhaps one of the best productions of this story ever.  The story of Christmas as told by the children of St Paul's Church, Auckland, New Zealand.

Hallelujah Tribute (The Voice)

The coaches and contestants of The Voice recorded a tribute to the students and teachers slain in the Newtown, CT shooting this week. It's powerful.

What Now?

The events of this year, and this past week have rocked all of us.  Naturally, many of us have asked 'Why?' and my mind turned to a song I heard years ago.  One of my favorite singers, and someone who was personally very encouraging to me whenever we crossed paths or exchanged emails, is the late David Bailey.  He was a brilliant man and powerfully insightful lyricist.  Given six months by the doctors who found a grape fruit-sized tumor in his head, David soldiered on for over 12 years, switching from a career in the coporate world to music.  He found space in this new calling to ask his hard questions and to hear God's answers.

 

His own questions swirled and mixed with new questions around the tragic deaths of two young women, one from unknown causes and one in a car accident.  I first heard this song and the story he told at Montreat during a week our youth group lost a girl many in our group knew well to a car accident.  David imagined asking God, 'Why' and instead turning to, 'What now?'  And as so many of these stories go, a song was born.  I'll share the lyrics here, as well as a link to the song and a YouTube video of an interview he gave not long before he passed away.  I hope this gives you something to cling to as it has to me so many times.

 

Becky's Song (Her Favorite Color Was Green)  On the left, click on the orange 'play' button to listen.

Interview

 

Her favorite color was green
That's about all that I know
Except she knew the Lord Loved her -
her Bible told her so.

She swam in an ocean of laughter
She deanced in a desert of grace
The way she loved those around her
Was written all over her face

I was there the morning she left us
I heard every tear that was shed
I wanted to ask God the reason
But I asked him what now instead

'What now, God would you have us say?
What now, God would you have us do?
Wasn't it clear she was faithful?
Wasn't that enough for you?'

God said, 'how could you ask such a question? Surely the answer is clear?
Do I have to paint you a picture?
Is it not enough I'm here?'

I said God, 'that's not what I meant
She was just too young to die'
God said, 'I know what you mean - Remember I watched my son cry'
I said, 'yes, but at least your boy is with you'
God said. 'right, and now so is she
I set her a place at my table
and man, you should see that girl eat

'In fact, I wish you could see her smiling
then you'd know she feels right at home
She's been telling the angels about you
Just so you won't feel alone'

Her favorite color was green
That's my favorite too
She's already sliding down rainbows
Right between yellow and blue

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Holiday

As preached at Albemarle Road Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, NC today, November 25, 2012.

I'll try to add the audio later.

Isaiah 40:1-5
Luke 2:4-7

               I grew up in this church and in the scout troop. A favorite pastime of camping trips was the telling of stories and jokes.  A favorite form of torture for our leaders was joining in this time. Now and then, when we had a whole new batch of young scouts, Mr. White would stand up and begin telling a joke about a man who was building a house.  When the man was finished, he had a brick left over. Mr. White would then scratch his head, look very apologetic and confess that as he was getting older it was harder and harder to remember what that man did with the brick.  The young scouts would be very confused and feel sorry for him.  Mr. Blackmon would explain it was a symptom of “Old Timers” disease and we’d go on telling jokes.  Mr. White’s joke never went over well.

               Mr. Blackmon though, had a great joke.  He’d tell one where a grumpy old man was riding a train with a young snarky woman with a poodle.  The old man was chomping happily on a very large pickle.  The young woman became irate as his chomping and his pickle were disturbing her sensitive poodle.  He refused a number of times to discard it in the trash. Finally, the irate woman grabs the pickle and tosses it out of the window of the train, very satisfied till he retaliates by tossing her poodle out.  As they arrive at the next station and get off the train, the poodle catches up.  And of course, in his mouth, he’s got the... The BRICK! Think about it. ;-)

               The joke relies on your expectations.  It’s funny precisely because it’s unexpected. God is more than anything, master of the unexpected.  The birth of Christ isn’t so miraculous, amazing or funny because it happened and happens in the midst of a historical or seasonal lull. It happens instead of what was and what IS expected.  The Jews prophesized, expected, and yearned for a savior, particularly under Roman rule, but many other times in history too. It’s why we read Isaiah each year.  Christ’s coming, life, and death are foretold long before he arrives.  But as we’re reminded so often, no one expected it in a manger or to such unlikely young parents or RIGHT THEN. No red carpet, no royal treatment, not even a bedroom. They didn’t expect a baby, they expected a king.  His entrance to Jerusalem on a donkey much later is no different.  All the best and most important parts of scripture can be finished not with ‘Amen,’ but with, “SURPRISE!”

Christmas historically replaced the pagan winter solstice.  It’s no accident.  Church leaders wanted to replace the major pagan parties of spring and winter solstice with Easter and Christmas. Time and time again, we can almost hear God in the background nudging us, “See what I did there? Betcha didn’t see that one coming.”  Wink, wink. Our God is the God of the unexpected, the interruption.

Unfortunately, too often, we do it right back. (Pause) We love to swoop in and interrupt what God is up to with our own agenda, our own punch line.  If ever there was a human punch line that fell flat, it’s the way we celebrate Christmas in a way in which we replace the anticipation of the birth of our savior with the anticipation of giving and receiving of material goods. And there’s some merit to the metaphor of the wisemen bringing gifts to Jesus and us exchanging gifts.  It’s symbolic.  But much of our season of anticipation, which we call Advent, has shifted the focus from God’s gift to our gifts.  We prepare our homes for guests and parties.  We prepare a tree as a landing zone for presents.  We prepare our church for visitors and those returning home. We prepare our minds with music we love. And none of that is wrong or bad. In fact, Scripture encourages much of that. But far too often, we don’t prepare our hearts for the gift that Christ is to our lives.

There’s a comedian who points out how much we forget how disconnected we are. As he says, “And kids eat chocolate eggs at Easter because the chocolate reminds us of the wood of the cross…  Noooo.  And the bunnies remind us of the rabbit holes where the cross was stuck in the ground… Noooo.  And at Christmas, Jesus was born to a large jolly guy in a red suit… of COURSE not. No fir trees in Nazareth.” He reminds us that eggs and bunnies were pagan symbols of fertility and trees were symbols of growth and nature and harvest, not of Jesus and resurrection and Christianity. When we find our meaning in traditions instead of building traditions that focus on remembering meaning, we lose something very important.

If you really wanna start a fight in a church, forget about recent changes in the PC(USA).  I have an idea.  Let’s have people sit on this side of the sanctuary if they wanna hear Christmas music on the radio before Thanksgiving and people over here if they insist on waiting till after. Not that I think I could get any of you to change seats.  We will NOT do that.  Countless times, I’ve been a part of conversations at this time of year where people share their thoughts on preparing for the holidays.  “It’s not really Christmas until…” When is it “Christmas-y” to you? Here in the South, outdoor Christmas lights can be a year-round thing, so that’s not always the best indication. For some, the first cold weather or snowfall.  For some, the first Christmas carol, or watching White Christmas or Miracle on 34^th Street or Rudolph.  For some, it’s that first holiday batch of cookies or when their family arrives in town or getting the Christmas tree up.  For my mom, it was when we finally read the Luke passage that Charles Schulz insisted be a part of the Charlie Brown Christmas special.  “As shepherds kept watch ore their flocks by night…”

How do we prepare our hearts for the coming of Christmas, the coming of Christ? Now you might suspect I have some suggestions.  I’ve thought a bit about this God and Jesus subject. I even took a few classes on it in school. Jesus says, and I think I agree, we should always be prepared. Prepared as servants waiting for the aster of the house to come home.

It is preparation and anticipation as much as anything as human beings that gives us meaning.  We spend Lent preparing for Easter.  Palm Sunday prepares us for Holy Week.  Advent is our preparation for Christmas.  We prepare not a footbridge or hiking trail for the king to arrive, for the prince of peace to enter.  We prepare a highway, we prepare a runway.  We prepare because it sets a priority in our lives.  All else comes after. Preparation is the ultimate in priority-setting. Guests are important. Their comfort and happiness is above our own, so we change things. We pick up the house more because we want them to be more comfortable than how we live each day.  We kick the kids out of beds onto couches and floors and sleeping bags because grandma and grandpa and uncles and aunts are a priority.  We cook food we know others love because they are the priority.  Parents spend hours wrapping gifts for children because their happiness and joy and memories mean more to them than a few hours of sleep.

My heart is warmed when I see people take items to the angel tree or fill shoe boxes for Operation Christmas child or see folks make plans to visit the homebound and lonely relatives. Making time for such things in the midst of the busiest time of year shows a priority for love, for the one who taught us that we will be known as his followers when we have love for one another. Taking time every single day for three weeks to read from an advent calendar, from scripture, with your family, with children, taking time to tell the story, to build an anticipation, to make your faith and passing on that faith a priority… that is Advent in its most pure form.

Many people will cringe at the greeting, “Happy holidays.”  Others will delight in having brothers and sisters who share the faith in which Jesus was raised and other traditions.  I won’t ask you to divide the sanctuary on that one either. But, after all, the wisemen were neither Jews nor Christians and the innkeeper who loaned the stable may have been a Roman. I won’t ask you to “remember the reason for the season” or the “real gift of Christmas,” and abandon all your favorite traditions.  I will challenge you that if there isn’t room in your traditions for truly anticipating the Christ child, if your faith and your savior aren’t the obvious priority amongst your preparations, you should take some time to make at least as much room in your lives as an innkeeper once did.

Years ago, I heard a story, very likely from Ron.  A Church put on a nativity play and all the children participated, including one little boy who was mentally handicapped.  The little boy was very friendly, very kind and well-loved.  And he wanted very much to be a part of this play.  He wanted to have lines.  So those in charge made him one of several innkeepers who would turn Mary and Joseph away.  His only line was, “There is no room here!”  It was a small line, and he delivered it perfectly and with enthusiasm at each practice, but the adults and his parents all held their breath on the night of the show.  When Mary and Joseph arrived and asked if they had a place for them to stay, he delivered his line perfectly in a booming voice.  “There is no room here!”  And as Mary and Joseph turned to walk away very disappointed, his lip quivered and he nearly burst into tears.  And he shouted after them, “Oh come on in!  We can make room for you, Jesus!”

Can we make room?

So maybe, just maybe, you can find a more fitting place in your home and your heart, so it begins to look a little more like Christmas than just… a little more like a holiday.  Maybe, as we celebrate Advent each week this year, you can make hope, peace, joy, and love a part of your lives… and all our traditions can reflect the anticipation we share for the birth of a child, Emanuel, God with us.

Charge:  Grinch, Whoville, Sang and Celebrated.  Without the presents, their Christmas looked a lot like Thanksgiving.  The family gathering, the food, thankful for all they did have.  Would your Christmas look so much like Thanksgiving, if all the presents were taken? Maybe this year, your Advent can look more like the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, thankful for all your blessings and the most special gift of all.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood

I know many of you have read AJ Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically.  Rachel Held Evans, author and blogger (who I quoted a bit a few sermons ago) has just released her book...  A Year of Biblical Womanhood.  While Lifeway Bookstores will not be carrying it, she was featured on the Today Show.  Check it out...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As a note:  I have not read her new book.  I would like to read it when I can.  I have read AJ Jacobs' book and loved it.  Part of that was because although Jacobs is not religious, he did consult many religious leaders and experts.  I am not sure of Evans has done this.

Change We Can [hardly] Believe In

Hebrews 4:12-16

Mark 10:17-31

[Editor's note of clarification:  There's a different between taking Jesus literally and taking Jesus seriously.  To be clear, we would be remiss to lose the metaphors, stories and creativity of Jesus, but we do equal injustice by watering down the challenging words of Christ.]

Listen to It

                At the start of one of my pastoral care courses in seminary, the professor asked us, “How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?”  We waited.  “Change?!?!  Who said change?!?!”  We, as Presbyterians, as humans really, do not like change.  If you want to see real whining, forget about the two year old class downstairs.  Just read the newsfeed on Facebook for two days after a minor change in how it looks.  People using a website just to complain about that same website.  I have no scientific studies to back this claim, but I’d wager over half the posts on Facebook and Twitter are complaints… mostly about change.  Editorial columns, sports columns, blogs… all full of folks complaining about one change or another.

                We don’t like change.  Ever.  My home pastor once said in a sermon he was going to tell us about the great tragedy of his life.  Knowing the losses he’d suffered in his family and how he’d once fallen nearly two stories off a ladder in our sanctuary, we all braced for the worst.  “It was,” he said, “the day I drove here on the way to work one morning last year… and the Krispy Kreme had closed!”

                And brothers and sisters, these are the small things in life.  Even as I was writing this paragraph in the coffee shop, a woman got very upset that the tall table in there wasn’t by the window any more.  When it comes to the big changes, we get even squirmier.  Our faith, our deeply held ideologies, our church, our lifestyle… these are not up for consideration, much less debate.  Our very identities are wrapped up in what we do and what we have.  A recent technology commercial for a backup service for all your data, pictures, music and so forth ended with these lines… “Because without all your stuff, where are you?  In fact, without your stuff… WHO are you?”

                Psychiatrists tell us how traumatizing it is to move, to change jobs, to lose a house in a fire.  Our worlds are rocked by such major changes in large part because what we do and what we own… our STUFF… shapes our identity.  College students meeting new people immediately ask, “What are you studying?”  Adults ask, “What do you do?” A friend of mine used to refuse to ask this, instead asking, “What do you like to do?”

                We’re fortunate in our - modern society, that what we do and what we own are flexible ideas to some extent.  You can change careers.  We have a longstanding tradition in the American dream that you can raise yourself from pauper to prince.  And a prince can lose his fortune and become a pauper.  In Jesus’ time, however, one’s identity was tied to their profession and possessions, and those things were not thought to be flexible.  A poor man could not work his way up to a fortune, nor could a rich man lose his wealth and become poor.  A rich man was a rich man, and a poor man was poor, end of story.  That sort of class system still exists in some parts of the world.

                As we read this story, it’s typically titled “the rich young ruler,” but that ruins the story for us.  The original hearers of this story would not have had a title.  The book of Mark would likely have been recited as an entire story of the life of Christ in one sitting, straight through.  Without the title, we don’t know he is rich until the end!  The young man approaches Jesus and says, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  This should strike us immediately after last week’s reading on the prodigal son.  What must anyone do to earn an inheritance?  Nothing.  You gain an inheritance as a birthright, by being the child of someone.

                But Jesus doesn’t point this out directly.  Jesus, as he so often does, slips around and comes in from the side.  Time and time again, Jesus questions the motives, the opinions and the perceptions of those around him.  So perhaps he asks him then in the tone he used with Peter when he asked, “But who do you say I am?”  Perhaps he says, “Why do you call me good?”  And while the young man ponders this, Jesus asks him about his own “goodness.”  Do you avoid murder, adultery, theft, lying?  Well, of course, replies the young man.  I’m good too.  Then Jesus gives it to him, his answer.  So far as I have been able to find, it’s the only time in all of scripture that Jesus gives someone their own personal plan for guaranteed eternal life… Sell everything you have and follow me…  The word hard has many opposites.  Among them… EASY and SIMPLE.  Jesus’ answer is simple.  But for this man, it is not easy.

                He goes away disheartened… because he had great possessions!  You see, as we discussed, he couldn’t just have a yard sale.  The guy was a rich man.  He couldn’t just become poor.  He was a rich man.  Of course the young man, our cautionary tale, walks away… and the disciples get the rest of the lesson, as do we…  It’s harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than a camel to go through the eye of a needle.  And the disciples were “astonished!”  Why?  Because even after all their time with Jesus, leaving their jobs and their families, they still didn’t fully buy into this idea that they could change their lives, their identities.

                And Jesus hits them with it, the verse we all love as privileged first world, comfortable American Christians.  Like our sermons here at Wellshire, Jesus liked to end his stories with hope.  He says, “With man, it is impossible, but not with God.  For ALL things are possible with God.”  And we all go, “Whew!  I was worried there for a sec!”  Collectively, we all think, good, Jesus will squeeze me and all my possessions and wealth through that needle’s eye.  WRONG!  The good news Jesus shares with this young man and the disciples is not that God will push us through that needle magically with our bag of stuff like Santa down a chimney.  Jesus is telling them, telling us, that God can change us.  God can make us people who no longer need all our stuff, all our comforts, all the things on which we build our identity.  He can change our hearts so we can build our identity on him, on his call.

                Brothers and sisters, the Good News is that God can change us into people who don’t need all the stuff, all the status, the professions or the possessions.  The bad news… is that God can change us into people who don’t need all that stuff.  It’ll scare us.  It’ll scare our families, our friends.  The question from that commercial is worth considering… Without your stuff, WHO… ARE you? 

                Jesus says that there are none who have left houses or siblings or parents or children or property for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive all of that a hundredfold now and in the life to come… along with persecutions.  Yeah, he says that.  Jesus tells it like it is… houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands WITH persecutions.  Jesus would never have made it as a used camel salesman, but he didn’t lie.  Jesus tells us we’ll face challenges.  But he also tells us that in this life and the one to come, it’s worth it and he will be with us.

                This verse is one of the most challenging for us as people of privilege.  Even in this country, we’re people of privilege.  Our birthright as Americans is to be among the richest people in the world.  And many of us by virtue of our ancestry, our ethnicity or our skin color or our parents’ have inherited opportunity and access and power over and above many others in this nation.  We look at this verse, and we try hard to explain it away, to turn it into a metaphor, to water it down.

                I attended a church a few times in seminary, a large well-educated, white collar Presbyterian church.  One of their adult Sunday school classes did a series on the hard sayings of Jesus.  The goal was to wrestle with the challenging verses and not merely explain them away.  I attended the one they did on this passage.  The class and teacher spent the entire class discussing the camel and the needle metaphorically.  They brought up the explanation about the gate into Jerusalem known as the Eye of the Needle, that it was small and a camel could only squeeze through on its knees.  People love that one… but scholars say it’s completely untrue and has no basis in fact.  They discussed that maybe it’s a mistranslation and that it was originally supposed to say something about passing ROPE through the eye of a needle, difficult, but possible.  Also has little basis in reality.  And like many of us, they discussed how through God all things are possible.  They offered up that Jesus always spoke in context.  His instructions were for this rich man and not for all of us.  We can’t all do that.  Someone has to work.  We can’t all be hippies living on the street.  Not once was it suggested that Jesus meant what he said.

                But I challenge you today to never again water this passage down.  Because you cannot water down the challenges of Jesus without also watering down his promises.   Jesus promises that when we give up our professions and possessions, when we turn those things wholly over to God in a real way, surrender all we have and all we have become to God… we receive a hundredfold in return, here and in the life to come.  And who wants to water down that amazing promise?  Not I.  And I hope not you either.

                Because in Hebrews, it says that the word of God is living and active.  And this means that the words Jesus speaks to the young ruler and to the disciples… they are living and active… full of meaning for us today.  We can be a people terrified of change, but assured and confident in the promises Jesus makes.  I don’t know if God is calling you to give up all you have.  I do know that if you let him, he will change you in ways you never expected and the things you hold dear or the things that hold you, could suddenly not matter.

                God can change who we are, from prince to prophet or politician to Presbyterian or pretentious to public servant.  That which God dreams for us is so much bigger than we can know till we open our hearts and minds to be shown.  Each of us has marvelous potential to be and to do so much more than what our self-imposed and accepted identities seem to indicate.  I think RL Sharpe puts it well…

Isn't it strange how princes and kings,
and clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
and common people, like you and me,
are builders for eternity?

Each is given a list of rules;
a shapeless mass; a bag of tools.
And each must fashion, ere life is flown,
A stumbling block, or a Stepping-Stone.

For we are builders for eternity.  People have great capacity for change.  YOU have great potential to be changed.  Do not yearn for God to use you on your own terms.  Do not be content with that.  Do not pray for that.  Or you’ll go away as dejected as the young ruler.  Surrender yourself to radical change.  Open your life to the hands of the master potter, ready and eager to be shaped.  Amen.

Green Day

 

With the return of Green Day comes a great link to DIY Rain Barrels.  Really a must-have for home owners and house renters, especially in Denver these days...

 

DIY Rain Barrels

Doers of the Word

Sermon text: James 1:17-27

                Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism is the 1939 self-help book written by the founders of AA.  It has become known to most as The Big Book.  It contains stories of struggle, as well as solutions and rules to help addicts find recovery.  Sounds like a book we all know well.  It was used as the blueprint for what is now the 12-step program and the book has sold over 30 million copies, landing it on Time magazine’s top 100 most influential books written since the Magazine was founded in 1923.

            The book is not complex or daunting.  It is very honest and approachable and intended for those struggling with addiction to be a help for those taking the first steps on the long road to recovery, a road that has no end in this life.  And many alcoholics read it over and over on this journey.  It has experience that resonates and advice that must be heard over and over to sink in, and is heard anew and in fresh ways each time.  Whether the journey is new, or the journey has been long and arduous, the struggles and the solutions are real and true.

            The letter of James from which we read this morning is a similar book for us as believers.  It contains advice to new Christians, baby believers, new converts.  However, the struggles and sage wisdom offered by its author ring true for us in each reading and give us the reminders we need for Christian living, for how to live as believers on this journey of faith, our road to redemption, a road that has no end in this life.

            James is a book to which we can return over and over as we grow in faith and learn again the lessons we have not yet fully learned.  James reminds us so often that we deceive ourselves about our own spiritual maturity.  Most of us have been Christians for so long we take the basics for granted.  Sports teams get into big trouble for this all the time.  It’s easy for a dedicated athlete on a great college or professional team to think they’ve already done all the hard work already and now they just have to show up.  There’s nothing left to learn or practice or improve.  Winning is now just a birthright or matter of chance.  But how often has a winning team risen from the coaching efforts of a titan who says, “we’re going back to the basics?  We’re going back to the fundamentals.”

            If you followed the rise and eventual victory of the Lake Placid US Hockey Gold Medal Team or have seen the film Miracle, you know that the coach did have a new style of hockey… a mixture of two already well-established styles (Canadian and Russian) and some new ideas about picking players… but everything about their training and their victory… was about going back to the basics.  They would practice longer, they’d pass and they’d skate and they’d train harder.  Everything they did was focusing on, practicing and perfecting the very things they’d learned as peewee hockey players.

            And brothers and sisters, that’s what the writer of James implores in his letter, implores his recipient, implores us to do, to practice the basics, to perfect them.  This morning, we read from the first chapter of his letter, his introduction.  We hear his instruction to be doers and not hearers only, as our temptation is as human beings and believers.  This is his preface to the rest of his letter.  He’s saying, “let this sink in real good because I don’t want you to merely ponder my words, but to jump up the minute I’m done talking and go and DO.”

            And as Presbyterians, we’re super good at pondering.  We’ve made it an art, an ideal, something to which we aspire.  When one of you comes to me or Pattie or John during the week and says, “I’ still thinking about that sermon you preached this week…” we feel we’ve really nailed it.  But I think about people who have started non-profits and movements, who have made a difference in their communities or in raising their kids or inspiring students, and their stories go much beyond pondering.  Their stories start with conviction, with action.  I heard the sermon, I heard that hymn sung, I heard that minute for mission and I did.”  They walked right out of church, out of Bible study, out of Sunday school, back from mission trip and they turned from being an active hearer… to a DOER.

            If you walk out of here today mid-service, I’ll assume you were inspired to immediately go change this world… and I’m going to ask how it went.  If you just went to the bathroom, that’s going to be an awkward conversation for both of us.  So for just this week… hold it.

            So how do we listen to the Word today and become DOERS, leaving here to go make a difference?  According to Webster, a verb is an action word.  According to my kindergarten teacher, it’s a word on the go.  And if we Christians, if this church is what we say it is… a church on the move… then we should be looking for verbs in James’ letter.  Because James tells us that a doer acts and will be blessed in his doing. And he closes our chapter after this advice with just two verses.  And in these verses, we get our verbs.  In verse 26, we get ‘thinking,’ ‘bridling,’ and ‘deceiving.’  James tells us that if we think that we can go around shooting off at the mouth without any restraint, we are not only deceiving ourselves, but our entire religion is worthless.  That which we say without thinking reflects not only poorly on us as a person, but on our entire religion.  That’s a powerful burden and one that is completely true.  Think of how you’ve viewed an entire band for what a singer says, what you think of Hollywood for one actor’s words, for millions in a political party or nation for the words of the one holding the microphone.

            I’ve got a good bit of time around horses, and if you have too, you know the importance of a bridle.  Its intent is not to limit the freedom of a horse or to harm it.  The bridle is intended to the benefit of a horse and its rider.  With a bridle, you can lead a horse to the best water, or into a stable where it will be safe during a storm.  Without it, a horse may lead itself to dirty water or run off during a storm.  The bridle is the tool of the horse’s rider that helps the horse.  And so it is with our tongues, with our words.  They need a bridle; they need our wisdom to guide them from danger and destruction to that which is life-giving.

            We gain wisdom from experience and scripture and wise instruction from others.  My father offered a lot of advice to me as a kid.  “Measure twice, cut once… Wash a car from the top down… Don’t tell your mom about this speeding ticket.”  But the one nugget of wisdom I recall was about bridling my tongue… “Before you say something to someone, ask… is it true… is it kind… is it necessary?”  If it doesn’t pass these tests, chances are, you’re better off keeping it to yourself.  I’m not sure my dad was always as successful at that as he hoped I would be, but it was sage wisdom.

            As good Presbyterians, if there’s one thing we’re almost as good at as pondering, it’s pondering aloud.  A committee is nothing more than a collection of people pondering aloud.  An effective committee does a lot of listening and praying as well, but it’s the pondering together aloud that is the defining characteristic.  Presbyterians are at their best when they ponder aloud together, pray together and listen to one another and the Spirit.  It’s how the denomination was formed.  It’s how we call pastors.  It’s how we make decisions for the life and future of the church.  It’s how we establish confessions and for our government and rules.

            But at our worst, pondering aloud is like a wild bucking bronco.  It can be quite something to watch, mesmerizing and powerful, but utterly destructive.  Most of the time, it’s harmless enough.  No one is close enough to get kicked.  But at its very worst, pondering aloud is just gossip.  And while we may not address it often or with much authority as Presbyterians, it’s cancerous and deadly.  The versaity of gossip is certainly one of the problems, but not the only one.  Suicide is rampant in our kids’ schools in this day and age.  Bullying is the well-defined culprit.  Broadly, it’s responsible for this tragic epidemic.  But its tools are not all so obvious.  Sometimes it’s physical abuse.  Sometimes it’s name-calling and exclusion.  And just as often, kids recount how their reputations and identities are marred by rumors and accusations… by gossip.  Gossip is bullying at its most nefarious.

            I spent a summer in college as the youth director for a small rural Baptist church in Burlington, NC, learning much in my first job in ministry.  I learned I was very Presbyterian that summer.  But I learned more from the Baptists than I ever expected.  They taught me to pray unceasingly and to expect God to answer.  They taught me to bravely share my faith and that keeping it to myself was both safe and selfish.  I had good news to share and I should treat it as such.  One of the most meaningful things they taught me was a thing or two about bridling.

            As a youth worker, I had become accustom to discussing the problems (and solutions) of the kids with which we worked.  Youth workers do it.  Teachers and administrators do it.  Managers do it.  It’s commonplace, in ministry, teaching and management.  What isn’t so commonplace was at the church I served… they guided those conversations to a closing prayer in which they prayed for God’s guidance and help to teach the youth.  Unbridled pondering aloud is gossip.  Pondering aloud bridled by wisdom and the Holy Spirit is Christ moving in his people.  It’s ministry.  Guided by thoughts of what is true, what is kind and what is necessary to say is how we bridle our speech and how we become doers of the Word and not hearers only.

            I won’t ask us to raise our hands and admit how often we each stand in a cluster of folks and gossip, or how many times you forwarded on a little tidbit about a coworker or an actress or a politician on Facebook before determining if it was true, let alone kind or necessary.  I won’t ask you because I know precisely how guilty of such things I am every single day.  We leave here feeling very proud that we’ve heard the scripture or heard the whole sermon.  And I leave here hoping those things are true and feeling very successful if those things are true.  But we honor God most and we show our religion worthwhile when we leave here and make apparent we are doers of the Word and not hearers only.

            When we find ourselves in the midst of people sharing idle gossip about friends or family, or even strangers, famous, powerful or rich, we have the choice to participate, to ignore, or perhaps even to challenge that.  We have the choice to bridle our tongues with wisdom, to ask what is true, what is kind and what is necessary, everyday.  We have the choice to pray and to listen for God about how to respond to the things we hear and learn, and how not to deceive ourselves and our hearts.

            Because James signs off from this chapter before moving on with verse 27… he defines PURE and undefiled religion with a few more verbs… Visiting orphans and widows in their affliction… to keep oneself unstained from the world.  And if you can’t walk away from a long conversation about something or someone feeling like it was a better use of your time than visiting a widow or an orphan or someone sick or in prison or feeding a hungry person.  If you consider those things and feel a twinge of guilt or doubt about how “unstained by the world” that conversation truly was, perhaps as a doer of the Word, you can consider bridling your tongue, restraining your passion, your indignation, or your curiosity for the sake of extending grace to another and bringing honor to your God and your faith.

            As we enter a season of political upheaval and debate, I would not encourage you to merely be mild-mannered Christians, passionless, polite and powerless.  I don’t think James is recommending that.  I don’t think James or Jesus would suggest in word or in deed that you not speak truth to power, to question and challenge your leaders.  But it would be a helpful distinction to pause and consider if you are speaking truth to power or speaking truth to gain power yourself or just to take it from someone you dislike or with whom you disagree.  There is great temptation to unseat your opponent instead of listening to and loving them.  But then you’re back to being a Zax, unbudged in your tracks and useless.  You cannot be a doer, if you’re stuck where you stand as the immovable object in the path of your enemy.  Immovable objects are not verbs.  They are not on the move.

            James calls us to be like Christ, to be doers, and he gives us his wisdom.  And we learn from this passage that we can bridle our tongues, bridle our words, and honor God by speaking in wisdom.  We can ask ourselves what is true, what is kind and what is necessary and we can move from pondering to action, from gossip to Godly action.  We can move from words to widows and orphans, the sick and the hungry, from words of oppression to freeing the oppressed.  Do not merely ponder this sermon.  Do not merely ponder the words of James.  Leave this place and be a doer of the Word.  Leave here and consider how you can bridle your own words and your own heart.  Challenge your friends, your family and your leaders to consider those things which are true, kind and necessary.  Put a sticky note on your computer or by your phone and bridle that which you would say to others.

            To be a doer of the Word is to live humbly, to accept the challenges of scripture and your faith community and to extend that challenge in love to the people you love… and to those you don’t yet love.  Do not be content to be a hearer only.  I would pray for you and for me that we never be content so long as we are hearers only… stained by our world, passively allowing injustice to those in need while we gossip and speak idly.

            We are called to be doers of the Word, and we must use our own words to bring good news to those who need it, to speak words of kindness and comfort, of challenge and support, of grace and mercy, not of hate and intolerance, slander and cruelty.  We cannot speak badly to and about one another, about our political and ideological enemies, other countries and people of other faiths.  We must follow the example of Christ and speak in love and forgiveness, even to those who hurt and oppress us.  Jesus’ last words were to forgive those who killed him in anger and jealousy and hate.  How much more are we called to say and to do?

            I have not always done this well, but I can say the closest thing to a miracle that I’ve ever witnessed is the reaction of those who have hurt me to the kindness I have shown them.  To be a doer of the Word and not just a hearer is a powerful testimony to the grace of the God in who we believe.

            I’ve always loved the old hymn and its refrain that calls, “Spirit of restlessness, stir us from placidness.”  For that is what the Spirit does.  May the Spirit be present in our lives, stirring each of us from our placidness to lives of restlessness, to lives of action…

Let us pray…

Oh Lord, send your spirit as you sent it to your son to drive us from this place to the wilderness.  Call us to needs and strengthen us to deeds in your name.  Amen.