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.

Accidentally Feminist

Recently, I debated with another PC(USA) pastor friend of mine about whether or not the equality of women in the Church and their roles was central to the Gospel message.  I argued it is for a number of reasons.  Feel free to ask me.

 

I quoted this same woman (Rachel Held Evans) in my sermon a few weeks ago.  She wrote an excellent blog post on how she arrived at feminism from scripture and faith rather than from acdemia and feminist writers and leaders.  She speaks well to finding the message of equality and egalitarianism in the Word of God and the words of Scripture, Christ, and the Apostles...

The Worst Tool for Evangelism

When I was a kid, my dad loved to sing along to the radio (highly embarassing) and I once asked him, "Dad, who sings this?"  Excited I was curious, he replied, "Roy Orbison."  To which, I of course, I crushingly replied, "Why don't you let him sing it?"  This did not deter my father (I was a teenager, why should it?), but the one lesson in this is that if someone else says it better... let them.  This week, over on Stuff Christians Like, a blog I love, Jon Acuff shares some thoughts on the Worst Tool for Evangelism.  It's worth a read.

Lessons from the Zax

Lessons from the Zax

Or Listen to it Here after reading the scriptures.

Exodus 13:15a

And God instructed Moses to tell the people… “When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal.”

Isaiah 46:12

And through the prophet Isaiah, God told his people, Listen to me, you stubborn of heart,
you who are far from righteousness.

Jeremiah 18:12

And God’s people responded to his prophet Jeremiah, “But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ And so they did.

Hosea 4:16

And through the prophet Hosea, God told his people, “The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer. How then can the LORD pasture them like lambs in a meadow?”

Mark 3:4-6

When Jesus was in the synagogue, the Pharisees watched to see if they could accuse him of something and he said to the man with a withered hand, “Come here.” Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

Mark 16:14

And after the resurrection… Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

Philippians 2:2

Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Zechariah 7:10-12

Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.' "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.

            Good morning. I’d like to say a welcome to our visitors in case I don’t get a chance to later because this is a particularly challenging topic and sermon. I want to tell you that Wellshire seeks to be a very welcoming and accepting place, as well as a challenging one. And this community of faith will accept you for who you are, and challenge you in your thinking constantly… as will this sermon. And my hope is that you are seeking that. Because otherwise, the next few minutes could be very hard indeed.

            This morning, we read the Zax, our final installment in the summer Seuss series and by far, our shortest read. It’s timely that it landed this week. Not only does it come on the tail end of our denomination’s General Assembly and the front end of a long national campaign season, but it lands right on the week of the culture wars over Chick-Fil-A. I’m sure you can identify North-going and South-going Zax in the denomination and in the national political arena. It’s not hard to find shining examples of those stuck in their tracks. You could do the same for the Chick-Fil-A debate. But we’re not here this morning to identify characters and culprits. We’re here to glean lessons from the wisdom in Seuss and Scripture.

            I hope I’m not about to burst anyone’s bubble. But if you read the Zax as a story of two brave Zax who stuck to their roots, stuck to their principals and forced the rest of the world to literally “bypass” them to make any progress, you missed the good Doctor’s point. It’s not a story of example, but a cautionary tale… a tale far too familiar. One always goes North and the other goes South and puffing his chest up with pride, “I never,” said one,“take a step to one side.” The Zax are not a victim of unfounded convictions necessarily. Perhaps they have very good reasons for always going North or South. Perhaps in the Prairie of Prax, this has to do with migration, survival, or it’s cultural, perhaps religious. Maybe it’s a symbolic observance they don’t fully understand, but which gives meaning to them. You’d be hard-pressed, even with theological training, to defend communion or Easter or Advent or Ash Wednesday any better than a South-grooving Zax.

            But what Seuss stresses… and so do our countless prophetic voices from scripture… is that it’s not the belief, it’s not the conviction, it’s not the zeal that leads us to our demise. It’s the stubbornness. What is the measure of prophet’s success? Whether people LISTEN… Whether people HEAR. Time and time again, the prophets implore the people to LISTEN. Time and time again, Seuss implores us to listen. Listen to the Lorax, he speaks for the trees! Listen to Horton’s Whos because a person’s a person… [no matter how small]! Listen to the Whos down in Whoville celebrating in spite of all they’ve lost! Listen to poor Yurtle the Turtle or Sam I Am or a Star-Bellied or a None-Upon-Thars or a Zax (regardless of orientation), or any of the countless Seuss characters.

            Or just stay stubborn. Stay stubborn like the Israelites! Stay stubborn like a Sneech or Thneed-Maker or Horton’s friends. Refuse to listen. Shout your own well-informed, Biblically backed, personally proven, annecdotally approved opinion at the top of your lungs! After all, being loud is the next best thing to being right!

            OR… instead of rushing to your Facebook page to post, tweeting your every thought and berating your opposition in every form of public domain… slow down… find someone with whom you disagree, really listen… ask them to do the same… pray for and expect the Holy Spirit to show up, and see what happens. Am I promising you’ll both walk away agreeing on some sort of brand new middle ground? No. Am I promising they’ll come around to your point of view? DEINITELY NOT! But it beats the alternative. Do not, I beg you, be the person who causes others, who causes the next generation, to have to build roads around you to make progress.

            Rachel Held Evans, author and blogger, wrote an infinitely wise post this week, in which she addressed both Chick-Fil-A protestors and supporters. I’ll make the link available on my blog today when I post the sermon. I’m going to share some of her main ideas. To the protestors, she surmised several points… She said you can choose not to patronize Chick-Fil-A without…calling those who support Chick-Fil-A bigots and homophobes… without… making scenes that make life miserable for its employees… without… promoting one civil right (marriage), while trampling another (free speech)… and most importantly, without… focusing all our efforts on a boycott to the expense of more productive conversations and actions. And she makes the same point to the supporters. Droves of support ignores the pained cries of those who are so deeply offended by this, people who are also believers, who also children of God. Your time could better be spent.

            I think what she says here is profoundly insightful. She starts by addressing the vocabulary used in engaging this issue. We too often label people, dehumanizing them in the process. They don’t deserve for me to listen to them because they’re close-minded, they’re operating with half a heart or half a brain and why should I waste my time? But brothers and sisters, that’s not what we are called to do by the loving Lord who took time to listen to the people everyone considered worthless and who took time to listen to people of authority who wanted to kill him! We cannot dismiss people. And we cannot use words that make it impossible to listen or which mis-represent our opposition.

            There are many of you in this room who would consider yourself mature, open-minded, even enlightened. I won’t ask you to raise your hands. In my youth group, we had a saying, “we do not use gay and stupid interchangeably.” You would never use the n-word with a black person or the s-word with a Mexican. You’d never call a gay person the f-word. And that’s good! But you might still call the CEO of Chick-Fil-A a homophobe. And you’d be horribly wrong to do so. The word literally means to be scared of homosexuals. And while I do not deny that the basis of most hatred is fear, it is wrong to assume that someone’s deeply held conviction, right or wrong in your eyes can only be a result of fear. It is just as wrong to call a gay person or advocate a heterophobe. It’s just as wrong to call a Muslim or even an atheist a faithaphobe (not a word in spell check) just because they believe differentlythan you do. Not all beliefs and deeply held convictions stem from fear. We have to change the discourse. We have to change how we approach one another.

            Do you approach people as a member of the homophobic and bigoted vast right-wing conspiracy? Do you approach people as immoral, permissive purveyors of the gay agenda? If you do, I’ve got bad news for you. You’re a Zax. You are stuck in your tracks in the Prairie of Prax. You’re not going anywhere and neither is your cause, your agenda, your message or your world. It’s small, it’s unimaginative and it’s un-Christian.

            NEITHER of those Zax would LISTEN, and if they had, perhaps they could have found enough room for at least ONE of them to step sideways for a moment. It only takes ONE of you to step sideways. And I’ll tell you something else… grace… is not making your opponent step to the side. Grace is whenyou step to the side. (PAUSE) And stepping to the side does not mean stepping down, stepping back or changing your heading, though maybe if you listen, your heading could be altered… Stepping aside may just be enough to help someone else see the image of a loving and grace-filled God in you that they missed until now.

            If you read the story of the Zax over and over looking for a way to win arguments, you’ll search in vain. If you read your Bible from cover to cover for years, looking for ammunition to take down your ideological opponents once and for all… you’ll come up empty. The story of both isn’t how to beat your enemy. The story of both is how not to become trapped by your own stubbornness. The Bible won’t yield the talking points you’ll need to convince your brothers and sisters they’re wrong about gay marriage or anything else… Scripture will show you how to love, how to listen, how to be led by the Holy Spirit… how to step sideways… in other words…how to extend grace to others… as God has extended grace to us.

            Evans concludes her article with these words… As Christians – conservative and progressive, gay and straight, activists and slacktivists – we must direct our efforts instead toward bridging this divide, which is going to take a lot of hard work, a lot of disappointment, a lot of tears, a lot of compromise, a lot of honesty, a lot of mistakes, a lot of apologies, a lot of listening, a lot of forgiveness, a lot of meal sharing, a lot of gospel. In other words, it’s going to take a heck of a lot more effort than either eating or avoiding a chicken sandwich.

            But the point of any Dr. Seuss book, any lesson we’ve read this summer, and any lesson you’ll find in scripture is not to simply depress you about the evil state of the world. The point… is to learn and to grow and to make this world different. Brothers and sisters, I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t use your imagination for you. It’s up to you to find the opportunities in your life and to invite God to be present. Un-stick yourself from your tracks and find a way to listen, to love and to extend grace… even when it’s not offered to you. Amen.

*Rachel's Blog

Oh, the Places You WILL Go!

Or Listen Here after reading the scripture.
Mt. 10:16-23

Mt 28:16-20

The Great Commission

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ And when they saw him they worshiped him, and doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore, as you go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

                Our own Chuck Sparks this week returned from a mission trip and related a quote from his brother… “The people of the Way need to GO away sometimes.”    And indeed we do.  This morning, we read the words of the Great Commission… My seminary professor and New Testament scholar, Francis Taylor-Gench helped us translate this passage one day.  The grammar rules are tricky, but most Bibles translate this badly in her opinion, and I agree.  They often translate the verb GO as the command.  However, GO is the assumption.  Make disciples and baptize are the commands.  It’s best translated as I read it… Therefore, AS YOU GO, make disciples of all nations.  There is no IF.  It’s a WHEN.  It’s a foregone conclusion.  And so is the title of this book by Dr. Seuss.  The title is not, “Oh, the Places You Could Go,”  “Oh, the Places You Should Go,” or “All, the Things that Could Happen to You.”  The title is, “Oh, the Places You WILL Go.”

                Seuss is sending this “kid,” as he calls ‘im into the world… just as Christ sent the disciples, and sends us.  Jesus turns to his disciples and he does not say, “build a church here, advertise, promote, start amazing outreach and Christian education, a great youth program and be super friendly and hospitable to everyone who walks in the door.”  Not that those are bad things, and I’ve been asked to tell you not to cancel your pledge this year.  But Jesus doesn’t indicate that some of them have “gifts for evangelism” or “talents for reaching the unloved and forgotten.”  He says to ALL of them, “Therefore, AS YOU GO…”

                And folks, this is a great challenge for us.  It means that we can’t just be Christians here in these walls or even just here in Denver.  Who here has sung “This Little Light of Mine?”  Raise your hand.  And what do we do with this light?  Do we hide it under a bushel?  NO!  We put it on a stand.  But having that light, shining that light, being that light is more than just setting a fine example.  It requires a kind of proactive approach.  It requires us to ask God for opportunities, to seek needs, to be wise enough to spot them and courageous enough to act.  Oh the places, you’ll go.

                If you’re the person at work or in your school who is kind to everyone you meet and a good spirit, always doing what is right, you’re someone deserving of much respect.  Truly.  But Jesus came to challenge us to more.  At Highlands Camp this summer, the kids are learning about parables.  In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells parables of lost sheep, lost coins and the lost prodigal son.  He tells us that his mission here on earth is to seek and save the lost.  This is our mission.  In our places of work, in our schools, in our homes, our communities and churches, we are called to look for those in need, to seek and save the lost.

                Sometimes I challenge the children or youth with who I work to spend all day or all week looking for someone in their life who is lost, lonely or excluded.  This is the person who needs them to reach out to them.  Maybe they are sitting next to you right now.  Who is that person for you?  Who is the person who makes your life most difficult?  Is that the person you pray for the most?  Should it be?  These are the lost.  These are the ones in need.  We are called to find and welcome those in our midst.  And we are called to go and be in the midst of those in need.

                Oh, the Places We’ll Go!  For we are called into this world… into the midst of all need.  As I began reading this book again, something new hit me.  Seuss illustrates the “wide open air” with the little kid wandering out down streets that crisscross bare open patches of grass and earth.  This is exactly what it looked like in Joplin, Missouri as we drove through the neighborhoods demolished by the tornado, streets that crisscrossed bare patches of yards where houses once stood.

                And Seuss tells us we’ll come to places where the streets are not marked, that “some windows are lighted, but mostly they’re darked.”  In Joplin, once the debris was cleared, they had to spray paint the names of streets on the pavement because life-long residents could not tell where they were in town.  Landmarks had been erased.  So many homes still standing were abandoned, and “darked.”  He follows this with the questions of self-doubt… do you go in, stay out, how do you approach such a problem, how do you help?  So, we “mind-maker-uppers” end up… in the waiting place.

                So the question we must face is… Is our church a Waiting Place?  Is our church, as indicated by the banner above our children’s education hallway downstairs… A Church on the Move?  Or is our church a place where we wait for needs to manifest, for committees to report the needs out there so that we can react, a place where overwhelming need paralyzes us into inaction?  What does Seuss say?  And I quote, “NO! That’s not for you!”  You see, we have places to go.

                And the wisdom we learn from Seuss is no different than the many warnings of scripture we get from Jesus.  It’s not all boom bands.  “Behold, I send you as sheep amidst the wolves!”  Splendid.  We’ll meet up with things that “scare you right out of your pants.”  Things “down the road between hither and yon that will scare you so much you won’t want to go on.”  And brothers and sisters, there is no shortage of such scary things in this world.  The road between Hither and Yon is as close as Shoreline Boulevard.  Our community was once again rocked by violence, something so scary that no one could be blamed for not wanting to go on.

                Oh, the places you’ll go.  The wolves that lurk, the Hakken-Kraks of Denver and Aurora and all the places we call home where our “enemies prowl,” they scare us out of our pants.  And neither “brains in our head and feet in our shoes,” nor belief in the God who seeks and saves us, is a guarantee that we won’t have to face these scary people or terrifying and heartbreaking circumstances.   But Jesus never sends the disciples out alone.  He sends them in pairs.  He sends them as a community to “love one another” as he loved us.  And he sends them with the gift of his presence and help and comfort… the Holy Spirit.

                In life and death, we belong to Jesus Christ.  And though we’ll hike far, “we’ll face up to our problems whatever they are.”  Because, as believers, we are promised that we are never alone, that Christ is with us, “even to the end of the age.”  In fact, we’re told in capital letters, “KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!”  For if we have the faith of a mustard seed, we will say to a mountain, “move,” and it’ll toss itself in the sea.  And it’s no coincidence that Jesus calls us all children of God and that Seuss writes a book for children AND adults and the protagonist is merely called, “Kid.”

                Dr. Seuss doesn’t tell us that Hakken-Kraks aren’t real.  He says we can still go on.  G.K. Chesterson once said that, “Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be defeated.”  We do not read God’s word to learn how hard this world will be to face each day.  We know.  We read scripture and we teach our children God’s Word because God’s promise is that we will never face anything alone.  We are called by God to go into the world in the same breath as the promise that we do not ever walk alone.  And that is good news when the darkest times come, when we face tragedy, when we face evil.  God sends us to be the arms of comfort in mourning.  He sends us to be the voice of reason spoken to anger and hatred.  He sends us as the voice of inclusion and help when people are so anguished that they seek to hurt others.  And he does not send us… alone.

                Oh, the places you’ll go.  Jesus calls us to respond, not just to comfort those who mourn, but to seek those who are in pain before they do desperate things.  I do not know if Jesus had a public policy plan that included laws to prevent bullying and violence or medical care to lepers and the possessed or taxes for the wealthy and the tax collectors to help the poorest and the downtrodden.  I don’t know.  But I do know he exemplified a life of kindness, mercy, generosity, and servanthood, loving all and ignoring none.  And we cannot be content to leave that responsibility to anyone else.  We are called to that life and called now.  We are called to move mountains and told that we can.

                Oh, the places we’ll go.  Anyone who has ever been to the Holy Land has done some sort of “walking in the footsteps of Jesus” tour.  His ministry was a journey.  Early believers were not called Christians right away, but were called followers of “The Way.”  The early founders of the Church were not called ministers, priests, rulers or Jedis – much to my disappointment.  They were called Apostles, a word that comes from the Greek for one who is sent.  Jesus begins his ministry after his baptism being driven into the desert, calls his disciples to leave their lives, and sends them out in the great commission.  We are not students of Rabbi Jesus, studiers of the Prophet of Nazareth or students of the school of the Nazarene.  We are followers of Christ.  And the places he calls us to, the places he sends us, those are the places we will go.

                The places we’ll go may be around the world to Haiti or Russia, across the country Joplin or Galveston, across town to New Genesis or across the room to the person sitting alone.  The places we’ll go may be hospitals or shelters, schools or prisons, to homes or to the homeless.  They may be in these walls, but they will probably be to the person you didn’t notice until God tugged on your sleeve or on your heart and dragged you outside your comfort zone and into someone else’s pain, loneliness or problems.

I’m going to suggest something radical and maybe uncomfortable.  I’m going to suggestion that there is great opportunity this week and in the weeks to come.  I’m going to challenge you to consider that we need to do more than comfort those affected by the tragedy in Aurora.  I’m going to challenge you to seek and to reach out to the lost.  I think it’s incredibly likely that each of you has someone in your life in deeper pain than you know, or someone with bigger struggles than anyone knows, or someone who just needs to know they aren’t alone, that help is there.  I’m going to tell you that God can and will show you those people, if you ask.  I’m going to tell you that you can help, that you can love, that you can save lives and change this world.  And I’m going to implore you to trust God to move in your life this way.

Oh, the places you’ll go… they might not look or feel like any of the places you’ve been.  They may be scary.  They may be monumentally challenging.  The problems we face are quite scary and large, and to fix them we must listen to the big guy in charge.  He has sent us his Spirit while he is away, so let’s move our mountain and get on our way.  Amen.